How Experience & Focus Can Give you The Investment Synergies You Need - Jeff Greenberg

Thu, Jun 15, 2023 9:44AM • 30:06

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

jeff, rents, learning, investors, properties, fund, real estate, working, years, investing, student housing, market, started, decided, family, share, favourite, conversation, listen, love

SPEAKERS

Billy Keels

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Billy Keels  00:00

Today's conversation is sponsored by first generation Capital Partners.

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00:04

Sometimes people you hire don't do the job properly, and you're the one that gets to suffer later on undiscovered, little hidden problems pop up that they should have found. So making sure you doing your due diligence, make sure you hire good professionals to do that due diligence on these properties.

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00:25

You're listening to the going long podcast with Billy keels, the number one podcast for long distance real asset investing.

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Billy Keels  00:34

Welcome to the going on podcast, we're back once again to continue to help to educate you so you feel much more comfortable, as well as confident investing behind your back yard. And yet, I'm your host, Billy keels. And we're back once again for another engaging conversation with someone who's got loads of experience both in the professional world as well as in the investing world in the in the asset in the real asset world. So but before I even get there, I want to just say thank you so much to everybody who continues to share to tag to post the every single one of the going on podcast episodes, doing that across LinkedIn doing that across Instagram, really, really appreciate that. And if you also have, we're looking to leave your first honest written review, as well as ready, you can go ahead and do that we even have a nice little video for you to follow. And then also too, if you want everyone to check out any of the over 300 plus episodes, you can just go to first gen cp.com forward slash podcast and find out every single one of those there. So let me get to today's conversation. Today's conversation, especially if you are someone who is in the IT world that you are have a very technical background, and you're also at the same time you enjoy what you're doing. And you're trying to figure out hey, listen, what are some other things that I can do to create options for life and for your family? Today's conversation really going to enjoy because not only did today's guest he started out even working in city government got into it, and then from it has continued to do a number of other things. We're going to get to the conversation that I have with Jeff Greenberg, who's the CEO of synergetic investment Corp. Group, excuse me, and we're going to get to that just after this. So you know what, if you've ever wanted to understand how experience and focus can give you the synergies you need to win in the long distance investing game, then guess what? Today's a conversation you're going to want to listen to until the very last word, you know why? Because today's guests not only had started his early careers, early working career with city government, maybe he'll tell us a little bit about that. Or maybe you won't, who knows. He also spent about two decades as a network engineer. And then in 2007, he decided to focus on on his own company where he founded one of his first companies in the real estate investment group. I think he's going to tell us a little bit more about that. But then today, it gives me great pleasure to welcome the CEO of synergetic Investment Group, Mr. Jeff Greenberg. Jeff, welcome to show man.

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02:51

Well, thank you very much, this is gonna be great. I'm excited to be here.

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Billy Keels  02:55

Hey, man, I'm really, really looking forward to it. I've appreciated being able to speak to you before and we've had conversations in the past as well. So really looking forward to you sharing your experience with the entire go along family. So if you'd like Jeff, I'd like for us to go ahead and get started in the conversation. And it's really to help us understand, like, help us understand where is it that you call home.

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03:15

I'm in Southern California, just outside of LA. Fortunately, outside of LA, I grew up in LA. But I'm in a small community, but 45 minutes out of Los Angeles, California in case anyone was not familiar with the area,

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Billy Keels  03:33

I was just getting ready to make sure that everybody knew the Left Coast out there in CA so out in California, in Southern California, really, really appreciate that. Definitely share something with this positive. Talk to us about, you know, what's the most positive thing that's happened to or for you in the last 24 hours?

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03:48

Well, in the last 24 hours, well, first of all, I'm in the middle of a raise for a big project. And suddenly an investor that I hadn't talked to, in quite some time, sent me an email says, hey, I'm interested in here's a few questions. And this was just kind of out of the blue. And so I was able to answer his questions. And hopefully, we'll be moving on that he'll be investing with us. Well,

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Billy Keels  04:15

fantastic. Glad you got a chance to get that and share that with us today. And so that's a positive thing that's happened for you, to you in the last 24 hours. So really appreciate that. And here's the thing, Jeff, like I'm, most of the girl on family already knows this about me. But I am a recovering perfectionist, which means that I try to do things that are sometimes impossible to do, like, try to tell your entire backstory in like one and a half seconds, I think is probably what it took me or maybe two and a half seconds. So what I'd love for you to do is share your backstory and share that in your own words. And if you could also maybe talk about some of the major decisions that you've made to get to this point in your journey, Jeff, I'd

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04:52

really appreciate it in about two seconds, right?

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Billy Keels  04:56

No, no, no, no, no. So here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'm the host I'm the host. So I've got to do that kind of fast. You're a guest, we want to learn more about you once you're done. So you take the time that you need.

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05:06

Okay? Well, I can I come from an IT background. So I used to work with a pretty major global company, that we kept them functioning by handling their infrastructure and their IT work. So I did that for about 20 years, two decades as us as you said, but going through a divorce, I realised that my retirement was going to be limited, my house was going to be given to my ex wife, and decided that I needed something else. And that's when I started studying real estate. This was about 2000 2005, I started studying real estate. But that wasn't a great time to buy in single family homes. In that market, it was a little crazy at that time. And then I got into commercial real estate about 2007 started learning about dealing with commercial side of real estate. And so that was kind of my start just doing a lot of reading a lot of studying and a lot of going to a lot of events to learn about the commercial real estate. There was not a lot of podcasts back then. There were very few podcasts. And so a lot of it had to come from books, or just talking to people meeting people learning the business.

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Billy Keels  06:35

So you've mentioned like being in an IT company. And so we've got a lot of people that are also IT people because I come from an IT background. You had a life circumstance happened to you? And then you said that you started education around real estate? No, I'm just curious how you made the jump from kind of what was happening to you and your life situation that could you could have selected a lot of different things, right? What was it about real estate that actually got your attention. And that's where you decided to focus your your your time and energy was really learning more about real estate versus I don't know, paper assets or something like

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07:09

that? Well, it was actually on a hike with a friend. We were hiking and he goes and says, Oh, I'm getting into real estate. And at that time, I had no clue about anything to do with real estate except for maybe buying a house, fixing it up and holding it and renting it out and doing renting single family homes. That was really all I knew I didn't know who owned these big buildings. I didn't know who who owned the apartment complexes. But we started doing that he was looking at short sales, which is you know, buying underwater properties, I was looking at bank owned properties. And I was going to the banks to try to buy some of these properties that they had already foreclosed on. And it was a difficult time because the banks were getting tonnes of foreclosures that they didn't know what to do with. And they were very slow about getting releasing them. And the prices were going down. It was just a bad time to be trying to do that aspect of real estate. But I did bump into somebody that was training people how to get commercial real estate. And I also learned that I didn't have to worry about the limitations of my own funds, that I could use other people's money to get into these big deals. And that excited me because I was limited on what I had in the way of funds. So that was kind of where where I headed that direction.

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Billy Keels  08:48

Okay, so you started with it. So it started on a hike, basically. And then you you got some more education and you recognise that, hey, listen, there's an there's an opportunity to be able to, you know, talk about your life situation, could you talk about at the moment in time, right. But you're also you started out one of the very first things saying that you were an IT network engineer. And those are usually the types of roles were coming from that background, like people love those types of roles. they aspire to those types of roles. And then when they're in those roles, they just stay in those roles for a really, really long time working really, really long hours. What was it also that said, Hey, man, you know what, I want to look at something else outside of just what I'm doing in my day job.

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09:31

Well, I knew that okay, I was making good money in the IT field, but the thing was, is it still was limited and as far as how much I was able to put away on my retirement. I mean, it was still a day job. It was still, you know, I could sit and work for the corporate world, you know, and wait until I'm in my 60s and then then retire. But I still didn't feel that I would have sufficient funds available for my return. I are mentored to hand on, off to my family, to my my kids. So I did that for about eight years while I was still working there. So I was working the IT job, at the same time that I was doing the real estate at least for eight years. And fortunately, in the part of the IT field I was in, we had certain responsibilities that we had to take care of. But we had flexibility. I mean, there was time in between, you know, I was taking meetings during lunch, I was, since I was in California, investing in Texas, I was able to take meetings before work, there was a lot that I was able to do, and squeeze it in between my IT job, I was also able to take my lunch whenever I want it. So I was, you know, able to do that. And as long as my job got done, my boss was good with it. Because he knew I was looking at real estate. And in fact, he used to come and ask me questions about real estate. But as long as I got my job, job done, he was he was fine with it.

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Billy Keels  11:10

And I think that's one of the things is really important to touch on his. As long as you're continuing to provide results in your day job, then usually there's not a challenge. It's when you're not providing the results in the day job. And you're saying that, hey, look, I'm going out and I'm, I'm investing in real estate or I'm doing whatever the case may be, then that's usually when when the challenges arise. So So you went from your day job, it sounds like you're almost there a decade kind of working both things, which is something that sounds very familiar. At the same time, once you decided to move beyond your, your single family residences, you talk about if I understand correctly, you decided while you were looking into some things like emerging markets, and versus maybe mature markets, so maybe talk to us a little bit about how you decide on which type of location or what type of market and help to educate us on exactly when you talk about emerging markets. What does that mean?

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12:02

Well, at that time, the emerging markets were the ones that were bringing in populations were bringing in jobs, rents were going up, there was a huge demand for, for housing. And so that's why we were, you know, looking in those markets, they had the greatest potential for increased value. So obviously, we want to go towards those. Now, that also meant that those were the ones with more competition. So in a lot of cases, we looked in other markets that maybe there was less competition. And and that was one of the mistakes. Well, I don't know if I would call it a mistake. But one of the things that we did, that didn't bring the greatest results, because we went into a market, that there was a lot less demand. But there was also certainly was not an emerging market. But we learned why we kind of learned the hard way why we want markets that are really increasing in population and being able to raise rents. It just was very slow going. Okay.

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Billy Keels  13:10

And that was at the time, I guess, could you talk about it. But I mean, I would be interested to because just from the from the learning perspective that, okay, something was happening in terms of more people probably net migration sound like net migration was, was on the downslope

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13:25

versus not really on a downslope it was pretty level. It was basically a slow growth community. We bought a property it was three years old, was a brand new property was 100%, occupied, they were already paying their utilities, there was really no upside. It was very difficult to raise rents, we tried to build back for water made it it was very difficult. It was a really nice. I mean, it was 20 units. And it was in a great area right near a hospital. But there was very little upside. So we were able to get a return for our investors. But it was very difficult to add value. So we can sell it and make a larger profit for our investors. Because, you know, we were not we weren't able to add that value by increasing the rents. That was the only value add to us, because we didn't have an occupancy problem. So that was we learned that you need something some value add, or at least you need a market that's going to increase in rents in order to increase the value of commercial property.

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Billy Keels  14:38

Okay, that that makes sense. And then I want to pivot even a little bit more. So you've taken away that learning but then also to, if understood correctly, where you're really focusing today. Jeff is really around at both senior housing and student housing. All right.

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14:55

Well, I'm I am open to both of those but not definitely Your focus.

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Billy Keels  15:01

Okay, so not not a focus. But since you have you have experience in these areas expertise in these areas, like, talk to us a little bit about what are some of the things that attract you to student housing and or senior housing, and then I'm going to ask you the opposite.

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15:15

Okay? Okay, I'm just just to be clear, I'm not in senior living yet or the assisted living, I do have an interest in it. But I have not invested in that yet, I'm still looking for a good quality operator, I do have somebody we're looking at actually out of Colorado, that is doing a phenomenal job. So we may be investing with them.

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Billy Keels  15:39

We'll keep it to the student housing Giustina talking about

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15:43

the student housing, I've had three different properties and three totally different markets. And what I like about the student housing is one, you can charge a lot more in the way of rent. And as long as you get good property management that understands student housing, you can it could be very lucrative. But it just depends on the particular market. And also working with management. There's a lot of good things about student housing, it's just, it is a little bit more volatile.

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Billy Keels  16:21

Okay, so with that, I mean, you've given us some shed some light on that. You've also talked about a couple times, but I'd love for you to also share, because you've talked about, you've talked about your personal life and some of the things that happened, which led you to start looking at how you could have more control of your income, how you could have more control of the outcomes that in your life. But talk to us a little bit about as you're doing that, you also had to find the right balance in terms of you had your day job, you had some real life experiences, how have you found that it's the best way to find the right kind of balance is the right word, in your life between what it is that you're doing for your work, and also what you're doing to build out the life and the generational kind of wealth that you talked about before?

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17:09

Yeah, well, I was fortunate that I did partner up with a lady that happens to live in Alaska, we were together for about five years on as on a business, and she was doing it full time. So that did help out a lot that she could pick up slack when I was wasn't able to take on some roles. I mean, I was when ever we travelled, I was taking vacation time. So you know, I was limited on how much travelling I was able to do as opposed to what she could do. So that was probably the biggest thing is having somebody that I mean, we could work, you know, all kinds of hours together. But she did have a little more freedom of time than I had. So that was part of the balancing act. Okay,

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Billy Keels  18:03

just out of curiosity when you because it's. So you're basically finding you had probably more resource economic resources at the time, how your partner had more time freedom, as you just talked about it? What was it like, as you develop that understanding of one another business partner, maybe you can talk us a little bit through to how that worked? Well,

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18:27

I mean, we've met through through a seminar we actually were in, we're actually in a mentoring programme together. And so that's how we met. And we really didn't get together for about a year later, we would hear each other on mutual calls, because we had a coaching calls that we were involved with. And we had heard each other and listen to their questions, and eventually started talking. It was a good 688 months of dating on the phone. Fortunately, we were able to get free free calling to Alaska. Otherwise, we would have run up some pretty high bills. We talked and talked and talked to make sure that we were looking for the same things had the same ethics. And then we decided to create a company and started working together. So yeah, I mean, it took a long time before we actually worked together. And then we we stayed together for about five years and then went different directions.

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Billy Keels  19:35

Okay, well, it's it's the, the foundational piece and then being able to gain that experience and moving into where you are today. So maybe talk to us a little bit before because we we kind of got to get ready and get into the going long. Final three, Jeff, but I would like for you to talk to us about more about synergetic investment group where your focus is and how you're helping people today because that's one of the things you mentioned earlier.

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20:00

Yeah, the main thing is, is over the 12 years that I was doing syndications my, the operation end of it wasn't my favourite. Now, during the five years that I was with the lady, she was great at that she was great at asset management, I was bigger picture. And when we broke up, then I, I worked with other people, and then realise that the operation end of it is not my favourite thing. I did a lot of analysis, you know, coming from it. So underwriting I did a lot of it. And I did a lot of broker relations and all that good stuff. But that really wasn't the most interesting to me, I found that working with investors was What I liked best that I enjoyed educating investors. I also come from an education background, worked for private school before my IT career. But I enjoyed that part of it. And so I decided, you know, I'd like to go that direction. Then I met another lady, just so happens, I brought her in on my GP team, that was phenomenal at the asset management part of it and the operation part of it. And once I saw how great she was, I said, Look, I never want to do this, again, the only thing I want to do is work work with people like her. And so I, I was going towards my fund as it was. So I created a fund. And so far, I've invested twice with deals that she's running, because she does such a phenomenal job of the operation end of it. And so now I run a customizable fund, I actually have two I have a 506 b, where sophisticated and vis dusters can be in an accredited, and a five will succeed, that only accredited can be in and I invest in other people's deals with those funds, investors have the option of deciding which deals they want to be in, within the fund, which is very unique, where they only have to be in the deals that they want to be in. And what that does for me is allows me to diversify across many different real estate types as well as alternative investments. And investors could either decide they like that investment or they don't. And they're all within the same fund. And they get a k one 1k one for no matter how many deals they're in, within the fund. So they get to self diversify. And that's what I'm excited about now is being able to educate people on diversification of their, their portfolio across all different asset types. And it could be all done and within the fund. So that's what we're that's what we're doing right now.

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Billy Keels  23:09

Okay, well, I appreciate you sharing that with us here just to give us a little bit more of a flavour in terms of how you are serving others today. And you know what, here's the thing, Jeff, as I mentioned to you before, we kind of get to get to the goal on final three. But I never asked any of our guests today are our special guests. until you tell me you're ready. So are you ready? I'm ready. I kind of knew you were gonna say that. So as you chuckle So here so we started with you over in Southern California. I'd like to bring things back to this side of the pond because I'm a kid from Columbus, Ohio and would really, really love moment I've been spinning your path for almost 20 to 23 years, which is just mind blowing. I would love for you to share with us what is your favourite European city that you've either visited or still on your bucket list to visit Jeff?

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23:51

Well, years ago, I I went to Amsterdam. And I always loved that I was stationed over in Germany in the military for a while and every weekend that we had available, we would go to Amsterdam. So Amsterdam I'd have to list is one of my favourite.

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Billy Keels  24:08

Amsterdam is one of your favourites. i Well, he went every almost every weekend. That's pretty interesting.

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24:14

Oh no, not every week. Every time we had a three day weekend because it was a little bit of drive. We were we were out. We were near Frankfurt, Germany. So it was a little bit of a drive. Okay,

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Billy Keels  24:25

okay. Yeah, not so. Nice place in Yeah. So appreciate that. And then there's other thing he mentioned it before and I'll just kind of ask you right directly. Whenever you are doing things you are moving forward, you are learning you are growing and probably along the way he probably made a mistake or two or you had a learning opportunity. And I guess I don't really want you to focus on the learning opportunity or the mistake that was made but it's really the lesson that you learned that whatever particular thing that you're thinking about, I would love for you to share with the going long family what is the What is the one lesson that you know that the going long family needs to hear today to be able to not make exactly the same step that you did or not have exactly the same learning opportunity that you did? Well,

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25:14

there's many, many, many lessons. But the I guess the main one, I would say, is when you're doing your due diligence on a property, make sure you're hiring professionals to do the inspections, and to find out a lot of the details of the property and take a good amount of time to find those good professionals, that sometimes people you hire, don't do the job properly. And you're the one that gets to suffer later on, when a lot of things undiscovered, little hidden problems pop up that they should have found. So making sure you do your due diligence, make sure you hire good professionals to do that due diligence on these properties. All right,

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Billy Keels  26:05

absolutely. Makes sense. So the due diligence on the on the properties. And, you know, this brings us to question number three, in question number three is all about filling our minds with our brains with more knowledge. We'd love for you to share with us, Jeff, what is one book that you would like to recommend to the family today?

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26:24

Well, the big question is where you are in your career. There's a lot of there's a lot of books out there. You know, I mean, everybody talks about Rich Dad, Poor Dad. But that's, you know, that's a mindset. That's a mindset thing. If you're getting into the nitty gritty of learning about commercial real estate, Brian Burke put out a great book, hands off investor, fabulous book to give you a lot of details about about this business. So I'll give you those two. I think there's a lot of good information in those.

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Billy Keels  27:03

You're an overachiever. So we're gonna if it's okay with you, we'll take the hands off investor, my Brian Burke, which gives it into the into the nitty gritty. So Jeff, these conversations literally fly by like every single time like I'm thinking, like, from the very beginning, you were talking about working at, you know, a very large IT company, you're talking about sharing your personal life and having gone through divorce and some of the things that it made you think about and also recognise, like, Hey, listen, there's some things that I also want to be doing, or some things that you want it to be doing. You go out on a hike with a friend who's telling you about their experience with real estate investing, and you decide, hey, look, this sounds really, really interesting. Sounds like it's something that can do more of in, you went from actually thinking about it to start to take action, you went from taking action on your smaller properties. And then you started to realise that you can build relationships with other people, you began to build relationships with others. And now today, you're at a point where you are also helping others do customizable funds, to be able to, to be able to help others. So here's the thing. Like, I know that I'm asking you the question, and everybody in the family is going Yep, Billy, but just ask him the question. So here's what I'd love to ask you, Jeff, can you help us understand what is the best way for the going long family to learn more about you what it is that you're doing it synergistic synergistic investment group, so we can get in touch?

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28:17

Oh, well, they could go to my website, which is synergetic ig.com. Or they could write to me at Jeff at synergetic ig.com. And that's synergticig.com.

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Billy Keels  28:38

Perfect. And we will leave a little wheeling. So we can make it easy for those of you that are cooking dinner, or you're running on the treadmill, or maybe you're flying and you just don't have something to write things down. So don't worry about that. Jeff, listen, on behalf of the entire going on family wanted to say thank you so very much for deciding to invest your time with us. And thank you very much.

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28:56

Well, thank you. And I also do have a gift for your investors, a little ebook, if they go to sigcre.com/sponsor. These are questions to ask if you want to be a passive investor or questions as an active investor that you should be able to answer when you're investing in real estate.

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Billy Keels  29:21

All right, sounds great. Fantastic. So really, really appreciate that, Jeff. And hey, listen, if you give me just a couple seconds, I just want to say thank you to the Goldman family and we'll get you out of here. So listen, everybody, Jeff shared his stories, giving you an opportunity to reach out to find out more about what it is he's doing. He's even giving you some really awesome questions to ask. So while you're doing that, and you're sharing today's conversation with other friends and family, I'm going to be here preparing for the very next conversation. So until then go out and make it a great day and thank you very much.

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29:54

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