Birth to Net Worth with Sandhya Seshadri- Episode 8

Welcome to Birth to Net Worth with me, your host, Trystan Trenberth. On this episode number 8, we welcome Sandhya Sashadri. Good morning, good day to everybody, good afternoon, depending on what time of day you're watching or listening to the, the podcast here. This is Trystan Trenberth and and this is Birth to Net Worth. Today we have an extremely, extremely established investor with us today, a mother, um, a partner in some, you know, big and bigger deals around the country, based in Dallas, Texas. I'd love to introduce to you Sandhya Sushadri. Sandra, please join us. How are you today?

Doing great, thank you so much for having me on your show.

I'm, I'm grateful for your offer to join the show. It was great to meet you. Um, please, please give a little introduction of yourself, much better than I could give. Um, explain a bit, you know, where, where you're, you're from, what you're doing in, in life right now, and, and, uh, maybe a bit of your history, and we'll delve into that a little bit during the conversation.

Sure. I've lived in the Dallas area for 32 years now. Originally I was born in India and I moved to this country. And right now I am in apartment investing. I buy large multifamily apartments in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. But like most Asian geeks, I started out with a strong math background, got an engineering degree, went into corporate America working for a Fortune 500 company here, realized pretty quickly that engineers are great at doing what they do, but a lot of the decisions are made by the marketing, finance, and business people.. And so I wanted to understand how they made their decisions and learn more on the business side. So that's how I went part-time to get an MBA while I worked my full-time engineering job. And I got all my knowledge of, you know, underwriting and finance and analysis and the stock market, et cetera. So then I started trading pretty actively in the stock market. And when I got children, you know, I wanted a lifestyle that allowed me to spend more time with them. So I just traded for a couple of hours a day and quit my corporate job. So I went from corporate America full-time into the stock market. And then I found my way to real estate to first for the tax advantages. And then secondly, you know, 90% of millionaires do it so through real estate. And I wanted a piece of a building, but I didn't want to deal with the 4 Ts, as we call it, which is the tenants, toilets, trash, and termites. That a landlord will deal with, right, if they run a single-family home. Either that or they have to give up a pretty large percentage of their, you know, net cash flow to a property management company to run it. So when I heard about large multifamily, right, you're talking 100+ doors, then you have the economies of scale to employ a third-party property management company. And that's what attracted me to this business, is that I could be an asset manager instead of a landlord.

Perfect. That's wonderful. I mean, I was just listening to a conversation with a friend of mine earlier on today, and he was also speaking about the differences between large single-family portfolios, multiple headaches around different disparate areas, and having to have many resources to manage those and people in different areas. And economies of scale is definitely something that attracted me to multifamily too. Property management, obviously, yes, it is a big cost, but when it's in-house and it's in one building or a few localized buildings, yeah, I can definitely see how that's extremely attractive. So you mentioned corporate background. What kind of business sector or vertical is that working in?

Electrical engineering. So I was in the semiconductor industry. And so I will work for a large chip manufacturer, Texas Instruments, based in Dallas. So we make all the intelligence of the brains that go inside your basic electronics, your phones and your cars and even medical devices, everything. Wherever you see even something as simple as, you know, a sensor, right, in your airbag and braking systems and all of that.

Yeah. Yeah. I know a number of people who work 10 miles down the road at Intel at one of their plants here. And a lot of them are very analytical people, but also getting into real estate because they want the tax benefits of working in those assets. But again, it's generally getting into smaller single-family things. And although there are tax benefits, it is building in a few more headaches for them if they're not doing the property management, and then they're losing some of the revenue from that side of things. So it's not quite the equation they're looking for. And that's where I'm certainly looking to partner with some of these people in raising funds to fund other multifamily projects such as buyers and teams like yourselves, so that we can bring them into those areas, maximise the benefits and minimise the headaches that they're taking on with their investment. My cat's just joined us, so she may sit on the keyboard. So hopefully she doesn't cause any issues. Hello, Kitty. So, but yeah, that's wonderful. So, um, coming from India, at what, what age did you move, move intercontinental to, to the US?

I came here to go into college, so I was fairly young at that time and fascinated by the United States. And yeah, very impressionable age, shall we say. So definitely, uh, taken in by all the huge roads and highways and cars and all the fun things that make America. And landing in Texas, you know, how how big everything here is. It was just the best move I ever did. And I've stayed here ever since. I haven't moved anywhere else. So my local knowledge of the Dallas market, you know, having been here for 32 years, we've got all these, uh, empty roads and fields where I used to like practice driving and stuff. And now that's like big cities there, and there's so much development that's happening. So definitely it's a great market for real estate and for a diversity of business, uh, businesses here.

Stuff. Yeah, yeah, Arizona is the same. I've been— I, I first came in here 2003, which is almost 20 years ago, and the place is, you know, immeasurably changed since, since I was first here. And I think where I live now was probably, you know, was definitely rural farmland up until probably about 15 years ago when they built here. Um, but you know, there's, there's still dairy farms in between subdivisions because the builders have bought the land they're just renting it back to the farmers and they haven't yet got to develop where it's going to be multifamily or single-family developments. But they're just land banking right now and waiting for the time to get that to the next stage. So, yeah, so I came from the UK to America. You came from India to America. Drastic differences, as you identified, with the scale of roads and buildings and projects. I mean, from— I mean, India itself is a huge country with a huge diversity of people and religions and, you know, just ethnic backgrounds. It is such a melting pot. America is a similar place, but in a very different way. Financially, very, very different countries. America was— you know, I heard the analogy the other day. It's pretty much less than 3 generations old, or 3, 3 people old, as far as people could average about 90 to 100 years old. If you look at it at 3 fully grown people, it's only 3 people old, which is a really strange and funny analogy. I mean, not perfectly accurate, but India is just such a wealth of, you know, millions of years of development. And, and I don't mean to say that in the States that I'm ignoring the Native Americans. Obviously they've had a wealth of, of, uh, history which has been sadly overlooked, um, by most of the world just because of the development of the United States. But India is much more documented in their history. It comes with its own challenges of housing people, both multi-family, single-family, a very different environment. What was your experience in, in, in your homeland where you brought the contrast between home, a new home And how has that changed over the years in, in your observation of, of your homeland versus here? And how you've seen things change back home, or in your homeland, should I say, since you, since you, you've re-homed here?

I think just the population explosion is crazy in both places. Like, Dallas has grown so much, but so has India. And I think the biggest contrast between the two countries would be just the number of people per square foot, kind of, if you will, right? If you look at a population density mass, uh, you know, map, it's staggering how many people there are. But, you know, in one small home, how many people could fit in in India versus here. So I love the space that I see here. I love the vastness of everything in Texas. I mean, you can get a nice big 4,000 square foot home for a pretty reasonable price, and that's abundance, you know. That's what I love about Texas. In India, what I love is that people are so happy no matter how small their life might seem, how creature comforts aren't, you know, focused on a whole lot. And then people also focus more on your intellect than on just your appearance. So, you know, girls for sure, like in engineering, or women in business, etc., uh, there's definitely a voice there, and you don't have to focus so much on, um, you know, style and appearance and all of that. Yeah, well, that's one of the contrasts you'll see in business too. Like, people are very simply dressed, and they're respected for their opinions.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely see a greater presence in, in people in, in countries outside of the United States, the UK, where we're, you know, a lot is driven on vanity and pride and, and what people may think of you. But other people don't actually care about who you— what you look like or what your opinion is, but we worry about what they may think. And that's definitely something that holds, holds a lot of people back, myself included, in in the past. And the more we dig into those things, we find deeper layers of where that's— where that is still a resistance for us moving forward. So I'm— that's interesting you should say that. So as this is focused on sort of birth to net worth, the relationship with money and finances, what was your relationship, or I guess as a child, firstly, we become aware of money. We don't necessarily have a relationship with money, but we have an awareness of what money is. It could be an allowance. It could be just seeing our parents spending at the store for groceries. It could be buying a house if we're aware of that at that young age. What was your first sort of recollection of money and what was your feeling around the money at that age?

I always was very attracted to money right from a very young age, as well as whether it was material things or the purchasing power of money or the freedom that it gives you. And I was always a negotiator. So there was a lot of homework I didn't like to do in school. And they focused on, you know, getting us to draw things, etc. So I would always trade my math skills for someone else to do all of my work. And after a certain point, you know, it became, okay, what can I purchase for this? What can I get for this? Yeah, I was always conscious of spending. I was always the shopper in my family in terms of basic grocery shopping. And then after a while, both my parents had, you know, private practice, and I was always aware of how much their collections were and things of that nature. I was the one going to the bank. I was always interested in volunteering for any of those business sort of transactions and things more than going back to my books and really being an academic person. And, you know, the big contrast between the rupee and the dollar, I realized that pretty early on when I was a teen because I really wanted to come over to the United States. And, you know, what my parents combined made as an income was amounting to about $50 per month, $50 to $60 per month., and I wanted to come to college here, and it was going to cost me to the tune of, you know, $15,000, $20,000 a year. So I knew right away that, you know, I had to figure out a way to get creative and come here. And that's when I really paid attention to my grades and got some very good scores to score— get a scholarship. So money's always had a factor in terms of how does it help me get what I need at that point, whether it was help with assignments, whether it was buying a few material things. I need it. Or in a bigger way, how the heck do I make it to the United States with this kind of a salary? I mean, even affording a plane ticket would be a big deal, right?

Yeah. I mean, I hear you, you picked, you picked out leverage very early in life, leveraging other people's time to benefit you. And obviously there was a transaction involved in them doing something for you. I'm sure there was some exchange, whether it's financial or you helping with them with their maths, maybe.

That's right.

And then also then leveraging your capabilities as you understood more about how you could leverage your time to be the most valuable use of your time to then focus on those things that are important. Yep.

All of that plays into business, plays into a career here, plays into everything.

So, yeah. So having the view of leverage and understanding that you had goals, financial goals, and realizing a dream, if you wish, to get to the United States and study. Let me just put this kitten down real quick. Um, it's, it's amazing at different ages how some people see those things at a very early age. Sometimes it's not apparent till later on. What was in your environment, do you think, that allowed you to see that ability to leverage either yourself or other people? Because we only really learn through trial and error, but very often the first things we learn through observation of other people doing things, and then we kind of copy those things. Was there somebody in your life at that time that was also leveraging other people that you noticed that from? Maybe a parent, family member, even just a friend doing a similar thing through school?

Just in school, having classmates with different strengths and then realizing, oh my gosh, I can figure this out in a minute and I see the rest of the class taking 10 minutes. Okay, I have a talent here, but I really am behind when it came to, say, biology, for example. That was one of my weakest subjects, right? I could not get those long names of various biology terms, and I just couldn't draw those kind of pictures. I could not imagine the body system as easily as some others could. But I realized how quick I was in math. So I just found friends who had the complementary strengths that I did. And it's the same thing today in business. I want to find people who can do the things and love doing the things that I find either difficult to do or I don't want to do. And so then it's perfect fit for all of us.

So the who, not how, as the book says.

Yeah. Yeah. Before the book got famous, it's sort of like, who can help me get out of the situation? So when you're stuck in something that's painful for you to do, that's when you start figuring out who can help me overcome this because I by myself am not able to.

So it sounds like sales was an early part of your awareness as well, without you even realizing it, that you're selling the idea of, well, if I can do this for you and can you do this for me? Life is all sales.

Yeah, you know, people say they're not salespeople and I'm like, no, I'm not really a salesperson in the classic example of I'm trying to sell you a vacuum cleaner that you don't need, or a used car salesperson. But you're constantly selling yourself and you attract certain people and you don't attract some others. Yeah. Because of who you are.

Yeah, absolutely. So I love the delivery that we— Sandra and I met at a meetup a couple of weeks ago here in Phoenix. She was speaking at one of Brad Summerhock's events with Ashley and Duane Winkle. They run one of the multifamily meetups here in town. And I just love the energy and the passion behind, you know, how you're communicating your steps. And, you know, we had a great conversation a little bit before and a little bit afterwards. And that's where we were talking about the podcast, and we just saw an alignment, and, and Sanja kindly agreed to join us here today. So that was amazing. So leveraging time and other people and selling the idea of exchange, finding the who, not how. How did money then play into your role? Was it a scarcity relationship of money that you witnessed with family and parents or, and people around you, or was it an abundance?

It was enough for us to lead a very happy middle-class existence from a financial standpoint in India. But if you wanted to take that and come to the United States with the exchange rate, you would be starting at the poverty line, right? Well below the poverty line. So, you know, you can't do much with $50 a month even way back then, like 32 years ago. So I knew then that, okay, because of the exchange rate, the dollar is more powerful than the US rupee. I mean, the Indian rupee, for example. And so how do I make money in dollars? And so some of those conversations and my parents' awareness of it is also what led them to move out of India and spend some years in the Middle East where they could earn money in a different currency for the same amount of time and effort or even less. And so that was another great way to observe how, okay, you can use your time to get a lot more money if that was important to you. So that they could trade in international currency, they could visit me in the United States, airline ticket wasn't going to cost them like, you know, 2 years of annual income kind of situation.

Again, more leverage, isn't it? Leverage in a different country, but making steps towards the goal that's on the horizon.

Yeah, it's like, you know, what you hear about, what would you pay to buy a used mattress, right? You're not going to pay anything almost, right? Used mattress? Who's going to buy that? But yet you will pay hundreds of dollars to spend a night in a nice luxury hotel, knowing that almost every few nights somebody else is sleeping on that same used mattress. So it's a matter of finding a place where you're valued, right? Where you get your money's worth for your time.

Absolutely. I hadn't heard that before. And that's incredible. I come from the hotel industry, so I've probably seen millions of nights of, you know, sleep nights on mattresses in my time. So yeah, that's amazing. So, so then you got to the States. Where did you start out? You kept on with your electrical engineering when you arrived in the States?

Yeah, I got admission here with a full scholarship, and so, and I also got a stipend from it that was enough for me to, you know, support myself. That was a big one. And then I had already met my fiancé there, and so we decided to get married, and then he already had a job. He was a few years older than me. That certainly helped. Uh, but I got a job right when I graduated, so I also went to the same company where he worked. And so financially, that wasn't a problem. We took a while before we had kids, so we definitely had financial stability before we had children. So, um, I'm also a mom who's homeschooled my kids in the past when needed, and I continue to homeschool them even when they attend full-time school because I want them to have that financial literacy the way I did. So it was very important for me when I took them to the store as an example, for them to be able to tell me by the time we got to the checkout roughly how much we had spent. Right. So when they're younger, it's just in whole numbers. As they get older, you know, it's to the cents. And then even older, it's including taxes. Right. What are my taxed items versus non-taxed items? Let's put them in two different parts of the shopping cart to that level of detail. But when they got it right with a certain level of accuracy based on their age, they get to pick an item out of the, from the end aisle as we're waiting to check out. So that was their treat. That was their motivation for picking up that math. So the basic math to the level of financial literacy was very, very important to be able to do percentages and things like that.

Yeah, it's interesting. You homeschooled your kids for so long. Was it 100% homeschool or they're now in kind of other schools right now?

Oh no, they attended public schools most of the time. My son, I homeschooled him full-time for 2 years, but the rest of the time, both my daughter and son attended public schools. But what I'm saying is, in addition to whatever was taught in school, I was constantly teaching them through things like this. It's like, you know, I pay for your needs, but you've got to be able to fund your own wants. So my daughter wanted to play drums, and so she had, you know, drum— when you learn percussion, it's about a dozen different instruments, you know. It's not just a single snare drum, or it's not just a drum set, and there's a marimba, there's a whole mallet side of the world, right? So I was like, you know, you can rent them, or if you want your own instruments, you've got to fund them. So whether that's using your skills, helping me save some time, or you tutoring someone, figure out a way, because I'm not paying, you know, $1,200 for a marimba, right? Or as an example. Yeah. It was just things like that. I make my kids fund their wants.

That's, that's it. That's a great perspective. I love that because I think a lot of parents, myself included, have, you know, allow them to sort of have the things that they need and also a lot of the wants as well, but it doesn't set them up for success later on if they're not in that position of wanting for something more and actually exercising the self-motivation, the dedication to actually work towards that.

Yep, it's— you're depriving them of their feeling of independence and confidence if you don't allow them to do that, because now by the time my kiddo graduates from high school, they're going to know what they are capable of. And whether they choose to go to a 4-year college or not, you know, they've got that confidence and independence about them to know that if you go to a restaurant, you're not going to get cheated at the checkout because they charge the wrong menu item. You know, you already know my bill should be about this much plus tax.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, fabulous. So how— so from, from from being the human checkout to high school and providing for themselves of the things that they want to do. What other tools have you used? I know that you shared that you go to some of the kids' schools from time to time and help the kids understand some bigger thinking points over money and how to handle life in general from a financial point of view. Can you share some of those nuggets with us, at least at a conceptual level, please?

Well, one of the things was my two children are so different that you have to kind of appeal to each child's favorite things. So my daughter was very much into fashion and she also loves math. So it's not like one excludes the other. So when we go to a large mall like the Galleria Mall, NorthPark Mall, she would study stores for me and then we would discuss which store she thinks is going to stay in business and which one is not and what appeals to what demographic. And then she started trading stocks. Of those companies. Like, she's made money from, you know, trading Vera Bradley stock as an example, way, way back, like 8, 9 years ago, right? So that's how she funded, for example, her musical instruments. My son, on the other hand, was fascinated by trucks, right, and the transportation sector. So we focused on that, between, you know, J.B. Hunt or some, you know, big stocks like that. So each of them had to learn something about the stock market right from about when they got double digits. So about 10, 11, 12, for sure, we should be talking stocks at least on a weekly basis as far as companies go. Now the deep analysis of the numbers and price-to-earnings ratio, those kinds of detail, they go into a little bit later in life when they actually have like an accounting or a finance class in high school level. But at the middle school level, you can definitely look at companies and say why you like them or not like them. What are you seeing? Basic Amazon, Apple, Intel. You should be able to discuss those kind of things. So that to me is very essential with children as far as getting them prepped for school. The second part of it is your kid always is fascinated by animals, right? You've always got that one kid who loves animals and they want to be a vet or something or a wildlife, you know, I want to be working in a zoo kind of thing. So I, instead of me being the bad parent saying, no, you can't do that. I put my daughter in a camp where she had to volunteer at the zoo for 2 months, you know, every morning for like a whole semester, actually. She would go and spend our Saturdays there. And so at the end of that, you know, 5 months, she was like, you know what, Mom, I think this might be fun to do once in a while, but I don't think I could do this, you know, 5 days a week as my lifestyle. But you let the situation itself be the bad guy. Don't be the bad guy as the parent, because the minute you say don't do something, your kid is probably going to want to do it. So instead, expose them to it. So if you want to be a vet, okay, go spend every Saturday 'with my friend who's a vet and see what they do.' And she realized, 'Oh, they treat a lot of sick animals. I don't want to see animals sick.' You know, they always think of these cute-looking puppies when they think of being a vet, you know, as just being around and petting these happy animals. I'm like, 'No, that's not the real life of a vet.' So go experience it. So as many real-life experiences as possible for whatever you think their careers are going to be, give that to them through the summers, through your connections, etc., and let that be the one that decides what they want to do in life.

Yeah, I love the experiential side of things because like with music, it's— we love making music, but that isn't in many cases— in like, like sports, it's the 10,000 hours rule. And unless you've got that huge experience and that huge dedication over a period of time, yes, you might write a song that does really well, or you may have a talent in songwriting, but the performance of the thing may not be the thing that is going to make you the millionaire or the star or whatever it is. And And not to get off topic, but then with social media these days, everyone wants to be famous in the context of they see all of these influencers, people being well known and living their best life, but they don't see the other side of things, which you're sharing with them, is that consistent exposure to the experience, the commitment, and also the light and the dark side of things. And not to say it's in an evil sense, but the good and the bad with all of these situations. And they get to decide for themselves, are they dedicated to that experience and that lifestyle? And, you know, there are rewards of being the best in any field, whatever that job is. But are they willing to put that dedication in knowing that there's going to be that side of things that's going to be there for maybe longer in some areas? But, and I very much love the discussion of stocks at which Yeah, a lot of kids are attached to brands again, maybe due to influencers, maybe due to because it looks nice, it feels nice, whatever that emotional relationship is. But understanding what the business is, the purpose of it. Hopefully we find out there is a purpose behind a business and not to make businesses wrong for not having a purpose, but that's another story. So much these days is about the story. What's the story behind the product? Then we've got the people running it. What decisions have they made? What are they making? What are they likely to make in the future, I think that's a really great thing because that relates to so many other things in life, even their own decisions. Well, what's my brand as me? I'm not going to be a famous person, but as Trystan Trenberth, as a human being and as a functional contributor to society, what are my decisions going to be based on? What's the cause behind my decisions? What are the goals? What are the actions that I need to take? And are these going to be profitable, either financially or emotionally? And how do we approach that? I think that's an amazing Thank you for sharing that.

That's great. Yeah. The one other thing I would say with children is let them grow up to where they have faced rejection and they're not afraid of failure. To almost the extent to where I said, what did you try and fail today? And so it's perfectly okay for you to fail in terms of not getting something, but keep trying for it. Because every time, if you don't get it, you'll know why you fell short or why that selection didn't— they didn't pick you to be playing, I don't know, for this song as the lead role. Right. Whatever that might be. You figure out why and you either get better at it or you say, okay, it wasn't meant to be and I'm going to do something different, right? Yeah. But have that fear of failure and rejection early on in life.

Yeah, I, I saw a quote the other day and, and, uh, it was something along the lines of the greatest abuse of children is not showing the children that you're able, you're willing to follow your dreams and go after what you, you really want. And in, in a similar context, I think that our ability to— I mean, speaking for myself here— is wanting to shield your kids from failure and worry. They need to see struggle because they need to know that if a struggle comes up, there's a, there's a good side on the other side. You either win, you push through it, or you learn a lesson from the failure. And understand the concept of fail forward, which is what you've just explained, is so valuable. And I, I read Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell probably 2 years ago And that shifted a lot for me, but I'm not writing down every day, what am I going to try and fail at? Just so I can learn a lesson, write something at the end of the day to say, whether it's raising private capital, whether it's having difficult conversations, whatever that might be, or just how many nos can I get today in that game of, you know, in like back in the day with single-family cold calling, how quickly can I get to 50? F-offs or don't call me again or any of those rejections, how quickly can I hit those targets to get to the one that is the success that has the conversation with us? So I think that could even be a game.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Not being afraid of failure is a very big one. When an investor, let's say you're trying to raise capital for a deal and an investor says no, it would be great to dig in a little more into that to say, if you wouldn't mind explaining to me why, is it because the deal doesn't meet your criteria? Or you're not into passive investing at all, or you just don't like the market. Like, what is it? So that I stop calling you, right? I don't want to bother you if this is not a good fit for you. Sure. So it's just the basics of that and not to be afraid. So even in the beginning of a conversation, I would say it's perfectly fine for you to say no. I would love to understand why so that I don't waste both our times again.

Yeah. Or I can bring you the deal that you are looking for.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. I want to bring you the right opportunities.

Right, or maybe this isn't a good fit for you. It's like I'm opening a Chinese restaurant and you don't like Chinese food. Well, how about some of your friends? They probably like Chinese food. Would you tell them about me? It's the same concept, you know. If you have a friend who— for whom this might be a perfect fit, I— we would appreciate referrals.

Yeah, so, so surrounding your kids, I appreciate that. And it's kind of rolling into something I briefly mentioned the other day. Have you set up your kids with self-directed products, whole life, any of those things to sort of help them start to to building wealth moving forward towards their ability to invest that and grow those funds? Or what is your strategy for helping them prepare for middle life and later in life? Have you helped them along those sides of things yet? And what have you learned to do over time? And how has that changed from corporate America to now being an independent investor?

So the most important thing I learned, I taught my kids, is to be responsible for their allowance. And their money. And so, like, now I have a daughter in college. Every month on a certain date of the month, she gets a certain amount transferred from us to her. If she exceeds that amount, she's got to find a way to earn it. Right. So that's a simple one. The other one is a debit card. You want to set them up with a debit card, not a credit card. So they know, oh, this is the balance in my account. I can't charge more than this. That's very important. And then as far as IRAs, etc., we did have an education fund for them.. But it can be used for anything educational, not necessarily college. So if they wanted to take a course or go to trade school or anything else, you can still use it for that. And beyond that, then it's a matter of their earnings. Like my daughter's in an internship. It's up to her to decide how much she wants to save, but she's got the tools for it. There's— within her own bank account, she can open the IRA accounts if she wants to and put it in there. But she hasn't exceeded that minimum threshold quite yet, but she will in a couple of years. As her, you know, she gets her degree and gets more full-time employment. So that's where that lesson will begin. But she's very much aware, my daughter as well as my son, are well aware of my business. They do get paid when they help me, etc. So my son's like a photographer or come with me to properties when I do drive-bys and take notes. He does my data entry kind of things in spreadsheets. So they're very much aware of the business if they ever wanted to get into it.

Yeah, yeah. My oldest has taken more of an interest recently in, in the real estate side of things. I, I had her walk through some of the numbers on a flip I did in Las Vegas over Christmas, so she understood the sort of the input and the output ratios involved, a bit of the risk. It wasn't, it wasn't in very much depth, but just simple acquisition, holding costs, um, renovation costs, the profit, the costs of sale, those kind of things. We've got a few doors now on the smaller end of things, but that's where I'm looking to build up future wealth by funding funds that already exist. Projects like yourself, maybe bring $5-10 million to a deal for somebody else. I know that's a much longer-term play. It's not an immediate return on cash flow necessary when there's a capital expenditure. It's more of a long, maybe 3-5 year play depending on what the project is. Um, how has that changed? I know you didn't really get into the single-family field as far as I'm aware of it. What have you heard from other people that are in the space of being in multifamily that have come through the single-family side of things? Have you seen any consistencies and experiences and, and preferences that they've either got out of single-family or they just limited what they're doing and now expanding more greatly into Yeah, almost everyone I speak with said they wish they got into multifamily sooner.

They wish they hadn't spent all that time in single-family for all the obvious advantages, right? You end up taking a mortgage recourse loan versus this is non-recourse. So the amount you borrow counts against your total capacity to borrow. And then one tenant doesn't pay, you go, your income goes from 100% to zero.

It's binary.

Yeah. Even if you had 100 single-family homes, versus a single 100-door apartment. I mean, look at just from the roof and landscaping and all of those challenges associated with maintaining 100 single-family homes versus one multifamily 100-unit. It's staggering. The other big one is, you know, how do you value single-family versus multifamily? Right. The single-family is priced per square foot for that neighborhood. That's sort of like a fixed amount that you can't really change versus—

extremely volatile too.

Yeah. And in multifamily, you force appreciate the value. So that's a big one because you can increase the income and decrease the expenses so that the difference, which is the net operating income, increases. And that over the cap rate is the price of your property. So we get to force appreciate that by adding value in a way that residents are willing to pay for. You know, you don't just go and bump the rents. You make the units much nicer. You ask them. And I have residents all the time requesting, can I stay in one of those nicer units? It's only $100 more. 'Let me move there,' you know, or 'I want the stainless steel fridge and the nicer amenities in that newer unit.' So, you know, make sure it's things residents are willing to pay for, and you can force appreciate the value for a lot less effort because of the economies of scale. Yeah. And, uh, you know, the 4Ts, you get to avoid them— the tenants, toilets, trash, and termites, as I like to say.

So, and in the single-family, the wholesale world, it's, it's time, treasury, and, um, talent. And that's all a lot of harder work putting in and trying to maintain somebody to work within your team to do that. Where the multifamily, you've got a much more experienced team at a higher level. And I think from what I've observed of teams such as yours and Veena's, etc., everyone's much more experienced and cohesive, and they know their roles very well, and they're in it for the long term.

Oh yeah, it works so much better if you think about the value of your time. That's the one thing you can never, you know, buy back, right? You can always spend more money and obtain other material things, but your time is so precious. So I mean, multifamily totally wins. And every person who's ever done single family that I've spoken with says, I wish I'd jumped into multifamily sooner.

Yeah. Yeah. So from your perspective, getting into multifamily, would it be best for somebody to join a bigger team, bring some value, lead with value with you and say, Hey, I can raise some private capital. I want to put a fund together to fund your fund. Would that be one of the best ways for somebody that doesn't have experience operating to begin a relationship with a team and then gain experience in that space? Or would it be to come through, I don't know, 5, 10, 20, 30-door units, operate one of those so they have some experience to bring in? Or is there no particular way that they should try and join a team? Because just saying, oh, Sandy, can we, can we sit down for coffee? I want to pick your brain. I know that's probably going to be a— sorry, not a good use of my time.

Yeah, I would definitely say figure out what your strength is and what you have to offer. And for some people, you know, they're really the marketing types and they might raise capital, but you really have to have an additional role in the team if you want to be a general partner. Now, if you're a limited partner, that's different and it's a 506 deal. But if you want to be a general partner, you want to learn the ropes, you definitely have to have a a big role to play in addition to bringing in capital. That's very important. In my case, I got my first deal from people who lived out of state and wanted to get into the Dallas and Texas market. And here I am, I know Dallas, I've lived here for ages, even back then. And so that's what I had to offer to them. So you figure out what your secret sauce is and find a team who needs that, right? And that's the easiest way to do the business, right, to get into the business. And yes, If it involves other people's money, you want to be very, very careful with it. And so that's why you want someone with experience to partner with the first time instead of you making mistakes when it's other people's money.

Yeah. So from what I hear, you may be boots on the ground as well as other things for those people from out of state that wanted to invest in, in town, just to be clear for the people watching.

Correct. So I had partners with experience who lived out of state, who wanted to get into the Texas multifamily space. And I had time because once I dropped my kids in school, I was available with time and knowledge of the local market so I could meet vendors on property. I could go study comps, I could check on property management, I could show up to the property as often as they needed me to show up. So that was what I had to offer is time and sweat equity while I leveraged their resumes when I talked to potential investors and said, yeah, I'm here with all the time and energy, but here's my team members with all the experience. So as a team, we cover all the bases.

Fantastic. That's awesome. So now your kids are a bit older. Are they showing any interest in, in what you're doing at the moment, or they're just following their own path but just observing what you're doing for now? I mean, it's not important for our kids to follow what we do, but sometimes it just clicks for them and they, they see that that's, you know, they're using your credibility, your experience, but Sometimes it's difficult to work with family members at some point too.

Yeah, they're aware, very much aware of what I do. They— I've paid them over the summers and other times to come help me. My daughter is in her own career path, but she knows she has this as, you know, a potential fallback or as something to add to her full-time day job if she ever wanted to at some point in the future. My son, it's too early to tell what his interests are, but he knows this is available to him. And he's definitely my helper, whether it comes to making slides or taking photos and all of that kind of stuff that he is capable of doing. That's how he's able to fund all the things he wants because he decided that he wanted to take bass guitar lessons. And I'm like, okay, that's not a cheap thing to buy. And I don't know if you're going to stick with it. Just how much should I invest? So he's funding that by being useful to me in my business.

Fantastic. I love that. I'm going to show this to my kids. I've got 6 guitars in one bedroom, or 2 at the shop right now. We've got a bass guitar and a keyboard in the other bedroom and a set of drums that we just drove to a friend's house.

So yeah, exactly. So like I said, you know, I will give them whatever they need, but whatever they want, they've got to figure out a way to fund it unless I know that it's a sure thing and they commit to it, etc. And even then, they have to fund at least half of it.

Yeah, perfect. Yeah, the dollar match. Yeah, I love it. Well, perfect. Um, I, I've covered everything I wanted to, Sandhya, and it's been a really enjoyable conversation, just extending our conversation when we met. Um, what, what else would you like to share about other things that you've observed over the years of not just your own kids and financial literacy, your experiences? What have you seen in the States? Because I know there's a lot of instant gratification. I've probably contributed that with some of my kids by just buying instead of having them fund, or at least part-fund, some of these things.

I think you're depriving kids of the satisfaction of having earned something themselves and that pride and that confidence if you give in to all of their so-called demands every time. Because, um, you're the dad— uh, in my— for my kids, I'm the mom. You're going to be their only parent, right? They're going to have numerous friends. So a lot of people work really hard and try to be very nice to their kids so that their kids are their best friends. And I keep telling them, so that I'm the only mom they're going to have. So I need to be the mom and they can find new friends. So sometimes that's tough love, as I call it, and I don't hesitate to use it, but it's sort of like— and I let life teach them lessons. Like, you really want to be a zookeeper for life? Well, why don't you go work for a zoo first so that you don't spend a lot of money in college for you to learn that as a trade and figure out later at the age of 25 that you don't really like it. You know, let's go ahead and do it in our middle school and high school years to expose you to all the different trades that you think are fascinating and then see if you actually do it. And then when it comes to multifamily, the biggest thing I would say is figure out what your strengths are and then find a team who wants those strengths. Yeah. And then you fulfill what they need by taking care of their weaknesses. But the biggest thing is if you've never passively invested at all, even in one deal, How do you explain passive investing and go and tell your entire investor base, hey, passive investing is the greatest thing since sliced bread? Well, have you done it? You have to invest even in one deal passively. Okay, that makes no sense. So you practice what you preach, right? So I'm a multifamily syndicator. I all the time looking for the right deal to be a general partner, but in parallel, I'm also passively investing. I mean, passively investing in the past 3 months, I've passively invested in the last year, etc. So practice what you preach, and then you'll be authentic when you go to people.

Yeah, authenticity is key.

Yeah, that, that's everything. So be authentic and don't try to be what somebody else is on social media, because who you are is so different, and that's what makes you unique. So follow what makes sense for you.

Fabulous. Well, I think that's a great wrap to this, Sandhya. Thank you so, so much for joining us today. I look forward to sharing this with the world and spending more time with you and bringing you value in the near future. Fantastic. Yeah, I look forward to continuing the conversation on financial literacy too. I'd love to introduce to my partners on, on Brian and Marie and a couple of other people we're working with. So see what we can do to change the world and just make that cause that little ripple in the world that has, has effects outside of our view where we can improve lives and Break the generational curse of paycheck-to-paycheck living, hopefully.

Yes, for sure. Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation.

Thank you so much.

Take care. You too.

Bye. Please follow these links to learn more about our guest, Sandhya Sashadri.