Preserving Wealth Thru Multifamily Investing With Gino Barbaro

“Everyone on the call needs to understand, it’s income versus expenses, whether it’s a business or whether it’s your life. So if you’re going to get into multi-family or any type of business, you have to take control of your financial future. It’s all about you. We are the masters of our fate. We are the captains of our soul.”

Gino Barbaro is an expert in all things multi-family and investment real estate and sourcing, finding deals, raising money, and also asset management. He’s the co-founder of Jake and Gino, which focuses on investment real estate wealth building and education. They also have a very unique framework and they call it the wheelbarrow profits. He’s also the co-author of a brand new book called The Honeybee, and his original book Wheelbarrow Profits: How To Create Passive Income, Build Wealth and Take Control of Your Destiny Through Multifamily Real Estate Investing.

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Preserving Wealth Thru Multifamily Investing With Gino Barbaro

Brett:

Wow, what an amazing interview we’re in store for. Gino is really going to share with us how he helps people create and preserve more wealth using multifamily investing. He has a passion for educating others, he’s going to talk about how to move from a day job to full-time real estate investing, some of his biggest mistakes that he made with capital gains tax, and the number one for his mom who was doing a 1031 exchange years ago. He’s going to talk about really just the way he uses cost segregation now also too to help with capital gains tax deferral. So I look forward to your guys’ thoughts and comments and sharing this podcast with future listeners. So enjoy this podcast right now. I want to welcome you to the Capital Gains Tax Solutions podcast. Our next guest really focuses on helping people who struggle with growing their real estate business and finding actual content and tools to build and strengthen their multifamily business. He’s an expert really in all things multi-family and investment real estate and sourcing, finding deals, raising money, and also asset management. He’s the co-founder of Jake and Gino, which focuses on investment real estate wealth building and education. They also have a very unique framework and they call it the wheelbarrow profits, which we’ll dive into on this show. But it really entails three pillars of real estate wealth building; buying right, managing right, and financing right. And this has all led to him and his partners being able to grow a portfolio of over 1000 units within five years, and it enabled both Jake and Gino to transition out of their jobs to become full-time real estate investors. He’s also the co-author of a brand new book called The Honeybee, and his original book Wheelbarrow Profits: How To Create Passive Income, Build Wealth and Take Control of Your Destiny Through Multifamily Real Estate Investing. He’s also the host of multiple podcasts and you can read all of this information at jakeandgino.com. Please welcome me to the show, Gino Barbaro.

Gino:

Brett, thank you. It’s amazing that I actually am here and I’ve been able to make money in real estate and able to teach others how to do it. That’s the amazing part. So let’s dive into this thing.

Brett:

Absolutely. Will you give our listeners a little bit about your background and your story and then your current focus?

Gino:

Sure. When I got out of college a long time ago, I was looking for a job, couldn’t find a job, went to work for AIG in reinsurance accounting. And anybody knows about reinsurance accounting, that’s really painful. Really painfully boring. Worked there for a year and I decided I didn’t want to be in corporate America. I was commuting to New York City, I hated that. This was a pre-Giuliani era, so it was just terrible. I ended up buying a restaurant with my father and mother and brother. I ran that restaurant for 20 years, 1994 to actually this week we’re selling it because my brother’s getting out of it. But back in 2008, in the great recession, we had a good 15-year run, right Brett? A lot of stuff changed. The economy changed. All of a sudden, GrubHub, Uber Eats, people had different eating habits, everything changed. And I saw it coming and I said to myself, I’ve got six kids, I said to myself, “I need to make some additional money to pay for my kids.” Now, my thought was, “I have to save money.” Middle-class mindset; not saved to buy assets but save for the event. That was one of my biggest shifts in becoming an entrepreneur. You know what? Don’t worry about saving for retirement; buy those assets that will produce the income that will pay down the principal and you’ll have that asset continue to produce. But I got off a tangent there. Back in ’08, I said, “I need to do something.” I made a couple of big mistakes. Didn’t have due diligence, didn’t have the education, bought a mobile home park, bought a strip mall; both bad investments. I decided I need something that’s a little bit more passive, but that I can start out with while I’m doing the restaurant. I met Jake in 2011. He was living in New York. He decides to move down to Knoxville, Tennessee, probably one of the best things he’s ever done for both of our lives. It took us 18 months to find that first deal. February of 2013, we found a 25 unit property, which is why multi-family is fantastic because it’s a business, it’s scalable, there are economies of scale, you can actually do it part-time while you have a full-time business. You don’t have to quit your full-time endeavor to go into real estate full-time. I think people have that misconception. I had six kids, I couldn’t do that. I needed to work, continue to work at the restaurant, continue to hone my craft. An expert? There’s no such thing as an expert because this market is constantly changing. Financing constantly changes. Managing principles are constantly changing. Markets are constantly changing. So the more you think you know, you end up knowing less than what you really know. So it’s always an evolution. So for us, it took Jake about 18 months after that first deal, with cost segregation, to be able to leave his job. Me, it took about three years. I left my restaurant in March of 2016. It was planned, I didn’t even go overnight, but I actually used a little bit of cost-segregation, I used the cash flow from the properties, we refinanced a lot of our properties and went into the next deal and then into the next deal. So there is a plan, just everybody out there, multi-family is fantastic. Just beware that it’s a longer game, it’s more strategic, there’s definitely a business component to it, and it’s scalable. And if you find what you love to do, it’s an amazing business.

Brett:

I love that, from starting out with six kids, from working restaurant business, from having some early failures in real estate, but you kept persevering and you did it part-time and you slowly moved to full-time through a series of events. I’m curious, before your success though, I want to back up, take a step back, I think we’re all given certain gifts in life, right? Some people call it superpowers, some people call it gifts. I’m curious, who was Gino growing up, before all of the success, and what gifts were you given that help you help others today?

Gino:

The gifts that I was given were from my parents. So I was lucky. I was born into two immigrants, they were both born in Italy. And everyone has this fantasy about the four-hour workweek. There’s no such thing as the four-hour workweek. It’s really working hard. And when you get to this point of success where I became financially free, then you decide to work even harder because you love it. I mean, there’s the 5%. I could be retired right now, but what the heck would I be doing being retired? I want to continue to grow. And I think that’s one of the superpowers, is I work really hard, and I commit, and then I figure it out. And I’m allowed to do that because I have an amazing spouse, an amazing wife. I have an amazing business partner, Jake. We make mistakes, we hold each other accountable, we figure out what we do with those mistakes. They’re not really mistakes, they’re just learning lessons. For instance, on our first live event, we had back in 2017, we had 175 people there. Did we make mistakes? We made a lot of mistakes. But it was a success because we’d never done one. 2018, we had 400 people. Were there mistakes? Yes. Learning lessons. Last year in October, we had over 500 attendees. We had Eric Thomas speaking there, and amazing. But the evolution just works hard and then continues to learn how to work smart. And then hopefully the third part of my trinity that I like to call it is to work with passion. So if you can couple the hard with smart and then with passion, you’re going to lead a really great life. And it’s not about retiring, everybody out there, it’s about retiring from what you’re doing to finding what you love to do, and then continuing to actually add value to people’s lives. And the ironic thing is, once you become financially free and you figure it out and you’re able to help others, the more people you help, the more money you make. And then you’re not even doing it for the money, which is the ironic part about it. That’s what I found to be, at least in my case.

Brett:

You know, Gino, I couldn’t agree with you more. Finding your strengths and finding the gifts you were given and then using those. And when you do, something inside of you comes alive and you become more passionate, and that fuels you to work even harder and to help more people. But the key, you’re right, it’s figuring out a way to escape feeling trapped from that day job, that income stream, the expenses you have, and part of that is investing into cash flow producing assets that can replace that income or supplement so you’re not so beholden to that job. And then, again, work becomes about building your wealth and your family’s wealth and your friends’ wealth, and it’s a really fun activity. So, great, so hard work and dedication, having great parents. That’s a great foundation and a lot to be thankful for. And so when did you become fascinated in particular though with helping others now? So you went from yourself and got some freedom, and then you transitioned into, “Now I want to educate, have these live events, have these podcasts, and really help more people achieve what I achieved.” When did you become fascinated and obsessed with helping others achieve the same financial freedom you have?

Gino:

Brett, I’m going to answer that, but let me go back 30 seconds into what you were talking about as far as that foundation. Everyone on the call needs to understand, it’s income versus expenses, whether it’s a business or whether it’s your life. So if you’re going to get into multi-family or any type of business, you have to take control of your financial future. It’s all about you. We are the masters of our fate. We are the captains of our souls. You have to understand that every entrepreneur is responsible for his or her actions. And if we don’t come to grips with that and we don’t take control, and I’m not talking live with all your means, but know what income is coming in, know what expenses are going out. Once you can get that, debt is the new slavery. I mean, if you have personal debt, it will not allow you to take these new obligations and these new chances or these new choices. And I see a lot of people saddled with this personal debt. Figure out what your debt is and try to get rid of that. I like Dave Ramsey from that perspective; really get rid of that personal debt. Use business debt wisely. If you’ve never used credit before, credit is a tool like a gun. If you use a gun wisely, you can eat dinner. If you use a gun poorly, you’re going to hurt somebody. It’s the same thing with credit. I learned because I put 50 grand of credit out of my own pocket, 10 years ago, into a bad deal. The deal went bad. Two years later, I used it on my third real estate deal from a home equity loan. Best deal I ever did. What happened? Not the credit that was good or bad. It was me that became a good person. So, for me, to answer your question, it was more of a life coaching component. I went to live coaching in 2015 and I started to realize that everyone’s just as screwed up as me. We’re all pretty much broken, right? We all have our limiting beliefs, our energy blocks, as we like to say, and we all have that little gremlin, a little inner voice in our heads trying to stop us. Now for me, I was fortunate that I had a lot of pain in my life. I wouldn’t say pain in a bad way, but I was just stuck and I wanted to figure it out. And when you get into your thirties and forties, you start figuring out there’s more to life than just making money, right? You want to become a role model for your kids. And ultimately, when you go to coaching school and you become a life coach, it’s really figuring out what your why is. And my why for me as I had so much potential, right? We’ve all heard that I wasn’t born into the upper class, I was a white male, I was in my forties, I had a business. I should be doing more than what I was. And I felt like I was letting myself down and letting my wife down and letting my family down by not doing more. I felt comfortable. And when you’re comfortable in life, that sucks, because you’re not really producing. You’re not producing to your maximum. So when I went to coaching school, I realized that we’re all making excuses out there, and I said, “Wow, if I can figure out my life, let me figure my life out and become more active. And then, all of a sudden, you’ll start getting answers.” And then everyone has basically the same fears, the same frustrations as you do, and coaching is all about asking people the right questions and raising their level of energy, and letting them see the opportunity because we all have the answers within ourselves. But unfortunately, most of us don’t take the time to work on ourselves because it’s hard. Sometimes we don’t like to hear the answers. But for me, like I said, moving away from that pain was such a motivating factor, giving me clarity on what I wanted to do. And then when I achieve financial freedom, I’m like, “I want to go into multifamily full-time because I can help people, create education, and we’re going to continue to buy these assets.” So for me, it was a life coaching component that helped me out.

Brett:

Thank you for sharing, I can’t agree with you more. We’ve been given certain gifts and talents and then we build wealth, and it’s not just about stopping there. It’s now how are we going to be a good steward of what you’ve been given to give back and help more people? And in other words, take all the gain you have and not just have it just wash away or be wasted, but take that gain and now multiply that and help more people and build more wealth. And all of those things really help. And as part of that, the tactical part you mentioned about debt, and my experience with debt in 2008 was the crash, when the marketplace fell apart and I saw people really get hurt. I was on the other side of things, just really getting started in my career, but I saw some people lose everything because they took on what’s called dumb debt, right? I think there’s smart debt, there’s risky debt, and there’s dumb debt. And dumb debt is when you overpay for properties, you buy something just because you want to defer the tax, and you don’t look at the intrinsic value of the real estate and the actual income and expenses and what it’s producing. And at that point, you can get trapped in overpaying. That’s what happened in ’05, ’06, ’07. ’08 hit and that debt all came back and people, again, some lost everything, especially here in California, or lost a big majority of their portfolio. So it’s knowing when to take smart debt when it’s a buyer’s market when you can find a deal that makes sense. Risky debt, you can stay in a deal and maybe not refinance, just stay where you’re at, don’t double down, and overpay for something in 1031. But certainly, be very cautious about right now overpaying for properties and taking on dumb debt just to get into a deal or just to defer tax. But that’s a little side point on that. Any thoughts on that, do you know, as far as smart debt, risky debt, or dumb debt?

Gino:

Well, that’s great because that’s what’s happening right now, 1031s, especially from people in California who have multiple millions of dollars of capital gains. They’re going to buy these deals out in other parts of markets and they’re overbidding on these assets. That’s what’s going on. Overseas investors that want to have tax breaks coming into this market, looking at three and four caps, when in their markets they have one in two caps. So that’s what’s going on here. And to reference Dave Ramsey again, a couple of things he says are great. Think about credit. When you’re using a credit card, I’m trying to teach kids, credit is great, but don’t you understand that when you’re getting points on a credit card, you’re spending 20 to 30% more than you would if you were utilizing cash or utilizing a debit card? So don’t think that their giving you 1% on a $10,000 purchase is going to make you rich or anything. Use their money wisely, know what you’re spending on that, but don’t think that they’re giving you anything. Because I had the restaurant when somebody comes in with a credit card, they order that dessert because they don’t have to pay cash, or they know they can put it on credit. To understand the psychology behind it. And it’s really, I’m trying to teach my kids this, that delayed gratification is really important to become an empowered adult because if you can delay your gratification, it’s all about, “I don’t have to fix and flip a home right now. I can take the long view and plan. Maybe my whole life works for me because I don’t need to get paid today, but 10 years from now that strategy might work.” The same thing with multi-family; I may not get paid today, but maybe two years from now I may be able to refinance a property. You should know better than anyone else, Brett, it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep that really separates the investors from the, I want to say suckers, but from those that are less financially savvy, I think.

Brett:

Absolutely, I couldn’t agree with you more. And you want to be wise with your approach on anything you’re going to go into debt with. And hopefully, it’s an income-producing investment rather than a liability, which is depreciating and not adding any value really to your life in the sense of being passive and having cash flow and having security with your investments. So, shifting back to that question, I’m curious, you went from building wealth to now helping others. So when did you become fascinated about doing such a thing? And then second, and maybe you kind of already answered this, but what is the most rewarding part of what you do?

Gino:

So for us, at 200 units, we bought our first deal in February of 2013. In February of 2014, we purchased a 136 units asset. So we were at 200 units and Jake said, “Let’s write a book.” So I said, “Okay.” Live by the mantra, learn, do, and teach. It took us about a year to write that book. And the amazing thing is, as you’re doing it and you’re teaching it, you become such a much better investor because you really have to bide your time, you have to learn the space. So for me, it was rewarding in the sense that I learned a lot more of what the whole space was about, about investing, and then it gave us clarity on our business plan, that three-step proprietary framework; buy right, manage right, and finance right. We were able to really drill down into each one of those cores and really learn and teach that. Then the syndicated right came about a year and a half ago because we started syndicating our deals. But that’s when I fell in love with it, because I really liked it, back in late 2014, 2015, we wrote the book and we just started the process. Started writing articles, started doing blogs, I started the podcast. And the amazing thing about the podcast, as you know, you talk to some amazing guests and you start being able to ‘pick their brains and ask them questions. And it’s a small community and you start learning from amazing people. That’s what I love about it more than anything else. I think there are two things. Number one, you learn from others, what’s working for them and what isn’t working for them. And the second thing is just getting those emails from students about closing a deal. Our students have closed over 5000 units to date. That’s freaking awesome. That’s amazing. Students are leaving their jobs, quitting their jobs, and going to real estate full-time. That’s also amazing, I love that. Those are probably the two most rewarding things as far as I’m concerned. I’m doing the education day-to-day and Jake is doing the property managing day today. And we cross over. There’s a lot of crossovers because we have that one entity holding company that really takes care of all of the companies, but it’s really rewarding to know that, “Wow, this person just bought a deal and I saved that person 50 grand because they didn’t buy that deal.” So there are so many facets to it, but getting those emails is really my dopamine hit for the day.

Brett:

Yeah, that’s amazing. And it really is life-changing once you’re introduced to the investment real estate world and you start to get some of that passive cash flow, or active cash flow, and all of the tax savings as well. So, curious, after helping countless investors and business owners, interviewing many financial experts in the field of real estate, what is the single best practice you’ve found to implement to be successful in real estate investing, capital gains tax deferral, and/or building wealth? What’s the best way that you’ve approached that and you’ve seen others approach that?

Gino:

I think for us becoming a real estate professional designation and using cost segregation. I mean, our tax liability is really, really small. As I said, Jake, the first year he did it, got most of it back. And obviously, we’re able to do that because we professionally manage our own properties, that is our business. So for us, it’s been amazing. I haven’t done 1031 yet into a property because we haven’t been able to pay those fed taxes yet because we have so much depreciation. We were able to purchase our first 1000 units by ourselves without any syndication or anything, so it’s all internal. We’ve been able to refinance all of our proceeds. So we’ve got over $9 million in proceeds we’ve been able to refi from these properties and just repurpose into the next. And that’s what we’re talking about, using that equity not to go on vacations, not to buy dumb assets, but to buy smart assets and to continue to buy. And then eventually, if and when you do run out of capital, well, there’s a syndication model where you start syndicating deals and you start doing cost segregation, not syndications, or you’re a general partner and you’re getting tax write-offs for the money you didn’t even put into the deal. And it’s like, “Well, I wonder why everyone who owns real estate is wealthy and they keep more of their money?” So to me, that was the aha moment of, “Okay, it’s time to use cost segregation, it’s time to start scaling up, it’s time to start syndicating these deals and use the tax law.” I mean, the tax law was written, I think, as you know, to stimulate behavior. So the government’s done a great job to that. That’s why entrepreneurs have these tax breaks because we’re the ones who take the risk, who create the jobs. The W2, the employees, have less because there’s really no risk to going to a job. You go in nine to five, there’s no risk there. You can always move employers, you can lose your job, but other than that, there’s not much risk. So really learn what the benefits are and how these tax laws are written. And find somebody out there who really knows what they’re doing. If you’re going and you’re doing real estate, find a CPA who specializes in real estate and has maybe some of his own deals or has clients that do real estate. So that’s the important part. Find somebody who’s really doing it and gravitate towards them. And don’t be afraid to pay them, because they’re going to save you a ton of money, right, Brett?

Preserving Wealth Thru Multifamily Investing: “Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble”
― Warren Buffett

Brett:

Absolutely. The value there and the wisdom is spot-on; making sure you’re hiring the right people who’ve done it themselves, who’ve done the deals themselves, who’ve done the cost segregation studies, who own investment real estate, who live, breathe, and have that expertise in that so that they can really guide you along the way and mentor you and coach you so that you can also avoid the pitfalls. This leads to my question for you; what is the biggest maybe mistake you’ve ever made in regards to capital gains tax deferral?

Gino:

For us, when we were buying the restaurant, my mom sold a piece of property, was going to do 1031 into the restaurant, into the business. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a really good qualified intermediary that messed the whole thing up. So that money hurt because we were going to use that money to actually rehab the building, rehab the business, and that hurt. Not getting somebody who’s qualified, having them mess up the transaction, it really bothered me back then. And one thing with 1031s, they’re great, I would just not recommend them if you’re a first or second-time investor, because there’s a lot of different moving parts. There’s the 45 days and then the close within six months, and there are a lot of moving parts. When you’re actually negotiating a deal, somebody finds out you’re doing 1031, you lose a little bit of that leverage. So just make sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row, find a mentor who’s done one before, and definitely find a qualified intermediary who is actually credible and who actually does a good job with that.

Brett:

Dive in a little bit more over that QI company that you were working with. What was the challenge or what didn’t they provide that other QIs provided for and for your future deals?

Gino:

That’s the funny thing, it was probably almost 30 years ago, I don’t remember what happened. I don’t think they held the money. And I think what happened was they did the transaction incorrectly. And these were big, hotshot lawyers from Westchester County, and they screwed the whole deal up. And I just remember having a big distaste for 1031s, and we haven’t done one yet. We’ve sold a couple of properties, but I’m like, “Jake, we need to get one on the next one because there are some capital gains coming down the road.” So for me, it’s finding that attorney who can recommend the qualified intermediary, and let’s use them too. So for us, it was painful, a painful learning experience, because when you’re expecting to have that money and then all of a sudden it’s not there, wow, you better have a plan B.

Brett:

Absolutely. Yeah. It’s good to have a backup plan or an alternative. So what should every wealth advisor know? I consider you a wealth advisor for investment real estate, but what should every other wealth advisor know who are helping people either through business brokers or financial advisors or through commercial real estate brokers; what should they know about what you do and how you help others and how it can help them grow their business?

Gino:

Well, for us, I think Jake and I talk about the mantra, stay in your lane. So for us, we were always focused on multi-family real estate. And then from us, we decided to create multiple businesses around our business. So the first business we created from that first 25 unit property was property management. That was the first stream of revenue. Then the next one was the education company, Jake and Gino. Then the next stream of revenue was Rand Partners, which is our syndication arm, in which we have asset management fees, acquisition fees, raising capital. Then the next one we had was Rand capital. So Rand capital is our mortgage arm where we’re doing mortgages for students. And on my other side of the shoulder here is ultimately Rand Cares, which is our charitable arm. So for us, if you’re going to create multiple streams of revenue, and we love it, you have to partner up, you have to definitely share the pie. We have partners in our syndication company, we have partners in our property management company. But it’s also, we call it multi-faceted multi-family, they’re all multiple streams and they’re all intertwined and interconnected. So if a Jake and Gino education student wants to invest in one of our deals, hey, syndication company, invest with us. If someone on the syndication side wants to learn more about multi-family, we can teach them that aspect. And if one of our students wants to actually go and get a mortgage, we can probably provide financing for that deal. Property management is part of our vertical integration where we’re managing our own properties. There’s not as much revenue from there, but from a cost perspective, we’re able to manage our properties much more efficiently, we have much more control. And for our investors, it’s I guess satisfying to know that we’re managing our own deals. So for us, when you’re talking about wealth creation and wanting to create multiple streams of revenue, back in 2013 I had three streams of revenue. I had my restaurant business, I had a little $25,000 note, and I had a fourplex. Five or six years later, I’ve got 23 streams of revenue because they’re all spread out. The stream can be $100 a month, it can be $20,000 a month. It doesn’t matter about the size of the stream because that stream, once it’s fed and you continue to work on it, will become a raging river. And then you’ll see how beautiful those rivers all flow together and they all work in a symbiotic relationship. So I think anybody out there if you’ve got a real estate business where you’re a single-family home person, you can do the same model. You can blend private money, you can do education, you can do media, you can do fixes and flips, you can list homes, you can start raising money and start syndicating these deals. Hey, you know what? Do they need homeowner’s insurance? Maybe connect with the homeowners and someone who does insurance. There are so many different facets to multi-faceted in any business. It just needs to be complimentary. Like we’re not going to open a car wash and call it multiple streams of revenue because it has nothing to do with multi-family. Unless of course, it’s on one of our properties. We could do laundry, right? That’s a different one. But just focus on how you can add a complimentary stream to whatever business you’re doing right now. And don’t be afraid to share the pie, because that pie’s going to get bigger and infinitely bigger, and I think will make the other businesses stronger.

Don't be afraid to share the pie, because that pie's going to get bigger and infinitely bigger, and I think will make the other businesses stronger. Click To Tweet

Brett:

Yeah, having a complementary stream of multiple income streams that have synergy together, makes sense, that one feeds into the other and one helps the other. So when you go into an opportunity to help somebody, you have a more holistic approach, right? Rather than just have one area where you can help, you can help with multiple things. And then second, hopefully, they all flow like rivers, right, all into one together, and it increases your overall wealth. I love that. That’s fantastic. So, finishing out, we’re going to do a lightning round real fast and then we’ll have one last question. Are you ready for the lightning round?

Gino:

Shoot.

Brett:

All right. Favorite wealth book that you’re reading now?

Gino Barbaro: Believe it or not, I’m creating a Wheelbarrow Profits youth academy and I’m reading Derek Gunderson, Dave Ramsey, and I’m reading Robert Cialdini also, believe it or not. I don’t know if it’s wealth-building, but wealth-building as far as the sense of creating influence, of creating as far as persuasion. So for me, those are all important. So the youth academy is going to be my next big project.

Brett:

Excellent. Florida or New York for taxes?

Gino:

Florida.

Brett:

Why?

Gino:

Well, people have to understand this. This is not a lie, and I’m going to give you a 30-second overview. I’m going to give you specific numbers. House in New York, $840,000 valuation, $27,000 a year in taxes. House in Florida, 40% more, taxes are $15,000. So the inversion is so much different in that perspective. Just from the property tax perspective, I’m saving enough to put one of my kids through college every year, right? That’s the first thing. The second thing is the state income tax. There’s no state income tax down here. The third thing is the quality and the cost of living is appreciably less down here. The fourth thing is people are much nicer. I’d be nice when it’s 80 degrees outside all the time, wouldn’t you?

Brett:

Absolutely.

Gino:

So you have to look at that and you have to look at the migration. Read the book from Chris Porter, Big Shifts Ahead. You’ll see the migratory patterns, you’ll see the demographics where people are flowing. I mean, Florida will have to catch up one day with the property taxes, with that, because it’s such a swell, but I think right now, for the next few years, we’re poised to be a lot cheaper than New York. So that’s my take on it.

Brett:

Excellent. Back to the lightning round. The best podcast you’re listening to now. Not your own.

Gino:

Don’t listen to any podcasts.

Brett:

Wow, okay, that’s good. That’s good. I wasn’t prepared for that one. How do you stay centered in your values? Last question. How do you stay centered in your values?

Gino:

Very simple. I have.

Brett:

Yeah. And encouraged to keep reaching your new goals, Gino?

Gino:

Just my wife. My wife basically saved me and she’s a great role model and she makes me know what’s important. So have a great partner, have a great spouse/partner.

Brett:

Great. Excellent. Okay. I want to thank you for being on the show, Gino. Maybe share with our listeners where they can find you again. And also remember, he has a new book, The Honeybee, and don’t forget about his] first book, Wheelbarrow Profits. But where can they find you, Gino, if they want to connect with you?

Gino:

Just go to jakeandgino.com. You can go to jakeandgino.com/honeybee, get some ideas on The Honeybee. We have some videos on there. You can buy the book there. Go to our Jake and Gino channel, we have multiple podcasts on there also. We are all over the place. If you want to email me, email me at gino@jakeandgino.com. And I just want to thank Brett for having me on the show. It was a great show.

Brett:

All right. That’s it. Thank you, Gino, appreciate it. And great job and lots of wisdom.

Gino:

Do you listen to podcasts? I really don’t listen to podcasts. Do you?

Brett:

I do. Well, part of that, I guess I’m brand new to this podcast scene, this is about my 20th interview, I’ve been on about 25 myself. I’m really learning this podcast industry and I’m trying to find tips from the best and strategies from the best.

Gino:

Who do you listen to?

Brett:

Some of my top ones are Story Brand with Donald Miller, and it’s fantastic because he teaches about how to clarify your message and make it simpler and more concise. That’s a really good one. Entrepreneur On Fire is really good. I’m listening to Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson right now. Another one that’s really good is actually Dave Ramsey. I’m part of Dave Ramsey’s entree leadership program. They have a podcast called Entree Leadership. And so they bring on top authors and investment folks. Yeah, those are just to name a few.

Gino:

That’s awesome. Really good. I’m going to check out the Story Brand. I would read a book called Stories That Stick by Kendra Hall. Great book. Because I had her on the podcast last week and she talks about how to create a story. And like you said, the authentic emotion, identifiable characters, that kind of stuff, to really create stories that’ll really work well in your podcast. I think you should definitely check her out. She’s got some really good stuff.

Brett:

All right, that concludes the podcast with Gino Barbaro. And just some thoughts here on what he shared with us. Life coaching and really focusing on developing yourself as a person in the major areas of your life. It’s not just about learning about wealth, not just about learning about how to defer capital gains taxes, but it’s really about growing your character and becoming more valuable in your strengths so that you can help more people, which will naturally grow your wealth. I really connected with the life coaching, also connected with the debt, right? Debt is not your friend, especially if it’s dumb debt. Now, debt can be used, if you use it wisely, to invest in investment real estate or things that are producing cash flow to leverage, but be very, very careful not to overpay, because that’s what’s happening right now in this marketplace in 2020. People are buying three and four cap properties, which unfortunately a lot of them don’t have a lot of value add left in them, especially here in California. So be very, very cautious about what you’re paying for and why you’re buying it and being a really good steward with your wealth. The other thing that really resonated with me is having multiple income streams. So if you have one investment property, obviously if you have 10 that’s even better, but maybe even shifting outside of that to other businesses or other partnerships or affiliate opportunities where you can get referrals and you can help more people there as well. I think that’s really wise advice there as well. And that’s just, I guess, the diversification of income streams is what you might want to consider for building your wealth and creating more wealth. So that about wraps it up. I hope you enjoyed the episode and look forward to sharing more information on how to help you create and preserve more wealth and other capital gains tax deferral strategies on the next episode. Thanks so much. Look forward to connecting with you on the next one.