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Stop Chasing Money: 33 Years of Real Estate Lessons Most Investors Never Learn

By January 12, 2026Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Adam Negri shares his extensive experience in real estate, discussing his journey from commercial real estate to multifamily investments. He emphasizes the importance of adaptability, continuous learning, and maintaining a sustainable lifestyle. Adam also highlights the significance of mentorship and teaching others in the field, while sharing insights on navigating risks and understanding property management. His philosophy centers around building relationships, creating opportunities, and enjoying the process of investing rather than merely chasing money.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Adam Negri (00:00)
    Okay, well, the first thing I did is I stopped chasing money. Okay, and I when I was younger, I chased money and in 0708 I sat in a auction and watched an auction of my house. I went bankrupt, I lost everything that I had. And I just was my

    my balance in life was way off. My foundation was no good. had people that surrounded me that were no good. So I had to go back and start all over again and pay attention to the foundation that you lay, then to what you nourish your mind with and the, you know, the structure of how you want to have your life.

    Quentin Edmonds (02:17)
    Hello everyone. Welcome to the real estate pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. Excited to be here. Excited about my guest. We’ve been talking a little bit and you know, most of the time I had to my guest at ease. He found a way to put me at ease. Like, you know, I feel real confident, feel relaxed. I’m excited for him to share what, you know, all that he does. Like he’s been in the game for a long time. So he has had tremendous

    success Mortal family you want to talk commercial he can talk commercial you want to talk construction you can talk construction like This guy has a wealth of knowledge and he’s a teacher So I’m expecting for him to really give us some legacy data is gonna help us out And so I want to introduce you all to Mr. Adam Negri, Mr. Adam. How did I do with that last name sir?

    Adam Negri (03:10)
    Perfect. Hi everybody, pleasure to meet you all.

    Quentin Edmonds (03:14)
    Absolutely so glad to have you here. Yes sir. I think I did the mister again. will try my best not to. I told you to get your free but now we down to two.

    Adam Negri (03:23)
    That was your second one.

    Quentin Edmonds (03:28)
    I want you to take us into your world. I want you to tell us what your main focus is these days So that’s one your main focus to if you want to give us a little bit of an origin story of how you got into with no real estate how you got to where you are we love origin stories and then three if you can tell us what market you’re in and so, you

    Adam Negri (03:50)
    Okay, our focus right now, we’re shifting. I’m going to start teaching. I haven’t put anything together yet. We’re looking for sub two deals and we’re looking for my motto this year is what are you going to give me? So last year I had six units actually given to me for a very small amount of money, less than $10,000.

    Another thing we’re going to do is we’re going to concentrate on finishing our house. We left in 2009 because we’ve been so busy and we’re going to come back and finish it. But for the most part, we’re cleaning up, but we’re also pivoting. We’re going to also head into syndications on a small basis. I started out in commercial real estate, understand it very well, understand acquisition of business and multifamily.

    chose multifamily because no one needs an office. As it proved, you know, during the pandemic, everybody went home and worked. You don’t need a shopping center. You can get everything on DoorDash and you don’t have to really, you know, those people are really working for a living. And, but everybody needs a place to live. So when everybody needs a place to live, that was my focus. And I figured, you know what, the next thing on that was that I wasn’t going to go for an A type of style because it was expensive and I couldn’t afford it in the beginning.

    And that there’s a lot of people out there that need a home, not want a home, but need a home. And there’s a lot of them. So you are working at the bottom part of the pyramid and you have a great opportunity to meet a lot of good people who you can help and provide good, properties to. mean, cause we look at our people as clients, not as our tenant and we provide, if anything goes wrong, we fix it, we clean it. Cause it’s just,

    It’s the proper way to do business and people come and say, ⁓ the business isn’t good. got a lot of people that were evicted. Well, you get a lot of people you’re evicting because your place is not taken care of. It’s not maintained. Actually it’s a dump. We call them slumlords in Connecticut. So if you’re there just collecting cash, you’re not going to do very well. If you’re there maintaining your property, which is your asset, then you are going to do tremendously well in any marketplace. So

    where else do want me to go in this?

    Quentin Edmonds (07:01)
    No, that was absolutely perfect again. I just want to know you know what your main focus is You can talk about you being in Connecticut. Yeah And and you gave me a little bit of the origin story So no that was perfect and you know, I love how you know I love how you hit on the slumlords, right? And I love how you hit on your clients like if they need something you’re gonna provide you’re gonna service them because I always say at the at the foundation of any sustainable

    business is servitude, is service. Yeah. So as you talk, you know, it’s letting me know where your mindset is. It’s actually letting me know more about you and how you’re building your business on integrity, honesty, and servitude. And so with that being said, I would love to know a little bit about your personal strategies. Like you’ve been 33 years, you’ve been doing this for a long time. You found success.

    I would love to know, obviously you have business strategies, so if you want to talk more about that, I would love to know that. But I also want to know about what personal strategies have you identified in yourself that help you as you build these different brands and different services and different businesses? And I’ll give you an example. I know some people, do cold plunge, do meditation, you know, so are there personal strategies that you picked up along the years identifying yourself like, yes, this was helped me be who I am today.

    Adam Negri (08:25)
    Okay, well, the first thing I did is I stopped chasing money. Okay, and I when I was younger, I chased money and in 0708 I sat in a auction and watched an auction of my house. I went bankrupt, I lost everything that I had. And I just was my

    my balance in life was way off. My foundation was no good. had people that surrounded me that were no good. So I had to go back and start all over again and pay attention to the foundation that you lay, then to what you nourish your mind with and the, you know, the structure of how you want to have your life.

    I’m 65 years old. I get up every day. I have coffee with my wife and we discuss everything. Cause my wife is my fight partner. She’s just not my partner. She’s my fight partner.

    I can put my back to her back and we come out swinging against people who come against us. We’ve had multiple things in real estate with neighbors come after us and we just take care of it, take care of business. They wish they never met us because we know a lot together. And then what we do is we figure out our game plan for the day. We move accordingly. I go work out. So I keep a consistency of what I’ve got going on. You know, so I don’t want to be overweight. We’re not drinkers. We eat.

    We eat healthy, we organically, we grow our own vegetables, we have animals. So we have, not a city life, but a country life and it’s more sustainable. And then from there, we figure out what works best for us in business. My wife’s a design builder, so she does all the construction. could figure stuff. Once I realized that I didn’t have to deal with it anymore.

    It was like such an uplifting thing. I was so happy. I’d have to go chase widgets, you know? And then we figured out a game plan, you know? And our game plan is that, what, during the pandemic, we had five houses that we had in, you know, that we had with no, we paid for cash and we went and fixed those and sold those during the pandemic, you know? And we always have.

    a bunch of properties that we just pay cash because when we’re making money, we just put it aside. You get a great deal because great deals don’t happen every day. They have to be made. you know what I mean? People go, oh, I’m to buy a deal today. Well, it might happen in six months or you might be buying Mrs. Jones a milkshake for 10 years before she finally says yes. You know what I mean? So you’re developing relationships. so when you everything ebbs and flows. So we have just

    evolved. Every two years, we keep changing things around. This year, we’re finishing up a project that we’re doing in Milford, Connecticut. It’s a luxury rental. It’s a five-bedroom, five-and-a-half bath on the ocean. own to the high watermark. It’s a $20,000 a week rental. It’s fully furnished with the antiques. And the great thing about it is that in this business too, you get to create

    opportunities to see and do things, you know, and create moments. And we’ve got sconces that we brought in France. We’ve got all kinds of fencing and things like that, that we bought in New York, you know what I mean? And you accumulate and she re-does all this stuff. I mean, it’s amazing the things that she does. It really is.

    Quentin Edmonds (12:32)
    I can imagine you said I’m I say amazing I can imagine because this is amazing so I can imagine Because you said 20k a week rental listens sign me up. Let me talk to my wife You know, we got done in our back pocket. I’m just I’m just joking. We don’t have that but

    Adam Negri (12:48)
    I

    gotta remember something, we’re between Boston and New York. You know what I mean? We’re an hour and a half both ways. You know what I mean? So you’ve got the folks with the money and she works for these type of people a lot of times. So it’s word of mouth. And honestly, God, we bought this thing and I was wholesaling properties and

    I said, Hey, I just, I just put a house in contract and she’s like, ⁓ great. And she goes, what is it? And I was like, it’s a house on the ocean. She walked up and she said, let’s go look at it. I want to look at it. I’m like, all right. We’ll look at it. She looked at me and goes, yeah, you’re not selling this. And I’m like, what? I said, I got this in contract. goes, I don’t care what you got. Break it. And we rebuilt it and now it’s, it’s ready. mean,

    I stole this thing, but it got hit by Hurricane Sandy. Wow. You know? And there’s just, there’s, there’s somebody great deals, but you have to make them. They’re not just like sitting there waiting for somebody to pluck them off a shelf. Yeah. So this year that’ll be our concentration to get this off of the ground. And you know, MC, you keep evolving, you know, and you don’t do the same thing. I’ve got a 14 unit apartment complex. It’s an old Victorian. We rebuilt it from top to bottom. We get.

    top of the line markets and we do fully furnished. So the market didn’t call for this at the time and it was not in a good area. And when we bought the building and I think it was 13, it was the rents were $600 for a one bedroom. I’m getting 1600 for a one bedroom now. And it’s fully furnished. You know what I mean? You just.

    You have to think of different ways to do things and you can’t be like everybody else in order to get to where you want to be. And then you got to figure out why you’re actually doing this. Like I said before, if you’re chasing money and you’re looking for that 5,000 square foot house in the Lamborghini, I guarantee you you’ll be on the scrap pile in no time figured out what you did wrong. So that way you could do it right a second time. If this is the business you really want to be in, because when you enjoy what you’re doing and you love it,

    You’re getting up and you’re having fun with it. And if you get a bump in the road, it’s not a big deal. You just pivot and you go a different direction and you figure out what works better. Now it’s just, that’s the great thing about it. It’s not just like, you’re not going to the post office and deliver mail every day. the great thing is too.

    Quentin Edmonds (16:03)
    Hold on, I was a mailman for 14 years, so watch this, But you’re right. We continue what you’re doing, because you’re right, though. So continue.

    Adam Negri (16:11)
    But here’s the great thing about being the mailman. And this is really what I want to start teaching is that I think it’s great. I have people that come to me and say, I want to learn how to invest. I’m like, that’s awesome. You have to keep your job for five years before I work with you. And they’re like, five years. And they go, yeah, I want five years that you working in that job. said, because if you’re looking to replace your income with another income stream, you’re not doing it in a year.

    or two years, you’re going to have to take and spend that time. I said, plus that J O B gives you the opportunity to get government backed mortgages. And from what I understand, you can get up to 10 of them right now. So if you can get three, pay three and a half percent down and buy another property, where are you going wrong? You know what I mean? So you do it for five years, you get yourself five or 10 properties. If you could do two a year, that’s more than ample.

    Quentin Edmonds (17:01)
    Yeah.

    Adam Negri (17:09)
    You’ve got 10 properties. You’ve now replaced your income. You can lift your head up. Now you’re not working for money again. Now you’re looking around for opportunities. Now you have the opportunity because you got liquidity, you’ve got equity, and you’ve got the ability to move in a different direction. So really at the end of the day, and if you want to do four deals your second year, because you figured out your first year, you know I mean? But the other thing that people do too is that where they come slumlords,

    is because they buy a piece of property and they look at it for cash. Where the problem really comes in is they don’t understand what they bought. I had an investor call me one day, he said, Adam, I got a real problem. I’m like, okay, what’s going on? And he goes, the plumber just went because the heat went out in the house and he said the oil heating unit needs to be replaced. I’m like, wait a minute, I sold you this building. Let me look at this. I come back and I go, you got a real problem. And he goes, what’s that? I said, you have gas heat.

    So you really don’t know what your product is. that’s another way that most investors lose money out is they depend on other people to figure out what their problems are. And the only thing they’re figuring out how to get money out of you. at the end of the year, if you’ve got a $500 a month positive cash flow, which is six grand, you just gave it to the plumber to put in an oil burner when you had gas. you know, so in the beginning,

    know your property, know what’s wrong with it, work it. You know what I mean? So that if someone comes up and said, Hey, I have problem with this switch. You can go and fix it. And it doesn’t cost you $300. And you know what I mean? You can take care of those things. And then when you learn all your properties, no one can bullshit you. Cause that’s where you, cause these fix and flip guys, they turn on and they go, Oh, I’m going to fix and flip. And when I fix and flip, I’ll have this person run it. then you go,

    Quentin Edmonds (19:04)
    Yeah.

    Adam Negri (19:06)
    Oh, I got concealed conditions and I got a problem and now it’s going to cost you another $10,000. Then you’re scrambling for another $10,000. And the next thing you know, you bled half to death and the contractor’s doing fantastic. You got a house underwater and you you go, what did I do wrong? You pay attention. This is a full contact sport.

    Quentin Edmonds (19:13)
    Yeah. Yeah.

    So, listen, full contact sport and you’re giving us so many different plays, so many different variations of plays to run and I appreciate you. I do want to ask you this. I love the fact that you said your wife is your fight partner. You said y’all can go back to back and fight. I mean, that’s absolutely brilliant because so many of us, I would say us as husbands, don’t realize that our wives can fight too. And I love your wife when she came in and said, hey, you ain’t selling that properly. you said, baby’s under contract.

    I don’t care like so it just lets me know how much of this you guys are doing together So let me ask you is there a next real goal for you guys Is there something that you’re looking to scale solve next what’s the next real goal for you and your fight partner?

    Adam Negri (20:18)
    Okay. What we’ve done because of the people that we are organic and eating out of the gardens and things like that, that we’re finishing this high end rental from there. have two other properties that are one is the six family and the other is a two family in Bridgeport, which we love. It’s phenomenal. And we’re going to renovate those two while we’re renovating our house and

    Our end goal is I bought a 25 acre parcel of land that I got caught again on. When she says five miles from our house, I put it in the contract and she went and looked at it. She goes, let’s go look at it. I learned after this, I don’t bring her anymore.

    Quentin Edmonds (21:02)
    Take her anywhere

    Adam Negri (21:07)
    So I go, I Hey, I just got 25 acres. put under contract for $185,000, which are building lots here where we are. And the guy was, it was a developer just dying to get, I got to cut his skin off to give it to us. And, so she went over, she looked at it. goes, I really like this. And I’m like, great. She goes, you’re not selling this either. I’m like, Oh God. So.

    What we did is we got the high end, the luxury rental being finished this year, our house is getting finished and we’ve got these eight other units that we’ve got to finish. From there, we’re heading over to the farm and then, and then the farm will be an organic farm that we can, also we’re going to set up a kitchen, set up a root cellar and put animals over there. And we’re, it’s going to be, you know,

    Quentin Edmonds (21:45)
    talk.

    Adam Negri (22:03)
    It’s funny, she’s down in Westport and she’s got all these people with, know, unruly children. Yeah. And she’s like, we’re going to start a consultant. We’re going to bring them up and make them work like migrant workers.

    And we’re gonna charge them 25 grand a month to have their kids stay with us.

    Quentin Edmonds (22:21)
    No. Your wife sound like she got a lot of things figured out for sure.

    Adam Negri (22:27)
    She could keep a small country working, I’m telling you.

    Quentin Edmonds (22:31)
    sure she could. I’m sure she could. And this is going to peace continue. I don’t want to you off. Peace continue.

    Adam Negri (22:37)
    No, so we’re all of the things that we buy, because we always go out and we’re buying antiques. She loves lighting and all this other stuff that we buy because we’re in Litchfield County, not far, not far from New York. We get these fantastic deals because like at the D &D building in New York, there’s a lighting company that’s going to, they’re going to reduce their inventory and they’re like, come to us.

    let’s take a look at this and she’ll go in and she’ll buy a whole bunch of stuff and then she’ll warehouse it. So most likely up at the farm, we’ll have a little place where she’ll be able to sell a lot of this stuff like a Michael Trapp does up in Litchfield or, but I call it bunny Williams. Her husband’s a big designer for furniture and she’s an interior designer up in Litchfield. She’s got a place in New York. So Michelle will do the same thing and we’ll, you know,

    Who knows what’ll come up next? It’s like, there’s a lot to be done. She’s like a Martha Stewart, you know, she’s just younger and she didn’t want the show. And so she’ll just keep moving and I’ll keep, you know, buying more, helping people and just, you know, you know what? Life changes when you no longer have to work for money. You know I mean? That means that you’re

    Quentin Edmonds (23:52)
    Absolutely.

    Adam Negri (24:00)
    Investment properties are paying for your phone bill and your electric bill. And hopefully you don’t have mortgages. You know, another thing in all that you do is that if you’re going to accumulate and you’re going to buy, you should come back and reevaluate your properties all the time. Because if you’ve got to underperform, if you’ve got one that’s giving you a 30 % return and you got one giving you 8 % return, now it’s time to sell that piece of property and turn around and reinvest it into

    something else that’s going to give you a higher return. Don’t become complacent and be one of those guys that go, well, I bought this condo 80 years ago, you know, and, it’s still doing well. And it’s like, no, it’s not because you could have taken that money and spun it into 10 condos. mean, we just did one down in Bridgeport where I bought a house for 115 grand and I put it on the market just to see if I could rent it out. Cause we were really busy. It went in a day.

    I got $2,600 a month for six years. I paid $115,000 for it. I had $8,000 in taxes and insurance. So at the end of the six years, I had no money left into this thing. It was free and clear for us. And I looked and I said to my wife, said, this is only like an 8 % return. And she goes, so what do you think? I said, let’s sell it and we’ll put it into something else. I sold it for $345,000.

    And then it just springboards you into another bigger project. think, even if you make it 300,000, you just sprung yourself into a $1.2 million project if you want to do that or an accumulation of $1.2 million. So you went from one property that was performing, but not really performing, if you will, to four others that’ll generate even more money for you.

    This is a business where you keep thinking if you’re analytical and you also have that ability to fix things, you could have a great, great life without anybody even knowing you’re doing it.

    Quentin Edmonds (26:11)
    Yeah, well, it sounds like you and your wife are making a fantastic team. Y’all building an empire. And I thank you so much for coming through, sharing the nuggets, sharing how you’re building. I love hearing the story. So listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, learning more about what you’re doing, how can they reach out to you, Adam?

    Adam Negri (26:30)
    I have a telephone number, which is 203-994-0708. You can text me or call me if you need help. My email is [email protected] I haven’t got the website up. That’s going to be my Jan 1 start to start teaching and putting out those crazy nuggets of how to do things. and it’s a lot of fun. mean, if anybody needs help.

    Be glad to help you there in Connecticut. did another podcast. I had people calling me saying, Hey, I want to work with you. What do you want to do? How can I help you? What do you need? And it’s, we all work together. Everybody makes a lot. You work alone. You make, you make good money. You could be, you know, anonymous, but at the end of the day, not always will you get a good deal or you have an opportunity for a deal. Sometimes it’d be an investor. That’s just so busy. They just like, I can’t, I can’t handle this. Give me five grand. I’ll take it.

    That’s how I did that one for 345 and investor said, I can’t do this. Would you like it? And I’m like, yeah, I’ll give you five grand for that lead.

    Quentin Edmonds (27:36)
    Yeah, there you go. There it is. Well, listen, Mr. Adam, thank you so much, sir. Thank you for coming through. Thank you for your time, which we know is very valuable. Thank you for your story, and thank you for your perspective. I really appreciate you coming through and sharing today.

    Adam Negri (27:38)
    Everybody made up!

    Thank you for having me on, I appreciate it.

    Quentin Edmonds (27:55)
    Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all can’t tell me you didn’t get the, you didn’t get the value from Adam. You know, I was about to say Mr. Adam, but please check him out, but definitely make sure you are subscribed because I can promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Adam. So sir, thank you again. And to everyone else, we will see you on the next time.

    Adam Negri (28:03)
    No? ⁓

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