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Show Summary
In this conversation, Ben Soifer, a seasoned real estate investor and fund manager, shares his journey into real estate, emphasizing the importance of transparency, understanding different investment paths, and the transition from residential to commercial real estate. He discusses the significance of managing remote deals, building effective teams, and the art of finding and evaluating investment opportunities. Throughout the discussion, Ben highlights the need for consistency, knowledge, and a clear organizational structure in achieving financial freedom through real estate.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Ben Soifer (00:00)
they’ll probably help you that capacity and at that point you as an investor have to do the math if you’re not able to do the math as an investor and then somehow implementYou’re just reading the news is all you’re doing. You’re not actually implementing on anything that’s happening. So ⁓ The first thing is lots of research lots of understanding on what is a deal? What is a deal to you for us? We need to have 10 % of Return from day one. That’s been my math from day one investing in real estate So I leverage everything that we buy normally 30 to 40 percent down. We normally receive life insurance loans
on our commercial real estate. We use Northmark, who’s one of the largest brokers for life insurance in the US.
Dylan Silver (02:22)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a full cycle real estate investor at it for decades. Now active as a fund manager based in Calabasas and a commercial real estate expert, Ben Soifer. Ben, welcome to the show.Ben Soifer (02:43)
Thanks Dylan, appreciate it.Dylan Silver (02:46)
It’s great to have you on here. You’re in California, beautiful California. I’m in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. So two different places, but beautiful nonetheless. I always like to start off at the top of the show, Ben, by asking folks how they got into the real estate space. How’d you get in?Ben Soifer (03:05)
Out of a need, out of a need to be able to have something stable, to be able to have something real, you know, a way for me and for my family to be able to receive residual income without potentially firewalls, obstacles, you know, ⁓ very transparent, as long asYou are that type of an individual. You are that type of an investor. If you’re gonna allow these firewalls to coexist, you won’t be able to really understand what’s happening with your money, with your investments. So it’s really about you making sure that you are able to directly speak to whoever’s helping with your rental property, with your investment, whatever it is. Transparency is key.
Dylan Silver (04:03)
It’s super key. ⁓ think before I got my license as a realtor, I was a wholesaler. And so once you become a realtor, there’s an increased scrutiny. have to disclose, disclose, disclose is what they say. I’m curious to get your perspective.Ben Soifer (04:15)
Hold on.Dylan Silver (04:20)
That’s right.Ben Soifer (04:26)
Okay, keep going, I’m with you Dylan, ⁓Dylan Silver (04:28)
No, that’s okay, that’s okay. I’m curious to get your perspective ⁓ as far as peoplewho may be looking at getting into real estate and maybe thinking, you know, what’s the best way for me to get in? Should I be a wholesaler? Should I be a realtor? Should I start with eight units? Should I start with 16 units? Should I get a single family home and turn it into an Airbnb? What would be your advice to folks who may just be starting out?
Ben Soifer (05:40)
Just any of those openings is a good way to get into the space. It’s really just an avenue for you to be able to see what’s happening, who are the players, what’s the market, and then for you to really decide what do you wanna do. Do you wanna manage contracts?As a wholesaler because really that’s what you’re doing as a wholesaler you’re managing contracts Do you actually want to manage real estate but short-term? That’s a flipper Do you want to manage real estate long-term? Well, that’s a long-term investor such as myself in that case. Do you want to have a Sephar’s or four units or?
You know industrial or commercial the types of leases that are involved again all of this takes a lot of knowledge due diligence and most importantly you being curious and wanting to make money and wanting to Make sure that that money doesn’t just disappear make sure that all of a sudden they don’t come up with 50 expenses and You’re not able to live off of the money. You thought you would be able to
Dylan Silver (06:51)
That’s right. I think a lot of times people have this kind of shiny object syndrome, especially people who may have done a deal and they think, this worked. I did a couple of these. I’m going to move on to the next thing. I think wholesalers many times deal with this. Realtors many times deal with this. I’m curious to get your perspective on building and scaling within one asset class. If someone is really good, let’s say at wholesaling.but of course they’re thinking, well, that’s so transactional. Would you advise them to move on to the next step, whether that’s fixing and flipping or buying and holding? Would you tell them, hey, you’re already great wholesaler, keep wholesaling.
Ben Soifer (07:33)
I don’t believe in ever moving on from whatever you’re good at. I believe that whatever you’re good at, you should continue to do it and you should organically figure out on your own. ⁓where you want to be and at some point if wholesaling or flipping or owning sfrs ⁓ or units residential units and moving on to commercial if that’s where you are organically as an investor then that’s the focus that you take but you never just leave money on the table i was a real estate agent for many years residential and i hopped around with the cycles just like everybody else and when the ario cycle was
in 2013 I decided I didn’t want to go back to retail real estate everybody asked me what’s going on why you’re retiring you’re 38 years old at that time you know
I said, listen, it just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I enjoy servicing people, but I prefer to service people not by helping them sell their home. I prefer to service people by help them manage their wealth, by helping them achieve their financial freedom goal. So, you know, again, there’s many ways of servicing and wholesaling, flipping, owning real estate. It’s all a matter of what are you really good at? Where’s your niche? What are you doing different than the
others how hard will you be doing that niche and will you be consistent at it and guess what just like Warren Buffett it’s the compounding effect right if you’re not gonna be able to do something consistently for an extended amount of time there’s not gonna be the really long-term wealth it takes five years ten years
sometimes a little bit longer to really achieve long life-lasting, potentially even generational wealth.
Dylan Silver (09:28)
I wanna ask you about getting into the commercial space and what your progression was like, especially coming from the background of a realtor. Oftentimes, I know a lot of realtors would love to be in the commercial space. It can be a little bit trickier to get in in general, but definitely I would say as a realtor, how did you get into commercial?Ben Soifer (10:25)
So for me, like I said, it was always being an investor. At the age of 21 when I bought my first home, I bought it because the math was there. I was presented with an opportunity by my landlord to syndicate a rental property right after the 1994 earthquake. The home was 141,000 and I was a student in CSUN and I couldn’t qualify for the loan.But I knew how to manage stuff and that’s what the landlord saw. He saw that I know how to manage stuff. So he said, well, if you bring a buyer that can qualify and you have a rental, then you’re hopefully positive three, $400 a month. And now you have something going. And that’s exactly what the math that I did. Very simple math. The more rentals I get, the more properties I manage.
the more I’ll be wealthier in five, six years per se. Now, it becomes busy, because you wanna manage assets that’s not so difficult to manage, and that’s what got me going in commercial. From residential, from multifamily, I said, you know, I prefer to do the bigger better, and I got my first building in 2002.
Yeah, where I would did a 1031 exchange. I raised up the rents and 18 months later I sold it For about a million more I took the money and I moved it to Houston and that’s what I bought my first shopping center in Houston in January of 2005 and That particular asset Has been an amazing, you know property for us to have and now it’s part of the fund actually the private equity fund. So
Essentially what I’ve done my whole life is scale up with what my focus is within the real estate space Understand who the players are understand what I want to do just like you said Dylan what made me want to specifically go into commercial after doing residential because I wanted I was thinking constantly as an investor I was I’m in real estate because I’m an investor first I’m doing this podcast because I would like to reach out to other
family offices and other investment companies that have deals in Texas in Florida in other states that we are looking to buy so they can reach out to us they can go on money management that today ⁓ for those that are not in the business for a long time or would like to potentially check different asset classes there’s the book that we wrote which is a manual for the ultimate real estate investor I go through every single real estate
⁓ Asset type and what an investor needs to have Credit wise and knowledge wise in order to have that asset and it’s a short book. It’s only 90 pages All proceeds go to the foundation
It’s all about helping. It’s all about giving back good karma and then other individuals, other companies, they want to do business with you. So you got to let them know what you’re looking for. So that’s what I’m all about. I’m always, you know, sharing what it is that how we’re growing, how could others potentially join us and work with us. And, you know, I can tell you that commercial and specifically the fund, which is the last chapter
of my book, that’s the way for a limited partner, which I want to be one day. I want to be able to sit in my boat or wherever. And I want to just go on the website and see exactly the properties that the fund owns and have the transparency that all of us deserve. That’s really the most important thing about transacting. And that’s why I got into commercial real estate because to me it’s a phenomenal space, but it’s a little bit
like the Wild West so I’m trying to clean it up. We’re trying to put guidelines, we’re trying to really you know familiarize and allow the you know investor audience understand they don’t have to pay a lot of money in order to get all this information. This information is free and there are real people that you can transact with as opposed to bots. So that’s the big thing. Everybody’s looking at you know
Dylan Silver (14:53)
No question.Ben Soifer (15:39)
Who’s responding to me? The most important thing is, is it a real person? ⁓Dylan Silver (15:43)
At thispoint, you do have to be aware of that, right? With all the ways that people can communicate instantaneously, especially in real estate. I think real estate is in many ways the biggest adopter of AI over many other industries. I want to ask you about managing some of these deals. You mentioned a deal shopping center in Houston. You’re based in Calabasas. And in general, when you have these deals that are larger,
Ben Soifer (15:47)
100%.Dylan Silver (16:14)
maybe more involved, and then you’re also not physically there. How are you managing them? And then also, how did you build teams without being in the state?Ben Soifer (16:25)
So it’s very important that you have a very clear organizational structure and with us at Money Management ⁓there’s a management company for every single asset. So that shopping center in Houston has a management company that’s boots on the ground that the tenants are familiar with because normally we don’t even change the management companies when we purchase the assets unless of course there’s an issue. So the businesses, they don’t really even feel the change. And at that point, all we do is just better the property.
shopping center that we purchased in San Antonio back in we were able to really spurs it up and all the tenants were very happy and that’s really what it takes it takes for you as an asset manager which is what I am to manage the management companies right that are managing the assets so that’s how we do it you got to have boots on the ground everywhere you got to have cameras almost everywhere you got to have people that
responsive everywhere. If they’re not responsive they cannot be part of your team. That’s it.
Dylan Silver (17:41)
No question. meanthe communication is utterly key. And when the buck stops with you you got to be able to reach out to somebody especially if you’re not physically there in person. I want to ask you about finding deals. You mentioned the shopping center deal in Houston. How did you come across that deal. And ultimately when you’re looking at these deals are you thinking about the tenants that are going to be involved there as well or.
in many cases because they may already be occupied, are you thinking about, well, how are the businesses there and how are they currently performing?
Ben Soifer (18:20)
It’s looking for deals as an art, you know, I really it’s it’s something that takes a lot of years and a lot of You know experience to be able to be good at and some people never are good at it because if you lack the execution part of looking at a deal Nothing’s gonna happen. So To make a long story short, like I said, I’ve been in the business for 30 yearsSo I’m a pretty organized individual. I am one of those first systems guy that when it came out with a CRM with a top producer system, you know, I am in touch with my brokers with affiliates with accountants with attorneys in the book that I wrote I said our best friend is always the affiliate whoever gets us the deal It doesn’t always have to be a broker. It could just be whoever knows about a deal now
point you know again are they a professional ⁓ management company accountant real estate agent if so great
they’ll probably help you that capacity and at that point you as an investor have to do the math if you’re not able to do the math as an investor and then somehow implement
You’re just reading the news is all you’re doing. You’re not actually implementing on anything that’s happening. So ⁓ The first thing is lots of research lots of understanding on what is a deal? What is a deal to you for us? We need to have 10 % of Return from day one. That’s been my math from day one investing in real estate So I leverage everything that we buy normally 30 to 40 percent down. We normally receive life insurance loans
on our commercial real estate. We use Northmark, who’s one of the largest brokers for life insurance in the US.
Now they do even more. They’re out of Houston as well. And as far as being able to get the numbers that you need, today we need to buy roughly around eight cap.
If we’re getting debt around six in order to receive 10 % ROI. So again, for those of you that this doesn’t quite resonate, reach out to me. I’d love to talk to you. If you are an accredited investor, if you’re an affiliate, a broker, if you have a deal that we might want to buy exchange again, do that. But other than, you know, the luck of looking for deals, the communication you need to have with the other party on
other side to look for the motivation ⁓ that’s something that’s again experience and knowledge and that’s why you want to syndicate a deal if you’re not able to do it yourself and that means just bring Dylan to the plate bring Ben Sawyer to the plate bring somebody to the plate but make the deal don’t just read the news that’s my point ⁓ your second question was
How do what you said, how do we get the deals right? I kind of explained just through lots of connections, know relationships and then what else?
Dylan Silver (21:28)
Yeah.know, managing these deals remotely and then finding the teams, right? It can be challenging, right?
Ben Soifer (21:42)
That.Everything can be challenging listen. I if you go on my social media. I rollerblade I bike ride I have Investors friends of mine for the last 15 years. They’re like Ben. How are you doing all of these things and you’re doing that? It’s exactly why I’m in commercial real estate It’s exactly why I know which properties to buy and which properties not to buy It’s the ones that are have more headache. You know, but potentially more upside. I don’t do them
Okay, but if it doesn’t have a headache and it still has upside I do them So you ask me how are you able to find them? It’s a numbers game
As long as your filter is good enough, as long as you’re very keen on the areas that you’re looking at, you know, and I always go off of where’s the population growth? Where is the market, the economy going? Where are the jobs? That’s why Texas, Texas, Texas has been a phenomenal winner. You know, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, but you know, Florida and other areas are amazing as well. The second part of it of buying real estate is having operators that want
Dylan Silver (22:41)
Yep.Ben Soifer (22:52)
you as their landlord. If you’ve done that, that means you’re really good landlord. And now…you’re able to go purchase buildings at 50-60 % occupancy and bring some operators with you. And we have those. We have a golf operator, we have a few dentists that are looking for locations, and that’s the thing, that if you’re able to put together the pieces, at that point you decide how are you part of everything.
Dylan Silver (23:23)
Ben, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go if they’d like to reach out to you or if they may have a deal, commercial deal, maybe in Texas, maybe in California, maybe in Florida that they’d like you to take a look at?Ben Soifer (23:36)
money management.today right on our homepage.⁓ You could see ⁓ all of the different links that we have as far as our investor page or broker affiliate page. ⁓ You’re able to see information about different investment opportunities that we have such as the $33 general portfolio, which is a 1031 exchange opportunity. ⁓ We have the book that’s on the homepage, which were actually have a giveaway on Amazon. So I definitely
You know recommend for anybody that wants to potentially even listen to we also have an audio version of the book so that’s also great and ⁓ Of course we have our course which is commercial investment debt consultant Which is really a 50 minute video that allows any professional
to really understand 20 % of the knowledge needed in order to be a successful commercial real estate investment debt analyzer. Because that’s what we’re doing, we’re analyzing debt. If we’re not analyzing debt, that means we’re buying cash. I don’t know too many successful ground up entrepreneurs such as myself that don’t leverage. I can understand lots of big capital whales that buy all cash.
I’m not one of those. I leverage. So you can find me on social, Ben Soifer, and make sure you reach out, make sure you let me know you’re real person. And I’m very thankful for your time, Dylan. It’s really been a pleasure. I’m very happy that we connected and were able to help the investor community, the real estate community, in really achieving financial freedom. You know, that’s really what this is about.
Dylan Silver (25:27)
That’s the name of the game. Ben, thank you for coming on the show here today.Ben Soifer (25:30)
Thank you, Dylan. Thank you. Appreciate it.
