Passive Real Estate Investing: Why You Must Research the Operator Before the Deal

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (00:00)
So what I’ve learned is to take the time, do the due diligence properly. And if you lose the deal, then that’s fine because it wasn’t meant to be. But don’t skip the due diligence part because of, let’s say, the salesman approach who’s selling you the property who says all these great things. You need to also figure out on your own, like what is it that makes sense? And in those circumstances where I had lost money, I reflect back. What would I have done different next time around?

Quentin (01:58)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today, have another fantastic guest. And you know that what excites me the most is just learning things from other people. We can all literally be doing the same thing, which we’re not. But if we are, if we was, we’d be the same thing. Because we’re different people, there’s always going to be a different perspective, a different outlook.

there’s always going to be something that we can learn from each other. So I’m excited. I’m excited to learn, for us to learn from this gentleman. He’s in the healthcare space, owner of a physical therapy practice. But man, this guy is so much more than that. mean, he multifaceted and you’re going to hear it. It’s going to come out as he talk. And I’m just trying to give just quick blurbs, quick highlights, but you’re going to see just how multifaceted he is within business.

And so I’m super excited because we’re gonna learn a lot today. And so let me introduce you all to Mr. Amit Gaglani. Mr. Amit, how you doing today, sir? Amit, see, you see what I did there? I told you my little sneak. That’s why I’m Mr. Amit. Mr. Amit Gaglani, sir. So glad to see you. How you doing today,

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (03:09)
I’m doing fantastic, thanks for having me. I feel like I’m back in grade school when there would be a substitute teacher and I would be like, no, look at him butcher my name.

Quentin (03:10)
⁓ Absolutely, So glad that you’re here, ⁓

I’m sorry,

man, I’m sorry, brother. Please forgive me, man. I was practicing, putting respect on it, man. I apologize. But thank you for your grace, man. And I’m so glad you’re here. ⁓ I believe that this is going to be a very, valuable podcast for our listeners. And so I am the type, I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people, what’s your main focus these days? If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got to the space you’re in.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (03:23)
All All good.

Again, I’ll go.

Thank you.

Quentin (03:48)
and then tell us what part of the world you’re in. People love to know geographically as well. And so what you’re up to, your origin story and where you are. Sir, you have the floor.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (03:56)
So I’ll start with where I am. I’m in Manhattan, New York right now, which is a great and fun city for anybody who hasn’t visited. ⁓ My origin story is, as you had mentioned, I owned physical therapy company, so a company and it had several different offices, right? And at that time when I was running my company, I really loved the idea of real estate. I always looked up to people who owned real estate, loves and fascinated by it, but I was really intimidated, super intimidated about the prospect of somebody’s going to be calling me up in the middle of the night saying my toilet doesn’t work and I have

Quentin (03:58)
Yeah.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (04:25)
to try to figure that out. the idea, the concept of wealth building in real estate was like, oh my God, I want that. I just didn’t know how to get it until I started listening to podcasts and understanding and learning about passive income streams. And that led me on that journey to syndications. And I started starting to invest in different types of syndications. In the beginning, it was was multifamily, then it was storage facilities. And, you know, I just got enamored by that whole aspect of mailbox money. And

I had it in my head that, wow, I could work really hard and I could try to replace my income slowly, slowly with mailbox money coming in,

you know, but didn’t know what the heck I was doing. Gwen, I didn’t know what I was doing other than this sounds right, this sounds like a great promise, this sounds like that. So I made mistakes in the very beginning. You know, I didn’t understand what I didn’t understand.

Quentin (06:01)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (06:02)
And then you go on with that and I kept investing in more different things. Some of them turned out incredible and I got paid within 18 months and I didn’t expect to get paid back for like a couple of years. And I was like, wow, this is great. So what does that do? That puts more fuel under the fire, right? You’re like, wow, I can do more of this. I started investing in natural gas. I started investing in oil. I started investing in different things.

Quentin (06:20)
Yeah.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (06:26)
⁓ And some still, to this day, I look back and I said, wow, I got lucky on this, I got lucky on this. And then there was ones that I didn’t get so lucky on. And I learned from hard knocks.

And I took away from those hard knocks, like what to do, what not to do next time and how to look out, you know, better for next time. And as we were talking before, you know, I invested in something that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. Had no idea was a Ponzi scheme. I was invested in this place for nine years and got positive returns, right? Every year, positive returns. I’m like, this place is great. And they had physical buildings. I went to go visit the buildings to make sure it wasn’t fake. I visit the team. I visit the buildings and I looked at this and I was like, every year I get really good

returns and this is what they’re showing me the financials must be good keep going bring in other investors tell my friends about it they invested you know and then we started putting collecting money together and saying let’s invest and negotiate with them because we’re coming together with more money and then turned out later that something went wrong somewhere and somebody you know did something wrong and and became like a bankruptcy deal and it was like wow you know

Quentin (07:25)
Yeah.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (07:34)
So, you know, I invested there, I invested in hospitality. Some of my friends invested with me there too. Those are doing great. So I just did a smattering of different, you investments. And then I owned my own real estate, my own commercial property that I had. So, you know, I guess the, the origin story is I was in healthcare because I knew healthcare, went to school for that, believed in that, enjoyed that. But I love the idea of real estate, but just didn’t know how to get in.

Quentin (08:00)
Yeah. Mr. Amit, thank you, sir. Man, thank you for taking us through the journey, letting us know how you started, where you are, even just some of the vulnerable moments. So I appreciate that. I love when people share their journey, share their journey, their story, their testimonies. And so as you was talking, I was actively listening. And so I’m actually going to regurgitate some things back to you, because I’m going make a statement, then I’m going to ask you a question.

All right, so I’m going to try to do a quick summary here. so.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (08:28)
Well, I forgot

one thing you asked me. You asked me a question. What am I doing now? And I’m doing almost none of those things now. So now I sold my physical therapy company after partnering with private equity and grew it to a very large company. And then I sold out of that and I found myself with some time. I helped capital raise for one of the investments that I was on a hospitality company and they were doing great adding on more things until the interest rate climate kind of changed. And at the same time I was asked to be on a bunch of different

Quentin (08:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (08:58)
Some more real estate focus, some more healthcare focus. The healthcare focus, one more like, help us do what you did. So now I have actually a consulting and coaching business on I help other physical therapy offices or what we call in healthcare services, anything that faces a customer, helping those companies and helping those ⁓ individual owners to scale their companies. So on a day-to-day basis, that’s what I’m doing. I’m helping those entrepreneurs to scale their companies and dealing with the day-to-day problems. I’m still invested in real

estate and I still think that real estate is good. Now I have short-term rentals, have the large commercial property and things and I still have some good syndications that I’m waiting on as well. So yeah, go ahead with your question.

Quentin (09:40)
Thank you, man. Yeah, you left that. I mean, that’s good information. No, but no, thank you. mean, that rounds out the journey even more beautifully. And so thank you, man. And so in Manhattan, you know, on a physical therapy office, you love the idea of real estate. And so, you know, but, know, it was like, I’m not trying to be no, you know.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (09:43)
I left that out, I forgot that. I forgot about that, yeah.

Quentin (10:03)
Fix people calling me in the middle of the night, fixing toilets and stuff like that. Like I like the idea of real estate, but I’m not trying to go that route.

So you started listening to podcasts and that led to syndication that led you to get, you know, buying some multifamily storage. I’m just a mailbox money, the idea of mailbox money, right? So you made some mistakes, you know, along the way. And, ⁓ you know, you got in good and you bought a property and got paid out within 18 months.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (10:44)
Yeah.

Quentin (11:04)
And that kind of just dumped fuel on a fire. So he was like, ⁓ yeah, we could definitely do this. And so, you know, now, you know, you wind up selling, selling the company in coaching and consultant, and you really help people scale that business. Is that a good, pretty much summary of the things that you me? Okay. So beautifully. And I’m so glad you again, rounded this out because I have a statement that I make most podcasts where I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning the journey.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (11:18)
Yeah.

Quentin (11:32)
is building you to the person where you are now. And you borrow from the journey, you borrow from the mistakes, you borrow from the lessons learned, you borrow from the success, from the failure, and it changes your mindset, reinforces your why, reinforces your passion. And so I would love to know over the journey, what has the moments taught you about yourself? What have they revealed to you? Has it revealed discipline, resilience?

Has it changed your innovation the way you think? Like what has the journey downloaded to you about you?

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (12:02)
that when I really want something, I go after it hard. But that’s a good thing and a bad thing. You know, it’s a good thing when somebody’s like a coach and your goal is to really help somebody, right? It’s a bad thing when you say, you know, I really want to get in real estate, let me rush it. You know, let me just jump in without really knowing what I’m doing. Now, on the flip side of that, you you get analysis paralysis, you get some people who just keep analyzing, analyzing, analyzing and never do anything about it.

Quentin (12:17)
Hmm.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (12:28)
You know, so there’s a happy medium to find, you know, and I think the more deals I’ve done, I’ve kind of found that happy medium, you know, but the real estate market, the way it is, is, know, when it’s hot, it’s hot deals just go before you can even get anywhere, you know, you know, in an environment where the interest rates are higher, you know, you do take your time a little bit more and you have the opportunity to negotiate a little bit harder because you because the you know, the market is not saturated with buyers at that time.

Quentin (12:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (12:57)
what I’ve learned is to take the time, do the due diligence properly. And if you lose the deal, then that’s fine because it wasn’t meant to be. But don’t skip the due diligence part because of, let’s say, the salesman approach who’s selling you the property who says all these great things. You need to also figure out on your own, like what is it that makes sense? And in those circumstances where I had lost money, I reflect back. What would I have done different next time

And I had mentioned this a little ⁓ prior to our recording that I would probably invest a lot more time into researching the jockeys as opposed to the horses. In other words, the people who are running things, getting to know them, getting a little bit of a personal story, getting, you know, even just running ⁓ security things on them to understand like who are these people? What are their background? How long have they done this? You know, what have they done? Have they been in tough climates before? Have they been able to pivot in circumstances?

We saw everything change during COVID, right? You know, depending on the team, the team, you know, if they had a good strong team, they were able to pivot. And it’s okay if people are not paying out prefs during certain times because they’re being a little bit more conservative. Rather that than put themselves in a dire situation where they’re paying everything out. And now all of they don’t have enough money to pay the actual, the mortgage itself. You know, so just understanding the team, a good team that communicates well to the investors, even if it’s bad news, you know, means something.

Quentin (14:22)
Yeah, yeah. No, I love it. I appreciate you, man, answering that question because our experiences, they kind of help us kind of build our systems. Like they help us see where our failures were, where our strength was. And for you, was analyzation, know, patience, doing some background check. Like you said, really expecting the jockey, just not the horse, right? Cause we get so enamored with the big, beautiful, strong horse. it’s brown, it’s a Closetail, it’s beautiful.

Well, what’s the person that’s on the horse? know, like, what’s the person behind it, right? So maybe, what’s the training regimen? Who’s the trainer? Like, you know, like it’s hard for you to get curious. And sometimes that curiosity builds just with our experience. When we take time to really slow down and say, well, how did I get

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (14:49)
Yeah.

Quentin (15:46)
Let me, let me, let me peek back and see the journey, the necessary steps that got me here. And it kind of reinforces you with your systems that you use now based on your experience.

And so I love it. It sounds like you figured a lot of different things out based on the journey. And so what are some of the systems, the strategies that you use now to be successful?

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (16:04)
Well, over the years I’ve gone to different courses and I’ve gone to different seminars and things. So I’ve created like a hundred point.

you checklist that I utilize when I’m going out of property. Not all of them pertain to every single property, but really it covers a lot of different things. And honestly, if you’re short cutting that checklist, then you shouldn’t even invest on it. You you kind of go have to go through it and there’s a lot of questions that are on there and I haven’t created the checklist. I got it from somebody else, but then I had to kind of manipulate it around to just suit it for what I wanted to do. So now I’ve kind of utilized that as my kind of guide. I also know certain

Quentin (16:23)
Yeah.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (16:40)
people that have done great deals in the past and that you feel more comfortable going forward with because you know that their track history is good and you know them as individuals. So you’re more inclined to stick with people that you know and trust whether it’s good or bad times because you know that they can navigate those things. those things combined, going to different ⁓ venues and learning from others, always learning from others. And like you said, always being curious. It’s kind like that Ted Lasso, if you’ve ever seen that Ted

had last episode where he’s playing darts and he teaches, you know, the guy never asks questions and he says that one thing that I would have done, or if I were you, would have been more curious. Because if you were curious, you would have asked me, you know, have I ever played darts? And the guy’s like, yeah, I’ve been playing darts since eight years old and now I’m like 40. And he’s hitting bullseye after bullseye after bullseye.

Quentin (17:20)
Woo! Woo!

Yeah.

Well, I can’t say that I’m familiar with. heard it’s at last. I’m not. I can’t say I’m familiar with the episode, but now I’m had to go research that because curiosity is actually my word for this year. I’m curious about everything. Curious about. Yeah, y’all. yeah. Absolutely. I appreciate that. So what’s next for you, sir? Like, what’s what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve next? What’s next for you in the business?

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (17:36)
It’s a good episode.

Yeah.

Google it, Ted Lasso and Curiosity and you’ll get that episode and you’ll love it.

So I really

enjoy working with my private clients and working and I have some clients that are in private equity, you know, that are doing big things in physical therapy and in healthcare. So I enjoy that. you know, often I get asked, you know, where should I put my money? And then, you know, we start talking about like real estate types of things, you know, I have a short term rental that I watch over and, you know, I like it for the tax aspects of it, you know, different markets, different things. you know, it’s nice having a property. It’s nice being a host to other people.

Quentin (18:23)
Absolutely.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (18:25)
people ⁓

Quentin (18:28)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (18:55)
improves over time while somebody else is paying your mortgage down? Are you doing anything to force the appreciation by increasing the asset itself? You have to look at yourself and figure out like who am I and what do I like to do and then based off of that you kind of get that kind of real estate. Like you’re not gonna buy a fixer-upper if you don’t like fixing up things. Even if it’s not you doing it but if you don’t have the vision and you’re just really dependent on everybody else to give you all the information and do everything for you and you’re not willing to put

in, then that’s not a good investment for you.

Quentin (19:28)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, so that, you know, one of my mentors told me, and they told me this, you know, I was in my mid thirties. I’ll be honest with you, I was facing divorce and I was trying to decide if I should stay or I should go. And he said, when you know who you are, you know what to do. And that has carried me throughout my life. Like, who are you? What grounds you?

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (19:44)
Hmm.

Quentin (19:51)
Like what powers you? So I love how you talked about just getting to know you, getting to know who you are, why you’re doing what you’re doing. Because I feel like when you know who you are, you know what to do. And that will power you for any situation. And so I love it, man. I love how you’re helping people. You’re helping people figure things out. You know, you’re doing some consulting, you’re doing coaching. And so I have to ask you this question because I want to see your perspective on this. When you hear the word relationship, what comes to mind to you?

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (20:20)
when I hear the word relationship, what comes to mind to me? I honestly think about myself and my relationship when it comes to my coaching clients, you or when I was treating patients, my relationship with my patients, you know. There’s a movie called Patch Adams, ever seen it?

Quentin (20:38)
I know man, you’re putting me on this stuff. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it. So please continue, Patch Adams,

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (20:44)
So

great movie based on a true story about this physician.

who just looked at things very different. And one of the famous lines that he had really inspired me ⁓ when I was building my physical therapy company in healthcare. And the famous line goes something like this. When you care for a disease, you could win or lose, but when you care for a person, you always win. So therefore, like in healthcare, if we have a patient, like you come to me for your shoulder, right? If I look out for you in general, in just overall of what you’re doing,

win because your relationship with me will be like this guy cares about me this guy’s really trying for me this guy’s pushing me to do exercises at home to do this and to do that why because he cares so you win that relationship battle even if I can’t fix your shoulder and it turns into surgery and it had nothing to do with me because I cared for you as an individual so much you’re gonna have think positively of me and that’s our relationship so that’s what I think about when you say the word relationship

But that same philosophy is not just healthcare, real estate. It’s everything in life. Look after people. Look after the person as a whole, not just, hey, you know what, they want this real estate transaction. Get them the highest preff possible. Yeah, but the high of preff has significant risk. You’re not getting something for nothing. You’re putting a lot of risk on there. So look after the individual. Once you know what they’re about and who they are, you look after them.

Quentin (21:46)
More!

Toewell says, sir, so eloquently said, I tell people, I believe at the foundation of every sustainable business is servitude. It’s serving people. And you just said, when you care for other people, you always win. I quote a proverb where it says, if you refresh others, you in return will be refreshed. When you care about other people, boom. I mean, you just so eloquently said it, Wow, listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you,

collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing. How can I get in contact with you,

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (22:42)
So my company is called AG Management Consulting.

You can, they can Google that. They can email me at amit.gaglani at A G M G M T I N C dot com ([email protected]). It’s a mouthful. I’m sure they can look at the podcast and it’ll be in the show notes. They can look me up there. They can look me up on LinkedIn under my first name and last name.
Amit Gaglani PT, OCS. OCS is just, I’ve, I’m board certified in orthopedics and physical therapy. So that’s just the, the nomenclature that goes after it. But yes, they could find me on LinkedIn there.

Quentin (23:12)
Yeah.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (23:15)
or email me.

Quentin (23:15)
Yeah.

Well, sir, man, thank you, man. Thank you for coming on. Let me say three things to you sincerely. Thank you for your time. I mean, you know you can put a premium on your time. We can charge people for our time, right? So time is valuable. I believe it’s our most valuable precious commodity. So thank you for your time. Definitely thank you for your story. Number two, thank you for your story.

for the gift of your vulnerability, the gift of your transparency, the gift of your authenticity. I believe stories have a way of planting seeds in people’s mind and their hearts. You may never see the growth, but the seed is there and that seed can take root and plant and grow at any given time. It can literally change the course of somebody’s life. So thank you for coming planting seeds. Lastly, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform.

I greatly appreciate you coming on today, Yeah, absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard him. Everything he said is in the show notes, how to get in contact with him, email, all those things, right in the show notes. So definitely connect with Mr. Amit but definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like this gentleman here today. So, sir, I say thank you again and everyone else, y’all have a fantastic day.

Amit Gaglani PT, OCS (24:06)
Thank you, Quentin.

Thanks.