What I Learned from the 2008 Crash: A Personal Journey through Turmoil

Brett McCollum (00:00.078)
Welcome back to the show guys. I’m your host Brett McCollum and I’m here today with Dani Beit-Or and today we’re gonna be talking about how he helps other investors buy rental properties. But before we do guys, at Investor Fuel we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs to 5x their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted and live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Without further ado, Dani, how are you?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (00:26.094)
Doing good, doing good. Thank you so much for having me and letting me be part of your amazing show.

Brett McCollum (00:33.036)
The pleasure is all mine and I’m genuinely very excited to do this. Getting to talk to you a little bit before the show. I know we have a great, great podcast coming up for our audience to listen to before we get into everything. As we say here, Dani, give us some history, some context. Rewind. Who is Dani Beit-Or?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (00:54.19)
Sounds good. So currently I live in Southern California, but originally I’m from Europe, grew up in Israel and I moved here. I actually started investing as a young engineer back in 2002. And you know, the funny thing is I started investing in US real estate in 2002. Google was considered a startup in 2002, just FYI.

Brett McCollum (01:10.936)
Yeah.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (01:23.757)
and me living in Tel Aviv and working in Tel Aviv for corporate, know, the corporate world as a young engineer, buying in the US, completely sight unseen. You know, I, of course I knew English, but I wasn’t, you know, fluid with English. I knew of the culture because I used to, I went to high school for two years in, you know, in DC. So I knew a little bit of the US, but never been to the, never as an adult and never.

you know, kind of into real estate and it was all done out of state, different country, different regulation, different language, no Zillow, no public records online, you know, no Google Maps, no Street View, all those beautiful tools that we have today, you know, all none. Side and scene, body bring you home from a builder outside of Phoenix. And that was my taste.

And I haven’t looked back since. that was, that was my start back in 2002. And, in 2004, I truly, truly fell in love with it. So I decided that I wanted to move to the States and pursue this full time. And that’s what I did. I just moved with my wife to California, the Bay area first, later to Southern California and pursue doing exactly that. Continue investing in us real estate. Now it’s local real estate. And 20 years later.

Brett McCollum (02:23.448)
No way.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (02:50.798)
I love it, man. I still, I don’t know, I would say kicking ass, maybe I should say that. Definitely, definitely. Not easy, but hopefully, yeah.

Brett McCollum (03:01.208)
No, wow, that’s awesome. Let’s do that, let me back up a little bit. So, did you say you went to high school here for a couple years? Is that correct in DC?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (03:08.59)
I did, I did, my dad was a military attache in DC and I spent, what is it, sophomore and junior year in high school just outside of DC. Two years, gave me a true taste of the US in many ways, a very brief, very, very brief taste. I fell in love, I can say I fell strongly in love with the US.

Brett McCollum (03:28.299)
Sure.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (03:34.858)
and I already got my California Dreaming. That’s what brought me to California years later. And that actually, luckily for me, that those two years, the two best things happened out of that. One, my English coming to the States as a teen was terrible, terrible. But I call it my survival mechanism. I had to learn quickly. So I got my

Brett McCollum (03:39.128)
Yeah.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (04:03.584)
I improved my English dramatically. That was one. And the second thing is the school I went to gave me the opportunity to actually finish high school at the end of the junior year. So by the time I was done, I was also done with high school. So that was also pretty awesome. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (04:18.702)
Wow, cool. That’s pretty cool. And then, did you go, you went back to Israel? Or did you go somewhere else?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (04:24.888)
correct. Now back to Israel.

Brett McCollum (04:28.332)
And then did you go where you’re in college at that point back home or what happened?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (04:31.854)
Israel, I kind of did finish few or more credits during senior year in Israel just to wrap up and be more ready for the university down the line. As you probably know, or maybe people don’t know in Israel when you get to 18, you are mandatory drafted for at least three years. I went to the military. It’s not even an option.

for three years and only then after full combat special forces service, I went to get my engineering degree. And so in Israel everything, all the adulthood in the sense of degrees and school and jobs really starts three to four to five years later because sometimes you have to wait until you get drafted. So you’re not there, you can’t do much. And then many times you take a breather gap year after the military. Everybody pretty much takes a gap year.

Brett McCollum (05:09.506)
Okay.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (05:28.302)
after an intense service, everybody wants to blow some steam and have some fun. then people really start their, what you would call traditional adult life that usually starts here around the age of 18, 19. They typically started at 22, 21, 22, 23, depending how quick they want to be. So that’s very common. It’s nothing special. So that was kind of my journey. And interestingly enough,

Brett McCollum (05:39.884)
Right. Yeah.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (05:56.558)
when I finished my degree and getting those corporate world jobs, and I really enjoyed my job, but I actually had a very interesting observation around 24, 25, maybe 25, 26. My observation was here I am, I’m kind of starting my first or second year as a young engineer.

And that’s actually what drove me to consider investing is I looked at my parents. I looked at the uncles and my parents’ friends and older cousins. And I could see that all of them are hard worker, quality people, working probably 15, 20 years into their jobs, doing well. And what do they have to show for all those 10, 15, 20 years?

Maybe condo with a mortgage? Condo with a mortgage. Nobody has a second, no one except the exceptional someone who was kind of lucky doesn’t have the additional one single property, one. And pay the price of hardworking, missing on kids’ stuff and I’m looking at this, I’m saying, wait, wait, wait, what’s happening here? Like this is the path I’m already on, got my degree, started my corporate world job.

Brett McCollum (07:08.11)
Right.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (07:22.67)
nice nice salary for for my age no complaints there i i like my job actually at that point my job started to be a little bit boring for me because it was not challenging enough and and i’m looking and i’m like i don’t like this i don’t know what the answer is right but this path i don’t like something is off i don’t know the answer but i’m i’m not happy with the path that was the one the one thing the major thing that shifted my mind saying hey

Brett McCollum (07:32.994)
yeah.

Brett McCollum (07:38.753)
Right.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (07:51.726)
Even if you don’t know the right path or what is the answer, doesn’t mean this is the correct one. And then I started a journey of a year or so really teaching myself about real life finances, like loans and say retirement accounts and socials, all those things that we have in our life that are just sometimes we know what it means, but we don’t really know what it means. I actually took the time for at least a year, a year and a half really

Brett McCollum (07:57.816)
Yeah.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (08:20.216)
visiting all those areas in our lives, really trying to educate me and engineer by degree. I studied economics, but in real life finances, I know nothing. I feel illiterate. So I went into that. started really diving into all those nuances and understanding them and asking myself, how can I do it better? Which very naturally progressed to start looking to invest.

Brett McCollum (08:31.586)
Right.

Brett McCollum (08:48.974)
Mm-hmm.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (08:49.612)
Wasn’t immediately real estate. I started with stocks and options and it wasn’t very happy with the results. And then I continued, I kept searching. I was on a quest, like I was an obsessive quest. Like I need to find something that makes more sense. Slowly, after maybe one more year, it kind of led me to the idea of real estate and US real estate. And I think it’s age 26 or 27, I bought my first rental property.

like I said earlier, completely out of the country and all of that. So that was the path that led me to the first one. And the first one, it’s a love story that turned into a whole different thing, but that was the trigger, you know, going after or getting to where I am today.

Brett McCollum (09:32.942)
Wow, and now here you are 23 years later. Golly, man, that happened quick too. All right, so you buy your first property, you do that. It had to have went well enough to try it again. Was it a rental property for you back then or?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (09:37.067)
Yeah.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (09:52.066)
Yeah, you know, it’s a funny story. I bought a single family home, you know, outside of Phoenix. I think it was four bedrooms, baths in a nice, very, you know, middle, you know, middle-class community. It was rented 45 days after closing. It was rented to this family that I knew, a property manager took care of everything. Jumping forward, maybe…

Three years later, it’s now 2004 or five. I’m already in the States, I’m in California. I hop over to Phoenix to do something, to look at properties, to tour, and I’m taking the opportunity to go see my house. So here I am for the first time going to see my house that I purchased about three years earlier. And I get to the property and, you know.

Announced coordinated, know, no surprises and I just come to inspect it and I am Nice house brand new from the builder and I am not I am kind of not pleasantly surprised Because as soon as I got in I could tell they are four kids two dogs Hamster and the bunny. This is not a joke. This is a true true situation right for me

And I’m like, oh my God. Now I know they have, I think on the list, one pet. One pet. Where is the other few came from, right? And four kids. And I leave the place. I don’t say anything. I leave, I’m like, what’s happening? And I’m kind of nervous. And I’m annoyed and nervous at the same time. By the time I get back to California, maybe a day or two later,

Brett McCollum (11:31.231)
Yeah

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (11:43.244)
I kind of calm down a little bit then I think about it say wait, what’s really happening here? I have this property with four kids, four pets, parents, I’ve never met the parents by the way, my tenants and they’ve been there for three, three and a half years? They’ve only been late once? I’m like that’s not a bad story. I mean they’re pay on time, late, they paid, they were just late.

By the time they moved out because they bought their own home, they were there for five and a half years. They were only late twice. They paid with a penalty twice in five and a half years. I always thought that having a little zoo in Arizona, which the zoo only been paying late twice, it’s not a bad day in the office. It’s not a bad day as an investor. So when I really processed it, I’m like, OK.

Brett McCollum (12:20.269)
Wow.

Brett McCollum (12:35.768)
care.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (12:40.054)
It’s actually stable. It’s actually fine. I just made a mental note that by the time they move out to make sure none of the security deposit goes back to them because that will go back to the house. And that’s what happened, right? And by the way, the security deposit pretty much covered all the damages that they did, you know, so that was fine. It turned out to be a really good story from that perspective. Also, this house appreciated so much. I was able to refinance it twice and buy more properties. So.

No complaints here.

Brett McCollum (13:11.086)
Yeah, not at all. Well, do me a favor, catch me up to speed now. what is, because I mean that’s the start. Eventually you move to the States, you move to California, you’re a full-time real estate investor. What year was that?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (13:12.174)
Yeah.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (13:24.782)
So 2004 is really when I start ramping up my activity and working with others, other investors, helping them do pretty much the same. And that was a nice run, 2004, five, six, seven. All my five-year goals in 2004 get accomplished in two and a half years. And then 2008 crash comes over and.

really kicks me to the ground in many ways. So the 2008 crash, when that came, that really impacted me on so many levels, on my own portfolio, my own performance, my own finances, emotionally. I felt like I’m in the center of the storm. It did not pass me, and I’m like, ah.

I’ve been there. I was there. Not only that I was there with my own issues, challenges, problems, I also made a promise to myself right around that time that this is tough period of time. I’m dealing with a lot of problems. My income dropped as well because it was real estate related. So I’m on the income, down on value. I mean, mess. But I dove in. I started looking for solutions.

to deal with the problems with all my portfolio. And also, made the promise that I made to myself. said, any one of the people that I helped them buy a property that is in similar situation, and many were in a similar situation, I’m not disappearing on them. And I’m going to be here. I’m going to take those calls. I’m going to try and help them. I’m going to let them vent out. Even a lot of time, people need to find someone to blame. If they want to blame me, blame me, right? Which people did.

Because they needed it’s never your fault. It’s always someone else’s, know, that’s a lot of people’s mentality But I said I’ll pick up the phone. I’ll call back. I’ll be there. I’ll try to help I’ll share with them what I’ve learned how to get out of those because I was really dealing with a lot of problems So I’ll share it back with them. Maybe they have something they learned they can share with me and Maybe it’s obvious for you. Like of course you would do that and for me, it’s very obvious

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (15:52.27)
based on my values that I would be there. But I can tell you that when I saw many people around me that were doing something, let’s just say similar to what I was doing, maybe different way going about it, when the crash of 2008 happened, some of those disappeared. All those players or experts, I didn’t consider myself an expert. I was just an experienced investor, like others. A lot of those experts,

Brett McCollum (16:11.362)
Yeah. Right.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (16:21.55)
disappeared completely. Many of them I’ve never seen since. I don’t know what happened to them. Some of them I’ve definitely seen after the thing settled, maybe in 2010 or 11, all of a sudden or 12, I see they’re coming up all over again, which I was appalled by it, but that’s just me. I went through. I said, anybody, I will continue helping. And you know what? I didn’t see it while I was going through this difficult times, but when I came on the other side,

I felt that the crash of 2008, it not victimized me, I’m a graduate. I learned a lot. I made sure that moving forward, I am tightening so many screws in my systems and improving it and polishing it. so that was in many ways the crash of 2008, it was my springboard for the years to follow because things were done.

Brett McCollum (17:01.058)
Yeah.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (17:17.998)
so differently from the crash in so many ways. And the second promise I made to myself, if I’ve already been through that and I’m working with other investors to help them accomplish similarly to what I do, I might as well share that information with them so they can learn and benefit as well from my mistakes, from my problems. So I’m leveraging that crash on a daily basis.

Brett McCollum (17:41.868)
Yeah, no doubt. Man, yeah, and that’s really good is take the lessons from the hard, difficult season to apply them to, yeah, absolutely, that’s the only way to do it. How does business look today, Dani? What are you guys doing now?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (17:50.286)
Exactly.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (17:57.624)
So business, know, for the focus of the business is primarily helping our clients, you know, who are for the majority of them are living in, you know, the Pacific side of the country between Seattle and San Diego through Silicon Valley and San Francisco and LA, Orange County, et cetera, but not just also other parts of the country and Europe, help them buy long-term nice rental properties. I call it boring.

the most boring real estate you can think of in the southern belt, in the Midwest, in Florida, Texas, other parts. So we facilitate those transactions by vetting markets and vetting opportunities and lining up strong, trustworthy teams on the ground in all those markets. So that’s what we do day in, day out with a lot of attention to details and a lot of ways we keep challenging ourselves. I keep challenging myself.

How can I go about it to still provide my clients a more of a safe, secure, lower risk opportunities and at the same time find ways how to kind of mitigate the challenging cash flow. Cash flow has always been a challenge for investors. So there are ways to do that. So from traditional rentals, let’s just say a nice single family home from built in 1990 in the suburb of Kansas City, right? Just three, two, just as.

typical house, now we’re doing, we’re trying to make some twist on that model. And we do that by going to builders and negotiating, deal on multiple properties and get a better pricing. We started doing midterm rentals to boost the income and the cash flow. I just started doing subject to and VA loan assumption as well, to improve the cash flow.

So all those midterm rentals subject to VA loan assumption, those are all taking the basic model of this nice single family home in the suburb, in a nice community, good schools, and trying to optimize it. What can I do to optimize the basic product, which I have to tell you, if we just go and buy those nice rental properties around the country.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (20:22.292)
Even buy them at the wrong market price or market value, not even great negotiation. I’m happy. am long-term believe this is going to be a very solid investment. My role is to see if I can push, you know, push it more. Can I optimize it even further? So I create a better situation for my clients, cashflow wise, equity wise. So it’s only an optimization on a very fundamental, basic investment vehicle.

Brett McCollum (20:49.474)
Well, you wouldn’t use the optimization. What are one or two things you might try and do?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (20:56.11)
So finding ways like subject two, for me it’s optimization because I’m able to step into or a VA loan assumption. Instead of generating $300 or $250 a month or cash flow on a $300,000 home with a mortgage at 6.5 or 6.6 % whatever percent, I’m generating $550 or $600 because we get a subject two with 3.25%, right?

So that’s a little bit optimization with complexity, right? You got to understand the complexity. The midterm rentals, it’s a very heavy on operational and marketing side to find those type of midterm tenants. So a lot of effort goes into the supporting. It’s not about the, it’s of course, it’s about the property, but it needs a strong operational and marketing behind it in order to increase the occupancy.

So next week I’m heading to Florida to meet with a builder to see opportunities, again, negotiating bulk purchase. So that’s one. I’m flying to Atlanta to meet with the MTR, the midterm rental teams, only to talk about midterm rentals and what we can do to improve our operations and marketing. Going over from there to Tennessee to check on a few projects that we already have or are under contract. So next week I’m kind of hopping around.

When I go to the field, it’s mostly to build relationship, improve relationship, spend more time on programs. All the trip is to optimization for my clients. That’s kind of my mindset. I’ve seen thousands of houses in my career. I don’t need to, I always enjoy that, but that’s never the goal for me to go and see houses. For me, it’s the relationship along the way. What can we do in order to do optimizations on?

the very basic product of a nice piece of property, rental property.

Brett McCollum (22:59.182)
Yeah, I know, and I totally get, you know how often do I get people say to me like, wait, you don’t wanna see the house? And I’m like, it’s not that, I’ve seen your house 100,000 times over, so I mean, I don’t need to see it. Yeah, I love that, and it is really, it’s about the relationships that we build along the way, because ultimately,

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (23:18.872)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (23:23.916)
Yeah, I love that. mean, that’s the way to do it. So, man, Dani, I think this is such a unique, not even unique, it’s such a high level of service that you offer to our real estate space. If people want to connect with you, reach out, get to know you better, what does that look like?

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (23:39.374)
So my web identity everywhere is my company’s name, which is called simply do it simply do it I Think it’s easy to remember a catchy catchy name If you write simply do it in real estate or simply do it with Dani or just may probably simply do it By itself is very likely you will find my youtube channel our website You know some of the social media and from there or web, you know from there

heading over to us is super easy. Just remember, simply do it and you’re good to go.

Brett McCollum (24:14.058)
Easy enough, that’s it, simply do it. Well guys, simply go, simply go and do it. And connect with Dani, jump on there, we’ll put that in the show notes, Dani as well. Making sure, yeah, that’s incredible. I love what you’ve done, I’ve loved your story, building from overseas, you know, and you’re able to, here you are, and weathering the storm with Jocelyn Aitken, honestly like.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (24:19.074)
Yeah, exactly.

Terrific.

Brett McCollum (24:39.406)
You’re still thriving and weathering in an economic downturn that we’re in, market cycle, right? It’s just pivoting. I hear you say that without saying it, but that’s what you did with pivoting to sub to this, mid-term, just pivoting to handle the market as it comes. Man, thank you for sharing your story with us, spending your time with me.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (24:46.21)
Right, exactly.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (24:55.086)
Exactly.

Brett McCollum (25:07.822)
This is really good, man. I appreciate it.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (25:09.966)
My pleasure. appreciate the opportunity to share and truly I hope I you know, it inspires others to do You know because it’s kind of funny in many ways Many things that we do as real estate investors had become easier not more difficult right all those tools that were not a funny story the first the property in Phoenix when I bought it I received a copy of a copy of a fax machine of the MLS print

Brett McCollum (25:38.508)
No way. That’s funny.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (25:39.118)
I wish I kept it today as just as a nostalgia piece. It was so worn down. Black and white, you couldn’t see everything. I feel so old when saying it, but that was just the norm, Email was around, but it was probably faxed at one point or printed and then scanned and the resolution was, what a resolution, oh my God. You can always write this, this house. It was just kind of funny, right?

Brett McCollum (26:04.236)
Yeah, it’s no doubt.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (26:08.408)
That’s long gone, right? So much not what we’re seeing today, which is awesome. Awesome.

Brett McCollum (26:08.546)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (26:13.762)
Yeah, for sure. that’s… But now look at it, you know? I mean, 20… Like I said, 23 years later, you’re… It’s an inspiration, man. I really appreciate you doing this.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (26:17.688)
Yeah.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (26:22.104)
Yeah,

Brett McCollum (26:26.306)
Yeah, well perfect. Well guys, also to you as well, thank you for spending your time with us, and we’ll see each of you on the next episode. Take care everybody.

Dani Beit-Or | Simply Do It (26:34.072)
Thank you.