” The thing I like about multifamily investing is that it has five ways to make money. There are five ways that you earn income in multifamily and no other business is like that. Millionaires are not made from the single family’s foot fix and flip side. They’re made by holding the assets and it’s all about the power of the cap rate.”

Our next guest is a legend, a legend in his own right, he’s the founder of Multifamily Investing Academy. He’s an attorney, he has bought and sold and managed over 20,000 multi-family units and he also specializes really in investment real estate.

 

Watch the episode here:

 

Listen to the podcast here:

 

Top 3 Wealth Secrets In Multifamily Investing with Charles Dobens

 

Our next guest is a legend, a legend in his own right, he’s the founder of Multifamily Investing Academy. He’s an attorney, he has bought and sold and managed over 20,000 multi-family units and he also specializes really in investment real estate. He’s an author, he has his own podcast, and is a really successful podcast, in fact over 11,000 downloads last year alone in his first year. What I also love about this guest most of all, is his enthusiasm to give back and help others create and preserve more wealth through multifamily investing. And also that he lives in the state of our founding fathers, Massachusetts, I want you to welcome with me, Charles Dobens. Charles, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much and I appreciate you putting me in the same sentence as the founding fathers. You know, and not just chronologically.

Well, that’s the most important question. You know, how does it feel to be from the great state of Massachusetts, Charlie, how does that feel?

I am not from Massachusetts. Don’t ever say that. I don’t have my wallet here with me, but you’ll see my new driver’s license. So I’m born and raised in the beautiful, greatest state in the country, New Hampshire, I Love New Hampshire and I moved to Massachusetts raised my family down there. Then once Donald Trump became president, he forced me back to New Hampshire and so you know, we’re talking about tax planning. So I am now a New Hampshire resident, thanks to Donald Trump. 

What happened was Massachusetts in New Hampshire, what was the default like?

Well, it had to do with the high tech, high property taxes were no longer deductible, you know, over a certain number. And I have a pretty nice house down in Duxbury. And it’s very valuable, and I was going to lose that deduction, and then also, six and a half percent of my state income tax. I get, I get myself a 65% raise. And let me tell you something that’s huge. And this is back to why you and I are talking is because people who have gained a lot of net worth, who have a lot of assets, understand that it’s not it’s, you know, during the accumulation phase, you know, when they’re earning and when they’re, you know, building the net worth and then they move into the preservation phase and part of the preservation phase is understanding the implications of the taxman on everything that you do. I mean, every time you go back and you look at any type of expert, Guru, not multi-millionaire but money guru, they’re always talking about tax I’m sorry, but I didn’t understand this when I was a lot younger, I understand a lot better now that you always have to take the taxman into consideration whenever you do anything, you know, especially in preserving your assets. So that’s why I’m appearing in New Hampshire, for one of the reasons.

So for our listeners who don’t know you, Charles, give us a little bit more about your background and any kind of your current focus, especially as it pertains to helping people create and preserve more wealth.

Yeah, okay. So my background was I you know, my family started out in the insurance business. My dad had been an insurance agent for 57 years. I did it for about three years out of college and absolutely hated it. It was like the worst salesman in the world. You know, as I say, I couldn’t, I couldn’t close a barn door if I was tied to it in a windstorm. So I realized that I’m never going to be able to compete with the old man because he’s the consummate salesman. So what I did was I went and went to law school. And when I got out of law school, I went back into the insurance business, but in a different niche, I went into a very narrow niche of the insurance business, I ended up owning a Benefits Administration company, the worst job in the world, the worst thing you could do, most, oh, I absolutely hated that business. But I owned and operated the company for about 10 years, I had about 35 employees working for me, and I was putting myself in an early grave. I was one of those, you know, broke entrepreneurs, I had 35 employees. But sometimes, I didn’t take a paycheck. You know, and believe me, there are a lot of people listening to this, who understand exactly what I’m talking about. And so I, you know, I told my wife, I said, I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. She’s What do you want to do? I said I’ve always wanted to own apartments. And she says, let’s do it. So we burned the ships, and I sold the business. And you know, this was about 10 to 15 years ago, I just went out there and started buying apartments, and we built up a beautiful portfolio of apartments, the market crashes, I keep some, I lose some. And I can tell you something. That’s one of the things that I advise people is like, Don't take advice from someone that hasn't been through a cycle. Because if you haven't been through a cycle, you don't know what it's like. Click To TweetAnd you know, I’ve no bread, I’m 72 years old. So I’ve been through many, many cycles. So

Speaking of that, what cycle where do you feel like we’re at with this cycle with multifamily investing and values?

Before we get into that? What? Why don’t you tell me how good I looked for 72?

You know, when you said 72, Charlie, I just, I didn’t even think you’re dumb. You know, I thought you’re just you know, 50. Now you don’t look a day over 61, 59 it’s 59 

Thanks, pal.

59

Oh, God. Yeah, you’re not helping yourself. You’re not helping yourself. So hey, listen, I love this topic. I try to figure out what’s going on with this market all the time. I actually did some research on the internet. There’s a senior economist from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s name is Jared. Jared Rapoport, and I recommend if anybody is interested in finding out more information, just Google his name. And he has written a lot of documents on what’s going on in the multifamily economy. And he’s talked about it back from 2013. All the way up. I actually, I reached out to him just the other day to say, Hey, I got to have you on my podcast. Can you be on my podcast? And he says I can’t. Because of the investment nature of your podcast, I can’t be seen as giving investment advice. I said, All right, well, I’m just gonna keep reading your articles because they’re fantastic. But I love and I had a great podcast with a banker on just the two of us. We’re just hashing it out on what’s going on in today’s market. Okay. All right, right. Let’s talk about this. I have no idea. I’ve never seen a market like this before. It is so unique. You know, when you go back to 2008, it was easy to see what went wrong back then. We don’t have those same factors going on. As a matter of fact, we are entirely different. It’s an entirely different world today than it was back then. You know, you look at the Amazon impact. Do you know what the Amazon impact is? It’s about how these prices remain ridiculously low. You know, keeping inflation low because everybody can find everything at an incredibly low price. And that drives and drives a lot of the inflation issues within the marketplace. If you start looking at multifamily, just here’s the one in my estimation. This is the one thing that is so magnificently different between then and now than being 2008. And now, do you know what the one thing is? Brett?

Tell me what is it? I don’t know.

One thing. 

What’s the biggest difference?

It’s student debt.

Student debt is changing this economy. Like you can’t imagine. My kids are not rushing out to buy a house like I did when I was out of college. They are just living their life, their apartment dwellers. And they have no issue with that. My sister just you know, she and her cardiologist husband live down in the seaport district of Boston. And she says I’m house, I’m homeless, I’m houseless but I’m not homeless. She said I will never own a house again. And that’s how a lot of people are thinking. And then there’s a new dynamic that they’re talking about is that the grid, the divorces, the divorce rate is skyrocketing for people over 50. And so those people are now coming into the rental market. So there are so many things that are entirely different about this economy, compared to back then. And so what you always have to think about it, No matter what is going on with a market, you always have to boil it down to the basic essential Click To Tweet which is what? Where are your customers? What do your customers want? In any business? That’s what you always have to think about. And in our case, the customers, the demand for our product has never been higher. The customers want our product, we can’t, we can’t, we can’t build them fast enough.

And too expensive to build too. Right? I mean, I know you can’t get on fast enough, but it just the cost of labor, the lack of, of, of, you know, qualified jobs, finding contractors, you name it, and the tape to get through all of that,

Alright? Well, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about that for a second. Because, you know,  what I am thinking about, and I’m actually doing the research now, because I’ve got, you know, kind of selling, I’ve got two of my biggest complexes under contract right now. And I’ve got another one that’s kind of a development deal. My focus, because of the numbers that I’m looking at, because of the high demand, and we’re looking at a workforce vacancy rate, on average, about I’m sorry, not workforce, but Class A has about 5%. But we’re looking at a workforce vacancy rate of less than one and a half percent. And so I, you know, being here in Southern New Hampshire, I love Southern New Hampshire. And one of the nicest things about Southern New Hampshire is, we’re right next door to Massachusetts. And it’s a lot cheaper to live in New Hampshire than it is that Massachusetts, we’ve got a great draw, just by being right there. So I’ve had my VA go out. And we’re building all the models from one community, nine communities over to the coast to sea coast, and we’re looking at every single workforce housing property. In that area, we’re figuring out what the cap rates are, what the land costs are, what the assessed values are, how much the taxes are, we are putting together an A model to know which one of these nine communities are going to be the easiest one for us to get into. Because we want to build, we mean, and we might be looking at modular housing. And modular housing might solve those problems that you just talked about. But if you know, it all has to be done. And it all boils down, I’ve talked to a lot of my friends who are developers, we have to steal the land, you know, and that’s how we have to find the deals, we have to steal the land. 

So let’s walk through that for a second. A little tactical here. So you’re selling now and part of the show is Capital Gains Tax Solution. So in the past, how you deferred capital gains taxes, or eliminated it or, or mitigated some of that, especially as it pertains to trading, it looks like you’re in a trade out of multifamily movements, maybe a little bit different segment, maybe buy some land, maybe develop, walk us through what your how you’re going to navigate those, those hurdles?

Well, some of those things have to do, it’s going to be a tough structure, because of how I own the other properties. You know, and depending upon because some of them are in trust, some of them are family assets. So you know, they’re going to go into those remaining trusts. So that’s how I protected myself. For those assets. Going forward, I’m telling you right now was Carnegie that said, Own nothing but control everything. Click To Tweet You know, that’s pretty much how I am going to control this and build this, you know, start doing these deals. We’re looking to, I’m gonna buy the land for cash. I’m gonna, you know, and then, you know, we’ll, we’ll start to build upon that, and I really, you know, see it as if we can figure out the numbers if we can get the numbers to work. And I’m the jury’s still out on that. I’m not gonna sit here and say, I know I can make it work. No, no, if I can’t make it work, I’m not getting involved. I mean, I’m, I’m, you know, like you I say, I’m 72 years old. Thanks, Brett. And, you know, I, I’m not, I can’t make any more mistakes. So if the numbers don’t work, we’ll move on to something else. We’ll find another source. But, you know, that’s really where I see the huge opportunity being, you know, getting in and part of the problem multifamily right now is in such high demand, you can’t find deals, you know, new investors are having a hard time finding deals. Well, let’s build them buildings, let’s build deals. So that’s a you know, that’s where we’re at.

Thank you for sharing this great wisdom and great insight, so little shifting a little bit, Charlie, Charlie, I’m curious. You know, I think we’re all given certain gifts in life. Right? And maybe some people call it a superpower. Right? But I’m curious who Charlie was before? He’s before his success? You know, who is Charlie growing up? What was a superpower you were given? And how’s that shaped how you help others today?

I, you know, okay, two things. First off, I always knew I would end up doing this. Even as a little, you know, starting off the insurance business 20 years, I knew that wasn’t the right thing for me. I knew that what I would be doing is exactly real estate investing, having a specialty in my particular field, that I could get out there and help other people and teach other people how to do it correctly. I’ve always known that my life would end up doing this, and I absolutely love it. It’s the first time in my life, I jump out of bed and can’t wait to get started working. So that is part I gotta tell you, I was lucky that I always had something in the back of my head. And this is not what I meant to do. There’s something else for me out there. And that’s part of the superpower. The other superpower is having great people around me that have really enabled me to have a vision. You know, I love telling the story about when I was a freshman out of college, New York Life agent, I had a manager, his name was Tim Miller. And I’ll never forget that. I asked him if he was a very successful agent in the field. And he came out of the field to teach guys like me how to be agents. And I said, Tim, why would you do that? I mean, why would you want to go into management? Why would you want to stay out there and be your own boss, the whole thing he goes to, and I’ll never forget what he said. He said, Charlie, I get a lot of No, I feel great at helping you succeed. And as a 22-year-old kid, Brett, I thought that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I mean, that’s, I mean, what a ridiculous statement to make. Now fast forward 30 years. I’m like, You know what? I get it. I really enjoy helping every one of my students succeed in this business. That’s where I, you know, so having those two things. I think we’re very formative for me and made me who I am right now. Thanks, everybody.

That’s so powerful, Charlie. Yeah, you can get a lot of stuff for yourself. And But at a certain point, it’s not lasting, right, you got to be able to give back. And I think that’s part of what marriage does to help you to give back. And it’s definitely what kids do because you got to give, and especially when they’re young, I have five kids right now, and I’m experiencing this, I used to be this, really, this five kids, I used to be the single you know, the single guy, right, the single guy growing up, and certainly boys, I think boys in particular, in teenage years, it’s kind of about themselves, and then you know, you mature a little bit you realize life is not evolved around you. And then you get married and you gotta know, give you a giveaway and you and it’s but it’s a wonderful thing. And then you have kids and it is not only do you give away but you sacrifice even more, right because they literally are just babies and kids and they’re learning for the first time but, but the act of giving in of yourself and loving is the most rewarding part. Even though it’s a lot of work. So I think that makes perfect sense. If you can give more away the more.

I have four kids and you have five and you know, once my wife found out what was causing it, she stopped doing it. So just tell you why if it’s not the wine, just keep drinking the wine, honey, it’s not the wine. It’s okay wine.

Yeah, no, yeah

 

It’s not the wine. 

It’s something, something’s going on. Yeah, so shift.

I got it all I gotta tell you just to talk to you about Okay, so my, we got on one of those. We call it the dog squad. It’s, uh, you know, all the kids are on it and the families on it. And so my youngest son is a sophomore in college. He’s down spring break-in. He’s, he’s at Hollywood Studios right now. And they’re all telling them you know, go to Harry Potter go to him because I don’t have the money. I can’t go to Harry Potter-like once in a lifetime because my other son works on Broadway. He actually worked on a Harry Potter show on Broadway. And he says like, you know, I don’t have any money and I can’t get out there. And I just gave him a credit card. You know, before he left for emergency sakes. I said. I said okay, Sam, listen, if it’s a once in a lifetime thing, go ahead and use the credit card and go enjoy yourself and like so you talk about giving man it’s just never-ending.

Never Ending but now you have a memory

I just gave it away. 

Yeah. Now you have a memory and a gift for Harry Potter. Love that. Love that and Broadway too. That is really cool and you can tell your kids. 

Yeah, no he is, he’s amazing. He went to Tisch, NYU Tisch, he’s done the production design side he’s um, he was tapped to go help on the Harry Potter the new Harry Potter Broadway show. Tom Steven Spielberg is coming out with a Broadway show on West Side Story. And so he just got done working. Now he works for Netflix, what do these kids do nowadays? I mean, they don’t work at jobs. They do projects like everything is project-based. And that’s now that I said, Why don’t you get a job at a company like Netflix, you know, be there for the next 40 years and get a pension? Like, you know, they have no idea what I’m talking about, you know, they think I’m Archie bunker.

It’s a whole new world. So getting back to some of the practical By the way, everybody you can find Charlie or Charles Dobens, he likes to go by Charlie at multifamilyinvestingacademy.com. So Charlie, talk to us about that, how does multifamilyinvestingacademy.com help people create and preserve more wealth?

Okay, so we have one product, so the MFA is the, you know, the big thing. And within that, we sell one product. And that’s coaching with me, that’s called the owner form. And my owner form is the greatest group of students, about 150 people in the program. They are all friends with everybody else. Everybody connects with everybody else. We all, we all help each other get across the finish line. And that’s what my job is, is that you know, I am one of these gurus. But every one of my students has my cell phone number, they text me, they slack me, they call me whenever they need me. I don’t have regularly scheduled coaching calls. If you need me, you call me. And that’s how I operate. But I make sure that everything you do is done correctly, you analyze the deal correctly, we’re going to make an offer, we’re going to draft the offer the right way, we’re going to get a deal under contract, the contract is going to be my contract and written to protect you will I’m going to help you find the money, I’m going to help you get over all the roadblocks to getting that deal across. And as I tell my students, I say you’re only going to need me for the first two deals. And then after that, you and I are just friends. And that’s how it works. And it’s great, you know, it’s not one of these $50,000 coaching programs. You know, for years, it’s been nothing more than a monthly fee. That’s it? Nope, no contract now. It’s now it’s a one year contract. But it was a monthly fee. You know, if you, it wasn’t the right time for you. You just said hey, gotta cancel. I’ll be back soon. And we just shook hands and party friends. That’s it. And that’s the way I want to run my business. It’s nice. It’s beautiful.

It sounds it’s flexible

You’re on my call, you are a great guest. I think that everybody goes every Monday night. We do a Monday Night Live call with all the students. And Brett that’s what Brett and I met. I said, Oh my god, I gotta get Brett on my mind. And I call so yeah,

Yeah, we’re gonna talk about 1031 exchanges and the deferred sales trust and other ways to escape feeling trapped by capital gains tax. And it was a wonderful call and student participation and questions. And by the way that is on YouTube, for those who want to watch that it’s got a number of views are gone and search capital gains tax solutions on YouTube, and then search in there. There’ll be a big video. It’s one of those largest ones that is Charles on there as well. So yes

Cool. Well, that’s awesome.

So what are some questions that you know, if someone’s interested in joining multifamilyinvestingacademy.com? What are some of the top three questions that they should be asking?

Do I really get to talk to you? That I mean, let me tell you, I just had a call. Like with these types of questions. The guy was an analyst, and he had like, 10 questions he wanted to go through. And I was like the same question they get all the time. Do I really talk to you? Or do you pass me off to one of your coaches? No, I am the guy you talk to because I’m a lawyer. I’m not your lawyer. So we’re gonna work with your lawyer. But I still have to run my law firm, like I’m a lawyer. And you know, if you need to speak to your attorney, you have to be able to pick up the phone and call your attorney. And that’s what, that’s how we structure it. So that is one of the biggest things people are amazed that they actually work with me. I mean, I review everyone’s documents, I review everyone’s contracts, because I don’t want you sending out something wrong. Can I help you get the money? Yes, all my students have access to up to $50,000 for earnest money. You know, I structured it like a hard money loan so you can make offers and not have to worry about like where am I gonna come up with the earnest money I got you covered. But then also we have you know, what we call the equity assist program, where you know you can go out there and depend upon the size of the deal, we can get you the phone You need or will go out to the marketplace to find you the funds you need for the equity. no guarantee if your deal is a bad deal, nobody’s going to touch it anyway. But in a week I make, I do everything I possibly can to get my students across the finish line. And then you know, the other thing is, you know, the access to everyone else. This can be a very lonely business, you know, you’re out there by yourself looking for deals. When you come into my program, my owner forum, you’re connected immediately with every other student of mine. And you know, as some of my students work together on the same deal, some of them invest in other students’ deals. It’s a great group of people. That’s the thing I love about multifamily investing is that the people who are in it are such nice people. It’s not like insurance, which is like backstabbing, cutthroat, conniving business. I mean, it would talk in multifamily everybody, can you never be the guy you’re talking to today could be your partner tomorrow, he could be an investor tomorrow, or you can be in his deal, he can be near to you, you just never burned bridges in this business. 

I think that’s wonderful. Thanks for sharing. And that, that hands-on and that ability to have access to you and then to share in the community to raise funds, I think those are all super valuable. So share with us the top three Wealth Secrets You have learned. So you’ve been in this business for so long, if you had to narrow it down to one or two, it could be three, but even just one or two, what are the top one, two or three Wealth Secrets You have learned?

Okay, and some of them is going to be like things not to do. So the first thing is to understand the power of the cap rate. multifamily investing is unique to all other types of investing because we have what I call the power of the cap rate. And that cap rate is what makes millionaires and when you understand how that cap rate works, and how it makes millionaires, you will understand multifamily. And that’s why you see, you know, I don’t know if you’ve heard the, you know, fan Merrill and the Fortune Builders are out there on everyone’s podcasts. And everyone’s you know, I Heart Radio, they’re always advertising about, hey, we’re coming to your town, to teach you how to how-to, you know, fix and flip houses so that you can build wealth and have lasting, lasting income through income-producing property. And then as a fan, what the heck are you doing, you’re out there telling people how to fix home flip homes. But you know that the ultimate goal is cash flowing property because that’s where the millionaires are made. Millionaires are not made from the single family's foot fix and flip side. They're made by holding the assets. And it's all about the power of the cap rate. Click To Tweet And that is one I teach that I was down in Orlando, I spoke at M Rex conference. And they said, Hey, can you come down and speak for 45 minutes? I said, Sure. I’ll do it. And they said, What’s your topic? I said, power of the cap rate. And when I was done, you should see people get it. And like, wow, I have to be multifamily, because no other business has the power of the cap rate. So that’s the number one thing is understanding, understanding that about multifamily. The second thing is, and this is something I’m not stressed enough. Bad partnerships, stay away from them. Just don’t do it. Here’s what I do in my program. And I did this, I just rolled this out. I did this because I saw so many new investors going down that path. And folks, the reason why I’m an expert on this because I have violated many of these rules already. So I’m teaching you from the experience of what not to do. So what my students do is that you know, I’ll hear, you know, they’ll come to me and say, Hey, I went to this gurus program on how to find private money. And I met 400 other partners and this one guy, and I really hit it off. And we want to start a partnership to go out and do these things. And I realized they haven’t even asked the most basic questions of why they need to be in a partnership. Why does that? Why is this guy the right guy? So what I did is, in my program, when you sign in to your membership site, you have every product I’ve ever created. There are over 20 different products. My newest product is a memorandum of understanding product, where the students go on they click on this proper program, they book a time with me that a half an hour time, and then when they book that time, they then complete a questionnaire that basically says who’s party A, who’s party B, you know, what, what, what are they bringing to the table, you know, what have you what conversations have you had so far. They map out exactly what they want this agreement or partnership to look like. And then they said, then they sent it to me. Then we have a coaching call on this particular document where I go through it. And I asked them the tough questions. And you know, it’s tough love. Because it’s got to be tough love today because it’s going to be tough love tomorrow, that’s for sure.

It’s like, counseling, Charlie, you’re saying, hey, you’re about to get married in the business relationship, before you get married. It’s not even pre-marriage counseling. It’s pre-engagement before you even get into getting engaged to do this deal as you’re going to do.

Pre-engagement. Yeah, it’s pre-engagement, we’re all we’re talking about is the divorce. Because it’s like, we know it’s going to happen. Like, let’s see if we even should be in this relationship together. That’s the first thing. And so once we get it all figured out, then I draft a memorandum of understanding and both parties get it they sign off on and they know what they’re into it for

I can as if one of I think you can monetize just about every business professional just capturing your multifamily investing Academy, you know, that someone like who has your background and your experience that’s, that seems invaluable to have just a little plug there that differs. For those who are listening. Think about that, culturally, maybe we’ll make an exception and pay him a little bit more.

Yep. Yeah. I agree with you that that’s what I’ve always thought about, like, how can I get this out to everybody else, I really just want to focus on multifamily. I mean, but this, as you said, This MOU is really what everybody needs. Whenever you’re in a situation like that, put it in writing, put it in writing, because you’ll be amazed at how short everyone’s memory gets at the closing table. So put it in writing. Now the MOU is not a binding document, we can make it binding, but it’s a stepping stone to the next document. And you know, it gets you to know, you get to find out whether people are ever even going to get to that next dock.

Excellent. So what’s the last one the Third can we do a third one for us?

Oh, no, you said two, maybe three. You didn’t mean you kind of gave me a wishy-washy on the third one

We’re so good. Charlie, I just you know, your listeners hang in here if you don’t have a third Oh,

Dang you, dang you, Brett Daniel, okay. Power the cap rate. Okay, here’s, here’s another one. The thing I like about multifamily investing is that it has five ways to make money. There are five ways that you earn income in multifamily and no other business is like that. When I do my speech, I always compare it to a subway… Click To TweetThat’s the only way you make money in a subway franchise. in multifamily. You’ve got the cash flow or the profit, which doesn’t happen every month. You know, we all know that. There’s the forced appreciation, which is what we call them, we drive the NOI that’s the power of the cap rate, those first two things help to make the millionaires, you’ve got the Okay, before the project, the mortgage pays down, where you’ve got 100 people in your units, paying off your bank a little bit every single month. That’s why I don’t like interest-only loans. If you got 100 people write me a check, you might as well have them pay off your notes, then you’ve got the acquisition fee, which is if you’re syndicating the deal, you know, you can build in a little vague for yourself because it takes a lot of work to put a deal together, you should be compensated for it. And then the fifth one, which is my favorite, because it’s consistent, is the property management fee. Now you hear a lot of these gurus out there saying oh, you know, outsource your property management, have some third party do it. Listen, all the successful owner-operators that I that I’ve trained that I work with, they are all owner-operators, they have their property management company, they keep that 5% and as you build your portfolio as you build your network, you’re gonna keep that money because that money is what’s going to allow you to quit your job it’s going to allow you to pay your mortgage, pay your kids tuitions live nicely because all those other four or five different those other three or four different ways to make money, you know, they may not always work. You know, sometimes we get into deals, we don’t make money. But that money coming off of you takes your first nickel off of every dollar before anyone else gets it. That’s how you’re gonna keep a nice lifestyle in this business. Well, no other you know, compare that to a subway franchise, no subway franchise don’t you don’t make money that way.

Charlie, those are three, three. Powerful Wealth Secrets. And I appreciate you sharing that. So we’re gonna wrap it up with our last question here. And this one is centered around how you personally chart Charlie, how do you stay centered in your values, and encourage you to drive to new heights in order to reach new goals?

Well, I tell you, it starts off. I mean, every morning, I mean, I have a system for what I do every single morning, I even I’m a pilot. So I work on checklists, I know to check off everything that I’m supposed to do every morning. I get out there, I’m always reading, I’m always trying to better myself, I manage my time. incredibly well. I know I have my right here in front of me, this is my focus planner. This is where I keep my goals and I see them every single day. I mean, I am constantly I’m, I’ve never been more focused in my life on achieving my objectives, and just living a great life. You know, I take the time to grow myself personally, spiritually, and physically, I know, I look at it as I get older, it’s you got to work harder at it and just, you know, staying in shape. But I’m, I’m part of why I’m successful, I feel I make success successful in doing this is because I’m so focused, it really is all about, you know, I love what I do, and I want to keep growing it, I don’t want to lose as I listen. But I’ve been in situations where I’ve lost it all. I’ve lost it all like twice. And I’ve now got a great business and I don’t want to lose it. I want to build it up nicely for my kids. So that they have us you know that they can go to the Harry Potter thing whenever they want to. And then And the beautiful thing about it is I my goal in setting up the multifamily investing Academy and the owner form was I wanted to live a life like my father’s. And my father was a very successful insurance agent and he worked seven days a week, I sit down once you take a day off because why every day is just like the other I love what I do and now I don’t want to work seven days a week but the guy just loved what he did. It never worked for him. And you know, that’s the way I feel. You know, every morning I wake up I grab my phone like hey, you know who contacted me Who do I have to reach out to today? What do I get to do today? And that’s it. I’m so blessed I’m so fortunate in my life now and yeah, but I also know that it could all disappear tomorrow but that’s the life you know you just got to realize we’re all working towards the same goal and death. 

 

Not take it for granted right, keep driving ahead and all the people you can help and you mentioned that focus planner yeah what people might be curious about what would you use? So what was it? Where did you get it?

Okay, so about two to three years ago I went to Michael Hyde’s BYE, best year ever. And you know, I kind of drank the Kool-Aid a little bit, and but I gotta tell you, I did what he told me to do. And I had my best year ever. And it’s you know, I kind of built off of that then he came out with his best year ever on the planet you know, you see this my girls are in my wife are doing the Rachel Hollis thing everybody’s you know onto Rachel Hollis. This works for me. It’s amazing how much I can accomplish and stay focused on using this. It’s the right system for me folks if you don’t have a system, figure out why. Figure out what’s going to work for you. You know, make sure you, it’s all about remaining focused because at the end of the year I remember I don’t know about you, Brett but back when I was right out of college and stuff, you know, all these guys would come with their gold planners or what have you. And I remember one time cleaning out my office and pulling out these gold books. And you know, for years, years worth of gold books, looking at all these amazing goals I’d put down in January and none of them have been accomplished, none of them and I thought man I just don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to I mean there’s a reason why I put these down as goals what can I do to to make this work and it’s It’s you It’s entirely you nobody else you’ve got to be focused on this and and and that’s what I’m doing now is I’m every day

Full focus planner,Michael Hyatt look him up and you’ll find him I’ve also Yeah, read his books.

She looked at all these products like all these products that you’re shilling for right now Brett you can talk about monetizing your thing you click the button below.

We don’t make any money. Mike Michael Hyatt or focus planner, but it’s just yeah, these are neat tools we want to share with one another. 

You should. 

So that Yeah, they are very good. That wraps up our show, Charlie, any last words for the audience before we let you go?

Well, first off, I just want to apologize to you for all of our falls starts before they were all my fault. It was, you know, we were going through a crazy time in my business. And I’m so glad that we were finally able to make it work. And that this has been a lot of fun. You’re I liked you when we when I had you on, man. For those of you you’ve got, I know Brett mentioned it, but you got to go to his YouTube page and watch the video of the two of us because I have students that are still reeling from what they learned from Brett. So you got it you got to go check that out. You definitely got to check that out.

Thanks for that plugin for everyone. In case you’re wondering. That’s our deferred sales trust niche. We specialize in helping people escape feeling trapped by capital gains taxes, and not having to do a 1031 exchange and so learn more at capitalgainstaxsolutions.com

 

Important Links:

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About Charles Dobens

Charles Dobens is principal at Dobens Law and founder of the Multifamily Investing Academy. Consultant/ Coach / Mentor to Multifamily Investors of all levels

A successful attorney and consultant to multifamily investors all over the country, Charles Dobens has personally acquired over $20,000,00 of apartments and been involved, on behalf of his clients, in over $3B in multifamily transactions (yes, that’s Billions with a ‘B’).

Charles Dobens has created a step-by-step program, The Owner Forum, that shows new investors to seasoned professionals how to get started in the multifamily real estate investing business even with limited cash, credit or experience.

His legal and consulting practice has one specialty – helping new investors overcome any lack of confidence in moving toward their financial objective of owning and operating apartments.

 

 

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