When the real estate market crashes, most investors retreat. Fear rises, distressed properties hit the market, and buyers move to the sidelines. But for prepared investors, that uncertainty can create some of the greatest wealth-building opportunities. Multifamily investor and entrepreneur Rod Khleif knows this firsthand. After losing approximately $50 million during the 2008 financial crisis, he rebuilt by returning to the mindset, discipline, and investment principles that helped him succeed in the first place.
Today, Rod sees another potential window of opportunity emerging. In his conversation on Build It to Billions, he shares a contrarian playbook for navigating distressed real estate markets, identifying opportunities others overlook, and staying prepared to act when fear takes over. The key isn’t perfectly timing the bottom. It’s having the mindset, liquidity, and strategy to recognize opportunity when everyone else is running the other way.
Episode Highlights Here:
Brett
Before we jump into this episode, I want to invite you to join our community to help you become a better steward, scale to billions, and ultimately give more or all of it away. All I want
you to do is to click the subscribe button right now. I love your support. It’s incredible to see your comments, and we’re just getting started. I can’t wait to go on this journey with you. Thank you so much for subscribing; it means the world to me. Welcome to the Build to Billions podcast, where we guide successful entrepreneurs and investors on their journey from millions to billions. We believe the key to scaling and compounding your wealth in life starts every single day with the mindset and practice of stewardship over ownership and applying billionaire biblical principles. Our ultimate goals help you scale and compound your wealth in life, so you can give more or all of it away to help MVPs. My name is Brett Swarts, and each and every episode, we’re joined by the world’s top entrepreneurs, millionaires, or billionaires, and they share their secrets, insights, and wisdom with us, so we can all level up and make a bigger impact. Our next guest is based out of Sarasota, Florida, and he’s a multifamily investor, bestselling author, and top-ranked podcast host who’s built a real estate empire after losing 50million in the 2008 crash. Today, he leads one of the most successful real estate investing coaching communities with over 260,000 student’s student-owned units. He supports his mission of abundance through the Tiny Hands Foundation, which has fed more than 160,000children, and he combines his market knowledge with a strong personal comeback story. He’s going to talk about a lot of this today about how to how to come back and how to build with challenges in marketplaces and different things of that nature as well. I also want to let you know we’re also streaming on Capital Gains Tax Solutions podcast and YouTube channel as well, so we welcome everyone there. Please welcome the show with me, Rod Khleif. Rod, how we doing?
Rod
Hey, brother, good to see you.
Brett
Likewise, great to see you. And for our listeners to get to know you for the first time, maybe just start with a little bit more about the story. And
Rod
sure, sure, sure, sure. So yeah, I’m a legend in my own mind. Yeah. So, I’m a Dutch immigrant. Okay. Yeah. You know, think wooden shoes and windmills. Immigrated this country when I was six years old, with my brother Albert, my mother’s Vanche, and we ended up in Denver, Colorado, and we didn’t have much. In fact, we actually shopped at an expired food store. Believe it or not, they had that back then. And we had powdered milk with our cereal in the morning because it was cheaper than real milk. And trust me, sounds better than it is. And I wore clothes from the Goodwill and the Salvation Army all the way through junior high school, hand-me-down clothes until I finally lied about my age when I was 14 because I was tall. Because you had to be 15 to work at Burger King so I could buy my own clothes and you know I’m sure you’ve got it listeners that started out harder than I did or maybe even harder now with all the craziness but I knew I wanted more and luckily my mom had incredible work ethic so she babysat kids so we’d have enough money to eat and with her babysitting money she was a bit of an entrepreneur and with no formal education, she invested in the stock market successfully in IPOs, and she also invested in real estate. And her first real estate acquisition was a house right across the street from us. She bought from a family named the Jewels when I was about 14 for 30 grand. Then, when I was 17, she told me she’d made$20,000 in her sleep that had gone up in value $20,000. I’m like, what? You made $20,000. You made 20,000. You didn’t do anything. This was back when 20 grand was a lot of money, mind you. This is 1977, and I’m like, screw college. I’m getting into real estate, so I went out and got my real estate broker’s license, which you could do back then with education. They got smart now. You need some experience to have your own office and be a broker. But I was smart enough to go work for a broker. But my first year in real estate, I made about eight grand. My second year, maybe 10 grand. But my third year, I made over $100,000, which back in 1980was some pretty decent change. So what happened between? That’s almost 50 years ago. So, what happened between Jesus? I’m old. What happened between year two and year three that caused me to 10x my income? Well, what happened was the broker I was working for. I was dating his daughter, and he taught me about the importance of mindset and psychology. How really 80 to 90 percent of your success in anything is just that-your mindset and psychology. And so, fast forward to today, I’ve owned over 2,000 houses. I’ve rented long-term. I own-I’ve owned 1000s of apartment units. I’m buying senior housing. In fact, I right after this, I’m going to the airport to go to Houston for my eighth ALF memory care facility, we’re buying in 2006.My net worth went up 17 million dollars while I slept, and you might say, “Wow! And I said,” Wow! And I got a head so big I could barely fit it through a door. And you know, when that happens, God of the universe will give you a nice little smackdown. Well, that was 2008. That was that 50 million. I call them seminars. That was that 50 million seminar. It was expensive, freaking seminar. Don’t get me wrong, but it’s only a failure if you don’t get your back up. Andso, yeah, I lost 50 million conservatively. And so, what I’m known for talking about on my podcast, which I’m blessed to say is the largest real estate podcast at this point for commercial real estate out there and let me brag for a minute. We just discovered a few weeks ago that my students now own, at last count, 305,000 units under my tutelage, which is more than everybody else that teaches this combined by a lot. Really, and we know it’s more than that even because not everybody replies. But yeah, super proud of that. But yeah, so. I’m happy to drill down on some of these psychological strategies because they’re the same ones that I use to get back. The same ones I used to have the 50 million to lose, and what I what I used to get to get back up again. And that’s what you know someone would start with.
Brett
And just so people can know where to find you too, real fast, if they want to jump and find you right now. Rob, where can so if you like this little, short clip of the interview I just did, click over here to watch the full interview, and please don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much, everybody.
Watch the episode here:
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About Rod Khleif
Rod’s journey also includes one of the most powerful comeback stories in real estate. After losing approximately $50 million during the 2008 financial crisis, he rebuilt by returning to the principles of goal setting, focus, resilience, and disciplined execution. Today, he shares those lessons with investors and entrepreneurs, helping them recognize opportunities during uncertain markets and build long-term wealth.
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