BiggerPockets Podcast 155 with Sharad Mehta Transcript

Link to show: BP Podcast 155: From Zero to 200+ Deals in Five Years with Sharad Mehta

Josh: This is the BiggerPockets.com podcast show 155.

Sharad: If you have a bigger goal and you just make that your end goal that this is what I got to do; everything else gets put on the sideline.

You’re listening to BiggerPockets.com Radio, simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you’re here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you’re in the right place.

Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com, your home for real estate investing online.

Josh: What's going on everybody? This is Josh Dorkin host of the BiggerPockets.com podcast here for the last show of 2015.

Brandon: Wow that was a pretty epic intro.

Josh: It was.

Brandon: Happy New Year Josh!

Josh: Oh by the way welcome to my co-host.

Brandon: Oh thanks.

Josh: Mr. Brandon Turner, what’s going on Brandon?

Brandon: Not much I’m looking forward to 2016.

Josh: Yeah, yeah. It’s crazy.

Brandon: It’s crazy. I feel like it was January like a day ago.

Josh: For me I’m still kind of wrapped up in the, “Hey Y2K is coming what’s going to happen when the year 2000 gets here?”

Brandon: That’s because you’re old.

Josh: Wait, we’re in 2016 like this year I'm going to be 40 this year.

Brandon: Oh wow I didn’t realize that you're that old.

Josh: This is…

Brandon: I remember when my dad turned 40, that was sad.

Josh: I remember when my dad was 40 and I thought he was old.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: So yeah this is…

Brandon: Wow I can’t wait till last show we’re going to have fun there.

Josh: Anyway we got a really fun show today.

Brandon: It is really fun.

Josh: He is a great guy and…

Brandon: And super successful.

Josh: Oh yeah.

Brandon: Like crazy successful and on fire.

Josh: This is like set your mind to it do it in like no bullsh**, no excuses, just like if there's a will there's a way and anybody can be successful if they try and yeah the show is awesome so I'm super excited. Yeah well speaking of guys who’re rocking it let's kind of get to today's QuickTip.

Yes today's QuickTip guys, is this; 2016 is here, it's upon us. If you have not yet set your goals for 2016 you’re so far behind already. There’s a little guilt trip for you. So get it together, seriously sit down, bust out some paper and write down your goals. And I'm talking not just for real estate, do this for your personal life.

Do this for real estate, do this for your other job or job, whatever it is that you do in life. Set down your goals, take some time take a few hours do it with your family, do it solo however it works for you. And plan out your year and decide what you’re going to get done and how you’re going to do it because people who set their goals are far more successful than those who do not.

People who plan to be far more successful and if you're not planning you’re behind the ball, get it done and that is today's QuickTip.

Brandon: My wife and I have a tradition, every year we go out to this little lake place it’s like this beach town called Seabrook it’s out on the coast of Washington State. And there’s this little burger joint there and it has like these really good burgers and French fries whatever. Anyway our tradition for four years in a row now I think.

And we go out there every New Year's Eve and or was it News Year’s Day I got to remember now.

Josh: I always wonder you always tell me you’re like oh we sat down and did our goals for like 12 hours.

Brandon: Yeah we sat down and we do our goals like until we have really defined goals for the yeah and it’s actually like one of the things I look forward to most every year, like just sitting down and reviewing last year and going over next year. So we’re recording this a couple of weeks early, so we’ll be doing that in the next couple weeks it should be fun.

Josh: Awesome, awesome cool dance man good deal alright.

Brandon: Did you just say cold beans?

Josh: Yeah.

Brandon: Wow.

Josh: Yup that just happened.

Brandon: Alright show before or we go more downhill.

Josh: Yeah, yeah alright let’s do this thing. Well before we get the show on, let's bring on today's sponsor.

Brandon: Lima One Capital is the nation's premier lender for residential real estate investors. Lima One makes it easy to finance all of your rental properties and fix and flip projects. Their Rental30 is a 30 year fixed rate loan that helps you as an investor unlock positive cash flow in an individual rental property or portfolio.

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Josh: Alright big thanks to our sponsors that is awesome we definitely appreciate all of our sponsors alright let's do this. Today’s guest is Sharad Mehta. I didn't ask him how to say his last name.

Brandon: Yeah I didn’t either we’re going to…

Josh: So Sharad and Sharad is…

Brandon: Hilarious.

Josh: He is funny as hell, you got to listen to stories, he's got some awesome stuff to share. He’s got some amazing tips and definitely recommend tuning in. This is a guy who owns hundreds of- well he's done hundreds of deals.

Brandon: Yeah over 200 some deals including 50 rentals free and clear and like.

Josh: Free and clear.

Brandon: Yeah amazing in the last five years.

Josh: In five years.

Brandon: Five years.

Josh: Five years.

Brandon: And he learnt it all from somewhere that you guys go towards there.

Josh: Oh yeah and we didn't actually know that which is I’m like oh that's nice.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: Awesome so let’s get to this thing, Sharad welcome to the show man it’s good to have you on board.

Sharad: Thank you man, my pleasure.

Brandon: Yeah this is actually our second attempt at this but Josh hadn’t restarted his computer in two and a half years so he had some tech issues.

Josh: Apparently it’s all my fault. Sharad let’s just get to this man. I’m just cutting Brandon off straight up. And by the way, feel free to make fun of him throughout the show.

Brandon: Nobody likes making fun of me like the guests they don’t make fun of me they make fun of you. Notice that pattern happening?

Josh: I have not.

Brandon: Okay you watch for it.

Josh: I have not Sharad this is all about you. Alright so let's hear your story because your story is really interesting. You came to the States when you were 18 years old from India right?

Sharad: Right.

Josh: Tell us how you got started.

Sharad: So I moved here what I was 18, I moved here from India, came here from school. Can I tell you guys a funny story?

Josh: No.

Brandon: Sure.

Sharad: Somewhat related to real estate?

Brandon: Alright Josh will plug his ears; earmuffs Josh.

Sharad: So when I first moved here, so I’m filling out a college ethnicity form okay. So we don’t do this stuff in India. So this is like okay I’ll fill out name and then it’s asking me my ethnicity. There was a question about and I’m going down the list and I see Caucasian, I have no idea what it is. African-American I’m like I don’t know what that is.

And there was American-Indian and, “I’m like well I am in America, I’m from India,” so I tick that box. And then I went down the list further and I’m like, “Whoa there is no American Chinese, no American Japanese. Man these people must really love Indians. They have a special category for people who come from India.”

Man this is awesome, everybody else gets put in one pool, Asians and Indians get this special treatment. So I checked that box, few weeks later I get a $5000 scholarship check and I had no idea why. And I’m thinking to myself man it’s about time, these people recognize how smart I am, I have all SATs and I did not realize it for a good nine months.

I thought I was American Indian and I cancelled my school after a couple of semesters and then I was filling out the same form at a different school. But this time the college consul was sitting next to me and she was like, “Wait, you’re American Indian?” I’m like, “Duh I’m from India and I’m in America like what else do you think I am?” Do I look like Chinese to you?” so she corrected me and then I’m like ah…

Josh: And you sent the $5000 back of course right?

Sharad: Sure yes, yes that’s exactly…

Brandon: I don’t know how that was real estate related at all but I love it. That’s good.

Josh: Well probably my favorite BiggerPockets.com podcast story so far.

Sharad: Alright we’re off to a good start so now the pressure is on me to keep it up.

Brandon: It is.

Sharad: But anyway I moved here and got my degree in accounting after changing my major a couple of times. I went to school in New York by the way.

Josh: Where did you go?

Sharad: Baruch College Sydney University and then I moved to Chicago for my job. And at that time my girlfriend then my wife now moved here, she went so school in Chicago DePaul University got a degree in accounting. So I was working for Abbot Labs Pharmaceutical Company and then I changed jobs to an accounting firm. I’d always been into saving money.

So basically how I got started was in 2010 when I bought my first property. My wife and I we’d always saved up money we’d always lived on lower of the two incomes. Since she started working that’s what we’ve always done, live on lower of the two incomes save the higher one.

Brandon: Can I interrupt you there real quick?

Sharad: Yeah of course.

Brandon: I just want to know I mean do you have any tips for people that are out there like I mean a lot of people struggle with saving money a lot right. And you lived on one income and you said you always done that right. Is that something that culturally that's like ingrained in you or are you just really good at that or like why are…?

Josh: We’re Americans we don’t have to do that.

Brandon: We’re so bad at it like here we’re so bad it.

Sharad: Maybe that’s where me being American Indian comes in. No but I think it was always the fact that both my wife and I we’ve had bigger goals in life. We just don’t want work a corporate job, save money put it in mutual fund, retire and then just live off those savings.

We want to do something big with our life our goal is much, much larger than just going through life working a corporate job. So once you have a goal big enough and you’re motivated enough it’s not that hard. I mean my wife and I are both luckily have made decent salaries.

So living on even the lower of the two incomes, it wasn’t that I was working at McDonald’s shift manager and she was working corporate job. Both of us had decent corporate jobs so it wasn’t that big of a deal to live on the lower income. I mean at the same time I don’t want to give an impression that we were living like poor people.

I mean we travel extensively we’ve actually been to five continents. We even do Africa, South America so we’ve travelled a lot. But at the same time you have to make some sacrifices to achieve a bigger goal in life. And luckily my wife and I we’re both on the same page when it comes to that.

So it’s not been that hard but if you have a bigger goal and you just make that your end goal that this is what I got to do, everything else gets put on the sideline.

Brandon: Yeah I like that.

Josh: Can I dig in a little more on that; I mean is it about foregoing the ‘Shiny Objects’ in exchange for those things that- like you take a guy like Brandon right he's an addict. The guy can’t drive past one of those little green logos on a coffee shop with the naked…

Brandon: Stop, mermaid on them.

Josh: Yeah naked mermaid place like he can't go past a Starbucks without going there. He’s addicted to that right so that's how he chooses to use his money and that’s fine nothing wrong with that instead of doing that buying a big, big TV.

Fancy clothes, things like that, it's this is what we care about; we’re going to live on the essentials. We don't care about all the stuff let's break it down to its core what do we actually need to get by with that we’re happy and comfortable and just kind of move on. Is that it?

Sharad: Yeah exactly I mean I drive 2010 Toyota Prius at this point in my life I can pretty much afford any car I want.

Josh: Bugatti?

Sharad: Yeah if I really wanted it.

Josh: Yeah buddy, come on go get it.

Sharad: No, Prius gets me from point A to point B and it’s got a navigation system and a backup camera so it’s a good deal.

Josh: Oh yeah awesome buddy.

Brandon: I got the 2007 Prius so I’m not as cool as 2010.

Josh: I got a 13 Prius C it’s literally like a golf cart with like 82 horsepower.

Sharad: Right and always…

Josh: Yeah I could walk faster than it.

Sharad: Yeah I mean stuff like I’m not really into cars. I mean Prius is actually my- I mean now I’m really into TESLAs. So maybe next car that I get probably might be TESLA but Toyota Prius does the job. I mean I work from home so I don’t really need to drive anywhere.

This is the watch that I’m wearing. My in-laws gave me a gift six years ago actually today. Today is my wedding anniversary like I told you guys; I still wear the same watch.

Brandon: Happy Anniversary.

Sharad: Thank you. So I mean it’s the stuff that I don't really care about I don’t even get excited about that stuff. I like reading books so my wife said she wants me to buy something I said, “Hey why don’t you buy me a Kindle with the backlight I don’t know what it’s called.

Brandon: Paper White or something like that?

Sharad: The Paper White yeah.

Brandon: That’s what I asked for Christmas too.

Sharad: Yeah I like reading books at night and my wife goes to bed at night and she’s like, “Hey can you shut off that light?” I’m like, “Hey why don’t you buy me a Kindle white light or whatever that’s called?” and she’s like, “Yeah I’ll be happy to.”

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: Yeah. So we haven’t really talked about this, so we haven’t even gone to real estate but thus far I think this is the topic of frugality right I think it's the topic of not going to the extreme of frugality but I think it's just being smart with your money and not spending it. I remember when I had some Section 8 properties.

And it would always amaze me I would walk in and occasionally go and hobnob with the tenants and there was always the big screen, always the brand-new shiny shoes and really nice clothes. But the mattress in many cases was on the floor and there were bags of garbage in the back of the house.

I mean it was just like the priorities of what you kind of focus on and what you put your importance to, are what’s going to drive. Right so if you have that bigger goal of hey I want to something I want to accomplish this goal of early retirement or saving enough money to do whatever it is that you want to do.

You just have to kind of break things down right I mean at the end of the day I think we all think that we need a ton of money. I remember when I was 22/23 and I was living off of under 20 grand a year, and I was very comfortable. I didn't read any more than that. And I was going out all the time.

I was doing stuff so I think if we kind of once you have kids things change, it gets harder but I think that's kind of an important thing. And for all the people who might be listening or saying, “Oh my God I don’t know it’s such a struggle.” Stop and break down your life and budget right I mean isn’t that the basis for what everything comes from?

Sharad: Yeah exactly I truly believe one thing that separates a really successful person from somebody who is average it’s the motivation. If you’re motivated enough you will get anything done no matter what. You just have to have that motivation.

People can make sacrifices if you really want something badly enough you’ll do whatever you need to do to get it done. There’s no other reason. I mean I really wanted to be financially independent early in my age even though I look like a 46 year/ 47 year old I how I was yesterday.

Josh: You don’t, not at all.

Sharad: Right but I’m 33 and my wife and I a couple of years we were financially independent we did not need to work for anybody. We could just sit at home and not anything but my wife would just get crazy and kill me.

Josh: By the way you don’t look a day over 38.

Sharad: 42, oh.

Brandon: So let’s talk about that rental or the first property you bought anyway I don’t know if it was rental. Let’s talk about that the first property you bought, how did that come about, what happened there?

Sharad: The first investment property?

Brandon: Sure let’s go with first investment property.

Sharad: The first investment property that I bought was a two unit.

Brandon: Was a what; okay.

Sharad: A two unit, a duplex in Indiana. I lived in Chicago now I live in California but I lived in Chicago back then. And I’d been interested in investing in rental properties. My wife and I we’d saved up some money and then I was reading a lot about real estate.

And then around that time- you guys didn’t pay me to say this- but I came across BiggerPockets.com. No jokes I seriously came across BiggerPockets.com. If anybody goes through my profile they can go back to 2010 beginning is when I became a member. And I bought my first property in august 10th 2010.

Brandon: Nice.

Sharad: And I paid cash for it, got it fixed up, bought the second September or like four weeks later. It was a three unit. The first one I paid $22,000 and I spent about $12-13,000. And I rented both the units and I was getting about $1300 a month in rent for both of them combined.

Brandon: Wow.

Sharad: So that was a pretty good deal and tenants were paying their utilities. And I mean I’ll be honest I learned all these things from BiggerPockets.com. I’ve never taken any real estate course the only book that I’d read about was The Journey of Real Estate Investors. So that kind of gave me an idea of what I wanted to do.

I didn’t get excited about doing flips I mean I do some flips now but back then I didn’t see myself as buying a property, selling it, fixing it up and selling. It just didn’t appeal to me as much as buying something and fixing it up and renting it out. I just wanted to go after passive income.

Brandon: Can I talk to you about the cheaper prices, so we've been talking a lot lately. I mean a couple of weeks ago we did a show with Ben Leybovich, Brian Burke and Serge Shukhat and we talked about this the dangers of buying a property in a low income area; like a $30,000 area.

Josh: Not low-income look for inexpensive houses.

Brandon: Yeah inexpensive houses so like which are usually but not always found in lower-income areas. But then I did a video; one of the bonus videos that came with the book on rental property investing that we launched. One of the videos I did was called The Truth About Buying $30,000 Houses. So there's a lot of conversation about this.

And you went and bought one of those and you weren’t even living there. Can you kind of tell, I mean like are the great cash flowing properties today? Are they going up in value? I mean tell us about those early properties what’re they like today?

Josh: Five years later yeah.

Brandon: Yeah five years later do you still recommend them do you still buy them?

Sharad: Yeah I still buy inexpensive properties but I’ve moved to a little bit better area.

Brandon: Okay.

Sharad: Yeah I mean I moved to within the same county just a different city the areas where I invested it’s a small county made up of 12-15 cities. So I primarily focus on three main cities. So the first city where I bought the properties I would call it a C Area. For example the first property that I bough I paid $22,000 for it and I think I spent about 12-13.

So I was all in for about 35. I did six months a year later I did a cash-out refinance in the place for 45-$50,000. I got all my money out of it. The second property that I bought, I paid $44,000 for three year let it needed about $5000 into it. I put that in and I think I’m getting about 16 or $1700 a month in rent for it.

And it upgraded six months for 55-$56,000 so I was able to get majority of my money out. Today and they’re still cash flowing, I still own those properties, I’m still happy with them, they make me money everywhere. I own enough properties but every now and then few properties will give you an issue but it’s more of a volume thing than a particular neighborhood per se.

I mean some neighborhoods per se are better. But when you take the risk of going into a lower income area you know your risk is going to be higher because you’re getting higher cash flow. But as long as you’re ready for that, I won’t say they have been a walk in the park but they’ve had some ups and downs. Would I go back and do the same thing again; absolutely without a doubt.

Brandon: Okay, cool.

Josh: Got it.

Brandon: I like hearing that other perspective because I’m always warning people be careful with those properties they can be very dangerous in that like you buy a property I mean yours has a ton of cash flow right. So imagine you bought that same property for $22,000 put $13,000 into it you got 35 into it and you rent it out for $450 a month.

Those are the numbers that I hear often and at the end of the day those aren’t going to cash flow very well. Yours rented for $1300 a month or 16 like those are solid numbers.

Sharad: Right and then I’ll tell you how I did research on the area. I would go drive by the areas, I literally would call the local police department, I would talk to the sergeant and I would say, “I’m looking to buy this property what do you guys think?” and I would literally ask him, “If it were your son or your daughter buying this property as an investment would you recommend?” and I would only buy it if they said yes.

Brandon: Wow that’s a great tip.

Josh: Yeah interesting.

Sharad: That's what I did I mean I had no idea, when you ask somebody about when I’m calling the police department, I don’t do that anymore but when I first started out I didn’t ask them about the crime stats. But I would just ask them, when I first started asking the person I was talking to, when I would ask him, “Hey would you recommend your son, your daughter or somebody in your family to invest in this property?”

And that's when they really think about it, that’s when they start looking at it from a different perspective. And I think that really helped me, they would tell me, “Yeah if the price was right definitely.”

Josh: Interesting.

Sharad: So that’s all I needed to know, if the price is right, the area is fine and it’s been working out really good for me so far.

Josh: That’s cool.

Brandon: Awesome.

Josh: That’s cool. Hey really quick you had talked about it being a C area for those people who don't know what’s an A or B or C really quickly.

Sharad: I mean A and B are the easiest to define. A would be a high-end like I would say for example I lived in Down Town Chicago before I moved here I live in Carlsberg California. I would call where I was living in Down Town Chicago an A Area. Where I live now Carlsberg California an A Area, School Districts are really good.

In my case the average starting home prices have 500-$600,000. So those are high income areas so that I would call A Area where everybody wants to live essentially. D would be where nobody wants to live they only live because that's the only place they can live. They don’t make enough money to live in any other area. There’s a lot of gang activity that’s what would be a D Area.

To me B and C would fall somewhere in between A and D. B would be. would I live in that area if I had to? If the answer is yes to me that’s a B area. If I have to live there would I be concerned for my safety? If the answer is no yeah that’s a B area. My property manager is a female so would I be comfortable if she’s going after dark to collect the rent?

Or if I had to send my wife after dark to collect the rent, would I feel comfortable about that? If the answer is yes, to me that’s a B area. Not my first choice of area to live in but I would if I had to. Average school rating is four or five and C would be somewhere between B and D I guess.

Brandon: Okay.

Josh: Fair enough cool.

Brandon: So, you talked about you lived in Chicago.

Sharad: Yes.

Brandon: And these properties you bought you said were Indiana?

Sharad: Yes, about 30-45 minutes outside of Downtown Chicago.

Brandon: Okay, I guess I’m not familiar with the area that much.

Josh: They are close yeah.

Brandon: Yeah I was thinking like, hours and hours away, but that’s not too far.

Sharad: No the best way to think of the area, I invested in Lake County Indiana. Okay, the best way to think of this area as a suburb of Chicago. Like even the local news that they get as part of Indiana, is Chicago news, like the news that we get in Chicago covers that part of Indiana so there’s a thing that connects them.

Josh: I was just going to say it’s like the difference between your house and your town Brandon.

Brandon: Thanks, alright yeah I got you.

Sharad: I still have my office in Indiana. I slide back at least once a month. I fly to Chicago Airport either O’Hare or Midway and I go to Indiana. Sometimes I stay there, sometimes I stay with my brother in Chicago and I just commute every day.

Brandon: So how did you find that location then, I mean how did you determine that was the area you wanted to invest in?

Sharad: I guess kind of that’s where the research I did on BiggerPockets.com came handy because I wanted to be within 45 minutes to an hour drive from Downtown Chicago.

Brandon: Okay.

Sharad: I could not go East because I would be in Lake Michigan.

Brandon: You could. I mean there might be real estate out there somewhere.

Sharad: I could yeah. West would be not, West would be too expensive. South wasn’t safe enough. So I looked at South East Indiana and that’s kind of how I started looking at it. And I’m like, hey let me see what’s available out there. At first I didn’t even realize how close Indiana was to Chicago. And I would call these agents and I would be like, hey are you guys on the same time zone?

Or are you guys an hour ahead? Because Indianapolis is, so I just assumed the whole state of Indiana so that’s how I started looking at it. I would go there after work or on the weekends, drive around, talk to people. Just make myself familiar with the area, and that’s how I got started.

Brandon: That’s cool.

Josh: So you talk about calling agents, and talking to people? What people were you talking to?

Sharad: I would literally go to a local grocery store and just talk to people, call a convenient store, gas station, call the police department, ask them about the neighborhood. Just talk to local people, and I would drive around the neighborhood, I wanted to feel comfortable. And if I see a lot of graffiti on houses, a lot of boarded up houses I kind of stayed away from that area.

Josh: Okay, and then the agent part, I mean, was that your strategy for learning the area as well or was that your strategy for finding deals, were these deals on-market, off-market?

Sharad: Initially when I first started out, everything I bought was MLS deals. I mean back then 2010, 2011, nobody really had cash and I was buying cash, weren’t lending so that gave me a little bit of leg up on other people where I could just take a cash-off. The first house that I bought was listed for $65,000 and I bought it for 22.

Brandon: Wow.

Sharad: I started on with 17, 5 cash offer one week closing. They came back and what I did initially was again this came from BiggerPockets.com-you guys are not paying me for this but maybe you should but anyway.

Josh: Wait so really quick, that property was listed at 65k, and you had the ball to offer $17,000. Why did you offer $17,000 on a $65,000property?

Sharad: Because that’s what I thought it was worth.

Josh: Okay.

Sharad: I had the cash, I thought- when I first started out, I would buy everything directly through a listing agent. I did not have my own agent. I would call listing agents, this is a tip that I’ve found from BiggerPockets.com that you’ll get some inside information and the selling agent would have a little bit extra motivation to get the deal done because on these houses, they’re not really making a lot of money.

If on a $2500, $2000 dollar commission if they have to split with another person, they’re making $1000, $1250, but now if it’s only them $2,000 or $2,500 you get a little bit more information about what’s the real motivation, what’s their important number. And I said, hey let’s start at 17, 5 and let’s see what they come back at. They came back at 30, I went back to 20. They came to 25 and I said 22 take it or leave it and they took it.

Brandon: That’s great I like that tip a lot.

Josh: Masterful.

Brandon: Yeah love that tip you were saying about if you work with the selling agent instead of having your own agent. They get that extra money. Now I mean technically, legally, they’re not supposed to have any added motivation or incentive. They’re supposed to present everything equally and fairly and represent the seller.

But come on, we all know that they really I mean like it’s double the income. So of course they’re going to be a little quicker probably to import yours. They got a stack of offers, they’re probably going to put yours in first if the bank -I don’t know if they ask of their opinion -but anyway, they’re definitely going to work harder for you because you’re using them. I think that’s a great tip.

You have to be obviously your agent that is not necessarily on your side like fiduciary is that the word like...

Josh: Fiduciary.

Brandon: Yeah they’re not technically representing you at all so you have to be careful but it can be a good tip to get some good deals.

Sharad: I mean another thing is, when I started on first, I had more time on my hand than I had cash available. So I wanted to use my time as much, get the highest rate of return on my time as much as possible. So I had enough time to deal with the listing. It does create a little bit of extra work for you. I don’t deal with listing agents very often.

Every now and then if I know it’s a really good deal, I’ll call the listing agent and say, hey I need to get this deal, tell me what the number is to put in an offer. But it does create a little bit of extra work on your part worse if working with the buyer’s agent, so I don’t do that so much anymore but when I first started out.

Josh: Hey Sharad, walk me through that conversation you get on the phone, you call a listing agent say the property is listed at 50k you think it's worth 30. How do you probe the agent and in a way to get that information out of them? Or at least to find out what the bottom line is to the seller?

Sharad: Let’s say if a house is listed for 50 and I think it’s real worth 30 I would say, “Okay I’m going to put an offer for 25 what do you think? Is it going to go through, am I in the ballpark am I way off?” and if they say, “No let’s take it and see what the seller comes back with,” at least I know I’m somewhere in the ballpark.

If I go in with 25 where the seller in not yielding anything below 45 they’ll say, “Don’t even worry about it you’re just wasting your time.” So you kind of get an idea if you’re in the same ballpark or not, you put in an offer and then see what the seller comes back at.

And then kind of the selling agent will come back and say, “If you come up a couple of more thousand dollars or whatever I can make it happen with the seller. And then you kind of get an idea if you’re within $1000-$2000.

Josh: I love this tip. I think particularly for newer investors I think it’s an outstanding strategy I mean particularly because you probably don't have the knowledge at that point to really know if your numbers are in the exact ballpark. You’re still learning, you're still trying to figure out your offers and having that person to be able to kind of flex with you, with the knowledge that they’ve actually spoken to the seller, that’s really helpful.

Sharad: Right I mean even now if my buyer’s agent will bring me a listing that I know is really hard deal, I will call my agent and say, “Hey call the listing agent, offer them $500 or $1000 bonus that I’ll pay directly to them. Just try to get an idea of where we need to be on this number.” And then sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Josh: Interesting.

Brandon: I’ve done that too now that I have an agent that I work with a lot I can’t just go and call up a listing agent every time I want to because then I’m hurting my relationship with my own buyer’s agent that he's represented me a lot. So what I do now a lot of times I'll have my agent call the other agent.

I’ll be like, “Hey Jason can you call up the agent and just feel them out for a $30,000 offer just see what they say.” And then he knows the game and he'll call them up and they’re buddy buddies because it's a small town and the agents know each other. And he’ll get back to me and bee like, “yeah I think we’re probably pretty at the point.” So yeah it’s a good way to get around that even if you have an agent.

Sharad: Right no, I agree I mean keeping a relationship with an agent is definitely but my agent I think I do about 40-50 deals within every year, so if he doesn’t get commission on one deal, he understands. If it’s a flip deal he’s going to get it on the backend but if it’s just a rental property know he’s not going to kill himself if he doesn’t get one deal.

Josh: Awesome, how many deals have you done; 40-50 a year is a lot so where are you at?

Sharad: 225-250.

Josh: And what's the composition of that; what’s buy-and-holds versus flips?

Sharad: I would say over 20% that I hold in my own portfolio and 95% of those are free and clear; no loan, nothing.

Josh: Okay.

Sharad: And a big majority of them have been wholesale deals.

Josh: Okay.

Sharad: Wholesale to an overseas company.

Josh: Interesting.

Sharad: And then about 15-20 flips and then maybe 15-20turnkey.

Brandon: Okay, wow.

Josh: Right on.

Brandon: So you do quite a bit different stuff with real estate it’s not just anymore just buy those rentals, now you’re doing flips, wholesales you’re selling turnkey doing all sorts of stuff.

Sharad: I mean let’s say if I won a $10million jackpot today, I will just completely stop wholesaling, flipping, turnkey I’d just go out and buy whatever I can with that money.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: Okay.

Sharad: That’s what I would do, I mean I do flips just to use that profit, flip, wholesale turnkey just to use that profit to go out and buy properties for myself.

Josh: Right on.

Sharad: That’s what I do.

Josh: Hey you talked about the wholesaling to the overseas company I’m assuming you probably relationships with- I should not assume anything but yeah what's the story there?

Sharad: Well with the wholesale actually I got introduced to this company the CFO of that company is cousin of one of my friends so that’s how I got connected. And what they were doing at that point they were buying and selling properties to local investors in Australia.

Josh: Okay.

Sharad: So that’s how I got connected and I should take it back; the wholesale deals are not per se wholesale. It’s more like I was helping them buy properties in the area and they were paying me profit out of each deal. So it was a minimum profit that I would get, it was agreed that I would receive all the profit on each deal.

So it wasn’t that I was buying a property for $10,000 or $30,000 and selling it to them for $35,000. They came with a lot of volume they said, “hey we do 40-50 deals a year just tell us how much you’re going to charge per deal or based on the profit.

Brandon: Interesting.

Josh: Right on. So really quickly, hundreds of deals, do you have a single criteria for your buy and holds and a different criteria for other strategies that you do or is there just kind of a general criteria? I’d be curious kind of which what are you shooting for; are you going for the bread-and-butter three-twos what exactly are you doing?

Sharad: Well for buy and hold the areas that I invest, there aren’t many three-twos it’s mostly two bedroom one bath or three bedroom one bath. So that’s what I go for and even the properties that I’m selling I buy them myself or most of them with my own cash and I only buy them if I’m comfortable holding them in my own portfolio.

Josh: Okay.

Sharad: So that’s my criteria; would I want to hold it in my own portfolio if I had the money available? And if the answer is yes that’s the only reason why. Like for example in turnkey, I’ve only sold my B properties. I still hold my C properties because I am more than comfortable with the ups and downs of a C property but I don’t want any out of state or a real estate investor to take that risk.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: Okay.

Brandon: And I think that's good because I think a lot of turnkey providers are selling properties C and D class properties to out-of-state investors so I think that’s cool.

Josh: Hey Sharad I mean is that the only thing properties that you would want to hold, I mean is there like a per door number or square footage; do you have other property criteria that you’re looking at?

Sharad: Sure I mean like I said I buy everything cash so one of my minimum coverage should be about 15% that’s what I go for ensured. Or in terms of like gross return for every 40-$50,000 I want to make at least $1000 a month in rent. I mean everything I buy almost I mean now everything that I’ve been buying for the last couple of years has been a single family house.

So I don’t pay any utilities, I’m responsible for lawn maintenance, grass or anything like that. So basically I’m getting for every 40 to $50,000 depending on the neighborhood if I’m getting a minimum $1000 a month in rent I’ll go for it just because it’s a no brainer.

Brandon: Okay so you mentioned that you own these rental properties how many did you say you had?

Sharad: Over 50.

Brandon: Okay so you have over 50 properties, you hold them all free and clear?

Sharad: I’d say 48 of them.

Brandon: Wow okay so first of all…

Sharad: 48 or 47.

Brandon: First of all that’s crazy.

Josh: That’s crazy.

Brandon: In these past few years to have 48 properties free and clear that’s amazing. A couple questions I want to hit. First of all how did you do that? Meaning is it because you were flipping and wholesaling and buying the properties for cash? And then secondly why do you do that? What’s the purpose of not having mortgages on them?

Sharad: Sure. First of all how I do that like I said it just comes back to being living on the lower of the two incomes. To this day I still do that but now at this point what I make from real estate is much higher than what my wife is making. She’s got a really nice job, six figure salary so it’s not like we’re hiding for anything.

But from real estate the income is much higher so we’re able to reinvest all the money we make from real estate into just buying more rental properties. So selling those- no selling but working with that overseas company, Australian company obviously that really helped because in the last four or five years I think they’ve done about 100-125 deals. All that money just got reinvested into more properties for myself.

Brandon: Okay.

Sharad: All the money that I make from flips just goes back into more properties. And then why I do that is because I don’t want to deal with debt. I have other businesses that I do; I’m working on a startup company so I kind of want to keep my real estate business as simple as possible. I understand as well as anybody else I mean I have an accounting degree.

I can go out I can leverage my properties I have 300 units but I don’t want to deal with that headache. I have more than enough properties I have even within real estate I do turnkey, flips, wholesales so I have more than enough income coming in where, if it’s working for me not having any debt on it then why do it?

Even when somebody goes out gets debt on the property the end goal is to pay it off. If I can just have it paid off to begin with why go get a loan on it?

Brandon: I love it, I love that there isn’t one size fits all. I love that you say you have an accounting degree you get that maybe leverage will maybe give you a higher return maybe. But if this is working for you, it fits your plan what you're trying to achieve.

Sharad: Yeah, exactly.

Brandon: I love that.

Sharad: I mean the properties that I’m buying I can go out, I can leverage it and I can get all my money out of it. But I don’t want to deal with that, I don’t want to go through the lending process, dealing with the lenders because like I said I’m working on a startup company. My dad and I were thinking of starting- my dad lives in Tanzania.

So we’re thinking of starting a business in Tanzania so for me the most important thing is my time. I completely understand I can get a much higher rate of return on my money no doubt. But it’s my time; I need to use my time as efficiently as possible. I have to get the highest return on my time and I have to go where I get the highest return on my time.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: Let’s talk about that; let’s talk about the time. So in order to start a business in Tanzania- I can never say it right- yeah in Dar-es-Salaam?

Sharad: Yeah exactly there you go. I’ve been there a couple of times.

Josh: Yeah nice it’s supposed to be nice.

Sharad: Yes.

Josh: Yes you got to do that, you’ve got a portfolio; you’re acquiring 50 properties a year that’s a property a week. What is your role within your own business? So do you have a full-time property manager? Are you doing management acquisition are you doing everything? How do you fall into your own business?

Sharad: No I have a full-time property manager, we actually have two. One property manager manages most of the deals that I did with the Australian company. And then I have another property manager, she’s managing all my properties and the investors that I'm selling properties to internally. So where my role fits in; so actually I moved to California exactly four months ago today.

Josh: Okay.

Sharad: Ever since I moved I’ve done about 25-30 deals. So my business has actually become better in the last four months since I moved here. Because I feel I use technology like crazy; FaceTime, Skype, Whatsapp, you name it. I’ve made every contractor get a Smartphone. If they will not get a Smartphone I’m not working with them.

So my contractors have upgraded to iPhones and Androids and or whatever. They will literally call me from a house and they’ll tell me, “Hey this is the issue what do you want to do?” they could call right then and there, done. When I was in Indiana I had an office there, I would go drive there, look at the problem make the same decision and drive back.

I would waste half hour to an hour just driving back and forth. And then with me even though I do all these deals, I don’t really care what plumbing somebody uses or fixtures they use. Like now the houses that we do, every house looks the same; same paint, same flooring, same furnace, same shingle, windows, we don’t even make receipt.

We have a Spreadsheet we buy everything from Home Depot more or less. So my guys go to Home Depot; home depot has a couple of my credit cards. My guys would go there, all we’ve told Home Depot is, just make sure whoever comes there you put the job mail on the receipt. Don’t forget that we have to put the job address on the receipt. So when my bookkeeper gets the information he knows which property the receipt belongs to.

Josh: Yeah.

Brandon: Hey real quickly, I want to go real specific on this. When you go to Home Depot and you’re checking out, are you talking about when they ask that is there a PO name or are you talking about like writing on the receipt and then faxing it?

Sharad: No like a PO name, so I get all the receipts by email.

Brandon: Okay.

Sharad: So I just get all the receipt by email, my bookkeeper has an access to that email. So he’ll just go there and then Home Depot has set up a back account also for us where we can log in and it has all the property information.

Brandon: Okay.

Sharad: So we can go in and see which property we bought the material for and that’s it and they have two credit cards on file and they will just call me and they say, “Which card do you want to put it on?” and I just say you put it on card one, card two that’s it.

Brandon: Do they have to call you and I know we’re getting really specific here.

Sharad: Sure.

Brandon: But I hope this helps other people because it’s helping me yeah.

Sharad: Go ahead.

Brandon: This is one of the biggest irritations of my business I don’t have a system down for this perfectly yet and that’s why I want to pick your brain. When my contractors go to Home Depot to go buy something right now they actually have a card I don't give them the card. Right now they have to do a phone call every time. So you’re saying you open up like a business card and then your contractors have access to that card is that what you’re saying?

Sharad: Home Depot has my card like I mean I have the cards, I don’t even know where the cards are because I don’t use them locally. The only time we use it at a Home Depot. So all they call me and ask, “Hey which card do you want to use?” I just give them the last four digits. They have the cards on file.

Brandon: Okay.

Sharad: I just tell them the last four digits. And I mean the contractors that I work with I’ve been working with the same contractors. I trust them; I would not work with them if I do not trust them. I trust them, if they need to buy anything, they would just call me and say, “Hey can I buy this use your discount and you’ll take it off my final pay?”

I’m like yeah don’t worry about it just put it on separate receipt and then instead of your name, Home Depot would put their name so I know it’s not for a job but it’s out of the final payment.

Brandon: Okay and are these actually Home Depots credit cards or are these your own?

Sharad: Home Depot.

Brandon: Okay.

Sharad: I mean I’ve worked with different investors. I have two Home Depot cards and I have a couple of debit cards on file. Depending on which property or which account I’m paying out of.

Brandon: Okay and then like you said your bookkeeper then gets- I love that because I’ve never figured out a strategy for this. And we go to Home Depot at least once or twice a day. But my contractors are always there, so it just becomes a mess right.

Like a lot of times we’ve tried things like taking photos of the receipt. But I like that idea and then giving the bookkeeper access to that and syncs it all I love that. I’m going to talk to my wife right after this we’re going to talk.

Josh: You talked about discount. So is Home Depot giving you a discount based on volume or what’s that about?

Sharad: Volume yeah.

Brandon: I’m assuming that’s through the pro desk right?

Sharad: Through the pro desk yeah. And they would match any price like if I go to them and say, “I’m getting this price,” they will match it.

Brandon: That’s a quick tip right and I think Sharad you can go talk to the Home Depot Pro Desk or the lowest Pro Desk like those guys have so much more power to do cool things like give discounts and promotions and give you free stuff. I mean I love working with the Pro desk all the time and if you’re a landlord, if you’re an investor if you’re a flipper, go get to know your Pro desk.

Sharad: Like Home Depot the guy at pro desk he would text me and say, “I have this thing on sale like we buy for rental properties, we buy the traffic master the [Inaudible] [46:45] flooring. So he called me a couple of weeks ago and said, “Hey I have this sale going on if you buy 10 pallets of it- I think the regular price is $42-$45 a box.

Something like that, he said if you buy 10 pallets I’ll give you for $28-$30. And I said yeah sure buy it, we’ll just leave it at the store and then my guys will come pick it up as they’ll need it and then that’s it.

Josh: And they let you actually have them hold the inventory for you?

Sharad: Yeah I mean we do buy a lot from them. We buy a lot and like for example my guy at Home Depot he would call me they were doing a liquidation sale of very expensive vanities. Like low price would be four or $500, with granite top he said, “I am selling it $400 each,” I said buy three; I’ll use it for one of my flips and they had it for three months just kept it there.

Josh: Wow.

Brandon: Wow yeah.

Josh: That’s awesome.

Brandon: I love that, I think that’s fantastic.

Sharad: I mean another thing; I do understand my contractors, my property managers, people at pro desk. They really appreciate the business and I mean I would take them out to lunch. I’ll take my contractors, my property managers, the guys at pro desk.

When I started working with them I took the entire pro desk team out for lunch. I said, “Let’s go for lunch and just sit down and just see how you can help me and I can help you.” Something like that makes a big difference.

Josh: That’s the power of relationships. Yeah it’s amazing, it’s the little things. On the episodes where we’ve kind of dug in on financing and things like that, the guys who are crushing it on that front always talk about the same thing. Hey create those relationships, take these guys for lunch, take care of them, be good to them.

The banks, you name and now here we hear the same thing. Whether it’s the big vendors even the big box stores, sure they’re big giant corporate corporations but you’re dealing with the individuals at the company and then creating those relationships with those people are what can make them remember you and want to take care of you.

Sharad: Can I tell a little story about relationships?

Josh: Only if it’s as funny as the first story.

Sharad: It’s not funny but it was very profitable for me. But I’ll tell you a funny story to begin with. The first property I ever bought before my investment property was a condominium that my wife and I lived in. so going back to New York when I first moved there. So I was living in Brooklyn at Brighton Beach.

So I’m walking on the beach and I see all these buildings have the sign condominium. And I had no idea what it meant we call them flats in India I don’t know what condominium is. So I’m walking down the beach and I’m thinking holy crap man this company Condominium, they’re so freaking wealthy.

They own every single building on the beach on prime spots and I noticed some buildings in Manhattan downtown New York had the sign Condominium. And I’m thinking man, if I graduate from college and if I can get a job with condominium I’ll be so freaking happy.

That they own every single or most of the real estate buildings on prime spot, every building on Brighton Beach had a sign condominium. And I thought how do they own, I’ve never heard of them, but that’s the company I’m going to work for.

Brandon: That’s funny.

Josh: It’s even funnier than you were living in Brighton Beach.

Sharad: Yeah that was an interesting experience.

Josh: I don’t know if it still but it used to be very orthodox Jewish neighborhood.

Sharad: It was, yeah I mean and I moved there in 2001 so very interesting experiences around 9/11 but…

Josh: Oh yeah, oh boy.

Sharad: It was very interesting but I won’t get into that. But anyway going back to the story about relationship, so most of the deals that we do, we work with one type of company. And in some cases I really appreciate the business that I do with them. For [Inaudible] [50:53] or Hard Deals sometimes they would want to use their own titled company.

But we’ve had in some cases we’ve paid for the seller’s closing call just to keep relationship with this title company so that’s how much we appreciate the business with them. I think we’ve done most of the deals that we do, everything that I’m selling has to be with that titled company. That’s just no exception about that.

It has to be otherwise the deal is off. So I’ve been working with this type of company, again it comes down to relationship management. I knew this titled company every time they would help me out with something the lady that I worked with I’d go out with a bottle of wine, with it and I would email her an Amazon gift card.

Some gift card or something. So last year 2014 she calls me and she said, “Hey Sharad, this lender wants to liquidate some deals and I think you should talk to him.” I’m like okay a local bank, so I called this guy and he said, “I’m selling 18 houses would you be interested?” I said, “Hell yeah, I would take all 18 of them.”

Seven of them were in a D area so I called my agent and he said, “Hey can I take them?” I said, “Sure.” In hindsight I could have made $50,000 on those seven houses but anyway it is what it is and my agent just bought me a $200 dinner. But so I gave those seven deals to my agent and the other 11 deals I brought zero money to the table out of those 11 deals, two were flips.

And the other nine were rental properties. A buddy of mine he said, “I take four okay,” and then I said okay I take the other five. The profit and then he said he was going to put all the money and I was going to pay him back in a year. So the deal closed on June 26th 2014. The money that I made from those two flips more than paid for the other five rental properties that I kept for myself.

Brandon: Wow.

Sharad: And this would have never ever happened if it were not for that relationship. And what had happened was the bank that I bought the properties from they had acquired from another bank. So that’s how they got in they had 18 properties in their inventory. And after the deal closed I sent a bottle of wine to the person I was dealing with at the bank.

Now he just calls me directly any time he has any property. He doesn’t call anybody else like he emailed me last week he said, “Hey I have this guy he’s looking to sell 18 houses, we’re the lenders and I’m calling you, would you want to buy this portfolio for $1.5-$1.8 million?” I said, “Yeah the numbers make sense, I’ll figure out to buy it.”

So now he put me in touch directly with the seller. That was just with the relationship and I mean that makes a huge difference. Like even when I fly to Indiana once a month. The only reason I go there is to buy more properties that’s it. So when I go there I make sure the titled company that I’m working with if I close with them I’ll just go take a nice bottle of wine.

Or email them a gift card, and stuff like that just sit down with my property managers, my contractors and that makes huge difference. Now my contractor, the two or three contractors that I work with they appreciate the business they tell me you’re helping me make money, you’re helping provide food for our families so we’ll just do whatever you need to do to make money.

Josh: Yeah moral of the story is get everybody drunk with bottles of wine.

Sharad: Exactly and send them Amazon gift card later.

Brandon: There you go. No, I love that I remember back on the show we did with Glen Schworm back in the day, it was like one of the early episodes. He talked about he sends like titled companies and bankers and everybody like these big…

Josh: Like brownies.

Brandon: Like brownies at the time and he said that those relationships are so solid. So I’ve done a little bit of that I haven’t quite done as much as I should be doing but I don’t know this is renewing my interest in that. Alright before we go to the Fire Round I want to ask you one last question is you said you bought 30 some deals just since moving to California.

Sharad: Yeah about 25-30.

Brandon: Okay yes I mean that’s crazy are you finding all those still on the MLS or do you guys have other ways of finding deals now?

Sharad: MLS and then the lender he calls me every now and then he would have a deal here or there and then I buy it large from Share It Sale.

Brandon: Okay so you buy.

Sharad: Yeah auction.

Brandon: Okay interesting.

Sharad: A lot from auction like we try to buy three, four every month at the auction.

Brandon: Wow and are you actually having order it online?

Sharad: Yeah that’s what I go for.

Brandon: Ok okay so when you buy once a month that’s…

Sharad: Yeah I go there first Friday of every month that’s what I go for.

Brandon: You’re the second person or third maybe even in the last couple months here on the show that have, been buying their deals from there. I really need to look more into that because I don’t do a lot of that so that’s cool, that’s very cool. Alright awesome well don’t we shift gears here over to the world-famous Fire Round.

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It’s time for the Fire Round!

Brandon: Alright the Fire Round these questions come straight out of the BiggerPockets.com forum. So let’s fire them at you Sharad. Number one should I pay $30,000 for a mentor program? That was a question it was trending today on the forum, should I pay 30 grand for a mentor program?

Sharad: I would not.

Brandon: Why?

Sharad: What can a mentor teach you that you cannot learn online? Like I would not and I know if the mentor is giving some insider information then that’s a different story. But I can only tell people what I did. I did not the only really realistic book that I read was Millionaire Real Estate Investor. That kind of gave an idea of what I wanted to do, with my real estate strategy.

Brandon: Yeah.

Sharad: I’ve never taken any real estate course, none whatsoever. Everything I learned was from BiggerPockets.com like everything real estate related. So why would I tell anybody to spend $30,000 when you can go buy a house?

Brandon: Yeah I like that.

Josh: Awesome cool, alright next question; paying off student loans or start investing? Albright so if I’ve got a bunch of student loans should I pay them off or should I use the money that I would put towards paying those loans off towards investing in real estate?

Sharad: See it’s a tricky question. If a student loan is at 2-3% you know you can make more investment on something then again mathematically makes sense to go out and do investment. When I graduated I had like $2000 in credit card debt, I had scholarships and stuff so I didn’t have a student loan. My wife she was on a scholarship so she didn’t have any student loan.

And I buy everything cash, I have a couple of properties with debt on them but everything else is free and clear. I mean mathematically definitely if you’re paying 2-3% on student loan and you have money to either pay off go out and buy properties, mathematically it makes sense to just go out and buy properties.

Because your rate of return will be three, four times what you’re paying interest for it. I mean again I’m not doing that myself but if somebody is disciplined enough they invest in a good property where they know they’re going to make money then it makes sense to do that.

Josh: Perfect, cool.

Brandon: Oh it’s mine again.

Josh: It is.

Brandon: Alright number three; buying a rental property, I liked this question I never even thought about it. Should I buy rental property next door to a gas station?

Sharad: I don’t own anything next to a gas station but if somebody offered me a deal where the numbers make sense would I buy it; yes.

Brandon: Okay.

Josh: Okay.

Sharad: It just comes down to numbers if the numbers make sense I’ll buy it I mean if I’m buying similar houses in the area for my cost shares whatever let’s say $100,000 and if I can buy this property for 30, 40 yeah and if I can get similar rent. Because the tenants won’t care so much about a gas station next door but a home buyer would be concerned about that.

Josh: Yeah that makes sense.

Brandon: Cool.

Josh: Alright last question; I can't find any deals what do I do?

Sharad: You're not looking hard enough I guess. If you talk to wholesalers in your area make relationship with the agent, go to ShareIt sale, go to these auctions, look online on sites like auction.com and a couple of other websites. You will find the deals but deals will not be as good as what they were two, three years ago.

So I mean there are still decent deals out there but you just got to look much today than you could a couple of years ago.

Josh: Right on.

Brandon: Cool, alright good answers. So before we get out of here let’s move one last time over to the;

Famous Four!

Brandon: Alright so these are the famous four questions we ask everybody this and you've heard it before I know so let’s see what you have to say. Number one I think I know what you’re going to say since you’ve only read one real estate book.

Josh: Yeah.

Brandon: What is your favorite real estate book besides the book on rental property investing that we launched…

Josh: Shameless plug.

Sharad: Those are in a class of their own.

Brandon: Okay good.

Sharad: So those are definitely on a pedestal I worship them every day.

Brandon: Good you don’t even count them as real estate books you just kind of over that.

Sharad: You know what I’m going to do with those?

Brandon: What are you going to do with them?

Sharad: I’m going to sell them 10, 15 years from now as collector item.

Brandon: Okay good you got one of the early copies I’m sure.

Sharad: Exactly.

Brandon: Other than those two books that we released a few weeks ago here at BiggerPockets.com/rentalbook what else is your favorite real estate book?

Sharad: Millionaire Real Estate Investor.

Brandon: By Gary Keller.

Sharad: Yes.

Brandon: And I had to compete with that guy now.

Sharad: No but again you’re in a different class so yes.

Brandon: Yeah different class.

Sharad: Right. After your book what would I read, sure, why not Millionaire Real Estate Investor?

Brandon: Okay that’s what I thought, good.

Josh: Nice alright what about business book, you sound like that kind of guy that likes to read some business books what are your interests?

Sharad: I love autobiographies. I don't like reading like How To books they’ve never appealed to me because I have a little bit of ADD and then I get lost. Stories hold me really interested. I tell you the one that really changed the way I started looking at my business was Start Something That Matters by- what’s his name-Blake Mycoskie he’s the founder of Tom’s Shoes.

Josh: Okay.

Sharad: So I don’t know if you know the story, for every pair of show that they sell they donate one.

Josh: Yeah.

Brandon: Yeah that’s cool.

Sharad: So I’ve started doing that with my business, for every house that I sell, I provide education for a kid in India from first to 12th grade.

Josh: Wow. How do you do that?

Sharad: What do you mean how do I do that?

Brandon: I mean like a charity or something?

Josh: What is the cost?

Sharad: I pay directly to the school. So cost per year would be five to $600 and I pay for 12 years.

Brandon & Josh: Wow.

Sharad: Right I mean I tell you for me the best gift I ever got was my parents gave me education hands down. To me food, clothing, shelter, education are the four necessities. I mean that just changed my entire life and I can help even one kid just get out of poverty or just get to middle class nothing will make me happier.

So that book definitely that’s the only book I remember I bought it 11 at night, stayed up till four, read 75% of it, went to sleep, got up next morning at nine, finished the entire book within like six, seven. That’s the only book that I read in less than 12 hours. Definitely changed the way I looked at my business.

Brandon: I got to get that one.

Josh: Yeah it sounds really good. Well that’s amazing man I mean really yeah you’re a good guy.

Sharad: Thanks.

Josh: Yeah this got all serious yeah.

Brandon: That’s what Josh says about you.

Sharad: Yeah no, I mean…

Josh: You can’t use my line and screw with it.

Sharad: To me there has to be a bigger purpose in life. For me if I can do something for kids especially for me if I can do something for kids, nothing will make me happier.

Josh: Right on cool. What do you do for fun?

Sharad: I love spending time with my family. But lately I’ve been taking boxing classes so I go there three times a week that’s what I do.

Josh: Nice. You should challenge him Brandon.

Sharad: Yeah you want to go right now?

Brandon: I’m shaking my head and people can’t hear that the rocks rattling around in there.

Sharad: Yeah I just go there to just kind of get so exercise.

Josh: Cool.

Brandon: Yeah you seem like you’d be-I don’t want to take you on. You’d beat me up.

Sharad: I’m a horrible one when in boxing but it gets me good exercise.

Josh: Right on.

Brandon: That sounds cool. Alright my last question of the day and the last of the famous four; what you believe sets apart the successful investors from all those others who give up or fail or never get started?

Sharad: Motivation like a big Why motivation. That’s just if your Why is strong enough, no matter what the issue is you’ll get over it. Just that’s it I mean I love reading these like I said biographies, autobiographies when you read ten you’re like man these people can do so much. Right now I’m reading about Elon Musk the guy, TESLA.

I mean you read about these guys and then you’re like man I mean these people do a lot, then you definitely get the motivation. I mean they were motivated to do something big with their life. So they’re definitely a big motivation, will make you get over any obstacle in your life.

Brandon: I like that.

Josh: Right on. By the way I don’t know if you know this website, it is probably my favorite website next to BiggerPockets.com it’s called Wait But Why have you ever read it?

Sharad: No.

Josh: Okay so Wait But Why the guy writes these just ridiculous novel Esq. articles that are 5, 10, 20,000 words on all sorts of topics and he of course is obsessed with Elon Musk and has written some incredible articles on How And Why Space X Will Colonize Mars. Elon Musk the World’s Rightest Man, How TESLA Will Change The World are some of them.

And they’re amazing reads and like totally motivating. It’s a mostly sciencey type of site but it's pretty awesome.

Sharad: Thanks for the tip.

Josh: Yeah for sure.

Brandon: Wait But Why.

Josh: Wait But Why alright so before we let you go we got to find out where people can find out more information about you. Obviously you are on BiggerPockets.com so I'm assuming that is one place.

Sharad: Yeah I haven’t been as active as I would like to be, but yeah BiggerPockets.com, people do message me a lot on BiggerPockets.com and I make sure I respond to that. And then they can go to my website and then through BiggerPockets.com.

Josh: What’s your website?

Sharad: maxpropertiesllc.com.

Josh: Cool, finally before I let you go for those people listening but not watching this on YouTube we typically launched the YouTube versions of our shows a few weeks later there's a whiteboard behind you, what does it say on the whiteboard there Sharad?

Sharad: Podcast 155 so now you got to keep it at 155 don’t push me back unless you think 156 is going to get more views then I’ll be okay. Josh and Brandon asked me to shut off my phone and mind for this podcast. The mind part was much easier than the phone. And then camera makes you look five years older and I have three cameras on me right now.

Brandon: Yeah yesterday we recorded this Josh said so let me guess how old you are Sharad, is it what did you say, 40, 45?

Sharad: Yeah 46 is the highest memorable number.

Josh: You guys are calling me out.

Brandon: And you are what 33 so.

Sharad: 33 yeah I just turned 33 not even a month ago so I'm just getting over that 32 so more like 32 plus.

Josh: I’m really sorry it’s Maya culpa.

Sharad: Why are you sorry it’s okay I know I look old, that’s why I put that sign so people don’t mistake me.

Brandon: It’s the camera.

Sharad: It’s the camera exactly it’s the camera.

Brandon: It’s all in the camera.

Sharad: If you meet me in person like whoa are you…

Brandon: I thought you were seven and native American.

Josh: Yeah apparently.

Sharad: No American Indian.

Josh: American Indian.

Brandon: American Indian.

Sharad: There’s a difference.

Brandon: I was very confused when I saw in person.

Sharad: No American Chinese or…

Josh: Sharad it’s pleasure man really it has great show thank you so much for coming on.

Sharad: Sure thanks man I appreciate.

Brandon: Alright we’ll see you around.

Josh: Thanks bye-bye.

Josh: Alright everybody that was Sharad, what an awesome guy very motivating, unbelievable hundreds of deals, 50 give or take rental properties free and clear I mean oh by the way Brandon.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: Five years.

Brandon: Five years I’ve been doing this twice as long and he’s dominated me.

Josh: One more thing because you like to do things like plug this book that you wrote or this other book that you wrote.

Brandon: Like the book on rental property investing and managing rental properties at BiggerPockets.com/rentalbook that okay. Oh and no money at BiggerPockets.com/nomoney.

Josh: Right exactly yeah you can’t help yourself, verbal diarrhea you have a problem.

Brandon: I’m taking medicine for it, don’t worry.

Josh: This guy learned it all for BiggerPockets.com like that's so cool I mean it makes me feel so good it just reinforces that this community is so special and anyway…

Brandon: Josh.

Josh: Yes sir.

Brandon: I’m going to say group from everyone listening thank you for BiggerPockets.com. I don’t know if I’ve ever said that but thank you for BiggerPockets.com.

Josh: No you haven’t, you’ve always been a jerk with nasty smart ass comments and…

Brandon: I would not be where I am today without the stuff I learned on BiggerPockets.com mean I don’t know if I’d have any properties because my parents had told me that I shouldn't invest in real estate when I first started and they said I was crazy. And the only reason I did is because …

Josh: They also said you’re ugly right?

Brandon: That too but that doesn't change so they said I should not invest in real estate and then I went online and I found out that there are people doing this on a site called BiggerPockets.com and that’s how I started.

Josh: Amazing well.

Brandon: Thank you Josh.

Josh: Thank you man that was very kind of you I’m going to go cry now.

Brandon: Okay tear up.

Josh: You’re a good friend. Alright by the way guys for listening we really do appreciate it and if you guys are enjoying the content you please jump on iTunes, leave us a rating and review. We need more we've only got like 16, 1700 ratings and reviews and we have like 60,000 listening to the show.

Brandon: We had a goal that we were going to get 2000 I mean we were saying at the beginning of the year, we were trying to get 2000 reviews by the end of the year but we’re doing like 400 reviews today. So if we’re going to hit that goal guys that's what we have.

Josh: Geez 400 reviews today.

Brandon: I think we could it I mean there’s 60,000 people listening to these shows.

Josh: Oh yeah it takes like minutes so yeah go to iTunes go to the BiggerPockets.com podcast and jump in and leave us a rating review preferably five-star of course but yeah that would be awesome. And otherwise get BiggerPockets.com hang out with guys like Sharad who’s rocking it and available to hang out and answer your questions.

Otherwise go to BiggerPockets.com/Show155 to check out the show notes and connect with Sharad. So big thanks and.

Brandon: Hey Josh.

Josh: Happy New Year.

Brandon: I’ll see you next year.

Josh: Yeah man alright. I’m Josh Dorkin signing off.

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