5 Talents Podcast

The market shift that ate a lot of syndicators and operators alive is back, and this time AI is bringing it to every industry and every role. Adam Carswell went from scaling a group of capital raisers in commercial real estate to capital advisory, and today he points AI agents at his own work. On a 6 hour drive he got his admin, sales and email done just by talking to his phone, and the people he...

David Greenberg, founder and managing director of The Freedom Studio, joins Abel Pacheco to talk about protecting what you build in the age of AI. They cover why probate is optional and costly, why a will is at best a stopgap, and stewardship as the frame for estate and succession planning. David shares how he went from doing everything himself to running a team, with AI doing the data crunching a...

Originally released May 27, 2021. Randy Langenderfer, a CPA with an MBA in finance who still works full time in healthcare administration in Houston, has invested in more than 20 multifamily properties since 2014, and the 7 that have sold returned a 2.2x equity multiple. He shares how a coming layoff from a private equity job pushed him into hard money lending on single family flips, and why non-r...

Originally released May 6, 2021. Brent Barcus, a Nashville guitarist who spent 8 years playing with Shania Twain, played with DC Talk and Kenny Loggins and played a Super Bowl halftime show, now runs I65 Music, a studio that creates branded music and audio for brands, agencies, film and TV. He shares how growing up around his father's commercial real estate brokerage in St. Louis shaped him, and h...

Originally released May 4, 2021. Yosef Lee, a New York City lawyer who moved from South Korea at 17, shares how he worked full time as a paralegal through almost 3 years of night classes in law school before passing the bar in 2013, and how a closer second read of Rich Dad Poor Dad showed him he was stuck in the rat race as a W-2 employee. He explains the 3 keys he sees to success as a multifamily...

Originally released May 5, 2021. Danny Calafell, a professional boxer for 18 years who now runs a consulting firm that helps companies scale through strategy, sales training, marketing and software, explains how boxing turned his life around after he was on his own at 14. He shares why he always trained and networked with people better than him, from world champions in the gym to the artists he me...

Recorded January 12, 2021. Adam Doran spent 16 years as a police officer in Dodge City and the Kansas City area before becoming a wealth advisor at Prevail who specializes in real estate investors. He shares how a Get Motivated seminar led him to a $14,000 mentoring package, 60 to 70 wholesale deals and about 5 single family rentals, and how he became a limited partner in a 52-unit Kansas City dea...

Originally released February 17, 2021. Steeve Breton, founder of Velocity Capital, spent over 20 years in IT and was managing the financial portfolio for a large biotech company when the 2008 crash hit his retirement account and a merger left him laying people off. He shares how he built 16 units of Boston duplexes while working full time, then sold them after his first passive syndication returne...

Originally released February 16, 2021. Shannon Robnett has designed, built and developed projects in Boise since 1993, from multifamily and industrial flex space to police stations, fire stations and churches, and he comes from a family with 5 generations in real estate. He explains why ground-up development can be safer than a value-add purchase because the interest carry is built into the constr...

Originally released February 16, 2021. Chad Wittfeldt, a partner at Blue Spruce Holdings with Adam Adams who also runs a marketing consulting company for real estate investors, explains how he went from cold calling brokers to building systems that attract deals and investors instead of chasing them. At 27 he was a part owner in 3 deals totaling 350 units, and he shares why he is upfront that he h...

Originally released February 10, 2021. Brian Burke, president and CEO of Praxis Capital and author of The Hands-Off Investor, has invested in real estate for over 30 years, made more than 730 purchases and owned over 3,000 multifamily units without losing investor money. He explains why the money has to come before the deal, how a 1031 exchange of rental houses led to his first multifamily investm...

Originally released February 9, 2021. Rob Beardsley oversees acquisitions and capital markets at Lone Star Capital, which has acquired $100 million of multifamily real estate, and he wrote The Definitive Guide to Underwriting Multifamily Acquisitions. He explains how he and his partner Kent met at a conference while bidding on the same Houston deals, why their first lead sponsor deal was a nearly...

Originally released February 8, 2021. Anthony Pinto, an active duty Navy submarine officer stationed in Japan and co-founder of Mission First Capital, explains how he went from an accidental house hack in 2016 to 316 units in 2020 while serving overseas. He shares how he moved his wife from a 2,000 square foot house into a studio in a quad, why getting your spouse on board starts with understandin...

Recorded December 17, 2020. Hengjiang Mu came to the United States from China at 20 without speaking English, studied finance and marketing in Ohio and spent 3 years on Wall Street right after the financial crisis. His first company, a New York financial consulting firm focused on hotel projects, closed after 9 months, and 3 months later he borrowed $50,000 from family to start a scrap metal impor...

Recorded December 17, 2020. Bryan Underwood is a third generation San Diegan, a third generation real estate developer and the president of Responsible Real Estate. He went from selling women's shoes at Nordstrom to his first deal in Santee, where he borrowed $50,000 from his mom, bought a 16,000 square foot lot for $150,000 and sold it about 6 months later for $425,000. He then spent 10 years in...

Originally released February 3, 2021. Rob Kosberg, a Wall Street Journal best-selling author and founder of Bestseller Publishing, explains how a book can position an expert or a real estate sponsor as the authority their clients and investors trust. He shares how his South Florida real estate, mortgage and title companies went from over $100 million a year in transactions to zero in the financial...

Recorded December 15, 2020. Arturo Borges, VP of business development at Propfolio Management and co-host of Se Habla Real Estate, explains how he left his family's food and beverage distribution business in Venezuela, where he rose to VP, to pursue real estate. He shares how he got his start by partnering with best-in-class operators and raising equity for a 398-unit Texas deal in 2017, and how h...

Originally released January 25, 2021. Scott Carson, an active real estate investor for almost 20 years and host of the Note Closer Show, explains how he went from running a mortgage company in Austin to buying distressed mortgages from banks after 2008, including a note on a 300-unit apartment complex in Indianapolis for about 25 cents on the dollar. He shares how he has closed a couple thousand t...

Recorded December 3, 2020. Arn Cenedella, a real estate broker and investor for over 40 years who built a portfolio of about 20 single family properties and 30 doors, explains why he started shifting to multifamily at 66. His yearly portfolio audit showed only a 3.5 to 4% cash on cash return on his equity, and he saw that multifamily could roughly double that to 7 or 8% without the day-to-day mana...

Recorded December 2, 2020. Mike Morawski, a real estate investor for about 30 years and author of Exit Plan, explains why investors need an exit plan before they buy. He shares how a $45 newspaper ad led to his first syndication, an 11-unit deal north of Chicago in 2005, and how over 30 months he raised $18 million, bought 4,000 apartments and built a property management company managing about 7,5...

Originally released January 15, 2021. Kelly Stinson and Anselmo Torres III of Sustainability Solutions (SAS), a water conservation firm that has been in business for 20 years, explain how replacing toilets, shower heads and aerators, which drive over 70% of a multifamily property's water use, typically cuts the water and sewer expense line 20 to 40%. They walk through the math on a 200-bathroom pr...

Recorded December 8, 2020. Ryan McKenna, founder of McKenna Capital, explains how his group reached over 10,000 units and more than $1 billion in assets by co-sponsoring and JV partnering on deals spread across 10 to 12 markets. He traces his path back to Rich Dad Poor Dad and a baseball teammate at Arizona State whose father was an apartment syndicator, and he credits 15 to 20 years of relationsh...

Originally released January 14, 2021. Chris Roberts, CEO of Sterling Rhino Capital, has been a full-time entrepreneur since about 2007, built a sales and marketing business to about $25 million in revenue, and invests actively and passively in about 2,100 doors across the US. He explains why a new syndicator should first identify their own value proposition and build a team around it, why limited...

Originally released January 13, 2021. Chris Pomerleau, an attorney and Army veteran, and Collin Schwartz, who started Bricktown Management in Omaha, partner through Park Ave Capital and grew from $400,000 of property in 2017 to about $50 million under management. They explain how they have refinanced 20 deals and returned 100% of their investors' capital while those investors keep receiving cash f...

Originally released January 11, 2021. Bernard Reisz is a CPA who passed his CPA exams in 3 months, turned down a job offer from PwC 2 weeks before his start date, and did tax consulting for middle market businesses with about $250 million a year in revenue before he began setting up self-directed retirement accounts for investors. He explains why UBIT and UDFI should not stop a passive investor fr...