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Value Add Podcast - From Zero to 9-Figure Portfolios! 🚀💎
Unlock the anatomy of success in real estate!
Welcome to Value Add Podcast - where we break down the ingredients needed to build real estate empires. This isn't just a podcast - it's your roadmap from scarcity mindset to abundance mindset!
🔥 What we do here:
• Unlock secrets of buying buildings with no money out of pocket
• Study the psychology of success and mental blocks
• Break down real cases from bankruptcy to financial freedom
• Learn to turn distressed assets into money-making machines
• Build passive income through value-add strategies
💰 Our guests are:
Former teachers who built 8-figure portfolios in 5 years
Young entrepreneurs running $100M+ portfolios by age 36
Artist-developers creating unique spaces that command premium rents
Investors who went from bankruptcy to luxury flipping
Mentors and coaches changing lives through real estate
Host: Rafik Moore - the guy who runs 5M+ sq ft of commercial real estate
🎯 For those who want to:
✅ Quit their salary job and jump into real estate
✅ Scale their business to the next level
✅ Invest in continuous growth and education
✅ Become a bankable asset for investors
✅ Build generational wealth
We believe: If you can find a deal that makes money - we'll find the capital! Because the hardest thing to find is the asset that generates profit, not the money.
Hit that subscribe button and start your journey to financial freedom right now!
When I first saw his program, I thought it was a sham. I was like, who is this guy? All rich people are prude. I sent him an invoice. I called it the waste my time invoice. But when I heard what you gave Denny that much money, I was like, man, I could have asked for more. I chose the army because they sold man laser tag. I don't want to be a contractor. I don't want to be a worker. I want to be you. I want to be like you. Don't do anything and make millions of dollars. Value ad podcast with your host, Rafik Moore. Building wealth. One deal at a time.
Welcome to Value at Podcast. I'm super excited to have my friend, my investor, my partner Kevin Amulsh on the podcast. What's up, Rafi? I'm Dude, I've seen I've been watching your podcast. I'm like, I'm actually here, dude. I'm in the studio. Thanks for coming. So, Kevin actually runs Pine Financial, a real estate investment fund where he lends money to people. He actually uh looks for investors markets to find them and then they go and he does 100% financing on some residential flips provided that you reach 70% after repair value. Yes, exactly. And so when I met Kevin, when I first saw his program, I thought it was a sham. I can't believe this. Who lends 100% financing? It doesn't it's not real. And then when I understood his program and became a repeat customer, I still remember you when you were trying to smoo me and you had your little suit on and I was like, who is this guy? Kevin is actually my private capital partner investor. He invests in my deals on the equity sometimes. And that's what I wanted to share with you guys is how to build a relationship with a high netw worth individual with a lender who would essentially invest in your deals on equity. Always adding value. So how I met Kevin back about 15 years ago, I was doing some house flips and I work with a lot of lenders and banks and hard money lenders. I've always had a lot of lenders and I asked Kevin to lend me money on one deal and that deal fell apart. I didn't close on it. Then I asked him to kind of look at another deal and he sent it to me but then bank approved it and I didn't go with Kevin. I felt bad but I got 5% money as opposed to, you know, 12% money. Long story short, Kevin, why did you finish that story? It was it was more than just those two deals because it it became a pattern here. So I feel like I had to break this pattern. So it's like I don't know if this guy's real. I couldn't tell. I couldn't really get a hold of who Rafi Moore was. Um, so I sent I I sent him an invoice. I the invoice said, "This is for wasting my time. It's I called it the waste my time invoice and it was for $1,000." And I sent it to him in the email. I said, "Here's here's your invoice for You want to call me again? Give me a,000 bucks. Otherwise, don't call me no." I didn't think I was going to ever hear from you again, but I was like I was totally okay with it because you were wasting my time. Okay. And then the next thing I know, I got a check in the mail for $1,000. Awesome. I forgot about that story. Yeah. I I now remember it. I remember how what happened. I felt horrible and I was like I last thing I can do is just give that you paid man. I appreciate dude when you paid that I was like this this guy's real. We're going to we're going to be and we were so cuz you are you're a residential lender so I sort of f felt very um nervous about asking for too much. I gave you like smaller deals but when I heard what you gave Danny that much money I was like man I could have asked for more. And then you gave these big checks to other guys too. So but I never asked like most of the money I've asked for is up to a million dollars. But um I think there's going to be some deals where we could probably do bigger deals as well. Yeah. So this is something I need to mental note a $5 million checks hopefully now that you're liquid. Always adding value. How did you end up starting Pine Financial? Yeah. I think your story is similar. Uh we started off in fix and flips and the residential side and I really enjoyed the deal structure putting the deal together and as you teach on a lot of your classes and a lot of things you do, the deal structure is the financing. It all comes down to the financing. the way you negotiate it, the way you write your offers, your LOIs, it all has to do with the financing. So, I really fell in love with the financing side. Um, and then I started raising I became a mortgage broker, which was terrible, by the way. You've done that as well. And then in 2006, I started raising private capital. I wanted to take control of the business. I I didn't like saying, "Hey, I have to go to these guidelines." You wanted to underwrite them yourself. I wanted common sense underwriting and and I felt I could do it. So in 2006 I started raising private capital and and 2008 my partner and I split and I started Pine Financial. Uhhuh. Interesting. How much did you raise on your first trench? My very I had one investor for $100,000. Oh my goodness. Wow. And I brokered that deal with a a fix and flipper that wanted the $100,000. That's awesome. I charged four points and I made 2,000 bucks and I was like, "Oh my god, this is the best great business." Yeah. So you you entered into this business as a fee guy and it's slowly built. That's awesome. How would you outside of um just deal metrics, uh what other things do you look for in your borrowers, in your people you invest into? Yeah, and I said it's common sense underwriting, and that's really the best way to to describe that question or the answer to that question. Um, but look, I want we're in the win-win business. Like, I need to make money, right? So, I need to win, but I also want my my borrowers to win and I want my private capital investors to win. So, we really all need to win. So, to do that, I need to make sure that you're entering into good quality deals. So yes, the priority is the deal itself. Like we're equity based lending uh 70% loan to value. So if if the deal is going to be profitable, we run it through the profitability calculator and sometimes we stress test that depending on the area. And if it's if it's a good deal, we want to be involved, but that doesn't mean you don't you can't have any money or you don't need any money. You still need some money. Look, reserves keeps you safe. Without some liquidity in the bank and something goes wrong, you lose your deal, right? and losing one deal could collapse your business. So, we want to make sure that the borrower has a little bit of uh capital reserves and then we're looking at credit and that kind of thing, but there's very little weight put on that compared to the liquidity and the deal itself. And so, when you do deals, uh uh what is the average loan size you do with your uh business? Oh, it's all over the place, man. I could tell you the average if you look at the whole portfolio is a little over 700,000 but it's skewed because you have some new construction deals like we we see especially in Denver we see new construction loans at two $2.5 million we do some lending out in Washington DC those are high dollars um and then the commercial stuff you and I have done quite a bit together but about 20% of our portfolio is commercial and those are bigger loans so I see so uh Kevin actually as a result of my I think I pat myself on the back say hey let's do commercial he's like no I don't do commercial now come on let's go and sit down let me show you how it works and so he was comfortable now to do one deal yeah and then second deal and then I invited him to commercial academy and then the rest is history and now he's got 40 to50 million of commercial loaners on his books with many of my friends by the way uh from the academy and a lot of the commercial loans almost all from that group yeah see so that's how it works I mean capital is the biggest limiting belief for most people who start out but working with guys like Kevin who are used to financing 100% % uh of the deal. Uh you realize that there's a lot of options. The universe is so vast. There's so many ways to do deals. And the key is to understand what uh the risk and return rewards are. Make sure you explain the security to the investor and uh the kind of returns they get, which in your case, they're pretty fixed. This is what I want. You want my money. I can I want x type of return. It's a you know, it's a points and fees, but it works really well. And uh I personally have many many deals where I'm borrow from Kevin and um with Kevin and many of my uh uh friends and students that I work with uh I send them to Kevin like hey say I put in a good word and then um like he get he approved a deal for one of my friends in Cleveland uh recently. So thank you for that. Yeah the thing about the the 100% financing when you're trying to layer in your capital stack however you do that look typically debt partners are way cheaper than equity partners. So, I know I think you were sort of alluding it to that. Um, but if you're going to borrow money, if you could borrow a high leverage, 100% even if it's 90 80%. Um, and try to limit the your equity partners, you could really increase your personal ROI. Absolutely. So, the way it works is let's say when I do a deal, um, I have a property, I want to buy it, and I need to come up with half a million dollars for down payment for equity. If the deal is really really good, if it qualifies with Kevin's metrics, which most most of my deals do, I can say, "Kevin, would you borrow me all that money and what I pay Kevin has to be equal to or less than in my opinion with my capital partner and most of the time that's what it comes out to be because on average when we work with our investors, they make 20 30%." And your cost of capital is significantly under that. And so it's like you can make more money, but you need to understand how to structure it. So, thank you for uh believing in us and we just paid you off. Uh Kevin lent us a million dollars on a deal in Ohio and uh a year and a half later we paid him off. So, thank you for that. What advice would you give first time real estate investors to positions themselves as a good borrower or partner for you? Oh, that's a good question. And I I want to touch on this limiting belief of the financing. And you are so right. The financing seems to be the what trips up investors the most. And it's really not that complicated, guys. All you need is a one or two good quality mentors or lenders in your back pocket that will help you. Look, we're not going to do every deal. Sometimes we'll say no, but maybe somebody else will will be interested in that or or like that deal. So, having people business, right? It's a it's a just have those relationships is huge. So, but to answer your I'm not trying to avoid your question here. I just wanted to make sure that the listener understood that really it is a relationship business. That's what real estate is. So building those relationships is huge and you're you're phenomenal at that. To answer your question, I think what's most important to communicate to the lenders that you're going to have success. The lender wants to know that they're going to get their money back. So paint that picture for me. How are you going to work your way through the deal and get me my money back? And if you could do that with some confidence and even if it's your first deal, if you could show me, hey, this is my team. This is who is going to help me through this deal. That's what I'm looking for. A strong solid plan. So, exit strategy, number one, you want to do exit strategy. So, if I have a property under contract and I want to I'm buying it for a million dollars, let's say, and I need to spend $200,000 on it. It seems like a lot of numbers, but if that property is worth $2 million, there's a very high probability that Kevin will provide $1.2 million for that property, provided that you show them how you're going to execute on that plan, fix it, stabilize it, and either sell it or refinance. Yes. And so that's basically how 99% of your loans work, right? Uh your partners come in and do it. Yeah. And a good point on the refinancing. A lot of people are holding on to properties right now because the market's a little bit softer and there's some anticipation for rates lowering in the future, which will give a little pop to to values. So what we're seeing now is more investors holding instead of just exiting right away and they refinance and hold. Yeah. They just refinance and hold. That's that's it's becoming more popular for good reason. But if you're going to use that as a strategy, just make sure that you have the ability to get that refinance done because otherwise you're going to get caught and then you're going to get into a deal that you're emotional to. You're thinking you're going to hold it. You're going to have to sell it and then that just becomes messy. So I I would that would be a piece of advice. Just make sure you have a good exit strategy. And if it's a refinance, have you talked to the bank or have you talked to the Fanny or Freddy lender? Are they able to get you out of that loan? What common mistakes do you see first-time investors make with hard money loans? Oh gosh, common mistakes. Okay, where should I start? So, the first one is greed. You talked about this in your class, too. I mean, you you you're not willing to share some of the deal to to get a deal done. So, then you know what is it? What do they say? 100% of nothing is a lot worse than at least 50% of Oh, your rates are so high. I don't want to pay this. I don't want to pay that. That's Yeah. And then they end up not doing the deal or they don't wholesale it. They they try to hold on to all of that profit and they end up making nothing at all. I think being emotional, I mean, for any real estate investor, emotion, this is an emotional business and and getting emotional to a property um typically will create a loss. So, I would say try as best as you can to keep the emotions out. Stick to the numbers. If the numbers don't work, you have to let that emotion go and get out of that that deal. But, Rafique, the number one biggest mistake I see, hands down, is the lack of action. M like just that fear of taking that step to go put a house under contract or a property under contract and you go to seminar after seminar and seminar and you join this this mastermind and this group and this group and you never do a deal. I mean that that's that pains me and that's the biggest mistake I see. I just started coaching uh and it's been a very new very interesting evolution of me as a operator. I'm an action guy, but uh I noticed that a lot of people are shy and nervous and I started studying that like what's going on here? What's the difference between me and and and people like me and then people like those guys that are scared? And I realized it's all in your subconscious wiring. And I'm learning how some people have the fear of rejection so deeply ingrained in them that they are scared to ask. Other people are so scared to make a mistake that they're not going to make a a first move. So, as part of my curriculum, as part of what I'm trying to teach people is say, look, let's rewrite your limiting beliefs and negative beliefs. There's limiting beliefs that we all have, and then there's negative beliefs. Like, some people actually believe, like I did before, that all rich people are prude and and uh selfish and inconsiderate or uh I don't want to be rich because um I want to taxes. Like actually that that was my biggest negative belief like I never wanted to sell properties because I didn't want to pay the taxes and it created a lot of stigma and financial uh distress for me because I'm holding on to everything because if I sell it I got to give you know 30% to the IRS. I'm like dude I sort of let it go. I don't need to have a lot. So um I'm realizing that subconscious mind which controls all of our behavior is something we need to reprogram. And I'm going to really work on building a curriculum around that. so that I can help guys to unshackle themselves from these limiting beliefs. Well, you talk about fear and being fear of rejection or fear of failure or whatever. Any of the fear, it's just it's just pain, right? You're afraid of the pain and so you're not willing to take the action to go through that pain. But let me ask you this, Rafique, what's more painful? Going through that pain now or being where you are in five years time with no change? Yeah, totally. No, I and it's absolutely it's painful because people live um all their lives um hoping and wishing and and and really scared and then you see others. But I think the other thing that's really important is being part of the tribe because I believe that every single person is a mirror of who you could be, a mirror of who what your potential is. And so if you hang out with a whole bunch of guys that are doing deals, right, and you look at five, six guys on a subconscious level, you will start believing in the possibility and then you'll hopefully make a move because either you'll jump out of the group and saying it's not for me or you'll it'll do it. So one of the things that I realized is that being in the group of people that are doing it like in a masterminds or in communities in networking events when you go to is so important to develop those meaningful relationships. So personally in your investment strategy, how do you balance cash flow versus appreciation? What would you choose? Uh you and I talk about this all the time. It's cash flow for sure. 100% it's cash flow. But I wasn't always there. Right. Value ad real estate. That's what we do. We're in that business and you're more on the commercial side. I'm more on the residential side. Either way, we're adding value and and when you when you do that type of investing, you get all of your cash at the end. Yeah. You're not really building up that monthly cash flow. It's very very difficult to build up that monthly cash flow. But once you get that figured out, that's freeing. When you have cash coming in every month without working, there's just something so special and comforting about that, even more in my my opinion than those big paydays that you get with the value ad investing. So balancing it. Look, I'm looking for cash flow. Does that mean that I'm all of my money is going into cash flow assets? No, because I invest with you. So I'm looking for the the value ad stuff too. But it's just just trying to understand for your appetite the threshold between that. So I mean you could balance your portfolio a number of different ways and you could slice it up a number of different ways. This is just one way we're talking about, right? But but preferences are a byproduct of your experiences, right? Watch how hard it is to generate cash flow. We we were just on this call today and and we're talking about some a property with a really high cap rate and and the gentleman that was on that was getting beat up a little bit for it. Um and maybe rightly so. I don't know. But what I could tell you is that it's that is not passive. That's not a passive cap rate. You're definitely going to have to work hard for it. So I would I would pass on that deal even if it's high profit because it just takes too much effort. Yeah. They don't want to deal with it. So what I I ask you I wanted to ask you about your worst deal. What did you miss and what would you do differently now? What was your worst deal in Pine financial story where you were excited you did the deal and then I I have an idea what it could be but you told me you you're talking about the the one to talk. Yeah, that might be it man. But because I'm still in that deal I'm still in that thing. So it's a development. Well, here's what I've learned. I'm not a good at developing. I'm not a developer and I'm not going to ever do that again. Yep. Loans. This was an assemblage. It was a four parcel assemblage and the everything on paper looked fantastic. Right. I was loaning on two of them. I was friendly with the owner of the other. The plans were already approved with the city. This was just a done deal. Um, but he ended up spending the money he was raising and didn't have enough money to pay the the fees to the city and could never pull the permit. And then what ended up happening is that expired and then once it expires, you're they could start over. And now they're like, we don't want that same density. So the value of the property tanked uh because we never pulled a permit where he never pulled the permit. And by the time I foreclose and got it back, now the neighbors are angry. The city doesn't want that same density. So, um, but yeah, we're moving forward with it and I'm going to turn out okay. Uh, we will lose some money though and a lot of years. You got to develop it yourself then. We were de we were in the middle of developing it. We had the plans all set up and we already had the preliminary approval and then we got a contract on it. So, nice. I hope it was under contract many many times. What asset classes are you bullish uh on today in in today's market? I like suburban office. Um I think that first of all never had the dip that you would see in the total if you look at the asset class as a whole. What you're really reading about is those towers in the in the in the the core. Um suburb the suburban office never really took a hit and I could tell you because I own some. It's like the we're getting calls a lot. I mean there's definitely demand for it. So I like that and people are still afraid of it, right? But I'm telling you come back to work. go back to work is a is a real thing of um how conservative Kevin is. I'm very surprised to hear it. It's good because now what you think I was going to say? I don't know. I was going to residential because you stick to it, but suburban office actually in my uh opinion has been surprisingly uh very very good. And we've passed up on a lot of opportunities to pick up these properties half of what they used to be like 3 to 5 years ago because of that stigma. And so we're caught on to that stigma as a investment uh company saying, "Oh, we we wanted to beat up our sellers a little more and then we keep losing these contracts." And so yeah, I I think um I'm still apprehensive. I think I don't know how AI is going to impact us, but people need to collaborate in some quarters and not like people are going to work from home like we're in the office right here. Uh uh so I think I'm going to be a little more bullish in my office. Um because cash on cash return is ridiculously high because you're buying at like significantly below replacement cost and below your competition because the basis of anybody else who stays in the business is is so so much higher than yours. Yeah. But you could you could turn office like you there's different uses you could use and there's like neighborhood type of businesses that aren't going to be infected affected by AI. uh like insurance agent, a daycare uh one of the things that Kevin does a lot is raise capital. Now he's a institutional capital raising guy. What advice would you give our viewers on how to raise capital, how to set up a way and this is for like more advanced class like at first you go hard money lenders, bridge lenders and do a private capital deal with one guy. Raising capital and syndicating is a whole different level and of course next level after that is uh raising a fund and you have multiple funds. you're a fundraiser. How do you do that? And what do you recommend? Well, I I think it's it's it's mindset mentality. Um, look, investors aren't looking for those 30% returns. You know, they they're not going to believe you. You start talking that like that, right? 20%. They're not going to believe you. They're going to think there's too much risk. They're not going to want to do it. So, it's got to be reasonable. So, I would say if you focus on the return uh of capital more than the return on capital, I think you're going to have some success. Um, and look, it's hard. It's really hard. I'm not going to sugar coat it to get the first couple, but once you get a one or two and then they start talking to their friends at the barbecues and it just starts it really just starts becoming a little easier. What's the average check from your investors that you uh on board? Yeah, it's somewhere between 100 and 200,000. Not low, huh? Uh yeah, because we have we do we have this reggg A. So I know we're going a little higher level here, but a reggga A is a public fund. So we could accept an unlimited number of nonacredited investors. Nobody else is doing this. So we have a minimum investment of only $10,000. So anybody can get involved in private debt. And so reggga A is equivalent to crowdfunding then or no or is it CF next level? It's so it's a public fund. I could you you could see reggga A offerings on an exchange. Got it. So that's it's highly regulated. There's audited financials, reporting to the government, all of these things. And then you have the blue sky laws as well, which is state laws. Um but you the benefit to going through all of those hoops is unlimited nonacredited investors and you can raise lots of money like hundreds and hundreds of millions in one fund right and so the way your fund works is you can invest as little as 10,000 and as high as millions of dollars and you'll receive on average I mean our average is about $130,000. No no on average what do I receive as an investor? I put money 8% return 8% on average. two different we have options for accredited and options for nonacredited. So if you're working your way to the accredited status and we can talk about that then it's an 8% flat return but it's a promised return which is rare right. So you get a promised return with you get regardless. Yeah. Then once you get to the accredited if you want to move it over to something that is a little bit more volatile um then you're looking at between 9 and 10. Nine and 10%. So 8 to 10% is what you pay your investors. And then all right so I gave you half a million dollars. You took my money. Everything's great. Now I want my money back. How much time do I need to give you for notice to get that money back? Yeah. The the the paperwork says 90 days, but we've never gone that long. Even during COVID, we weren't going that long. Yeah. So, basically 30 days or whatever. Yeah. It's usually within 30. We're right now um we're a little bit more liquid. So, if we get a request today, we'd probably return it tomorrow. We don't want to hold on to that, right? If you want it back, we're we have to pay you the 8% on it. Why would I want to hold on to it? So, uh for the past year, every time I call Kevin, he's like, "Dude, I'm lent out. I don't need money." I'm so glad to hear that you have liquidity because I have I mean I don't have a lot of deals right now and but I have students who have deals and so I'll basically refer them to you and um I mean the deals we have such a clearance we clear through underwriting and like we look at hundreds of deals before we approve one. What's legacy for you? How do you want to be remembered or known in this community? This one is difficult for me. I'm actually kind of sort of going through that process right now, working with the attorneys because of the mastermind groups and things like this telling me that I'm not uh doing well in that area. So, I'm really really been focusing in on this a lot. Um, so it's a tough question honestly or for me to answer. But what here's what I do know. I want my my kids, my grandkids, my grandkids kids all to be totally fine. Outside of that, I have a passion for kids in need. So, think about the Boys and Girls Club. I sat on the board for the Boys and Girls Club for many years. What I want to make a where I want to make a difference is the kids that don't have a fighting chance. Like the parents are on drugs or there's abuse in the house and they just they're growing up in a a very difficult situation. I want to help them so they can make a difference in their own community. That's awesome. That's very noble of you. Speaking of uh kids with special needs that can walk and have no physical issues, but do you mentor people? Do you have any mentees that you kind of uh work with and help them elevate help elevate them or no? I get that question probably once or twice a month. I'm not I can't do it as good as you, man. They need to go to you. We we uh we provide funding and if you borrow from Pine Financial, you definitely get the handholding. But we don't have any programs. We're not we're not selling any coaching. We're just that's not the business we're in. We do want our clients to be successful, but it's pretty much limited. In other words, if you borrow money from Kevin, maybe he'll mentor you how to pay it back. Well, look, if you're successful, you'll pay it back and then you do more business, right? It's a becomes a repeat. Always adding value. So, Kevin, um where did you grow up and what's your um childhood story like? Uh kids in the family, you know, with states. I was born in a suburb of Denver and I grew up in that suburb. I lived there for 18 years until I got out of high school and went into the army. Mhm. See, I decided, you know, I I didn't want to just waste time, but I did not want to go to school anymore. I was so done with school. So, I went into the military. I chose the army because they sold me on laser tag. I thought that was really, really fun to play laser tag for a living. But, I'm grateful for the experience. And then because of the army, I was able to get through school without any debt. Um, I did take on some debt, some student loans, but I use that as down payments on houses. So, that's how I kind of got my real estate career. So, uh, your parents didn't give any money? No. Okay. Okay. So, you're self-made? Yeah. Self-made. I'm in fact I helped my dad now. You know, one of the one of my goals was to retire my dad and that was one, you know, you we talk about our why. And if your why is big enough and it's bigger than you, then you're you'll you'll get through that fear and you'll take action, right? So, my one of my wise was to buy a house free and clear, no debt. I want to just give it to my dad. Oh, nice. And you did it already. I've been able to do that. Beautiful. That's awesome. Like I said, one thing that you'll notice from um people of value like Kevin is uh they most people that I've met started with nothing. They grew up poor or you know, you know, lower middle class. They had that burning desire to achieve something. And the difference between those who achieve something and those who don't is simply lack of mindset because uh I always wonder you know why is it that I was able to you know do these things and and and and many of my friends didn't but then I meet I meet some of my friends I give them the education I give them the you know the how-tos and boom they blossom like flowers I'm like oh [ __ ] that's what it was the missing ingredient was the the shift in their perception of what's what is and and elimination of certain limiting beliefs. So, it's really really fun to hear that. Uh, for some reason, I've always thought that you're a rich kid. That's hilarious. No, quite the opposite. We were I I thought I was middle class, but it was actually lower middle class. Like, I didn't, you know, I would get used clothes and and stuff in school. But we had we were living in the sub suburb in the suburban neighborhood with all my friends and they were definitely middle class. So, you're the poor poor friend. We were Yeah, exactly. Do you have any uh siblings? I have a older sister and a younger brother. Right. And what do they do? Um my sister is a teacher. She teaches special ed um for grade school K through five. My brother not he didn't um I don't know what he's doing actually. Rafi, he was an adopted he was adopted into the family and it turns out he had fetal alcohol syndrome. So this is a sort of a personal story here, but he's really struggled with abuse and and just getting getting his feet under him, right? So he's seems to be doing okay, but he's like uh still a student. So he's still going to school and he's he's learning business and uh he likes history. So those are the two courses that I see him take his way through. Like history is good. So I have a brother uh and um when he g became 18 or no 18, he basically was kicked out of high school and uh I was I was like, "Dude, you're lazy." I said, "Go do construction. He doesn't want to do construction." And um I said, "You go flip burgers and you're you're nobody. You're not gonna accomplish to anything. You're you know, you're lazy. You're you don't want to do anything." And uh my brother and I didn't really get along at all. But then this one time, my mom almost begged me not to be so hard on him. He's like, "Please leave him alone. He's my son. I love him. I'll just have him live with me and I'll take care of him for the rest of my life, but you stay out of it. Don't be so hard on him." So I was like, "All right, sorry. I'm not going to be so hard on him." I said, "Look, fine. You don't have to flip burgers. Come be my driver and just drive me around." And we drive around and he basically is my sidekick. And he sees me differently now because before I was just hard on him. I was a drill surgeon trying to tell him what to do. But then he sees me as a guy who's doing deals and meeting with realtors and contractors. And you know, I I would tell him, you know, I bought this building for, you know, this house for 200,000. I'm going to spend 50. I'm going to send for 350 or whatever. I will tell him all the economics. And after a couple of days of driving me around, he says, "You know what? I don't want to be a contractor. I don't want to be a worker. I want to be you. I want to be like you. Don't do anything and make millions of dollars." And I was like, "Well, if you want to be me, you got to learn stuff. You got to study. You got to, you know, uh, educate yourself." And you got kicked out of high school. So, at the age of 18, without a high school diploma, he gets himself a a real estate license. And and I gave him a buy box. I said, "Here's what you do. All you got to do is find value add assets in this market for me and every time we buy something you get paid a fee and then go meet with wholesalers. Go to whatever. The first year he made $90,000 and $90,000 about 15 years ago is a lot of money for 18-year-old kid. I had the push even though I believed like he's going to be a loser for the rest of his life because I sort of unchained him from these limiting beliefs um back in the back in the day and and I do that with a lot of other guys too but I got lucky because had I not given him that push he could have been and he had really bad friends they you know drugs and whatever it was just uh he was going in the wrong direction. He's doing good now. Yeah he's a Does he a customer of yours or no? you know, no but well we're in some deals together and so uh if somebody wants to start from scratch from zero they they are new to real estate they want to get into it what advice would you give them yeah well first of all we need to get educated right so education is number one that is number one but don't get so educated you don't actually do the deal you're not going to ever know everything right so learn just enough to where you you'll go out there and start doing it but like you talked about earlier if you need to surround yourself with people who you could lean on because you're going to have questions as you go through the business. Even I do too. You do today too. We we're still learning. We're constant learners. So I would say start to educate yourself, but do not let that stop you from actually moving forward. And then second, surround yourself um with the right people. And you're doing that by listening to podcasts like this or joining masterminds. One of the things that I sort of uh stand by every time I meet people, I say, "Look, number one thing, no matter who you want to be, uh you want to find a way to get as much information as possible and uh learn. You can learn from books, podcasts, uh uh you can join coaching. I actually started a coaching program where I coach people on how to do deals in my group right there. There's probably seven or 10 deals going on. And you are on the call right now. We're talking about this that you it's exciting to me. I I don't want to do more deals. I have too much on my plate as it is, but I'm excited about these little 4,000 6,000 foot or 20,000 foot deals. My friends are education is one thing. They say knowledge is power. Well, knowledge is not power if you don't take action. And most of the people are scared to take action because they have these limiting beliefs. And so, so the tribe, surrounding yourself with other people that are doing it day in and day out will give you that boost of motivation to really uh, you know, put put yourself, you know, go forward and and um try try. People are willing to help this, especially in this industry. People are so giving of their knowledge and their time. It's unbelievable. It's not a competition really. It's a cooperation. And I just got to say thank you to you because, you know, the only reason I'm here in Minnesota hanging out with you is because our son Branson is hanging out with your daughter to learn the business. And so 3 days or two and a half days or whatever it is, just following you guys around and he'll be inspired to me. He'll be inspired. I really really I'm excited about that. So Kevin, thank you so much for flying all the way to Minnesota to meet with us for this podcast. Yeah, thank you for coming. I appreciate you. I hope my our visitors um learned something new today. Uh if somebody wanted to get a hold of you, how do they find you? What's your website? What's your social media? The best way to reach me is probably email. It's kevinpinefinanciallgroup.com. I am still responding to all my own emails. You're probably not going to get me on the phone. Um but if you want to just get a hold of Pine Financial, the website's the best. There's a ton of information on there. It's pinefinanciallgroup.com. And you offer financing for value ad deals. Yes. Residential. You're not doing commercial right now. You paused a little bit, but you will. All right. So, essentially, if you need money, uh Kevin is your guy. Please send them a lot of deals. You don't mention my name. Thank you for coming to our podcast. Uh appreciate you, Kevin. And uh I'll see you guys on the next episode. Thanks, Rafi. Rafik Moore presents value ad podcast where real estate meets real results.