“There’s really one of two motivators: one is the motivation of excitement or the motivation of fear. And if you’re in the comfort zone in the middle, chances are you’re probably not going to move.”
Victor Menasce is a long-time investor and technologist with roots in Silicon Valley, and host of the real estate espresso podcast. He’s also the author of How to raise all the money you need for any worthy venture. He has raised several 100 million dollars for ventures, corporate buyouts, and Real Estate projects. As a full-time real estate developer, he raises funds on a daily basis and shares with others how to do the same.
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Investing In Real Estate And Scaling Your Business With Victor Menasce
Brett:
I’m so excited to welcome our guests to the show. This guest is a long-time investor and technologist with roots in the Silicon Valley, and hosts of the real estate espresso podcast. He’s also the author of How to Raise all the money you need for any Worthy Venture. He has raised several 100 million dollars for ventures, corporate buyouts, and Real Estate projects. As a full-time real estate developer, he raises funds on a daily basis and shares with others how to do the same. You can find him at victorjm.com. Please welcome me, Victor Menasce.
Victor:
Brett, great to be here.
Brett:
Hey, Victor, thanks so much for being on the show. Will you give our listeners a little bit about your story and your current focus?
Victor:
Absolutely. So my path into the world of real estate investing was not your typical career path. I started out my career as an electrical engineer designing microprocessors in the telecom industry. So if you made a phone call anywhere in North America, from about 1991 till the year 2,052% of the phone calls in North America, at that time, were routed by a processor that I designed and went on to do lots of other different projects in the telecom industry. I’ve got microprocessors in the seatback displays of most Airbus aircraft, I’ve got processors in Cisco Wi-Fi access points and the apple AirPort Express and all kinds of different applications Pachinko Pachi slot machines in Japan with Sammy Sega is a partner in Nvidia was a partner on that particular project. It’s all kinds of weird and wonderful microprocessor applications. And guess it was around 2009, I was on my 20th trip to Tokyo, and about a year and a half when we were building a new cellular network in Japan, and just came to the conclusion that I was doing the wrong thing I was, you know, shuttling back and forth to Japan every two weeks, and it was burning me out physically, emotionally, it just wasn’t right for me. And it wasn’t right for my family. So I made a decision at that time to make a left turn in my career and move essentially full time into the world of real estate investing kind of hard left turn.
Brett:
So during that turn, you mentioned a moment when you had to kind of burn the ships or you had to rip the band-aid off or you had to kind of dive in? Was it a slow gradual change or was it more sudden, can you kind of walk us through that transition? Because I imagine there’s a lot of either listeners or Wealth Advisors themselves who perhaps want to make the leap or the jump from one venture to the next. Walk us through that transition.
Victor:
You know, if I had if I was to do it again, I would definitely do some elements of it differently. In particular, I went from earning a very high six-figure income to zero overnight. And that’s a big Canyon to fill with real estate income in a very short time period. And of course, I didn’t so what I did during those early years of course, as I burned through savings, if I was to do it again, I would have hired people who would have taken you to know that whatever it was 185,000 a year salary, taken a portion of it rather than said It’s zero, I would have probably taken it hired maybe two people at 40,000 a year, now I get 16 hours a day of productive work out of people and I still get to keep half my income would have been much, much smarter move, rather than switching out of that, you know, executive role in the telecom industry or in the semiconductor industry, into real estate full time. So if I was to do it again, for those who are listening, thinking about making that kind of a career change, consider hiring people because at the end of the day, you’re going to build your organization, you want to build an organization that’s going to be capable of doing a larger amount of transactions of scaling up of managing things properly. So might as well just start with that organization from the beginning, rather than hoping to grow into it organically, and then you have the freedom to focus on doing bigger projects right from the get-go.
Brett:
So hires, hire sooner or quicker or right away without leaving the day job, use a portion of that or half of that to fund that venture. And that would have been a little bit of a smoother transition. Okay. That’s, that’s great. That makes a whole lot of sense. Who listens to me how many people on your team now, Victor, as far as to help you do what you do today?
Victor:
It’s a little bit difficult to measure because we have teams set up in each geographic location, we’re active in several markets, we have projects going on here in Ottawa, Canada, where I live. So our core team here in Ottawa consists of four people, we’ve got people in, in Banff, Alberta, up in the Rocky Mountains, core team, there are three people, we have projects going on in Louisiana, the core team, there are six people. So it really depends on the geographic location. How we set up each individual core team, because you need boots on the ground team, Philadelphia, that’s three people in the core team. And then of course, there’s the extended team, all of the folks that are either full-time employees or, or contractors that form part of the core of the venture. And the key is to, you know, think of these businesses don’t, you know, if you’re an active business operator, people, there’s a myth about real estate that it is a passive income. And you can invest passively in an active business, but there really are no passive businesses. And so these are all active businesses, they require time management attention. And, and it’s the core team that really is at the heart of that. And that’s what we focus on.
Brett:
Excellent. What’s the most rewarding part about helping others raise funds for a venture such as real estate, and or when those partners invest with you alongside to purchase deals.
Victor:
It really unlocks things, it’s the key to the kingdom if you’re trying to amass capital, simply by living below your means and savings. savings is a great way to do it. But it’s very long, it’s very slow for me to save, or for anybody to save, say a quarter million dollars out of their bi-weekly paycheck will take years, it’ll take decades. But for me to raise a quarter-million dollars or half a million dollars, I can make that in a few phone calls. So it really compresses timeframes. And as soon as you recognize that and realize that using other people’s money and doing it responsibly, doing it legally, doing it ethically, all of those sorts of things. You’re not only helping yourself, but you’re also helping them as well, we have investors that really have come to rely upon the rates of return that we give them for their livelihood. Some of them are retirees, some of them have folks at home with health issues. And it’s rewarding when you have lunch with them, and they say thank you, Victor, for everything you’ve done for my family over the years. And I’m thinking what are you talking about? You enable us to build our projects, but it will really be thanking us genuinely because we’ve helped them. I’m talking about the investors. For the sponsor, it’s illuminating the pathway for them, everybody runs out of their own capital in this business, it’s a business of big numbers, and doesn’t matter who you are, everybody runs out of their own money. So, learning to raise money is a critical skill. It’s the skill that enables almost everything.
Brett:
So it unlocks wealth at a rapid pace. it compresses timeframes, and then for those that are truly just investing and not active, but passively counting on some kind of return. It gives them peace of mind, and an alternative cash flow made from the traditional way, of investing. So it was just a little bit after running a successful podcast, the real estate special podcast, raising millions of dollars developing countless investment, real estate deals, writing your own book, and really helping your audience understand, can be complex real estate, strategies or different things and make it into a concise form. Just something I was saying before the show that I really appreciate about your show you do in a 510 or 15 minutes segment, you compress and condense a ton of content that’s very digestible. And it truly is like an espresso shot. What have you learned when you’ve interviewed all these folks, and over these years that you’ve had entrepreneurs, real estate? What’s the single most surprising theme, I know, you’ve learned a lot, but really what’s focusing on maybe one or two single most surprising themes you’ve learned from interviewing Wealth Advisors, commercial real estate brokers, owners, financial advisors, your guests, entrepreneurs?
Victor:
I think there are a few things number one, whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, a lot of people in you know them, it might even be you. You’re out there trying to get something done, and you’re not making progress. So what do you do if you go read another book, you get another strategy? And that’s knowledge. Knowledge is useful, and it’s powerful, and it’s essential. And oftentimes, people think, well, if I just had one more bit of knowledge, and it’s, it’s important, but it’s not enough, and what’s usually in most people’s blind spots, is what are the other missing elements. And for me, there are really three things that you need to accomplish anything, and I’ve got this in it. I’ve got this from talking to people, I’ve got this from experiencing it myself. So you need the knowledge, that’s clear. But most of the time, you have more than enough knowledge to get it done. The next and most important thing for you to get is, is to have the emotional drive, and connected with that, eliminate whatever emotional obstacles are preventing you from getting whatever it is done. And then number three, and this is the most important, the most overlooked is to get in the right environment. So give you a simple example. Let’s say that my goal was to lose, to get in shape and lose 10 pounds. You know what to do if you know what foods to eat, you know what exercises to do. You don’t need another book, you don’t need another strategy. You don’t need another webinar on how to do that you’ve gotten all the knowledge, most likely, that’s probably not the issue. You may have the emotional drive, you may say, you know what, I’ve got a beach vacation coming up in a couple of months, I want to look good. So maybe you’ve got that part figured out. But you’re working in the kitchen at Pizza Hut, you’re in the wrong environment, there’s no way that you’re going to be successful if you’re in that wrong environment. So what have you done to set up your environment so that you can be successful? What’s in your fridge? You know, I’ve got a spin bike, here in my basement. It’s a great spin bike. I love it. It’s a Schwinn. And it’s awesome. So why would I, you know, it’s still dark in the morning, get out of my bed, get in the car, drive, 15 minutes to the gym, go into a room with 35 other spin bikes. for a spin class, when I’ve got a spin bike in my basement, it’s not that I need the instructor to tell me how to operate the bike. But I just know that I get a better workout in that environment than if I’m sitting in my basement, I’m at home by myself, looking at the clock, wondering what else I need to get done, you know, get done that day. So it’s really about setting up your environment. And if you look at the people who have established wealth significance, it’s because they put themselves in that right environment.
“Wealthy people invest first & spend what’s left… Broke people spend first & invest what’s left.” – Unknown
Brett:
Those are some gold nuggets there. And just as a real recap, knowledge is not enough. We typically either have enough knowledge, especially in the day and age of technology and information, the knowledge is there, you can pick up a book and get the knowledge pretty quickly. But second, you probably already have enough that about second you have the emotional drive so touch on what helps you stay encouraged Victor, after all the success and all the deals and all the challenges that you faced over your career, that emotional drive part. How do you stay encouraged, admit of everything?
Victor:
Well, I found that in order to accomplish something, there’s really one of two motivators: one is the motivation of excitement or the motivation of fear. And if you’re in the comfort zone in the middle, chances are you’re probably not going to move. I’m while I’m doing big projects, and it’s exciting. I’m also pretty uncomfortable on a daily basis. I’m doing things that I haven’t done before, I’m putting myself in a situation that is challenging. People often look at me from the outside and say, Victor, you’re doing great things for me from the inside. I’m looking at it going damn. This is hard. And it is, it’s things that I haven’t done before we encounter obstacles and you just work through it. You have to love that journey. You have to be willing to take you to know, those body blows on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and pick yourself up and say okay, that didn’t work. How are we going to solve this differently and online oftentimes in the real cold, hard light of entrepreneurship, a lot of people, the ones who don’t succeed are the ones who quit? And they quit because it is hard. Be the ones that succeed. If you look at the history of anyone who’s been successful, who’s achieved any form of significance, you know, not talking about the ones who won the lottery, we’re talking about the ones who really worked for it, you’ll find a long messy trail of, of failures and setbacks along the way. But they didn’t quit. You know, you listen to shows like guy Rouse and listen to these stories of entrepreneurship. And you look at what some people went through for 10, 15, 20 years, grinding it out. And then all of a sudden, they get escape velocity, and people look like they’re an overnight success. Yeah, well, they’re an overnight success. 20 years in the making. So you really have to love the journey.
Brett:
Love the journey. I like what you said there when you mentioned excitement or fear. And if you’re somewhere in the middle, you’re probably not moving, right? So that wise got to be big enough. That vision for what you’re doing while you’re doing it is gonna hopefully drive the excitement. And then maybe even the fear sometimes that you’re maybe not accomplishing everything you should be right or, or the gifts that you’ve been given. Oftentimes, I as part of the podcast are a capital gains tax solution, it’s about money. But it’s also about the gains that we have in life that we’ve been given meaning people have invested in us, right? We live in free countries, we have lots of the basic necessities, we have great educational systems, we have so much we’ve been given. And what are we going to do with those gains, right? Are we going to live somewhere between excitement, fear, or too much in fear? and let it paralyze us? Or are we going to go, and maximize and make even more of that? So how do you see what you’ve been given? And even backing up? Before you all of your success? Maybe when you were a kid, what was the thing that you felt like? I was given this gift. And because of that, I’m who I am today, and I can help more people because of it. What was that as a child or growing up or what gift you’ve been given? Victor that helps you help people better?
Victor:
It was two things. I was inspired by two people, one who I knew quite well, that was my mother, and one who I never met. And that was my grandfather who died before I was born. But I heard all of these stories about my grandfather, who was an industrialist who was an inventor, he had, I don’t know, 65 patents or something like that. He was actually the inventor, I don’t know, dating myself for some people. But some of you might remember the IBM Selectric typewriter. This was the typewriter that instead of having the hammers, the individual hammers for each character, had a ball, it had a daisy wheel concept, he was the inventor of that concept. And again, I’ve got a drawer full of patents, for that, for that work, among many, many other inventions that he had. And so what my mother instilled in me from a very early age, was that literally, I could do anything. And she would show me the prototypes of the project, you know, the products that he developed as a proof of that, and I never met him. And my mother herself was the second woman in history to graduate in architecture from Cornell University. So I saw that she worked on these landmark buildings in Manhattan, the Pan Am building that sits on top of Grand Central Station, the pier hotel on Fifth Avenue in 60th. Street, that’s a kitty-corner from the slightly more famous Plaza Hotel, but still a very marquee Hotel in Manhattan, as all these projects that she worked on said, You know what, you can create anything, if you set yourself up, set yourself, set your mind to it. And that’s what was instilled in me at a very early age.
Brett:
Wow. So you have you’re standing on the shoulders of giants, your mom, and your grandfather sound like just an amazing, amazing people and what a story of your grandfather being the inventor and your mom, breaking the history books. Then instilling that resolve to that no matter what Victor, you can do whatever you want, as long as again, put your mind to it, work hard and focus on it. And then she would show you the tangible results of your grandfather. This is what he created. This is how he did it. So she brought up what the concept was to live by showing you that practice is that a fair summary there?
Victor:
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Brett:
Great. So let’s dive in a little bit more of the tactical now. Okay, so we touched a little bit on personal a little bit of your background. Now we’re gonna just talk about how you help create and preserve more wealth for yourself and for your partners and clients. And in particular, we kind of want to focus on how you help reduce and eliminate Or defer capital gains tax. And we first started, and I like to before the show, you mentioned something about, you know, refinance. So give us your strategy on, on how you’ve, you’ve dealt with capital gains tax in different ways. And in particular, on the refinance, when you were speaking about.
Victor:
Well, one of the best kinds of tax deferral is making sure that you don’t even trigger a taxable event. So the question is, how do you and of course, when you have a capital gains situation, you’re looking to defer tax, it’s because you’ve created value, or the market has maybe delivered some value for you because there might have been some market appreciation. And now you’re sitting on a capital gain, and you’ve got a huge tax bill to deal with. Now, there are lots of experts like yourself and others to talk about 1031 exchanges and various, now the new opportunity zone funds as a great tax deferral strategy, but how about getting rid of the taxable event altogether, then you don’t have to deal with it. So what we focus on, rather than just creating value with existing products in the marketplace, I think we would both agree that there’s an awful lot of money chasing too few opportunities in the marketplace today, especially in the multifamily space. There’s a lot of apartment complexes when they appear on the market. They’re a bloody auction, and there’ll be 15, 20 offers on that. And in that environment, do you want to be the winning bidder with 19? Guys behind you? I don’t. Because it almost guarantees that I’m paying too much unless I see something in that property that the others don’t, I’m paying too much. And I just don’t want to play that game. So we focus on a strategy that we call, buy on the line, move the line. And this is a strategy that works pretty much in any city in America. And the line that we’re talking about is that line between the hot gentrified neighborhood, and you go two blocks too far in your hood. And wherever you’re living, wherever you’re listening to this, I know you can picture that, because almost every city in America has that situation. And now if that line is a hard boundary, it’s not a movable line, like a municipal boundary, or a school district or a freeway or something like that, then it’s difficult to move that line. But in many cases, that line is arbitrary. It’s just always been that way. So why is this area not a good street? Well, just because the key is to buy assets, just on the wrong side of that line, don’t go too far. But just right on the wrong side of that line, and we develop the line. Now, when you redevelop it, you build a new product that is consistent with a hot neighborhood next door, the valuations you’re going to get are going to be consistent with the hot neighbor next door because there are no comps in the hood. There just aren’t. So when you do that you’re buying land for pennies on the dollar, you’re developing a new product. You know, once you get your basis low enough, maybe you’re in an area that also might be an opportunity zone, maybe it is an area that’s a tax advantage, there might be some tips, you know, or some tax incentives, maybe a 10-year tax abatement or something like that, to make it even more attractive for redevelopment. And then you build that new product. And when it’s completed, the value that you’re going to get is, and we design it this way, is to make sure that the value we get is going to be significantly above the cost that it took us to build it. And we’re looking for typically, that 40% 35 40% yield on cost. So simple math, imagine for a moment that you are building a building, and it’s going to be valued at a million dollars when it’s complete, you want to make sure that you’re capping your investment, something around 700,000, so that you can then take that building, go back to the lender, go back to a bank to get permanent financing on it at 70% loan to value. And now at that point, you’ve recovered 100% of your initial investment, including all the equity investment, you pay back the construction loan, you pay back, any mezzanine lenders or any secondary financing lenders and you paid back all of your Equity Partners, they have all their money back, and now you’re holding the proverbial no money down deal. You can take that capital, redeploy it and do it again. And so the folks that may have loaned the money early on, when they get the money back through that refinance, it’s not a taxable event. And so now they get their money back and they get to go do it again. And they’re still holding it as a cash-flowing asset with a conservative debt to equity ratio, responsible debt to equity ratio, that’s got decent debt coverage and it’s generating positive cash flow and you can go build your portfolio that way.
Brett:
That sounds fantastic. Make sure I recap that for the listeners and make sure I get a grasp myself. So you’re looking to buy land in neighborhoods that are about two to three blocks away, that perhaps are a hot neighborhood or a trending neighborhood. And maybe just on the wrong side of this perhaps arbitrary line, you probably don’t want to go into another city or a different municipality, that could be a difference, but it’s more so just an arbitrary line where you know, that’s not a such a nice part of town, find a piece of land and build something that’s comparable to what’s in the nicer parts of the neighborhood. And since you’re doing that, and you’re close enough, the comps and the comparables, by almost default need to go to the newer, newer, nicer place, which in turn increases your value. But you’re also not too deep into that marketplace where the location is going to determine the value overall. And then from there, you’re going to build a property and then refinance. Once you’re fully stabilized, pull your money back out and buy a refinance and you’re not incurring a capital gains tax event, because you’re not selling any property not recognizing any gain. With that amount of money, you’re gonna go and just do another project. Hopefully, all of your money’s out of there out of the deal, because you just refinanced and you’re still getting cash flow on that deal. And then you’re starting another one. Is that a fair summary there, Victor?
Learning to raise money is a critical skill. It's the skill that enables almost everything. Click To TweetVictor:
Yeah, you nailed it. That’s it.
Brett:
Excellent. I think that is a wise strategy.
Victor:
The one thing I’ll add to that, the one thing I’ll add to that is, you’ve got to make sure that you put a tiny bit of scale behind it, if you do one or two, it might not be enough for the market to notice. But you put a little scale behind it, you do five, you do 10, you do 20, the market says, Oh, I get it, the line has moved. Now you might be saying, I don’t have the resources to go do five or 10. on my own. Okay, fine. This is a team sport, invite a few friends along and they will, you know, they will create value for you by building out the neighboring properties. You don’t have to do it all yourself.
Brett:
That makes sense. And are you mostly focused on multifamily development? Or is it mixed-use retail? Or what was sort of your niche when it comes to developing these projects? And what are a million dollars? buy these days for your average deal?
Victor:
Great question. So today we are active in multi absolutely active multifamily. I’ll give you a couple of examples of projects that we recently completed. I’ll even give you the address. One is a 13 unit building on West master street in Philadelphia, it’s probably about seven, eight blocks from Temple University in North Philadelphia, if you know that part of town, Master street in that particular area was a bit of a rough area, a rough street like it really was. And it’s about three blocks from what was traditionally the line. Now there’s a couple of lines that have been moving in this part of Philly. And the address is 2220 West master Street. Now we originally assembled eight properties on this particular site and ended up losing three to the city of Philadelphia in a claim of eminent domain. So what we were left with were five properties. The original concept that we had for that project fell apart, it didn’t work anymore after the whole eminent domain process completed. And so we ended up having to redesign that to accommodate a 13 unit building. At the end of the day, after everything was said and done, all the investment in that particular 13 unit building was just, you know, give or take around $2 million, I think it was 2,000,040, something like that. And in the past month, we got an appraisal for 2.9 million. And we were able to refinance the project, and we recovered our capital. So that’s an example of the types of things that we do. And you know, I could give that example another and I’m giving that example. In particular, because it was a difficult project. It wasn’t the glowing success story, it was a screw-up, it took us five years to get that project completed because of this whole eminent domain cloud that was hanging over the project for several years and getting that all settled with the city. So even a screw-up like that, you can still pull it out of the fire and get that yield on costs that you’re looking for we find out of it, even though it took us a whole heck of a lot longer than we originally planned.
Brett:
And you persevered you had to adjust and shift because the eminent domain came in. And I imagine too, if you’re doing multiple projects and your investors are spread over, let’s say 10 deals versus just one or two. It’s a part of diversifying within versus all your eggs in one and all your funds just in one or two deals. So that kind of goes with your other part of the way you approach partnerships and deals so I’m curious so I look at you as a really successful and you are wealth advisor for commercial real estate but those who are outside the commercial real estate world, you know, financial advisors, Business Brokers, others who help people create and preserve more with their products and services. I’m curious, what are they missing or in other words, if there are two things you could share with these Wealth Advisors to help them help their clients. What would you say that they’re missing? And what should they be sharing with their clients?
Victor:
Well, I think, obviously, the number one thing is you got to really know who you’re doing business with. Because at the end of the day, that is really the only differentiator it’s the quality of the team that you’ve entrusted to manage your money. And that’s true doesn’t matter. Whether we’re talking about a real estate deal, or whether you’re talking about buying shares in General Electric, you need to know who’s at the helm, who’s making the decisions, do they have the investor’s interest at heart? And can you trust them to deliver? Can you trust them with your money? That’s vitally important. I learned midway through my career, I was an officer of a US public company based in Silicon Valley. And I watched the CEO of our company, go on Jim Cramer’s TV show, and essentially lie to the American public. And I said to myself, as I was watching this, I said, my goodness, most poor investors, how many other boardrooms in America is this happening? Just because it’s a public company doesn’t mean that the individual small investor that’s buying shares through their Merrill Lynch brokerage or through their Schwab account doesn’t mean that they have any control because they don’t. And so it really showed me very, a real firsthand way that the small investor doesn’t have control. And so I really, at that point, made the decision to sell all of my shares and public companies. Today, I hold almost no stock in public companies, which is kind of the opposite of what most of the population in North America is doing. And by the way, I kind of grew up in that world. You know, I mentioned my mother was an architect. And in New York City, my uncle owned a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, he was one of the 1000 members of the exchange. So I grew up in that world, I own shares. As a young boy, as a teenager, I owned shares in companies and I actively traded, and today, I hold almost no stock in any public companies, because I just see, you know, the markets are being overinflated. I really like the idea of having control. And it’s not that I’m a control freak, I really like the notion of knowing who you’re doing business with. I like the idea that investments should not be speculative. In the example that I gave you, of our bi on the line moves the line strategy. I’m not relying on future market appreciation. I’m not relying on the market going up 4% a year, if that happens, great. And we know inflation is here. And we know that that’s all happening, but I’m not relying on it. I want to control the things that we control if you’re speculating that the market’s going to go up just because it’s gone up for the last 10 years. That’s just speculation, you don’t know.
Brett:
That’s great advice and great wisdom. And finishing up here, how do you stay centered in your values, Victor? You’re again, you’re all the success all these deals, all this, the constantly moving marketplace, and, and especially this highly-priced marketplace for most markets and for commercial real estate, how do you stay centered on your values? And not be discouraged? When challenges come up?
Victor:
It’s rarely what happens. That’s the issue. The emotional baggage that a lot of people carry has nothing to do with what happens; it has to do with a story that’s wrapped around that. So let me see if I can give you an example of that. Well, a very simple example. You could have two projects, two identical projects, they could have the same amount of good luck, the same amount of bad luck, the same amount of weather delays, the same amount of cost overruns. Yeah. This project is a success, and the other one is a failure. And what makes those two projects one is a success. And the other one a failure. The only thing that distinguishes those two is what expectations were set around that project to begin with. And so in our culture, we wrap things up not in what happened, but we wrap it up in the story of the expectations that were set. So when things don’t go according to plan, as they often don’t. How do you manage that? Do you carry that stress on your own shoulders? Do you manage that risk? Or do you share that with your investors? Do you reset expectations because you have a choice, you can either reset the expectation or you can reset reality. Usually resetting reality doesn’t work. Reality is reality. So Unless you have the ability to alter reality, the only thing left is to reset expectations. And so staying centered is okay. So this happened. Is it my fault? Maybe is it somebody else’s fault? Maybe, maybe it’s nobody’s fault, maybe it just happened. Sometimes things just happen. And so then at that point, you say, okay, just tell the truth. tell people what happened, this is the truth and deal with it. And people may not be happy, but there’ll be understanding and, and as long as you know that, as long as they know that you’ve been open and truthful with them and that you have their best interests at heart. In my experience, they will stay connected with you, and be supportive of your efforts to protect them to protect their investment. And so far touch wood. You know, we’ve rarely, if ever lost investor monies, the only time we did was oil, well, that went absolutely to zero. And so that’s why I’m no longer in the oil industry. But because that’s a that’s a very high-risk pop proposition. But we’ve been very successful in just being straight and open and honest with people and sharing with them the risks and the challenges and whatever we’re dealing with, and, and it’s that perseverance, that commitment that our investors can count on. And it’s what I bring to my work each and every day.
Brett:
I love the idea of either resetting expectations, or you try to reset reality, and good luck on the ladder, because that’s very challenging to do. And also how you mentioned, just tell people what happened, be very honest with what happened. And there may be blame on some sides, one or the other. But at the same time, sometimes things just happen and you have to work through it together. And be honest about that. And as long as you have the partner or client or you know, best interest at heart, and they know that then most folks are understanding and, and move forward. So well. Victor, I want to thank you for your time. I want to thank you for sharing all of the wisdom with us today. Again, you can find Victor at victorjm.com. But Victor, are you any last thoughts or any other places we would like our listeners to find yet?
Victor:
Well, I’m the host of the real estate espresso podcast, the daily podcast seven days a week, the weekday shows are just me five minutes your morning shot of What’s New in the world of real estate investing in the weekend edition are interviews with Notable people from the world of real estate investing, including yourself, you’ve been on the show, and that was a great episode. So definitely go back and listen to that episode. It was one of the best ones out there. So real estate espresso podcast, on any one of 20 plus of your favorite podcast listening platforms.
Brett:
Beautiful. Thank you, Victor, and thank you. Thanks again to all of our listeners for listening to another episode of the capital gains tax solutions podcast. As always, we believe that most high net worth individuals and those who helped them struggle with clarifying their capital gains tax deferral options, not having a clear plan is the enemy. Maybe using a refinance strategy, buy at the line and redevelop instead of a new line might be your next tax deferral strategy by refinancing not incurring any capital gains tax, and learning more about what Victor does, can be part of that plan. And most of all, we want to help you have a proven tax deferral strategy, and bring on some of the best Wealth Advisors to share their ideas and inspiration so that you can defer your tax and grow your wealth. We look forward to seeing you at the next show. And thanks again, Victor for being with us.
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About Victor Menasce
I have focused the past 9 years of my professional life on real estate investment. This started locally in Canada and moved quickly into the US markets as the opportunities for great investments presented themselves. This was a right-hand turn in my career.
I spent the first 25 years of my career in the high-tech industry. My past roles include Vice President of Engineering at Wavesat, a developer of chips for wireless networks, and Chief Technical Officer at Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, a Silicon Valley-based public company that develops processors for use in numerous consumer products including televisions and gaming. I was the founder and Chief Operating Officer at Somerset Technologies. I also held several senior roles in marketing and engineering with Tundra Semiconductor. I started my career at Bell Northern Research and Nortel where I designed chips that were used to control the telephone network. For approximately a decade, 54% of the phone calls in North America were routed by a chip that I designed.
