Discover the remarkable journey of Dr. Ronnie Shalev, a powerhouse entrepreneur, physician, bestselling author, and real estate investor, as she shares her transformative experience with host Daniel Wrenne. With a background as a board-certified ER doctor and a passion for healthcare reform, Dr. Shalev’s journey took a turn as she transitioned into the dynamic world of real estate investing, driven by her desire to escape physician burnout and achieve financial freedom.
In this enlightening conversation, Dr. Shalev, co-founder of Shalwin Properties, takes us through her path from medicine to a thriving real estate portfolio that boasts over 5,100 units and $184 million in assets under management. She emphasizes the importance of strategic market analysis, demographic understanding, and surrounding oneself with the right people. Dr. Shalev also highlights her experience with mentorship, conferences, and education, amounting to an investment of over $100,000 in self-improvement within the industry.
Featured in prominent platforms such as Yahoo! Finance, Business Insider, and MarketWatch, Dr. Shalev’s journey is not only inspiring but educational. Her transformation from a physician to a real estate mogul showcases the potential for professionals to reshape their financial futures and gain control over their lives. Join us in this conversation to glean insights into passive and active investment approaches, understanding market dynamics, and capitalizing on real estate opportunities even amidst the ever-evolving market conditions. Whether you’re considering a career transition or looking to grow your wealth, Dr. Ronnie Shalev’s journey is a testament to the power of determination, education, and seizing opportunities in the world of real estate.
Links:
Connect with Dr. Ronnie on LinkedIn
Connect with me on my LinkedIn
Contact Finance for Physicians
To schedule a call with one of our awesome planners, book HERE.
Full Episode Transcript:
Daniel Wrenne: What’s up, guys? Today I am talking with Dr. Rani Shalev. Rani is a board certified emergency physician, a real estate investor, and an entrepreneur. She’s the co founder of Shaowen Properties and has built a real estate portfolio of over 5, 100 units with 184 million in assets under management. Rani’s mission today is to help other professionals build and protect their wealth.
Daniel Wrenne: So that they can reclaim their lives and freedom. Today, we discuss her story of how the system of medicine really burned her out to the point of leaving the profession altogether, despite having a passion for caring for patients and helping people. She shares how, if it wasn’t for. the pressures within the system, she probably would be still practicing medicine today.
Daniel Wrenne: We discussed the importance of not just the academic side of business, finances, and real estate, but the value of investing in yourself and developing key relationships. We walk through her ultimate transition out of medicine and how she made the jump into full time real estate. We also talk about how she was able to find some passion within real estate, uh, and really equate it to, to also helping people kind of like she was able to do within medicine.
Daniel Wrenne: And then we wrap up with going through some of the resources she has created to help others navigating along this similar path.
Daniel Wrenne: Ronnie, welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Thank you. I’m so excited
Daniel Wrenne: to be here. Yeah, I love, uh, I love talking about real estate and finances, obviously. And, um, and you have a background as an emergency physician. And I think you have kind of an interesting story that hopefully we’ll get into a little bit. So I’m excited to talk about all that sort of thing.
Um, I know you’re doing some big things in real estate and that’s also, uh, something there’s a lot to that. I feel like we could talk about real estate for an hour, for hours and hours and hours. Um, but before we get into kind of what you have going on and, and, and all that sort of thing, um, I kind of have this, Theory there.
I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but it feels like there’s a lot of interest in the physician circles in real estate Have you kind of felt that or maybe a growing interest or greater interest? Or is it always been this this way that there’s been an interest
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: I think over the last three years There’s definitely been an increase and I think it has a, it has a lot to do with physicians always thinking that they had like, yes, we’re treated terribly and there’s no respect anymore.
And, and our salaries keep going down and reimbursement is down and administrators are telling us what to do, but we always had a sense of job security. Um, and COVID proved that wrong. COVID proved that physicians, even during a pandemic, can be, um, let go. Their hours can be cut, uh, their salaries cut. They can be told, you know, you have to go in to see this patient that has an incredibly infectious disease and you might die.
But you have to go in because you have to get paid. Um, so that they saw, they started thinking like, Oh my God. Okay. Well, what if I don’t want to do this? What are my options? Um, you know, I’m, I’m tied to this job. What, what happens if I get really, really sick, what am I going to do for income? Um, and I think that it was just kind of a wake up call and it’s not limited to just physicians.
I’ve, you know, there’s the great resignation now, like people are leaving corporate jobs and it’s not limited to that, but there was a big awakening after, during and after
Daniel Wrenne: COVID. Yeah, I feel like, uh, you know, you could call it physician burnout or moral injury or whatever frustrations with your career or, um, there’s this like increased desire to, and people even say it this way to get gain freedom.
Freedom is like a big kind of buzzword. Um, physicians are looking for like freedom or alternatives. Um, and typically what I see. Coming up as real, you know, top of the list solutions, real estate’s usually on it, but it’s like side gigs, real estate, or I’m going to retire early, um, right, you know, or maybe a career shift of some sort, um, which kind of, there’s a lot of overlap on, on those things, but, um, it seems like all that’s interrelated.
It sounds like. You’re on the same page of that. And that’s, um, you know, I think my first thought is like, what are you so freedom, I think, is a key word, like, my thought is like, what are you needing to get freedom from, you know?
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Yeah, that’s a great, that’s a great question. And it depends. It’s a personal question, right?
Every person has their own idea of what freedom is. Is it freedom of their time? Is it freedom to travel? Is it freedom to practice medicine? How they choose to practice medicine? Um, so freedom, um, Is very freedom from, from financial worries. I mean, there’s so many ways to look at freedom. Um, and it’s, it’s a personal, personal definition, I guess.
Daniel Wrenne: I think though, it seems like a lot of, uh, physicians in training kind of like feel like going into practice is freedom. Maybe, uh, Oh, yeah. I mean, on the, on the back end, they usually don’t say it that way. They’re like, no, no, no, no, no. No, not freedom.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Oh, yeah. I mean, for sure. Like, cause you’re, it’s residency is almost like military, you know, there’s an intern and then it’s a second year resident, third year resident, chief resident, fellow attending.
You’re constantly being told what to do. And what you chose to do is wrong or not wrong, or right, or, you know, there’s, there’s no freedom your, your schedule is given to you. You’re told when you go to work when you come home. If you come home because most of the time you’re sleeping in the hospital and you’re doing call and.
So there’s, when you’re done with that, people are like, yay, I’m free. And then they hit the real world. Um, when it’s got its own
Daniel Wrenne: shackles. Yeah. I think that’s a lot of times that’s what we’re after is like getting free from the shackles. I mean, the opposite of freedom I think of is like slavery. Now I know.
Physicians are not slaves necessarily, but I mean, you can be a slave and be compensated. That doesn’t have to be intertwined. But you know, freedom is a, is a, I think a high priority for, for a lot of people. And they don’t feel that in healthcare today. I feel like healthcare is kind of like squeezing the freedom out of people.
It’s like taking away. Your freedom, especially when you sign like a, you know, really, really long non compete or you, you know, over commit on your finances and you’re really locked into working or you’re in just especially high pressure, um, job or like I was, we were talking about the videos, uh, what was his name?
Dr. Glocken. I can lock and flick him lock and flick him. I had to bring that up because, um, Ronnie recommended it. And if you haven’t seen his videos, they’re hilarious. Um, but he has all kinds of videos about stereotypes, stereotypes with, with different. Physicians, but, um, he also has some about like the problems in healthcare and, you know, insurance and distress and all, all that kind of thing.
And they’re, they’re real things. And, um, you know, a lot of times driving, driving you to want to get out of medicine. Um, but was that, so do you feel like that is what really was the underpinning to why you. Uh, got into real estate. Were you seeking that freedom?
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Yeah. So, I mean, I was really a victim of the golden handcuffs.
I was making a ton of money, but my time was directly related to my income. So, if I wasn’t working, I wasn’t making money. I wasn’t making money unless I was in the hospital taking care of patients. Um, so, you know, one day my husband’s like, yeah, you’re an hourly worker. I’m like, I mean, I knew it was an hourly worker, but he’s like, well, you’re a high paid hourly worker, but you’re, you’re, you’re just an hourly worker.
And, you know, cause I, you know, I would come home from these shifts exhausted, uh, physically, mentally. And say to myself, well, what else am I supposed to be doing? Like, I don’t know how to make this type of money. Um, anywhere else, like we’re not taught anything else. Like I, I went into a profession that I was taught a trade.
I was taught how to do it. I spent years and years, and then I was, you know, deep into my career and. I was making a lot of money, which I thought would make me happy and it didn’t. And so I tried to cut some shifts, right? Or take more vacations or, um, but every time you take a vacation, you know, as an emergency room doctor, you’re required to do a certain amount of shifts per month.
So if I was taking a vacation, that means I would be front loaded before and then back loaded after my vacation. So I would get killed before the vacation. Take the vacation takes me like four days to recover and then you’re in the vacation you blink the vacations over and then you’re working like crazy just to make up for the time that you weren’t working.
That’s the word. That was, that was what I did for 16 years. It was like, well, there isn’t any other option. Um, and that’s why we started looking around like, well, how do you make, how do other people not do this? How do other people make money? Because making money can’t be that hard. Um, and you know, really with this journey that I’ve been through, I realized.
That my mindset has switched from scarcity to abundance. Um, and it’s actually easy to make money if you know where to look and what to do and how to do it. So really the first switch is mindset and the second switch is education.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Um, so more money did not make you happy. I think that’s important to reemphasize.
Um, did you, when you started, I don’t know, earlier in your career, did you think more money was going to make you happy?
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: I just thought if I was going to make a ton of money, I could work less for the same amount of money. So I kept saying like, okay, now I’m working 17, 18 shifts a month. Um, so when I make partner in my group and I’ll make more money, I’ll be able to go down to 12 for sure.
I’ll be able to last many, many years to do that. Well, I went down to 12 and I was still just as miserable. Um, so then I went down to 10. I was like, I’ll just make less money. Um, but then, you know, I couldn’t go down any lower. We had to pay our bills. To me, it was, it was just the stress of everything. Um, that I just felt, I mean, I was in the, you know, in the emergency.
world, you’re told you’re, it’s like a thankless job. Really? Um, your patients are angry. You’re, you’re really helping them on their worst day. So you’re not getting the best side of them. Um, it’s a high stress. The consultants are angry with you. Um, there’s a high, it’s like a fishbowl mentality. Everybody’s coming in and telling you, why’d you do this?
Why’d you do that? You know, you’re fighting with everybody to get patients admitted or discharged or Go to surgery. You’re constantly just trying to take care of the patient and every interaction is possible when I Hey, when it goes smooth. It’s amazing. You’re like, Oh my God, I love my job. But the reality of emergency medicine is you’re constantly trying to convince someone.
of what you’re seeing. Um, so, you know, if I had a patient that had severe abdominal pain and the CT scan didn’t show what I thought it would show, but this patient looks terrible and something’s wrong with them and they need to go, you know, for exploratory laparotomy. Um, I would have to convince the surgeon to do that.
Um, what are the, what’s the, you know, they weren’t in house. So I would have to give the clinical picture. I would have to, you know, say like, something’s going on. Like, I can’t just send this patient home. Something’s wrong. I don’t know what it is. But something’s wrong. And that’s just one example. Um, you know, we could see 50 patients a day.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Was there like a breaking point for you? Like, did you have a moment in time where you’re like, Oh my, I gotta, or did it kind of like get slowly worse where you’re like, I need to… I
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: had, I had some major like, major breaking points, but I kept pushing through. Um, I had a shift really early in my career.
Um, two years into being in attending where I had two pediatric deaths in one day, um, in one shift, uh, it was like, I, it was awful, awful, awful, awful. Plus you see the other 40 patients. Um, so after that shift, I said, Oh my 30 years? Like, what if I have tomorrow another shift like this? Um, right. You know, so, but then I continued.
I said, Oh, well, let me try it. Maybe it’s maybe it’s the environment. Maybe it’s the clinical setting. Maybe I need to be less urban and more suburban. Um, you know, so I switched around in different clinical scenarios. I went to a freestanding emergency room kind of work where you do, it’s kind of very low volume, less stress, but it’s very long shifts.
It could be a 24 hour shift that you’re working. Um, but I also worked shorter shifts that were very, very high intensity where I could be taking care of, you know, three or four dying patients at the same time. So, you know, you realize where you’re like, at some point it starts, it’s like, it starts just weighing on you and weighing on you and weighing on you.
And really my final end, uh, was in COVID. I saw no ends. It was nine months into COVID. There was no end in sight. It was just, I was like, this isn’t going to end anytime soon. I can’t do this anymore. Like I can’t, I can’t. I’m in a, I’m in a respirator. People are just dying everywhere. It’s just. It was just bad patient care, bad health care.
I was at risk. My family was at risk and I said, that’s it. And that’s when I, um, stepped away from medicine.
Daniel Wrenne: Um, yeah, that’s hard. And I mean, both the different, those are two kinds of different flavors of challenges, like. All of it’s hard, but, uh, do you, did they have any sort of like, so dealing with a death, I don’t care who it is like a pediatric death to me sounds just, you know, super challenging or stressful, or that’s not the right, the word terrible to go through.
But, um, First thing I think of is like therapy and like resources and like need you need some the worst thing to do is to like bury it. I would think I’m not an expert at that kind of thing, but I’m curious if there were like resources. Um, in the system you’re in that were like, oh, it’s been a terrible day.
Like, here’s some here’s some like. Somebody to go talk to, you should probably have like a unwinding session.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Yeah, um, we do, we did not have it at that facility. When I moved, that was in New York, when I moved to Texas, that was the first time that I had heard of those type of sessions where you just kind of talk about what happened because, I mean, we had obviously more, more pediatric deaths and um, so those do happen, but you know, It’s just assumed that the physician, we’re supposed to just like bottle it back up and go see the ankle sprain that’s still waiting to be seen.
Yeah. You know, after you deal with that, you have to, and then you still have to walk into that room and say, Hi, how are you? What brings you in today? After what you, what you just did. Right. You just tried to resuscitate a child and you had to tell the family and you had to talk to the police and you had to, uh, I mean, there’s just like so many levels and then there’s people, you know, that are still waiting to be seen and they don’t know what’s going on.
I’m just, you know, we don’t need to tell them, um, but whatever it is, you know, then. There’s just so many levels in the emergency room. You know, every patient that gets discharged from the emergency room gets a press Ganey survey. Gene, have you ever heard of that? No. How was your treatment? Did your doctor pay attention to you?
How patient was your doctor? Did they smile? Did they greet you? Did they sit down? Did they shake your hand? So, uh, those, the, the ankle sprain is the one that gets those surveys. And our salaries are tied to those surveys. Not the people that we spend hours with trying to save their lives. So like the whole system is just very broken.
I could go on and on for hours about how broken it is. Um, so I don’t want to depress you.
Daniel Wrenne: Well, I’ve, if, if, well, for, I have had many, many conversations about the problems within healthcare. And if you’ve listened for a while, if you’re listening, uh, you’ve heard many conversations about a lot of the problems and they’re very, I mean, it’s, it is good to talk about them, um, and understand them and start to work towards, uh, solutions, but, um, I’m so shifting towards more of the bright side.
Like, could you, let’s pretend like things had been better. Like, I imagine you had some kind of like roses and sunshine view of how things were going to shake out. In medicine or in like hypothetically, if you were to have gone into practice and things had not been so stressful and it would have been like you could have provided the, you know, the care that you had always thought was the right way to do things and all these stressors hadn’t occurred.
Do you think things would have played out the same? Would you have stayed in? Yes.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Practice. I would have stayed in. I would have stayed in and I would have stayed in my little bubble of this is how you do it. You save money, you pay off your house, you put money in a 401k, um, and you should be fine. Right? I have till I’m 65 to make sure I’m fine.
The, the, the job’s not going anywhere. I like it. There’s, there, you know, I have, I’m highly skilled. If you enjoy it too, right? I enjoyed it. You know, I have, you know, initially I went into emergency medicine because you have the flexibility. No one’s calling you. No one’s, no one’s, you’re never on call. You don’t have a pager.
Um, so you know, when you’re off, you’re off. So I was planning on traveling and, and taking up hobbies and, and doing all kinds of things on the days
Daniel Wrenne: off.
That’s interesting. And that, I mean, as a, um, patient, I am a little uneasy about that statement because I’m like, I’ve heard, and I’ve heard a lot of people say that, um, and, and, and usually it’s like the smarter people that I know, or they’re like successful people that kind of have a lot of good things going.
And I’m like, I wish or it’s frustrating that those you and those others are leaving health care and therefore are not able to be my physician selfishly or my kiddos position. Um, but I also, I also get it like that. So I assume there’s probably a little bit of like. guilt feeling in the back of your or maybe there was at some point where you’re like and then I could imagine that would make it even a little harder to I’m sure people feel that, um, not to say that that’s a reason not to, um, I’m just, I’m, I’m guessing that was a factor as well.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: You know, I’ll tell you, I, first of all, I am very scared. Of when I’m older, who will take care of me? Who’s going to be in the emergency room? Who’s going to be in the hospitals? It’s not going to be physicians. Um, there’s going to be nurse practitioners. There’s going to be PAs, the physicians. I don’t know who’s the supervising doctor going to be.
I, there’s going to be a massive, there’s already a shortage of doctors, but it’s going to be very, it is going to be really, really bad unless we find some AI. That takes over, you know, but it’s going to be awful. Do I have guilt about leaving? No, I took care of so many people and I’ve saved so many lives and I was amazing.
And I put my heart and soul into it. I don’t feel guilty about completing that chapter in my life. And now I help people in another way. Before I helped them and their life emergencies with their wellness with their health. Now I’m doing it with their wealth. Um, I’m helping them with their finances. I’m giving them options that they’ve never, you know, learned about.
And they’re just as scared. They’re just as scared with finances as they are in the emergency room. People are fear what they don’t know. People fear that they, what they don’t have control over. So I feel like I’m still helping people and I’m still making an impact. Um, and I’m never going to stop
Daniel Wrenne: that.
Yeah. And I think, I think a lot of people, it’s, it’s good that you were able to. Like get to that point, I think a lot of people stay in a painful situation, uh, because of the guilt and that’s like unhealthy in itself. And then they forget about that whole, like they’ve served patients for years and years and years.
And it’s, um, you know, a huge deal, uh, that, that in itself. And at some point you have to. The other thing too, so the brighter view, or at least my brighter view of that problem, I just pointed out, like, I think the more people that leave, like you have, or that like call somebody out or like do something about it, the more somebody’s going to wake up or more likely somebody’s going to wake up or do something different.
And, and the, so this, this is a good thing. Like, you can’t just like go with the status quo and like give into the guilt because that doesn’t do anything about the problem. It really actually compounds it. Um, and so hopefully like things start to change. I think they are, um, starting to change and it’s a slow progression, but, um, but yeah, in real estate too, you can help people in that regard.
You can help people in a million different ways. And I think most physicians got into practice to help people, um, for the right reasons, but you don’t. You know, like you’re saying, you can help people with their finances and, and gaining freedom from whatever, you know, it might be to them. Um, was that like a huge transition?
I feel like some people, um, are intimidated by that, or I see that in people, the idea of getting in, going, going from medicine to.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Well, you know, if you just say, I never said I’m going to wake up and I’m going to be a finance expert. I’m going to learn private equity. If you would have asked me that five years ago, I would have been like, what, what does private equity mean?
Um, you know, so it it’s been A journey, and the only thing that would have forced me to get there is I had to be forced. I had to have hated my life, hated my current situation enough for me to look for alternatives. And believe me, I looked for so many. I was looking to start a yogurt franchise or Chick fil A or start a car wash.
Um, my husband and I were, you know, we started, we started two CrossFit gyms. I was part of two freestanding emergency rooms. So I, I did start doing a lot of, um, this, I was very business oriented without knowing I was business oriented even in 2015. Um, where I opened two freestanding emergency rooms with a couple, with several other physicians and we were running our own business.
Um, but again, it was healthcare related, uh, and a lot of the same problems that I was seeing in healthcare made me just say, you know what, I want to learn more about this other world. Um, and so it wasn’t really a, I went from here to here. So it scared me.
Daniel Wrenne: You were getting into entrepreneurship within healthcare already.
So therefore, I mean, there’s a ton of carry over. I mean, like entrepreneurship in healthcare is very similar to entrepreneurship in anything. I mean, entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship and you have to know, uh, finances or have some level of financial literacy, in my opinion, to be in business, or at least it forces you to focus on a little bit more than, I mean, in healthcare, you can kind of not pay attention to the economics and the financial aspects.
And so you were already in that. It sounds like that’s, that’s a good kind of, so why didn’t you, um, um, have a million CrossFit gyms? So what about, uh, like the freestanding ERs and the, I guess you already mentioned that, like the, the issue with those is it was kind of pulling you back into the healthcare related issues.
Um, but I’m curious about the other, I
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: still own my freestanding ERs. Um, but you know, They’re they have their own issues where governments not, you know, there’s all kinds of health care reform regarding reimbursement and insurance declining freestanding emergency rooms and not paying bills. And, um, so there’s their own like health care related issues.
Regarding that business. So to me right now, I’m staying away from healthcare related businesses. Um, I don’t even invest really in, in it’s just so highly, highly, highly just scrutinized, regulated. Um, and. I don’t invest in hospitals. Um, I don’t, I don’t invest, I don’t just, I don’t invest in even healthcare related real estate.
I just, that’s interesting. I’m just avoiding that whole sector. Yep. Um, in terms of the CrossFit gyms, COVID killed the gym business. People we had to shut down. Um, so those businesses really dwindled because We had to turn away our clients and then we had to rebuild everything back. I mean, it was not fun.
So even though we thought like, Hey, you know, we got some diversification and entrepreneurial businesses. It really wasn’t enough diversification. But really, it was enough for me to say, we have enough money coming in for me to leave medicine. We’ve had diversified into real estate that that sector had still continued to provide.
That I was able to say, okay, I’m leaving medicine and we’ll figure the rest
Daniel Wrenne: out. Yeah. So you had all these other ventures, including real estate, you’re buying real estate, what kind of real estate? So you, I know you had the, the ERs, uh, in the CrossFit and, um, and you also had real estate at that time that you’d been buying.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Yeah, so none of those others were real estate. Those were businesses. You didn’t
Daniel Wrenne: know real estate with
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: those? No, no. Um, the real estate that I owned, uh, I mean, I got involved in self storage. I got involved in retail centers. I got involved in, um, standalone buildings, triple net leases. Uh, ground leases, assisted living, RV parks, mobile home parks, uh, apartments.
I got involved in it all. Um, and really in 2019, I was like, well, I really like multifamily, um, the apartment because of the, uh, really the foundation of everybody needs. The need is there. Everybody needs housing. Like that’s never going to go away. Like if they’re working from home because of COVID or from whatever, they’re working from home.
So they still need their house. They don’t need their offices. If they’re, um, shopping most of the time, they’re shopping online. They’re not shopping, you know, going into stores really. So again, where are they shopping from? They’re shopping from their house. And then I started looking into, well, what, how do I get into, I don’t want to be just a landlord where I buy a house and rent them.
Like, you know, you can buy those homes. There’s so many ways to make money in real estate. You can fix and flip. You can wholesale. You can house hack. You can, um, do long term rentals, short term rentals, midterm rentals. I didn’t want to do any of that. Like, how do I not do that in a single family or, uh, you know, house, like, I, I want to get into the housing business.
And that’s when I started looking at, well, there’s commercial housing, which is apartments.
Daniel Wrenne: What made you not want to do single family versus, why did you like multi versus single? Well, when
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: you have, it’s completely different because when you have houses, one house, one tenant goes, leaves or you have to evict them or whatever, they destroy your house.
Your investment is completely not functioning, right? You’re not bringing in any income. Yep. However, if you have a hundred apartments, you have more of economies of scale. So if. Five tenants. are being evicted, your business is still running. It’s actually a business. So what I liked about it is when you’re buying commercial real estate, you’re buying a business.
So not only are, do you have it backed with real estate, but you’re buying an operating business. There’s rent, there’s tenants, there’s employees, there’s a leasing office, there’s maintenance people. You’re really purchasing a business and you’re running a business. And it was very much a bridge from.
Running the ERs and running the other businesses. It was just kind of a step up that associated with apartments and that’s kind of our forte, how we transitioned to, um, really being operators where we’re asset managing a lot of these large properties and we’re up to, um, a little bit over 4, 000 apartment doors right now.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. So you like, I mean, it’s kind of like, uh, I guess diversification that’d be like. Buying one stock versus buying a mutual fund of stocks in the finance world, um, having one door or one single family home. It’s also kind of expensive to buy home one home, whereas you could buy a multifamily and the cost per door is lower.
Um, and you’re diversifying. So that, that’s what attracted you. And plus the business aspect. And, um, it’s more like running a business. And there’s always a need
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: and we focus on recession resistant workforce housing. So we’re looking for housing that people want and need that can, you know, they are, there are older properties there, you know, 90 eighties, nineties, seventies, eighties, nineties.
They’re not the newest kind. So if the people that are living in class a properties lose their job, we can’t afford it or they have to take a pay cut or some, they’re going to move to the bees. Yeah, same thing with the bees move to the seas. Um, so if I get that demographic of class B C multifamily, there’s always going to be a need.
So when you’re looking for a business, you want to, you want to look for what is the niche that has a need because you want to solve the need. There needs to be affordable housing. There needs to be nice houses for people that have a certain income. Um, so we take these properties and we add, make them nicer.
We renovate them. We fix everything that’s broken things that haven’t been changed in forever. You know, boilers, electric panels, we make, you know, we add amenities, we add dog parks and, uh, pet yards. And we add a lot of different things. We make it nicer for them. So they have a nice place to live. So there is a mission behind what we do as well.
Um, and you look for the demographic. So you’re looking for the affordable housing, but I’m also looking for a sub market. Where are people moving? What’s growing? What demo, what county is growing? What sub markets growing? What is a diverse? Is it one employer? Is it 20 employers? Is it that are the same type?
Are they in the same sector? Or are they Multiple. So I really enjoy the whole like economic look at what’s going on in the market and the sub market. Um, so we really drilled down and that’s where we decided, you know, like apartments in diverse economies that are growing, that’s where we should focus our business, you know, endeavors.
And that’s where we got into, um, the apartment industry.
Daniel Wrenne: Was there any, um, I imagine there was some people like key people around you. Most people don’t do this alone. Like you’ve done a lot of big things. Um, I guess on occasion they do, but, um, most of the time there’s key people around that helped to kind of like
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: propel you.
So absolutely you cannot do this alone. I have paid for mentors. I have paid for education. I’ve gone to conferences, seminars, courses, mentorship, masterminds. Um, I have spent over a hundred thousand dollars, um, just on education regarding this industry. I mean, there’s Absolutely. Absolutely. I just don’t have a couple letters after my name.
Um,
Daniel Wrenne: I mean, I’ve, I’ve done the same for my, I’ve had to do the same for my entrepreneurship and education. Like there’s no like formal credentialing, but you, you know, you educate, you have to educate yourself, uh, in order to, um, proceed to the next level and provide value. And then also, um, for me, at least, and a lot of the families we work with one on one, there’s always like, when you’re just by yourself, like, in, you know, with your own thoughts only, uh, you run into these hurdles and it’s really difficult to, everybody’s probably been through those.
You’re the,
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: you’re the sum of the five people you surround yourself
Daniel Wrenne: with. Yeah. I love it. Average of your five best friends. You
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: know? So, I mean, if you’re going to surround yourself with eagles, you’re going to learn how to not be an eagle. Correct. If you surround yourself,
Daniel Wrenne: you know, so take a look at your five friends, , , uh, you might have to get rid of a few, um, ,
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: but, so, you know, we’ve, we paid to be in certain rooms, rooms where people are billionaires, and that’s because, you know, we go on vacation with billionaires, we go to conferences with billionaires, people that have done amazing things because it helps with your mindset.
It’s like, Oh, they did that. Oh,
Daniel Wrenne: they’re not very smart. And I could do that.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: That’s amazing. You know, that’s amazing. Like, Oh, and they’re, you know, this is what they’re doing with their money. And this is what they’re doing with their finances. And Oh yeah, this is what I’m doing. And you really, it’s very important to surround yourself with the right people.
I mean, think of if you, if anybody’s that’s listening to this is interested in mindset, uh, look up like. Uh, the how long it took someone to run a mile the first time and then once they some people saw how fast he did it, like within a year, like three people for minimal, you mean? Yeah, it was something like that story.
It’s like, once you see that there is no ceiling, you can really excel.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. I’m going to see if I can find something on that. That is such a great example. The four minute mile was like such a long time. Nobody could break it. And then the one person broke it and then it was like, boom, everybody, everybody started doing it.
And it was, which is, tells you it’s a lot about mindset. Mindset is
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: 80% of it. Technique is 20. Yeah, so that’s what and in order to change my mindset, I had to spend a lot of time with people that were different than me and we’re not that didn’t think like me
Daniel Wrenne: and sometimes pay for it, which
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: all the time, pay for it all the time.
No one that’s successful is going to give you their time. Which is their most precious commodity, um, a lot of time without paying for it in one way or the other.
Daniel Wrenne: Right. Yeah, that, that’s important. I think sometimes it’s hard for people to wrap their head around, but, um, you have to invest. And then relationships are critical.
Um, people. We’ll make your break you you become the average of the people you’re around and for better for worse and But you can also when you are aware of that I think it changes your perspective and you can start to You know use that to help you be a stepping stone in the right direction instead of you know, the wrong direction, right?
so with real estate I’m curious about the multifamily world a little bit. Um, and I’m sure some people resonate with what you were saying about the, the, you know, I, I think a lot of people say like, I want to buy, you know, a single family home or something like that’s kind of a classic people where people start with real estate.
But I think a lot of people probably resonate with your. Idea that, you know, having multiple units is, it sounds more appealing than having one and it’s like diversification in the business and all the things. Um, but it also seems like it could be much more intimidating to get started. Like, where do you, how do you get started in that kind of thing?
Like if you don’t have millions already and
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: yeah. So, I mean, it’s, it’s, you find. Someone like me that’s doing these kind of deals, that has deals, that has deal flow, that has the connections, and you invest, you co invest, you invest alongside me, you get your feet wet, you learn about the process, and then you do it again.
And you do it again. And then if you really like it, then you go and you see, you start going to conferences, go to one conference, go to two conferences a year, you know, whatever it is, start listening to podcasts, educating yourself. And then, you know, I would recommend before you take on like a 20 million project or a 30 million project that you get some education.
Um, and there’s plenty of mentorship programs that do that education. But it’s very easy to get started.
Daniel Wrenne: Do you have like favorites or particular either podcasts or educational resources or, um, places to go to get your feet wet? Um,
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: I really like the think multifamily podcast. Um, I listened to that even today.
I’ve, um, I’m not, I didn’t join. Uh, their mentorship program. I went with Brad some rock, uh, as mentorship program, but I still really like think multifamilies podcast. I think that they have good events. Um, and you know, I’ve invested with them. Even as a passive investor where I’m not running the deal. So really, once you start getting into that world and you start listening to other people and meeting, going to networks, you know, networking events, and you start seeing who’s in that world, who’s getting the deal flow.
Do you learn how to look at the numbers? Do the numbers make sense? And then, and then it’s, you know, does the market make sense? And then it’s, well, who’s the team? Um, what’s their track record? And, and then you say, okay, you know, and actually I have a YouTube channel that I have a lot of, I break down, you know, a lot of information on how to look at the deals, what the deal structures are, what the terminology is, why apartments.
Why syndication? So there’s a lot of different videos on my YouTube channel. It’s, um, at Shaolin properties. Um, and they’re not long, they’re bite size. You know, you can watch them on two X speed. Yep.
Daniel Wrenne: We’ll link to those. Yeah. Um, yeah, those are, those are classic questions. Um, or, you know, as you start to get into education, like, you know, why should I do one versus the other?
Um, and passive versus active. Maybe we could just hit, hit on that briefly. Like when you say passive versus active. Um, can you clarify that a bit for those that are not
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: so when you’re saying, Hey, I want to invest in real estate, but God, I don’t have the time and I don’t want to be called by tenants that the electricity is down or there’s a leak or the toilet stopped up or there’s termites or there’s mold.
I don’t want them to call me. I don’t want, I don’t want to deal with them. You don’t have to you don’t have to someone else does that for you. So if you don’t want to do that, and you want someone that already you want to leverage someone else’s expertise. Someone else’s money, someone else’s connections, someone else’s deal flow.
That’s when you become a passive investor. Um, and that’s what I said, where you invest alongside me. I’m going to be doing all that other stuff. I’m going to be signing on the loan. I’m going to be putting together the enough money and liquidity and net worth. To get a 30 million loan. I’m going to be the one running the project, dealing with all of that stuff.
The day to day operations, you know, I, you know, that I’m active. But if you want to be passive, you’re welcome to be passive alongside me. If you want to be active and still do what I do, then that’s where the education, you have to get educated.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. I think passive is a good, uh, dip your toe in or in starting place.
And maybe even ultimately as far as you go, depending on how much you enjoy it. But, um, passive, did I say active? I meant passive. Passive is a good starting point to get into real estate. Cause like you’re saying, there’s not this additional. risk and obligation, especially when you’re talking about like multifamily.
And I would even lean towards that. And like single family, um, there’s ways to go that about that. Yeah.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: They have jobs, they have lives, they want to do some real estate, but they don’t have the time, um, but they have money sitting. That they want to do it. So you can still do it passively. Um, other people do the hard labor, the, they roll up their sleeves and you get to enjoy the perks.
Daniel Wrenne: The hard part about the passive route is you still have to like sort through all the junk. And I mean, there’s a lot of sales. There’s a lot of gurus and, you know, dummies out there selling real estate deals. So you kind of
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: have to do your due diligence. You have to find people that you trust. You have to get to know people.
Um, and I, I mean, if you’re going to be investing, you should do that with any investment, not just multifamily.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. And that, and that’s something like if you work with, Like people in finance, like whether it’s financial planner or, you know, really somebody in real estate can help like running it by other people.
Um, I guess is what I’m trying to say. Um, especially early on, even mentors to like getting some multiple input on deals, that’s, that’s a great way to kind of start to get some. Second opinions. We’ve seen many, uh, deals that are like problematic. I mean, it’s pretty like big time, obvious problems. A lot of them are really good, but, um, it’s, it’s important to, from a path for passive, it’s, you don’t have to do a lot of work, but it’s important to like on the front end, do a little bit of homework and, and, and make sure it’s like a, you know, a pretty good trustworthy person.
And I think the people are critical. Um, yeah,
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: absolutely. Everybody’s going to say that. And I actually have, um, uh, how do you vet a sponsor, uh, checklist. Um, if anybody wants that, they can contact me and I’ll be happy to, to shoot that
Daniel Wrenne: over. Okay. Um, what’s the best way that, I think that would be, um, interesting to share.
Um, how, what would be the best way for people to contact you for that? Or is there a, um, easier way to share that?
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Yeah, no, I you can either email me at Ronnie at shall win properties. I’ll be happy to send that over. I also have a lot of education on my website shall win properties dot com. I have videos.
I have. You know, education, even if you, I have Q and A’s, I have investor one on one information on their active versus passive accredited versus sophisticated investors. There’s so many things, there’s so much education. Um, so if people want to go on my website, it’s just totally, and you don’t even have to give me your name or email or anything like that.
You just can, you have access to it.
Daniel Wrenne: That’s perfect. Yeah, we’ll, we’ll link to all that. And, um, that’s, that’s great. Great that you’re doing that. I think that’s important just to get the baseline there is get that education. Um, I know we’re getting towards the end of our time. I was curious. One last question.
I was, I was really interested in your thoughts on the market is kind of weird right now, like interest rates. Have gone up quite a bit. So if you’re leveraging real estate, um, that’s more painful. And then also prices with certain types of real estate is still kind of staying high, but commercial real estate’s really weird too.
So I’m just curious of like,
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: it’s definitely a weird time. Um, very stressful time. Uh, so, you know, I just like to look at it and say. This is a very hard time, but I’m going to be able to say in five years. Yeah, I survived 2021 2022. Um, or whatever. It’s the interest rate recession or whatever. We’re going to call it inflation driven recession.
Um, but yeah, I think that the market is. is definitely strange with the high interest rates. Um, buyers aren’t able to pay as much as sellers want. So if they’re not needing to sell, they’re not, so there’s not a lot of inventory. Now, there are a lot of, uh, like loans that are going to come due at the end of this, at this year and next year.
Um, and if the interest rates stay this high, it’s going to, it’s going to cause a lot of distress within the sellers and then the, the cap rates. The prices are going to go up and the prices are going to go down and, um, people are going to, it’s going to be a great buying opportunity. So we are right now actively looking for distressed sellers for, we really want to find people that have to sell their properties.
Um, and whether it’s the loan or the can, you know, they don’t have a, they can’t handle the mortgage payment anymore, whatever it is. Yep, that’s when opportunity starts calling and it’s times like this. So it’s strange. It’s stressful, but it’s also opportunity.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, real estate is a long play. It’s not a get rich quick.
And right when you’re in it for the long game and when you become educated, you start to like see these sorts of. Or it’s easier to spot these sorts of opportunities. It’s like anything when you’re in it a lot. And, um, it’s like, I, I lie, enjoy looking at real estate and it’s just like. It’s less, it feels less desirable to want to invest in real estate today, um, but I think if you’re serious about it, that doesn’t, I don’t think that should stop you necessarily from like investing in real estate, especially if you’re dipping your toe in the water.
I think when you’re, especially when you’re early and on it, like the biggest thing is like trying it. and getting started in some capacity. Um, and then getting, so once you start doing it, then you gain the experience. The experience is key because if you’ve had, once you’ve had a long period of experience, that’s, that’s when you can really, um, do some damage with this.
But I like your perspective with that. And it sounds like you’re doing things the right way. That’s always refreshing to see. And you’ve got a lot of good educational resources, which is, um, super helpful. And so I, I really appreciate you coming on to chat about real estate. I feel like there’s a million other things I wanted to ask you about.
I’m very curious in what you’re doing. And, um, I, I’m like a closet real estate, uh, fanatic. I’ve never, I’ve I’ve it’s for another day. I’ll tell you my experience for another day, but, um, I am very interested in it. And I. I’m a fan of it. I think it’s a great way to build wealth. Um, but there are a lot of, um, misconceptions and people with not adequate education.
So keep up the work, good work, putting out good stuff. And, um, thank you again for coming on.
Dr. Ronnie Shalev: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been, it’s been a really good, uh, conversation. I’ve enjoyed it.
