How Bill Manassero Built 1,000 Rental Doors After 60 Through Real Estate Investing

Bill Manassero (00:00)
I started it in.

California. So I was there six years and I set a goal. said six years, it was crazy a goal. But basically, I said, you know, I want to be able to work, work for just six years really hard at real estate. And I want to retire with, you know, having acquired the thousand doors in six years. And so that was, you know, that was the goal that I set. And then that’s what prompted also that the start of the

the podcast, it’s still out there, it’s still very active and on all the platforms.

Dylan Silver (02:08)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Bill Manassero is a real estate investor, entrepreneur, and former host of the Old Dawg’s REI Network podcast, focused on helping people over 50 use real estate investing to fund retirement and create family legacy. Before launching the Old Dawg’s REI Network, he and his family served as missionaries helping orphaned and at-risk children in Haiti. His background also includes more than 25 years in business.

entrepreneurship and professional music with career experiences ranging from meeting Ronald Reagan to being interviewed by Oprah and featured in CNN’s documentary, rescued Bill. Welcome to the show.

Bill Manassero (02:51)
Oh, Great to be here.

Dylan Silver (02:53)
Now you’ve lived through corporate business, entrepreneurship, music, missions in Haiti, real estate investing. What ultimately convinced you that real estate was one of the best tools for creating long-term freedom and legacy?

Bill Manassero (03:08)
Well, most of my career was really in business, you said, corporations and having my own businesses and so forth. And I was very comfortable with that. When I went on the mission field, it was a total walk of faith. I would look at some time on our budget and say, we’re not going to survive two months. ⁓

It was better when I got away from the budget, just really just walked in faith. And that’s what I did, you know, for my whole family did for, gosh, 12 years. And so when I was ready to go back, was up in the, getting 60 years at the age. And so I thought, gee, what am I going to do when I go back to the US?

And yeah, that’s where I really started to just look at my options. we had a number of things we did in Haiti. One of the things we did with the kids that we worked with, we worked with street kids, is try to teach them some sort of a vocation. And we had this program where we had many businesses kind of incubators, and they could get involved in these businesses.

and then learn how to do it and then go back to their villages and continue to do that business. So I was kind of looking at some of the models that were going on. And as I knew that I was going to be retiring, I thought, what can I do? Because I’m 60 years old, I’m going to be standing in Walmart with a blue vest on. And I just thought, no, I don’t want to do that. But still had that entrepreneurial spirit. so I looked at what

what I, you know, I just a variety of different occupations and businesses and it saw real estate as the one, the most practical way to ramp up quickly. And, and that’s really, you know, that’s really why I picked it. And I had, we have a nonprofit called Child Hope International that’s still active in Haiti. And a lot of the guys on the boards were real estate guys that were very successful and stuff. I, you know, I, it sounded like a good move for me to make and

Dylan Silver (06:06)
Now being out there in Tennessee, was your first deals in Tennessee and what did those look like?

Bill Manassero (06:14)
Well, initially, no, I’m from California. I lived in there, born in San Diego, and lived there all of my life for the most part. And we went to Haiti. Then we went back to California for a short period of time. And then we were kind of looking at kind of retiring, really, more than anything else. But we wanted to start this real estate business. So

I started it in.

California. So I was there six years and I set a goal. said six years, it was crazy a goal. But basically, I said, you know, I want to be able to work, work for just six years really hard at real estate. And I want to retire with, you know, having acquired the thousand doors in six years. And so that was, you know, that was the goal that I set. And then that’s what prompted also that the start of the

the podcast, it’s still out there, it’s still very active and on all the platforms.

And, and then, you know, I take it from the very beginning, you know, just starting with nothing, you know, all the way up to the end of my goal and achieving my goal, you know, so. So that was, that was, you know, that was sort of my, my focus and my and my plan.

Dylan Silver (07:31)
Did you end up getting a thousand dollars in six years?

Bill Manassero (07:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (07:35)
So what is that per year? That’s like over, that’s close to 200 doors a year, something like that.

Bill Manassero (07:41)
I started

out with initially, I think my first purchase was I had duplexes and one single family in Tennessee, surprisingly, even though I wasn’t living there at the time. And these are all turnkey properties. And my goal was if I doubled the number of units I have each year,

I would make that goal. that’s basically how I did it. I started off with a, I got an unsuspected check in the mail that I was able to invest in those properties. I mean, and these are cheap properties. I mean, duplexes for 60,000 and single family homes for around the same price. So it was, ⁓

It was doable. And what’s different in terms of the economy today, the economy back then was that things, you I was looking for markets that were appreciating, you know, rapidly. ⁓ Memphis was my, you know, my first, and then I also invested in Atlanta and then ⁓ also Indianapolis. So those were all markets that were, you know, that were booming. So

through the appreciation, we could achieve the goal to leverage it and use that money to buy other properties and so forth.

Dylan Silver (09:11)
Now I’m imagining in order to get to a thousand doors you had to look at bigger deals. Were you looking at multifamily at some point?

Bill Manassero (09:19)
Oh yeah, I got, the fourth property I bought was a 21, actually 22 unit apartment in Indianapolis. And so that, you know, that gave me a little boost, you know, and it also gave me the experience of dealing with the multifamily. And most of the, know, focus in that was really trying to learn

You know, so the end all these properties, I’m in California still so all being managed by property managers. And so that was a that was a unique situation to I had to learn, you know, the, the pluses and the minuses of having, you know, property managers that were not nearby so ⁓ that, you know, that that was part of the education process but I but I leveraged that, you know, those

larger property of it’s a 22 unit into, you know, a much, much larger unit. And then that’s when I started getting involved in syndication. And that’s where it started to move, you know, more rapidly.

Dylan Silver (11:05)
was just gonna ask you that. Did you raise capital at all during this and you did? You know, the syndication space is definitely interesting and I’m in Texas, the Sun Belt, right? And it seems like for a time period, there were quite a large number of syndicators and new syndicators. So around what time period did you get into real estate syndication?

Bill Manassero (11:27)
Yeah, well, started everything. It was in 2015, 2016. Actually, no, 2014, because I bought land when I was still in Haiti. That’s where I bought the first three properties. I flew out of Port-au-Prince, flew into Memphis, bought two properties, flew to Atlanta, bought one more property, and then flew back to

Haiti.

So was like 2014 was really when I bought my first properties. then it grew beyond that. And I basically stopped buying properties around the six to seven year mark after achieving my goals.

Dylan Silver (12:21)
You know, when I think about syndication today, I know, I know that over the last five or six years, it’s 2026 now, if you look back to 2020, it’s changed so much and maybe there’s been overdevelopment, but there’s also just been changing conditions, right? And so you have some of these syndicators that they have, you know, brand new.

builds, but maybe the syndication itself is distressed due to the backend and financials and vacancies even at these complexes. But if you go back a little bit further before 2020, it seemed like it was a golden era of real estate as a whole. It seemed like you could buy properties potentially even.

wrong, dare I say, and they would appreciate so much and then would hit the pro forma, your exit in half the time. When you were in 2014 to 2020, were you seeing that, hey, this is a great time to be a real estate investor?

Bill Manassero (13:22)
yeah, no, without a doubt. In fact, it seemed too easy. that was, I got kind of used to that. a ⁓ lot of my ⁓ properties, after I achieved my goal, I sold a lot of them, but I also ⁓ had to hold on to some. And those multifamily that I’m in ⁓ now are hurting.

And with the interest rates and ⁓ that’s, like you said, vacancies and a lot of other things that occurred. have properties and you’re talking about Dallas. I’m in Dallas Fort Worth area as well and ⁓ different places in Texas as well as other states. that, yeah, that I was hoping that everything would work according to the plan. Some of those.

properties were purchased later on. ⁓ you know, I was looking at, you know, for three or four years, this is going to turn around. And, you here it is. And some of those properties, you know, six, seven years later. ⁓ And, you know, we can’t sell, we’ve had to do all kinds of creative things to keep those things afloat. ⁓ it is a very different market.

Dylan Silver (14:40)
What do you think about for newer syndicators getting into the game now? What advice would you have for those folks or feedback, especially as you mentioned where there may be longer time horizons. That might not be three to five years. You might be looking at seven to maybe 10 years.

Bill Manassero (14:58)
yeah, yeah, easily. Yeah, I don’t think I would buy any more syndicators or even invest in syndications ⁓ because right now, I recognize that long turnover plus a lot of variables. I I think our economy is getting better, but at the same time, I’m too old to gamble at this point. I’m looking more for sure things. mean, I actually…

bought an RV park here in Tennessee, and it’s doing really well. And it was a weird fluke thing, but it was something that all the numbers made sense. things like those types of ⁓ different types of investments still have a chance, I think, of doing well. But I think sort of the standard stuff, buying

even the burr strategy and things like that, you know, just don’t work. It doesn’t work like it should and would like it used to.

Dylan Silver (16:47)
Bonus question here for you. mentioned RV parks. There’s been quite a lot of ⁓ interest in RV parks and also some

similar related asset classes, do you see RV parks as being more of a like experiential, hey, we’re going to get away from, you know, the the mundane day to day and have a vacation, right? Or do you see RV parks as potentially ⁓ affordability play where hey, people might not be able to get into the on ramp of real estate homeownership maybe but they could be looking at, you know, purchasing an RV.

Bill Manassero (17:22)
Yeah, I saw it as a yeah, as a it was definitely an experimental thing. Initially, I bought this property had five fixed trailers on it. And they were almost set up like mobile is like a mobile home park. And you could rent them by the week. Okay, so these little 21, you know, feet, you know, are 20, you know, 30 foot little

trailers were there and they had skirts around them looking like it was a, you know, it was an actual ⁓ mobile home and they were fixed. So it was an interesting model. ⁓ so when I bought it, initially I didn’t even buy it for myself. was buying it for my daughter and her husband who I was trying to convince to move to Tennessee.

And I bought it, they ended up coming out from California and then they ended up going back to California. so I got kind of stuck with it. But it’s actually shown to be a very good move. so it was kind of like good for people that are the first time renters that need to develop a rental history. And they could come in and it’s a weekly rental, like 250 a week.

And with that, get free laundry service, ⁓ free propane, free electricity. All the utilities are free. So it was an interesting model. And this is somebody else had set it up before I had come in. And then when I bought it, then I added spaces that people could drive into and park their own RV. And ⁓ they didn’t pay as much, obviously, as the other ones did.

But what I did see is ⁓ with these other trailers in there that every time, it’s typical landlord scenario. If something goes wrong, toilet gets plugged, you still got to go out and fix it and go out there and do, or there’s a leak in the roof or whatever. When we owned those, ⁓ that was our responsibility. But I was comparing that to the people that brought their own in. And when they had their problems,

I didn’t have to do anything. All I owned is the land that they’re sitting on. there were no, like my, ⁓ just our whole budget just was minuscule compared to these other fixed units. So, yeah.

Dylan Silver (20:05)
We are coming up on time here, Bill, any new projects that you’re working on and then as well anything you’d like to say directly to our audience.

Bill Manassero (20:13)
Yeah, I mean, I’m always always looking but you know, I try to keep it you know, not as crazy as it was when I did my six years then, you know, so I you know, I just, you know, looked at some Airbnbs we used to have Airbnbs as well. And, you know, it’s, it’s not as good as it used to be. It was also better back then but I’m, you know, I’m cautious but I’m, you know, we’re

We’re looking at expanding this RV park right now. We’re only at about a third of the property. It’s like 11 and 1 acres. So we’re thinking about glamping and some other things, just trying, just kind of experimenting it and seeing what we’re doing. And it’s funner to play with it, sort of one property like that instead of all these other multifamily things that are serious. I mean, this could be serious too, but this is more of a like a

you know, a fun thing, as opposed to, you know, a serious investment that I really, you know, have a big stake in because I paid hardly anything for that property. So it’s, you know, as far as investment, it’s already made way over what it what it invested in it. So, that’s kind of, as far as what I’m doing and yeah, and trying to, you know, enjoy more of my life here and

Tennessee is a blast. There’s a lot of things to do here. you know, my wife and I, you know, our kids come out and I’ve got a couple of my kids here, but I have seven. So I got two out of seven, but, you know, I’m still working on the other ones, hoping that they’ll see the light, you know, and come out to Tennessee where you can still buy a house for $150,000, you know. So it’s been fun. It’s been fun.

Dylan Silver (22:08)
Bill, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for your time.

Bill Manassero (22:12)
It’s been my pleasure. Thank you so much.