If you want to learn how to thrive in the land of opportunity with Vinney Chopra as your guide then listen now!

Vinney is a proven 30 year veteran of the real estate investing industry. He has an extreme positive mindset and positive energy which has nicknamed him "Smile". He is considered a leader in the syndication space with 34 syndications completed. His company, Moneil Investment Group, is invested in over $300 million in assets with over 4,000 units. Vinney is a well-recognized speaker with over 11,000 speeches to date. He is also a best-selling author of the book Apartment Syndication Made Easy and his latest book Positivity Brings Profitability.

You will be able to find out more about his story and what he can do for you!

• Learn from one of the most successful real estate entrepreneurs on how he built his empire through hard work and dedication.
• Hear about his personal struggles that led him to success.
• Find out how you can achieve your goals by following some simple steps.
• Discover what it takes to become a millionaire like Vinney Chopra did!
• Listen to learn more!

Table of Contents:

• Where To Listen To The Podcast
• Starting With $7 in the Land of Opportunity
• Hotels as Micro-Multifamily in the Land of Opportunity
• Mr. Smile in the Land of Opportunity
• The Dream To Be in the Land of Opportunity
• Bookish Knowledge Is No Good In the Land of Opportunity
• Vinney's Comprehensive Black Phone
• Positivity Brings Profitability in the Land of Opportunity
• How to Reach Vinney Chopra

Starting With $7 in the Land of Opportunity

Darin: Vinney Chopra lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He came to the US with $7 dollars in his pocket and found a way to build massive wealth through real estate investing. His real estate investing company is called Moneil Investment Group. His company currently manages over $300 million in assets and over 4000 units. This guy is one of the most positive and friendly guys you will ever meet.

How I know Vinney, actually, this is the first time that Vinney and I will have spoken together, but I know of Vinney. He is all over social media. He's an author, has two books out, a third on the way. And he's got multiple podcasts. He's got a coaching academy. And he's been doing it for a while, so he's known by a lot of different crowds. I see pictures with him and people I know at different multifamily conferences. So this guy is a good guy to know, so I'm excited about today. Vinney, again, I appreciate you coming on the show. To start, can you just share with the listeners how many properties and how many units you guys currently own?

Vinney: Sure, sure. I started with single family homes, Darin, and then bought a duplex. We still own that duplex.

Darin: You still own the duplex?

Vinney: We still the duplex. We make $1800 a month out of the duplex cash flow, so I don't want to let it go.

Darin: Thank you very much.

Vinney: Then I bought actually 14 units, $180,000, 14 years back. Wow! This 14-14 number is interesting. I came into this country with $7 and seven times two is 14, so seven has a meaning in my life.

Starting Small in the Land of Opportunity

Vinney: But now under our management AUM, we have 441 million as of last year and right about 521 million as we count other multifamily senior-assisted living, which we are building now, and goal is $2 billion. Oh my god.

Darin: $2 billion?

Vinney: $2 billion to construct and purchase in the next nine years. Here is a small guy in San Francisco area trying to make a difference.

Darin: That's fantastic. For the listeners' benefit, that just shows you, look this guy started with a duplex. Well, actually started with resi, started with single family then a duplex and now he has over $441 million in assets under management and he's increased his goal to be $2 billion. It starts small. Every investor starts with their first investment. Don't feel bad if you haven't done it yet. Everybody starts from somewhere.

Vinney: I totally agree, Darin, what you just said. It's remarkable.

I think I really believe, again, thinking, conceiving it in our mind and then doing it physically. We never knew we will be so successful or whatever. But the thing is, single family, a lot of people are into wholesaling, flipping, single family. Hopefully, they would jump into the duplex, the fourplex, the sixplex, the eightplex, and then it's sky is the limit. The word syndication, I hope we'll talk more about it.

Darin: We will, yes.

Vinney: Pooling of the money together. I hope we can talk so much about it because there is $34 trillion dollars with a T in retirement funds in USA alone.

Darin: That's crazy. A few things that you brought up. One is the word syndication. Our listeners are people that want to invest passively, those that have already done that and syndicators who want to scale up.

Syndication

Darin: So I just started investing 3 1/2 years ago in real estate and, that word syndication, I think can be a scary term. If you don't know what that means, in your words, what does syndication mean?

Vinney: I'm so glad you're asking that.

That's the world of syndication or OPM, other people's money, is another word. Plus, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, that keeps the syndicators like me and others honest, transparent, and also very productive to make sure we are keeping the investors' money. We have the fiduciary responsibility to take care of investors' money better than our money. That put the languages, and it's just pooling of the money together, that's all it is.

It's considered by many as a taboo or a gorilla. "Oh my gosh! Syndication. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it." I've done 34 syndications in a small period of time and my 35th is the one $50-million syndication, which we just started last week or 10 days back. We have raised $8 million already.

Darin: It's crazy. That word, it just means a bunch of people coming together to buy an asset that they couldn't buy on their own.

Vinney: Exactly. Like-minded people, that's what the definition is.

Darin: Like-minded people and everybody needs everybody.

Vinney: Exactly.

Darin: A new passive investor get together with me and say, "I don't understand, why do you need me? Why do you need my $50,000 or my $100,000 like it's a $10 million raise? Why?" Because you need to pull everybody together and it's a team.

Equity

Vinney: Exactly. Totally, totally, totally. That is the one. Syndication is very, very good feat to learn about, perfect it and then you're helping these established entrepreneurs, doctors, attorneys, CPAs, you name it. Retired people who have amassed a lot of money but they have put into different vehicles, stock market, CDs, cryptocurrency now, of course, and all that, but we give them an opportunity to be our partner investors. They are partners. They're not just investing for debt, it's for equity. Aha! That's the word.

Equity because it's almost like they put $100,000, they own a piece of the asset legally, and then they will get cash flow while the operation is going on and the equity gain when we sell the asset. They have equity partnership investing with the syndicate.

Darin: Yes. You're an equity partner in a syndication but you have access to the sponsors. You have access to the lead general partners, which is different than if you buy equity in a public market. If you buy Amazon stock, you're not able to call the senior executives at Amazon and get them to give you a call back. But people like Vinney, who've done 34 syndications and you're a partner in one of his deals, him and his team are going to respond back to you because you're a critical component of that team.

Vinney: I'm glad you said that. I'm so glad, Darin, you said that. Who is my team? Let's just talk about it.

Darin: Yes.

Vinney: My daughter, our daughter, Monica Chopra, who went to UCLA, did MBA. She's our VP of operations and investor relations. My wife, married for 41 years.

Darin: Congratulations.

Vinney: Thank you, thank you so much. We live in the Bay Area, San Francisco in the Blackhawk Country Club with the grace of God.

Moneil: Monica and Neil

Vinney: She's our investor relations, and we've been married, and Neil and Monica are our children. Our company is Moneil which is Monica and Neil put together.

Darin: Oh, cool! I was going to ask you how you came up with that. I thought maybe it had a play on words for “money”.

Vinney: Yes.

Darin: For making money for other people, but actually, that makes more sense that it's your two kids.

Vinney: VP finance, Anna Martinez, she's been with us 14 years, an investor in a lot of our deals. Then Jon Roosen, of course, VP of Investor Relations now and director of the academy also. We have a whole big academy where we teach also, and then senior living partner. And Shahid Imran, my other partner, my brain, IT brain.

Darin: My brain, my brain.

Vinney: We are in the Moneil hospitality over there with buying hotels and everything. We bought a Hilton Garden Inn, I'm so excited to see this report. We bought it December of 2019, Darin, for $6 million. It appraised $12 million after COVID.

Darin: Wow! That's crazy.

Vinney: You might say, "Vinney, what the heck?"

Darin: That's interesting because, since COVID started, I've talked to a lot of syndicators and I've asked syndicators, "Look, multifamily has done much better than hospitality and office and retail during this downturn. Are any of you looking to go after those opportunities that may be out there right now, because it's a tougher time for hostility?" But it looks like you took advantage of that.

Hotels as Micro-Multifamily in the Land of Opportunity

Vinney: We lucked out, I would say with the grace of God. Because what happened, the medical staff in that town chose Hilton Garden Inn, 104 units or doors or keys to live in there. We were in the black and our NOI went up, then we re-financed it during COVID. I pulled out money, cash, because we bought it for $6 million cash, and now it's worth $12 million, it's amazing.

Darin: Fantastic.

Vinney: We have now in road to get the receivership hotels of Marriott and Hilton so that we could be investing in that. But then multifamily is where I've been, by the way, Darin, for the last 14 years, I'll stay there. I consider hotels as micro-multifamily where people have to pay a night before at the counter and stay for one night and the flexibility of changing their rent, all those things, right? Multifamily conventional is what I've been doing. By the way, C+, C-, B, now we're buying $52-million deals, we're done. 14 units, $180,000, $52 million in 2019, it's worth $63 million, we are thinking about selling it within two years in Florida.

Darin: Wow!

Vinney: Then we bought $35 million in another part in Florida, which is the BPO, Broker's Price Opinion came and it's gone up by $7 million. Then we just bought one, 308 units in the domain, near to the domain in Austin, September of 2020, COVID world, and it's mission-driven units. We paid 113 a door, by the way right there in Austin, the properties right next to it are 147 a door.

Darin: What do you mean by mission?

Mission-driven Units

Vinney: Mission-driven, I'm so glad you asked me that. Darin, mission-driven is the term I was introduced by Fannie and Freddie when we were looking at this property, 308 units in Austin. They looked at the P&Ls and everything, comparison of rent around it, the neighborhood. They said these 94% or 96% of your units are mission-driven. We said, "What do you mean by that?" They said,

"Well, when you purchase, you could increase the rent without doing anything to the units." The units are mission-driven already to increase $200-$500 rent without even putting any money into the units.

Darin: Wow! No rehab, no value add, just buy and raise the rent and the market will absorb it.

Vinney: Yes, exactly. We have done it, by the way. We have already done it, within seven months that property, 34 million, 750 or 850 we paid. Now, it's worth at least $7 million more in the last seven months, six months.

Darin: That's amazing, that's amazing. Hey, you brought something up earlier that, one, was a huge number, and two, I think that some people may not fully understand what that means and how you could take advantage of that. You brought up there's $34 trillion sitting in retirement accounts.

Vinney: Retirement folks, yes.

Darin: I think that some people like myself, before I got involved about three and half years ago, I didn't know that you could invest with retirement funds. Can you explain that a little bit? How people can invest in these types of deals using retirement funds?

Invest in the Land of Opportunity Using Retirement Funds

Vinney: Totally, totally, Darin. Again, retirement funds, solo 401(k)s or IRAs, Roth or traditional, 401(k)s, all the QRP plans. Most of the families, most of the investors believe in stock market, right? Wall Street. All the monies at Vanguard or Schwab or Fidelity, let's name it, all those. But the thing is, if you can self-direct, that's the word.

Please Google that word, self-direct your retirement plan, so you will convert that money, put into a self-directed IRA, Roth IRA or EQRP, which is a checkbook control. That's the other word. Retirement fund can be checkbook control, then you can invest it into real estate syndications like yours and mine and others. It's a self-directing of your retirement funds for great, exciting opportunities to grow the capital.

Eighteen to twenty percent minimum overall, that's our track record, highest one has been 40%, 4-0, IRR also, in few deals, but now everything is more expensive. So we are projecting conservatively 17% to 20%, 22% per year, which is cash flow plus equity gain. Those are very nice things to look into. It's called self-directing your retirement funds.

Darin: Again, I think that some people are listening and are like, "Ah! That just sounds complex. I have to research this and I have to do this." Look, listeners, if you've ever left a company and you had a 401(k) and then you went someplace else, and then you transferred the money from that 401(k) into an IRA, now your money is sitting in the IRA. All Vinney is talking about is moving that money from that IRA to another IRA, which is called a self-directed IRA or a QRP.

Self-Directed IRA

Darin: It's just a matter of filling out a form and directing your IRA company to transfer it over into this other company. Then once it's there, depending on what, if you use a QRP or if you use a self-directed IRA, then from there you just are able to invest in, not only stocks and bonds, but also real estate transactions and any other type of asset that you want to. So it gives you the control.

Vinney: Yes, so true, so true, Darin. It just takes one phone call and these custodian companies, there are so many in USA. We're dealing with some of them with our investors. It's just one phone call, 15, 20 minutes and they do all the work. They do all the rolling of the money, the transferring of money, everything is all done. It's amazing.

Darin: Vinney, how did you get your nickname? I can see it now. Look, I haven't met you before, but every picture I see, every video I see, and now we're talking to each other. His nickname is Smile. He is always smiling. How did you get the nickname, because you always do it?

Vinney: I appreciate that, asking me. I came from India, very humble beginnings, six children in the family in one-bedroom apartment. We never had a television, never had a refrigerator, never had a car or automobile. Just a 600 square-foot apartment we lived in, eight of us, six siblings and also mom and dad. I have very great memories of my childhood. I wanted to become an engineer.

Mr. Smile in the Land of Opportunity

Vinney: I became, then I came here for MBA in marketing at George Washington University. While I was going there, my friend asked, "Vinney, what are you doing for summer?" I said, "I just arrived from India, I couldn't speak much, all these thick accent." I still have thick accent.

Darin: Hey, it's part of your persona.

Vinney: My friend said, "Vinney, I sold books, Bibles, and encyclopedias door-to-door, you want to come along with me?" I don't mind saying yes to everything. And I said, "Yes, let's do it." Literally, that's what changed my life. I went and sold encyclopedias door-to-door 80 hours a week, 6 days a week.

80 hours a week, 6 days, Monday through Saturday, and then on Sunday we will go travel to a sales meeting, and there I was maybe smiling too much or I was doing okay. They made trophy, I remember, this is 45 years back now. They took my middle name out, Kumar, and they put in parenthesis, Smile. I said, "Oh! Vinney Smile Chopra." Literally, that part really happened 45 years back, so I had to live up to that.

Darin: That is great. I can't believe that it's been that long you've had that nickname, wow! That is fantastic. You're an author. You've written two books and you're about to come out, working on a third.

Vinney: Yes.

Darin: I picked up that book, it's called Apartment Syndication Made Easy, and I read it, and I thank you for all your wisdom in it. So I want to point out a few things and get your take on a few things.

Positive Thoughts and Selfless Actions

Vinney: I would love to answer anything and everything.

Darin: Positive thoughts and selfless actions. Those are two areas that you highlight, so talk about that a little bit.

Vinney: Thank you. I really believe that, Darin.

We can accomplish so much by just concentrating on things that happen to us, they happen for a reason. Once they happen, it's done, so let's find a great way to get out, face the situation, the sorrow comes in our life, but if we greet the sorrow with happiness, sorrow is going to go away. The metaphor is like that.

I really believe, let's find the silver lining in every dark situation. Then we'll find and get out of it quicker and make better decisions. Positivity is so important in life. Enthusiasm and positivity, those two things are just what we needed. I know a lot of people might say, "Vinney, oh no, it's good being like that, but what I say in my book is, you've got to take the negatives out, because you got to take the negatives out to make room in the mind and brain to bring positivity. It's incremental, it's incremental.”

Darin: That's interesting how you put that because I would've thought you would've just focused on the positivity, but you talk about, even in tough times, how do you stay positive. If you think about most people's stories, everybody has some hardship in their life.

Vinney: Yes.

Darin: Most stories I've heard, people will say, "I wouldn't change that hardship, because it built my character," but at the time, it doesn't feel good. What you're saying is in the midst of it, you have a choice in how you're going to react and how you're going to think.

Vinney: Yes.

Replace Negative Thoughts With Positive

Darin: If you think positively, you're going to be able to react in a much better way than if you just dwell on that negativity.

Vinney: So true, so true, because it lingers on. When the negative things happens in our life, we have a room to really get more negative going to spiral down, I really think about the well. Would you rather just go a little bit and then try to come out of the well or the big hole, let's say. Or you want to go deeper, deeper, deeper, then it's going to take 10 times more effort, more time, more money, by the way, to get out of the situation.

Somehow or the other, after reading so many books and listening to so many people, I just have made my mind to say, "What God gives me in my lap, He is only giving it because he knows I can grow and I can handle it and I can face that situation. Because in my life that, we have had so many situations of adversity and big time. Even five years, six years back, we had a very bad situation happen in our family, where somebody was almost at the brink of dying. But guess what? That positivity really pulled us along and we are so happy that everything went in our way. It could have gone the other way. But because of positivity, and I always believe God was really preparing me and my wife to handle that situation.

Darin: That's fantastic. I'm a believer also. You brought up adversity, I think that that is one way that people connect with one another. You figure out how to get through some of the adversity.

Do Not Expect Anything Back

Darin: Then if you share your story and then somebody else is going through it or just went through it, they may connect with you on a different level. "You know what? Vinney got through this, I can get through this." I think God does that. He puts people in our lives to share that.

Vinney: I don't talk about it and probably majority of the world doesn't know about it, but we were going through very tough time three years in a row. Somebody in our family, really, almost facing death, and with the grace of God, we are so happy that the person is fine and happy and everything. The thing is some people would have just given up, but the thing is when you make a decision that this is the most important thing, and I left my last career, just because of that, we left our home in San Francisco area and move to another location because that was the best thing a dad could do.

But it was good to have that preparation done, God was preparing us, let's just say that. I believe in the Almighty even though we have different gods and everything, I respect everybody's religion.

But the biggest thing is hope and faith. Then trying to do the best you can every day for everybody around you, and never expect anything in return. That is the real Vinney. That's what I want to be known as, gift of positivity, make everybody feel great, help them, everything, but don't expect anything. I think in the wording, you had mentioned selfless action.

I believe in that. That we need to be just making all the deeds selflessly and don't expect anything back.

The Dream To Be in the Land of Opportunity

Vinney: Because when we don't expect anything back, it comes back in droves.

Darin: Right, and you don't do it because it comes back in droves, but that's just the law of life.

Vinney: Yes, it is.

Darin: You talk about a story of what's possible.

Vinney: Yes.

Darin: Sometimes I think that, yourself included, I have people on here that, look you asset manage have over $440 million, there are certain people that are listening and they're like, "Ahh! I can't even relate to that. This guy is too successful." What's important is to hear the story on the beginnings. You said that you came here with $7 in your pocket. Talk about that.

Vinney: I would love to. Again, I did have some goal-setting skills. I was not as a positive person as I am today, of course. But from India, I always wanted to be in the USA, come here for the land of opportunity. It started in my junior high school actually. I wanted to do better in education. My dad was a disciplinarian which I really respect that. He would hold a school after dinner every night in our home. And all the siblings are very well settled, they're very well accomplished, all the brothers, sisters, and all, but the key thing is it starts in the foundation.

But then, when I came here, I became a mechanical engineer I wanted to, worked with the largest company in USA. They're still number one, oh in India, in Bombay. But then, when I came here to do my Masters in Business Administration, I thought engineering and marketing will go well. It's good to start small but think big. I would highly, highly recommend your audience to read Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz.

You've Got To Start

Darin: Great, great, great, great book, and such a great recommendation.

Vinney: Thank you. I have a copy. Somebody gave me, I have it right there, 44 years back, somebody gave me that. Actually, my company in door-to-door selling gave me seven books. I think five or seven books, I have kept them right here on my desk. David J Schwartz, The Greatest Salesman in the World, Charlie Tremendous Jones, Life is Tremendous, Og Mandino and Dale Carnegie, and Think and Grow Rich, these were the seven books I was given by the company to read within one month or so. That's what really got me going. See, the thing is, everybody can get started today, that's the key thing.

Darin: Say that again. Say that again. Amen to that. Say it again because, look, everybody has to start somewhere, right?

Vinney: Totally, totally. If I had not bought that single family home or a duplex or a 14 plex, 14 units, $180,000 and got trained well, I want to say that I would have taken 30 years to be where I am today. But because I paid $30,000 at that time, the money I didn't have, that got me going so fast. I'm one of the brighter students of that academy, which gave me the know-how and skills, and coaching to take the steps to buy that 14 units. Because we were trembling literally, we were shaking. Should we buy or not? It was pretty expensive money at that time. But anyway, the key thing is you've got to start. See, 30 seconds back, we cannot change it. Half an hour back, we cannot change it. Five years back, nothing can be changed.

You Are the CEO of Your Life

Vinney: But we can change the next 30 seconds, and we can change the next one minute and we can change the next day and then next week and then so on. The key thing is to really think about where we are right now. Be a realist, live in the present. That's why I love the book by Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now. I would love your audience to read that book or get the audio version of it. I just bought his other one, A New Earth. He's got also very good sessions with Oprah Winfrey. My wife put me into that there. The thing is you've got to really feed your mind on a daily basis. We spend so much money from the mouth down, literally. We've lost $700 in a dinner we went to Siesta Key two weeks back.

My wife and I, we spent so much money in special dinners. But guess what, neck up like Zig Ziglar says, stinking thinking, lot of us. Sometime are trapped or in a cage with all these negative things that not meet. I cannot do it. I'm not good enough or this is not the right time, it's going to get better tomorrow. I know life comes on the way, but the key thing is to make a decision today to change the state of mind like Tony Robbins says. And I love Tony Robbins.

I met with Luke Wren, right hand of Tony Robbins, who does mastery. We met him over there in Florida two weeks back, but I've known him for two years or so now. Luke Wren, very nice, wonderful person.

But the key thing is state of mind, you are the CEO of your life.

Call the VPs of Your Life

Vinney: If you want to change your life tomorrow you need to make that decision. You got to call the VPs. Who are the VPs of our life? We are the CEO, the VPs, our mind is one of the VP. Our arms, our arms are another VP. Our legs are another VP of our body. Bring them all together and have a good pow-wow, who I am and where I want to go.

Darin: Yes, that's huge, that's huge. You've said so many good things there. Your mind is really where it's all about. Whether you're talking about positivity, negativity or making decisions and negative thoughts and positive thoughts, your mind is where you need to start and you could feed your mind by podcasts, you could feed them by books. But put positivity in there and then the other thing that you said, which I think is critical, is that you have to decide.

Vinney: Yes, that's it, that's it.

Darin: At some point, you have to make a decision for yourself.

Vinney: Totally.

Darin: That I'm going to do this, and then put a time on it and just don't let anything stop you from doing that. That's huge.

Vinney: If I may say, Darin, that I believe in nature's laws and everybody should. Law of attraction, I believe a hundred thousand, a million times more 24/7, law of abundance, law of scarcity, law of attraction, law of manifestation, it's going on. It's working. Whether you believe in it or not, it's your choice. See, the thing is, I wanted to be in senior living multifamily.

Assisted Senior Living Multifamily in the Land of Opportunity

Vinney: I sent out signals all over, three, four years back. Here, I didn't know anything about my partner, Shahid, who came from Pakistan at the age of 17, 3 years ago. He came here and he built from scratch $450 million portfolio like me.

Darin: In senior living.

Vinney: In senior living multifamily. With the law of abundance, with the law of attraction, things happen and Jon Roosen came into my life. Jon said, "Vinney, you want to get into senior living? I know a friend. He went to school with me. Hold on, I never knew anything and then we met and now we are so fired up about building, developing, and making a difference in the lives of seniors, which is 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 every night in USA.

It's the biggest sector of multifamily ever, ever that needs attention right now. We are building this assisted senior living like in Cape Coral, in Punta Gorda, all over place. It's in 10 or 12 locations in Florida, Virginia, in Michigan, in Texas, in Arizona. That's why I said that, humbly, that number $2 billion, that’s my goal in assisted senior living multifamily alone. Hotel is a separate goal, and multifamily conventional is separate goal.

Darin: Wow! I didn't realize that they were separate goals. Here's another thing for the listeners. You're already successful. You've already succeeded in the multifamily but you went and told people what you wanted to do. You let people know, "Look, I'm trying to do this."

Vinney: Yes.

Darin: "I want to do this." Then, other people, they end up hearing that and eventually somebody hears it that can do something to help you.

Bookish Knowledge Is No Good In the Land of Opportunity

Darin: For the listeners' benefit, tell people what you want to do. Tell people what you're trying to achieve. Tell people your goals, because somebody that you tell may say, "You know what, I got a friend that could help you."

Vinney: Exactly. The Secret, the book came out, Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Over the years, I bought 3,000 books or more. I love to buy every month, every week. If somebody tells me a new book, I'll buy it on Audio Now, I like to, and I never complete a book. Never ever read a whole book. I only want to get two to three ideas from that book, what the author is trying to tell me and try to implement it in my life, in my habits, in my thinking.

Because bookish knowledge is no good. You've got to act and put it into action. So that I can grow my companies, my vision, and my thinking, so that everybody gets paid.

The whole thing is investors are gold in our company. Residents are gold, that's the second tier. Our team members are gold. At the peak, we had 145 full-time employees. Team members in our companies.

We have about 45 right now. Because we are selling so much and then we are buying more and so on. But then the thing is, the other thing I would like to say is, our vendors, are gold, thousand of vendors, we give so much living to their families and everybody, and then our own family and partners, they are gold. Essentially, having a good, solid, value system built, the culture, that whole thing, that's what gets us to build these systems.

The Multifamily Academy

Vinney: Systems are huge, with all the technology which is out there, it's so wonderful to really harness those things. So that we can be more productive and more efficient and have more time with the family and so on. Enjoy the time in travels and making lives better for everyone.

Darin: Yes, absolutely. Again, here is a super successful guy who is still learning from other books.

Vinney: Yes, every day.

Darin: He is still out there searching for new ideas that he can implement. One of the big things that I'll tell people is, if you want to do something find somebody who's done it. Here you are, you have a Multifamily Academy.

Vinney: Yes.

Darin: Explain how that came about and what you guys do there.

Vinney: Totally, totally. Again, I was being approached 7, 8 years back by lots of people who were asking me, "Vinney, please tell us this, please tell", I was repeating myself.

I met with my team. I said, "I need to record myself because then we can just send them that recording. We were not doing anything spectacular. I have very similar answers for most of the questions they were asking. That really started me interviewing and really putting modules together, how to really learn the business of syndication and how to really find out how to build brokers relationships and talking to investors, how to analyze deals, how to get property management, because I've done all of that. That's what gave birth to the Multifamily Academy. A lot of coaching, people charge 50,000, 60,000, 100,000. We give our academy for $997.

Mastermind With Vinney

Vinney: People who have gone through it with no interaction from me or my staff can crush it on their own. They can become Vinney Chopra on their own. The academy teaches everything. Or, if they pay a little bit more, then they can do mastermind with me, I teach. I think there's not a single coach who teaches personally every week. I'm one of them in USA and mastermind and the students bring big deals. We look at them two hours, I teach and we record every single thing. We've been doing it for three years. Every session is recorded. Actually, the new entrants can also look at all these things in archive. I think I have lectured 1500 lectures now.

Darin: That's huge.

Vinney: That's what the Multifamily Academy is, yes,

Darin: Here's the thing. When you're in the world, the multifamily world, and you go to a lot of conferences and listen to a lot of podcasts, look, there are people out there that you can get information from and that you can get coaching from. I met with somebody that said to me, and this resonated with me, was that, "Look, I had all these people calling me, similar to what you are saying seven or eight years ago, and I spent all this time on the phone with them and I was doing it, and then all of a sudden, maybe I'm on the phone for an hour or whatever and then, we hang up and I have no idea if that person did anything."

Vinney: Yes.

Darin: If they took action or whether that time that I spent was useful.

Spread the Knowledge

Darin: This individual said, "I created a coaching program where they have to pay to coach with me. But what it did for him was that, now he's dealing with people that are serious, that are committed, that have decided that this is what they want to do. There's a piece of people that I think will look at coaching programs as, "Ah! They're just trying to sell me something," right?

But most of the coaches that I've met make way more money off of the investments than they do the coaching, but the coaching is a way for them to help more people more efficiently.

Vinney: And spread the knowledge, spread the knowledge because it's a huge pie all across the world. My book has so many, I think it was 200 reviews I think from India alone.

Darin: That's awesome.

Vinney: I just wrote it more than two years back, just two years back. Book 3 is coming up 27th of June, actually, coming up next week. But the key thing is, I'm just so thankful that people are taking the knowledge. From my academy, people are crushing $19 million portfolios within few years. I would say 2, 2 1/2 years, 60 million, 40 million, 30 million, profitable, because what I teach in the academy is syndication. I teach how to analyze deals, how to build the broker relationships and investors. You've got to really look at building investor base. Because they will walk with you and you will be able to buy bigger and better properties. If you stayed with your money, you're going to stay small.

Darin: Yes, absolutely. The other thing I would say is, you still have the duplex and it's doing well for you, but I started with a duplex too, right?

Don’t Buy Single Family in the Land of Opportunity

Darin: I started with a duplex and then I went to a 76-unit deal and some people are like, "What's better?" What do you think is better? The duplex or the 76? Part of it, you just say, "Oh, the bigger, the better." But another piece of that, and here's to all the resi folks out here that are listening. My duplex, the first year, we had two tenants and it was like clockwork, I didn't have to do anything. I just got the ACH, just went into my bank account.

But then after a year, one of those tenants moved out. They bought a house and it just so happened and it wasn't the best time of the year. It was like, November. It was vacant, November, December, January, February, four months. For me, it didn't really change my lifestyle, it wasn't that big of a piece of my portfolio. But on the 76-unit, I would've had to have 38 units vacant to get 50% occupied.

Darin: I look at that and I'm like, "You know what, there's always somebody leaving and coming in the 76-unit. But we've built-in that occupancy into the business plan, which a lot of people don't do with resi and duplexes. They'd look at the max amount of cash flow that's going to come in, and don't build in any occupancy. I think, for that reason, my experience has been that the larger is definitely the better.

Vinney: No, I agree. I always say to everybody, "Don't buy a single family. Put that money towards duplex, triplex, fourplex, because you have less risk then. The vacancy of one will still have two other tenants in triplex or three other to pay for the mortgage and everything.

Partner With Somebody That Has the Money

Vinney: The thing is just one special event of maybe a burner going out or a stove, or a refrigerator or anything like that or a leak, can wipe out your profits pretty quickly in a single family resi. But please be thinking about and just pool the money together with the people you already know and do that joint venture or take or things like that. Don't have to do syndication, but syndication fee has come down now. That is the other thing. People used to think, "Oh my gosh, I don't want to do a syndication." $25,000 legal fee, then $12,000. Now it's even half that, it's amazing. There is so much out there which people can really harness that money.

Darin: The other thing on that is that, look, you look at your skillset and then you partner with other people. I talk to somebody that's young and they're like, "I want to give in to syndication but I don't have that much money." I'm like, "All right, well then, go find the deal, do all the work, and then partner with somebody that has the money that doesn't want to run around town finding the deal."

Vinney: Love it, love it, love it. I'd love to share a story.

Darin: Yes, absolutely.

Vinney: One of our students just joined, 18 years of age.

Darin: Eighteen.

Vinney: He and his dad joined our Academy, and by golly, they paid 40,000 to another Academy too by the way, and they joined mine and now he closed on a deal, 106. He's just turned 19.

The Power of Accountability in the Land of Opportunity

Vinney: He got $325,000 home to himself and then 126 units near Dallas already closing soon with another partner, a student of mine, a group, and then they have an LOI accepted for their third deal. It's amazing how the power of meeting every week.

I think that's what I would like to say. Definitely, I think a lot of people enjoy me coming with my team and then doing this whole thing. Accountability every week, what did you do in one week, how many investors you talked to, how many brokers, how many LOIs, that's what is missing many times. When you say, "Okay, I'm going to just learn this over next year or I want to learn it in 3 months and crush it. I love that piece and I enjoy that two hours time, very thoroughly. I look forward to it every Wednesday, 4 o'clock, my time, I just enjoy, enjoy that time.

Darin: They probably do as well, and they know they're coming back and meeting, and they know there's accountability. They want to share with other people in the group their progress, and then that helps motivate and inspire the next person.

Vinney: Totally, so true what you just said, Darin. I've heard from the student, they say, "Vinney, this morning, I got on the thing because I didn't do that, I knew in the afternoon you might pick on me. So I wanted to make sure I talked to three investors, literally, or do some underwriting." That was awesome. I said, "Thank you," because what we want to do is we want to move the needle I call it always.

Vinney's Comprehensive Black Phone

Vinney: You've got to get into the rhythm and then it becomes a part of you. Actually, I'm going to mention something which I've not talked too much about it. I did a partnership on a very big thing happening in USA, and that is my comprehensive underwriting, which has taken me 14 years to perfect with different tabs and Excel worksheets, permutations, combinations. We are launching it on Vinney's Comprehensive Black Phone, where you will be able to just upload in thousand different forms whatever you have, rent roll and a P&L of any property, just upload it. Instantaneously, you will see all the ratios and drafts and everything within three minutes.

Darin: Are you kidding me? Let me ask you this. Brokers typically will send out their OM in a PDF. Every broker has a different format on their OMs. You're saying that you upload the PDF and then all the data is scraped from that PDF?

Vinney: You got it, you've got it.

Darin: It knows where to pull the data?

Vinney: Yes, not the OM, I should qualify that. When you are dealing with a broker, of course, the OM is the, to get you all thinking about performance numbers and assumptions and all that. But we ask the brokers, give us a current P&L, T12 or T9 or T3, and a rent roll, current or month back or something. Those are the two documents we should always be looking at not the proforma numbers at all. Those two documents you upload and bang, now you have everything, now you could look at your assumptions, you could spend time analyzing not data entry.

An Underwriting Platform

Vinney: That's looking at, if everything is, a lot of people don't do that, because they don't want to take the time. That laborious time is to look at the data and insert it into a place.

Darin: It's an underwriting platform.

Vinney: Yes, exactly.

Darin: Yes, that's huge, that's huge. Anything you can do to become more efficient and take some of the labor-intensive pieces out is huge. So that's awesome, and you're offering that up to other people as well.

Vinney: Yes. The membership, very cheap membership per month, and you can do as many deals as you want, no limit, sky is the limit.

Darin: Ah, man! This is awesome. In your book, you talk about how there's a ton of wealthy people out there that don't want to take the time to run around and find deals. Most of the people I think that are listening either want to get involved, either passively or actively. But then there's a lot of other people that they make good money in what they do. Maybe they own a business, maybe they're a doctor or a lawyer, maybe they're a salesperson for a big company, and they know instinctively that they don't want to have all their money in the stock market.

You talk about, look there's all this wealth out there that wants to do this, but they don't know how. You and other people in the syndication world are conduits for them to be able to diversify their portfolio.

Vinney: Really true. What you're saying, Darin, is so right because the professionals are so good at what they're doing and they have amassed lots sum of money, cash.

Four-Prong Attack

Vinney: Otherwise, and also retirement funds and all. But if they can really see who to track, these syndicators are, what's their track record, how well they have done for the other investors, get to speak and talk and look at, then they could invest money with, really, less risk. Mitigation of risk, we call it, because they want to first preserve their capital.

If they give 500 people, they're giving me $500,000 or $700,000 literally. They listen to my podcast and they say, "Vinney, let's meet together. I have half a million to invest with you." But then, I say, "Hold on, hold on, hold on," because we need to get to know them in 506B, but now the $50 million fund that we just started, it's a 506C, which is for accredited investors only, if you may allow me to.

Darin: Yes, absolutely.

Vinney: We’ve got four-prong attack. What that means is most of the people have been doing a specific property that when you invest $100,000 or $500,000, it's going to be only tied to that one asset, one property. If the property does well, you do well. If it does bad, you do bad. But in the diversified fund, my investors, we have over 400 investors by the way, with the grace of God. Now, starting from one, I've raised $152 million, and the good part is that there’s $50 million fund. We are going to raise money like $12 million in one raise, stop and then $12 million in another raise, stop. The paperwork is the same. But we’ll keep on deploying that money first, rather than raising all the money sitting in the bank and getting rusty.

Darin: Got you, got you.

The Cash Cow

Vinney: We're buying three assets right now, with the first $12 million, and I can talk about it because it's a 506C fund. I'm going to qualify that, which is for accredited investors only but it can be advertised, it can be talked about and things like that. What I would approach in that fund is we will be buying conventional B,B+ multifamily, which I've been doing. I've done 29 of those syndications, and then we'll be also doing the ground up, assisted living multifamily, which I have done four last year during COVID, raised $18 million from investors for that.

Then we'll be buying hotel, which is another one I did before COVID. I mentioned a little bit in this podcast, about the $6 million one, Hilton Garden Inn. Then the fourth one, you're going to love us. We are also not only building the multifamily assisted living, but we will also be stabilizing it and then buying it back if within the fund when it's making money like crazy, cash cow. We call it cash cow. The reason I say that Darin, is that apartment building that gets you $1100 per unit rent, let's just take assume. Same unit in a multifamily assisted senior living brings $4500 per month. You say, "Vinney, four times." That's so true.

People don't know that. Many people know it, but a lot of people are not looking what I'm looking. Because that's where we are building A+ class, assisted senior livings over 5 to 7 acre of land with spas and movie theaters and libraries and dining, five-star dining, all three meals cooked to order for the residents.

The Breakeven Point for Assisted Senior Living Multifamily

Darin: Obviously, if you go from a thousand to $4500, that's four times, that's huge. But it's a different cost structure as well.

Vinney: It is.

Darin: It's a different business model where multifamily, you have the leasing agents and the maintenance crew. Where, in senior housing, you have a lot of different facets and there's actually more of a business that is being run within a property.

Vinney: Totally, it's the building and the business. You're right, Darin, 100%. But the key part, which I would like to, again, say not too complicate it, is that in multifamily, you just rent the unit. You don't have furniture in there, you don't have nothing, they pay rent every month. In this one, we have caregivers, we have one nurse, no doctors, we have chefs, junior chefs. We do have more revenues, four times more revenue, but also expenses are there, which is the breakeven point for a multifamily conventionally is 72%, usually 72% to 74%. The breakeven point for assisted senior living multifamily is 56%, wow.

Darin: Holy cow! Wow!

Vinney: There is a huge potential. If you do any research, I hope everybody who is listening to us, please look into it. Google and see if the senior living multifamily performs twice even 2 1/2 half times better than multifamily, you will find lots of reports on that.

Apartment Syndication Made Easy in the Land of Opportunity

Vinney: Yup, and graphs. Documented graph where assisted senior living, which we are in. We are not in 55+ and we are not in nursing homes at all. Actually, I'm doing education every week now. If anybody would like to join free to the webinars, please join us and we'll be educating the masses about assisted living, which is in the middle of the five sections of senior living. On the left side it's choice-driven, on the right side, it's need-driven, which is nursing homes and rehab centers, we are not in that. We are not in 55+ condominiums or like that. We are right in the middle, assisted living and memory care.

Darin: That's huge, 2, 2 1/2 times performance. I like that, I like that. I see some of the performance on multifamily, and I think that's good. If that's 2, 2 1/2 times that's fantastic. I had a lot more to talk about this program, we didn't get into it.

Vinney: Please, I'm all yours. We can split into two podcast if you want, Darin.

Darin: We might have to do another one. We talked about the first book, Apartment Syndication Made easy, you have another book out, Positivity Brings Profitability, what is that one about?

Vinney: Okay. That book, my wife is the one who really put me. She says, "Vinney," we've been married 39 years, now 41 years this year, she says, "I read your book, Apartment Syndication Made Easy, amazing book. But it's for a limited audience," she said. She said, "I've been married to you for so long, you are the most positive person around."

Darin: That's just smiles.

Positivity Brings Profitability in the Land of Opportunity

Vinney: She said, "You might as well do a book on positivity." Literally, I got up next morning 4:30, I started writing this book. Now, I'm coming with an extended version of it within a few months, which will be about double this size, and it's going to have lot more of my mind into it. It's going to be a very thick book for the same price. We are going to come out with a revised edition of it.

Darin: Where do the listeners go to pick up one of these books? One or both.

Vinney: I'm the international top seller of Amazon. Both the books are out on Amazon in audio, in Kindle, in paperback. Also for our around the world and our Spanish-speaking friends also, we converted the whole book into Spanish also.

Darin: Fantastic, fantastic. Vinney, what do you do outside of work, man? Besides helping grow the wealth of all these people?

Vinney: We travel a lot. We enjoy, my wife and I. I play, I shouldn't say that. I think a lot of people will say, "Vinney, what the heck are you talking about?" I play Bridge Online every day from 11:30 to 1:00 almost every day with my family from Georgia and my wife and I. I do meditation a little in the morning and I play golf and I do oil paintings. I'm a shopaholic also. I love colored T-shirts, so I look for all the different prints.

Darin: You are always dressed sharp, my man.

Vinney: Thank you, thank you, God bless you. The thing is, my passion in life, I'm 69, I'll be 70 next year.

Vinney's Passion

Vinney: My goal for the next 20, 25 years and I want to live a long life, eat healthy, and make a difference in the lives of people. Really, that's why I'm here. My passion right now is to just spread the word, educate people, get the passive investors to really buy into our opportunities and live in our senior communities multifamily and enjoy their golden years. We want to spoil the generation that has spoiled us. That's actually my partner's motto, Shahid's motto, and we have taken it into our company now, and that's what it's all about.

Darin: You said next year you're going to turn 70. We talked about so many different things that you're doing. You've got two books. You're going to come out of a third book. You're in multifamily, you're in assisted senior living, you're in hotels, hospitality. You have the financial wherewithal to stop, but you're not.

Vinney: No.

Darin: You look at life, "Okay, I'm going to 70 and for the next 25 years this is what I want to do." I think that that's awesome because you keep contributing, you keep helping others, you keep putting yourself out there. Because a lot of people in this world, they work 30 years of a miserable job, so that they can go sit on the beach at 65. Then all of a sudden their life deteriorates because they don't know what to do with themselves.

Vinney: No. Darin, I really believe when you don't stimulate your mind, when you don't have certain goals in life every day, you decay, you die. When you don't grow, when you don't help other people. One needs to not just spend time in all these different things, we could be thinking about negative.

A Dot

Vinney: We could be watching TV, we could be doing this, but if you can be a very good part of the society, helping seniors and volunteering and other stuff, and also monetize your skills. Because as a consulting don't charge any money, or even start a non-profit organization.

We are doing this charitywater.org campaign. I want to donate a lot and I want my colleagues to donate a lot. Because they are doing in 29 countries these water wells, two wells putting the other, and 100% of the money goes there. I get passionate about those goals, the hunger, human trafficking and building schools. Just so many things out there to contribute to.

This life is such that we could make it a better world. Life is actually, you know how I look at it? It's dot.

Darin: It's what?

Vinney: It's just a dot, a small period. If you look at the timeline of dinosaurs. I look at it that way. Millions of years, we have not even existed in that timeline. If we live 100 years, we might even be just a small dot, we cannot even see ourselves in the lifespan there. But what we will be remembered by, it's so crucial. I think by having that thinking, what you want to really leave a legacy behind to make it a better world than we were when I was born in 1952.

It's just a passion of mine now. I think I'm just so fired up and I get up at 4:30, 4:45. I used to have alarm wake me up when I was working W2 job, literally. Now I don't need no alarm, no nothing and I'm just like this. After 17 hours of meetings in a day or sometimes.

Darin: You have a ton of energy, my man. I could see that, I could see that for sure.

Vinney: Travels, and travels. We love to just go around the world. That's our passion, four, five vacations a year, because the systems can be built so that you're not in the job but you are out of the job and the systems then progress.

Vinney Would Love to Chat With You

Darin: Fantastic. Hey, if people want to get to know you or your company, what's the best way for them to do some research on you and contact you?

Vinney: Totally. You could definitely Google me, Vinney Chopra, like Deepak Chopra, no relatives or anything. But vinneychopra.com is my website. You could even just email me directly. I read every text and every email I read, and that is to vinney@vinneychopra.com.

Vinney: We would love to chat with you, look at your goals and see where we can contribute.

Darin: Vinney, I really appreciate you coming on. I look forward to meeting you at a real estate conference in the future and love watching and seeing what you're doing in the space and learning from people like you, so I look forward to picking up your Positivity book and the next one you come out with.

Vinney: Oh yes. The next one is almost ready, by the way, senior living.

Darin: Hey, if the returns are 2 1/2 times multifamily, I'm going to have to take a look at that. I really appreciate you coming on and for being a leader in the space, and for giving back to the community. Thank you for that.

Vinney: No, thank you for your time.

Darin: Listeners, I hope that you enjoyed that one. Until next week, signing off. Thanks, Vinney.

How to Reach Vinney Chopra

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