How do you create amazing relationships with investors and gain their trust? Join Vinney Chopra and I to find out! 👉👉Learn About Our New Waymaker Fund - https://www.vonfinch.com/waymaker No matter where you come from you can always find success in real estate and this week's guest Vinney "smiles" Chopra is a perfect example of that. Coming from India to the US he created a very successful business based on multifamily, senior living and other commercial real estate assets. Vinney tells us his secrets on how to educate investors, get them onboard and how to win new ones. This is an episode that’s going to give your investor relations a massive boost. We also go into the “Silver Tsunami” and why, statistically, assisted senior living is such a great investment model. Vinney (Smile) Chopra is a real estate investor, syndicator, best-selling author, host of 4 podcasts, multifamily educator, mentor, dedicated husband of over 40 years and father of 2, residing in Danville, California for 40+ years now. Vinney has built a portfolio of over 4500 units amounting to over $440 million in the multifamily, senior assisted living and hospitality arenas. He is passionate about helping others achieve financial freedom and giving back to our seniors who have given us so much. Hit subscribe to join the community and grow your investing knowledge today.
How do you create amazing relationships with investors and gain their trust? Join Vinney Chopra and I to find out! 👉👉Learn About Our New Waymaker Fund - https://www.vonfinch.com/waymaker
No matter where you come from you can always find success in real estate and this week's guest Vinney "smiles" Chopra is a perfect example of that. Coming from India to the US he created a very successful business based on multifamily, senior living and other commercial real estate assets. Vinney tells us his secrets on how to educate investors, get them onboard and how to win new ones. This is an episode that’s going to give your investor relations a massive boost. We also go into the “Silver Tsunami” and why, statistically, assisted senior living is such a great investment model.
Vinney (Smile) Chopra is a real estate investor, syndicator, best-selling author, host of 4 podcasts, multifamily educator, mentor, dedicated husband of over 40 years and father of 2, residing in Danville, California for 40+ years now. Vinney has built a portfolio of over 4500 units amounting to over $440 million in the multifamily, senior assisted living and hospitality arenas. He is passionate about helping others achieve financial freedom and giving back to our seniors who have given us so much.
Hit subscribe to join the community and grow your investing knowledge today.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. You don't necessarily need to ask investors for money - if you educate them they will get to know you and trust you.
2. There are 4 types of gold: investors, residents (tenants), team members and venders.
3. Make each and every moment count when you're working so you can work smart.
4. Give potential investors time to speak to learn their pain points. This will help you educate them on how they can benefit from investing in real estate.
5. Provide a high level of transparency to investors and encourage them to ask for information.
6. Winning new investors is all about marketing and branding. Make sure you have an excellent brand across all channels.
5. As a passive investor make sure you're looking for track records and conservative projections from the people you're looking to work with.
6. Multifamily and senior living is a safe investment because the economy has no effect on assisted senior living.
7. What is the Silver Tsunami? As the baby boomers reach their senior years and as longevity increases, there will be a groundswell of seniors. “The Silver Tsunami” is a metaphor used to describe the expected increase in the senior population. Today 15% of Americans are 65 or older.
BOOKS
The Passive Investing Playbook - https://theinvestormindset.com/passive
https://www.amazon.com/Apartment-Syndication-Made-Easy-Guide/dp/1099614619
LINKS
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinney-smile-chopra-mba-7b7b9619/
Learn more about investing with Steven at https://theinvestormindset.com/invest
Learn About Our New Waymaker Fund -
https://www.vonfinch.com/waymaker
Steven: [00:00:01] No matter where you come from, you can find success in real estate and today's guests, Vinney Smiles Chopra is a perfect example of that, coming from India moving to the United States and building an incredible business built on multifamily, senior living, and other commercial real estate assets. He's somebody we can all look up to, and it's a great conversation. Let's get into it.
INTRO: This is The Investor Mindset Podcasts and I'm Steven Pesavento. For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with understanding how we can think better, how we can be better, and how we can do better. And each episode we explore lessons on motivation and mindset from the most successful real estate investors and entrepreneurs in the nation.
Steven: [00:00:49] Let's take a quick break from today's show because I'm excited to share with you something that has completely changed my life. It's made a huge difference for my ability to scale from zero to 200 deals in under three years, my ability to scale into the multifamily space. And frankly, my ability to bring to you this phenomenal podcast, it all comes down to community and surrounding ourselves with phenomenal peers, phenomenal mentors, people who are already in the trenches learning and doing the day to day activities in the space that we're looking to learn in. I'm grateful because one of my mentors, some of you have been learning multifamily investing from the operation side from the ins and outs, Reed Goossens of Wildhorn Capital who has over 2400 units that they control over 320 million of assets under management, that they have put together a really cool program called the multifamily MBA, which is really designed to bring together operators who are looking to scale pass 1000 units together to be able to share some of the challenges and some of the victories that come in as being a multifamily operator. So if you're somebody who has a couple of 100 units under your belt, you've got some experience, you're looking to scale past 1000 units, or maybe you're somebody who's learned a lot of the basics, but you're looking to understand how to put it all together into one coherent process and system, then you definitely want to check out the multifamily MBA, because what Reed's put together is something I'm super impressed with and I'm honoured to be able to be a facilitator in the group and to be able to bring some of the mindset strategies that have really been able to make a difference in my business. So if you're interested in learning more about it, you can check out themultifamilymba.com or you can head over to theinvestormindset.com/mfmba. We've put together a really cool in depth advanced training, talking about how you can scale past 1000 units and you can get access to that at theinvestormindset.com/mfmba. I hope you'll take us up on that if you're an operator looking to scale, check it out and I look forward to being able to work with you and alongside you in this journey of learning how to be the best operators we could be.
Steven: [00:02:58] Welcome back guys to the Investor Mindset Podcast. I'm your host Steven Pesavento, today I have a very special guest, Vinney Chopra in the studio. How are you doing today Vinney?
Vinney: [00:03:05] I'm doing awesome, Steven. It's such a great day. Oh my gosh.
Steven: [00:03:10] That's what I love. That's what I love to hear, and everyone knows you as Vinney Smile Chopra because you got such a big smile on your face as you do right now for all those watching on video. But you're a real estate investor, syndicator, best selling author, host of four podcasts, multifamily educator, mentor, dedicated husband of over 40 years and father of two residing in California for over 40 plus years. And you have a phenomenal portfolio of over 45 units 4500 units accounting for over 440 million of multifamily senior assisted living and hospitality type assets, and you're very passionate about helping people achieve financial freedom and giving back to folks within the community. So I'm really excited because we're going to be getting into something that you're an absolute professional at understanding how we can really help serve investors and dive into some phenomenal stuff about syndication. Are you ready to get into it?
Vinney [00:04:03] I'm totally into it Steven. The biggest thing is we are the steward, right? God brought us this small [00:04:10 Unintelligible] span of life, let's say 100 years, and we need to just give as much as we can to mankind. I think that's my overarching principle and so forth. And that's what stems into investors, because a lot of investors need to be educated. That's the word educated. I have never asked for any money from any investor, it's that by educating them, they get to know you and they get to feel how sincere you are, how transparent you are, what you are built on. I always say that there are four golds; one is investors are gold, second is residents are gold, we never call them tenants. They are no tenants in my communities, they're always residents and then the third one is our team members, because we are vertically integrated, so we manage all our assets. So lately we have gone into third party management, but for the last 12 years, I managed all our assets. So team members are gold, and then vendors are gold. Hold on, if the vendors are not there, we'll be out of the zoo, then comes the team members, and the professional management is at the bottom, myself, my family, our VPS, and everybody. So it's how the [00:05:35 Inaudible], it's like this, the biggest we have to serve the investors, and then the residents and so on.
Steven: [00:05:43] It's such a good way to think about that. So before we dive into some of the fun stuff we're about to, I want to get personal just for one question here. So if we look back at earlier in your life, what events or influences from your childhood shaped who you are today, Vinnie?
Vinney: [00:05:58] Essentially my friends told me when I was growing up in India, as you know, I wanted to become an engineer, really. And I became one for the largest company in India, but I wanted to do my MBA in marketing, I thought engineering and marketing would be awesome. I always thought I was a goal setter in life, always a very studious boy, and this and that. But my parents ingrained in my mind that you got to work hard, you got to study and work hard and give your very best. So that's when I came to this country with $7, some people know that. And working hard here also, because I knew that I needed to earn my tuition and things like that and it's been a wonderful ride, for 40 years. I've been married for 40 years, we moved into the Bay Area, we live in Blackhawk, a nice place here and all that.
Steven: [00:06:53] Yeah. And it makes so much sense, right? Because you've really got that immigrant mindset, you came from a place, you decided to go to a new place, go through extreme challenges that go along with that and you brought that work ethic. And that's one of the reasons you've been able to be successful. So I hope listeners can take that away, and maybe apply that immigrant mindset in your own businesses, even if you don't happen to be moving across the world to a new place.
Vinney: [00:07:16] Yeah. I think a desire to be very productive every day is hard work. That's smart work, I call it smart work too because we could all be working 14 hours a day, but at the end of the day, nothing to show for. So that's the other quality, I would say, which I've learned over the years, by making each and every moment count, to make sure that we are able to mindset, I think that's the huge pile in your podcast is the mindset, we got to talk and take care of the mind. Every morning, it's a new day, it's a new life. Every day is a birthday, literally, because we get up in the morning, after eight hours, seven hours of sleep, when we are unconscious and conscious, right? But the key thing is, each day, we need to make it the best day and how can we make it if we feel that what we are trying to do is a bigger goal, cutting down into smaller goals and then keeping the best activities. Again the mindset for me today, or every day is how can I move the needle? How can I talk to more investors? How can I talk to more brokers, what's the most important thing for the day, not downtime, not really doing emailing and this and that. But planning and executing those visions.
Steven: [00:08:47] That's beautiful and it's so important for us to be really clear. And for a lot of passive investors, the folks that you serve; when they're getting started, when they're looking to start investing in this space, there's a lot of hurdles that they end up facing. So since you've worked with so many people, obviously 440 million plus in assets under management, you've definitely raised some money and worked with people who have invested with you and alongside you. So what are some of those biggest hurdles passive investors often make before they actually get started investing?
Vinney: [00:09:19] Oh totally. You know, the biggest thing is, every individual investor is different, what their past is, where they are right now, if they lost money in the stock market, real estate, what are their pain points, right? We always want to be problem solvers in life because that's how businesses are built. We look at what and how we can find out their pain points, or what's their thinking and their risk factors, everything is by giving them time to speak. Many times we just speak, and we don't give other people time to really tell us what they want to know. So that's a big thing, so educating them and asking them a little bit more about what their past has been, where they're going, what kind of diversification they do in their investment portfolio right there, because real estate should be everybody's portfolio that's in their mind. So we always want to make sure that they're diversifying it into lots of things, it could be stock, cash, precious metals, crypto, then real estate should be big part, and educating them how the taxes in USA are so favourable to get the passive losses and things like that, if they don't know, or self directed IRAs. So more educating platforms are the best way, I started with one investor sitting in his living room, some people know, he was able to invest 50,000, in 20 minutes, I had nothing to show for, then he increased it 100, then 125 and I gave huge returns. Now we have 221 investors, that's all total, and I've raised 160, or 70 million now in the last many years. So essentially keeping the mindset of going after high net worth investors. So that's the other part. I hope your audience recaps what I just said, I made a decision 13 years back that I would love for investors to ask me everything, and find out that this is the best deal but don't try me to give me 5000, don't try me to give me 15 or 25,000, I want them to take a big plunge with me at 50 or 100 and then I stopped even taking 50 for 30 years. So all my investors are in the 100 or 200 and 700 range now. One deal 700, another deal 500. So what that has done is that I have built these high network professionals who have peers, the clubs and the people they go to associate with, they are also very rich. Hold on. So it's just mushroomed and I hope everybody is always trying to move the needle and ask them to go higher and take investors to a new level is the word, right? And now we do three tier investing also, Steven. What does that mean? Before I used to put 100, or two or five or a million, and I got the same returns. Now we changed it, so now it's 100,000 to 199, one pack, then 200 to 499, another pack 500 plus dollars a pack. So they get preferential cash flow, preferred returns higher, and equity gain also higher. Why not if they're putting more money, they're taking more risk with me, right? So I need to give them more rewards.
Steven: [00:13:19] Yeah. That's a huge concept here that I think a lot of people would overlook is that what you've actually done is you figured out; I'm going to serve high net worth individuals because they have a specific need. And by serving a handful of these folks, they end up connecting me with another handful and another handful, another handful and that grows. But I also want to reward those people who are willing to take the trust that they have in me and put it forward into an investment with a much larger investment. So you're actually incentivizing those whale types of investors by giving them even better returns and oftentimes those investors expect higher returns for taking a larger amount of risks. So you've really set up your operation to be able to serve folks in that kind of way. So a lot of people on here are passive investors, some of them are high net worth, some of them want to learn how to get into this space from an operation perspective but talk to me about when you're just getting started and you've got a handful of investors, just a few people who trust you, and you've started to build the business. How do you start going out and growing those personal connections the way that you did the way that you've been able to build your business over the last 13 years?
Vinney: [00:14:28] I'm so glad you're saying that. I think the biggest thing was that I set up my business 13/14 years back as a total transparent business, in other words I told my investors, you can ask for me for anything, no holds barred and everybody gives you rent rolls and the PNLs and I promised them I will never give them rent rolls or PRP and PNLs in Excel worksheet. I said why? I'll tell you why. Because you need to get the authenticity of everything you get from your sponsors. And I teach that in my Academy, I teach my investors that you have to ask anywhere they are investing money, they need to provide you the software, when they took those reports from, and what date and time those reports will run, hold on. So what I've given them is the power to believe in the system and I tell them, you can ask for bank statements, cappex invoices, you name it. I mean, anything is no hold spot and I have slides in my PowerPoint presentation that I designed for every asset. I've been doing quarterly meetings live, recorded on zoom, with live questions coming in back and forth. I don't believe in sending newsletters and hoopla and this and that, or emails, I believe in talking to them, they listen to me, they look at me, and I bring the property to them because none of them go from California to Texas, or Georgia or Florida like that. So when I travel we could even ask our managers, they have cameras, they got iPhones and all that to give you the best pictures of the cap bags and other stuff and we put them in PowerPoints to show them, so they feel good and they sleep good at night-time, because they know that the operator is sincere and honest and things like that, right?
Steven: [00:16:34] So you're providing a very quality level of transparency, which I think is so important. And you're encouraging them to ask for these things, which I think is beautiful, and that's obviously going to get people to refer folks to you. But other than from referrals, what are you going out doing as far as building those relationships, or kind of attracting people into your world?
Vinney: [00:16:53] Yes Steven, for the new people; again it's branding, let me say that nowadays, you will not go too far, if you don't have a good brand, good website, you have written some blog articles, and things like that and LinkedIn, you have to have a good LinkedIn because the thing is, nowadays, people want to know you, who you are, right? So you got to have a credibility, kind of like a flyer or credibility kit, we call it right, putting everything under the sink into that, who you are, where you are being, what kind of training you're getting for the events starting or people, you have to have a one business card, which is huge because if you don't sell yourself in the first 30 seconds, you're gone. You know that's what the world has come to, because these investors are very savvy, passive investors are very savvy, there is so much information out there, they have 18 questions to ask you, literally, so that's what it is. So how I'm getting my new people is through Click Follow, Active Campaign, Mail Chimp. I have a branding partner in Pune, India, and I pay them very little money 3000 a month only, and they're putting me all over the place. They're all editing, all advertising, everything. We had nine appointments yesterday from high net worth people who didn't know me at all but they just came through the click funnel through Active Campaign, went through several series of emails and now they're ready to talk to Vinney and John, my VP of Investor Relations. So we take them through educating them two/three times, then in the future when the deal comes, that's when they will get the deal. So that's how we are increasing our number of investors from 152 to almost 211. And now we are increasing every week so many more, and these are saying Vinney, I want to put 1 million, I have 2 million, I have 4 million.
Steven: [00:19:15] Well so this is really good to understand what operators do to attract investors in. So if you're a passive investor and you're listening to go and find people who have built that brand, who are going out there and showing that credibility to be able to go and get within their circle, within the world that they've created. So you can start getting these emails and start educating yourself on how they think so you can start understanding, well, do their values match with mine? Does it align with what I'm looking for? And as you go, if you were to jump on Vinney's list, for example, you'd probably start seeing things and you'd be able to quickly decide, does this feel like something that's is a fit for me, and if it's not, that's great because it actually protects Vinney from talking to people who aren't a good fit and so that's really beautiful.
Vinney: [00:19:59] Thank you, Steven. And I know a lot of people do webinars, I would love to say that I've never done a webinar for my deal. In the quarterly meetings, I always sell my next project, and everything to my already existing investors. So I love to do these videos, because every investor is going to watch it all the way anyway, they may not come on the zoom meeting, maybe 10%, show up, right, or 15%, because of conflict of time and all that, but we send the link of the recorded presentation to every investor. So at the end of every PowerPoint presentation is my next deal, or what I'm doing and this and that, and all that stuff. So I just send them the link, as soon as they get a property contracted, we put one flyer, two/three paged flyer, and we send it to them, then we are into contract now and then you will get this package quickly as soon as the web is ready, we shoot them out and then we send them the same investors who have been dealing with us for so many years, just send them the soft commitment and done, no webinar.
Steven: [00:21:13] Well that relationship really has been built over time and so just based on that relationship, I'm sure a lot of people are investing. So what kind of foundation do you recommend that a passive investor has and how do you recommend they go building that foundation of education so that when there is an opportunity to invest in a deal, they will confidently say, this is a deal for me or nope, this is not a deal?
Vinney: [00:21:38] That's a good point, I would highly recommend -- I don't want to say that but my book, which is an international top seller, is a great book, it took me two years to write it. Passive investors would love to learn what the whole psychology is, how the operators go about finding the deals and what to look for, and so forth. Then again I'm not promoting everything, but my third book is coming out, which is Senior Living investing made easy. Again, I wrote the book with my partners, to teach the passive investors how to really look into any asset, and then ask some very pointed questions, to see the track records and what really goes into underwriting. The biggest thing is operators have to be very sincere and give conservative projections. That's the key. A lot of time we can slip some numbers, and it becomes very high returns. It's a matter of numbers and that's where it can get into trouble. So track record is paid, principles are up front in the loan principles, how many people are there, because too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the recipe, I always say that. So you need to be having all those things in mind.
Steven: [00:23:03] That's some really good advice. And for people who don't know the book that Vinney is talking about is Apartment Syndication Made Easy, a step by step guide. You guys can find that on Amazon or anywhere, a highly rated book. I recommend you guys to check that out.
Vinney: [00:23:19] Thank you. And then yours is the mindset below your podcast so I wrote this one, positivity breeds profitability, Steven. And my wife, I have to give kudos to her. She said, Vinney, your first book was such a big hit but there was a limited audience. We've been married 40 years; we just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. She said you're the most positive guy I know; you can write a book on positivity. I just started writing the next day.
Steven: [00:23:52] Yeah. It makes so much sense. You really are. And where did that first come from? Where did you really start developing that mindset of looking at things through such a bright lens?
Vinney: [00:23:59] I would say Steven, I was not like that when I entered the USA to be truthful. But in the early years, 40 years back, I was given the book by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, WG Schwartz magical thinking big, Dale Carnegie's book, Zig Ziglar's book. So I have been a product, I say that to everybody. My mentors are so many, and I have learned so many principles, which have ingrained in my mind, so I have been practicing them and that's the result. My thinking is very positive, very upbeat, and so forth and I also look at things to crush it on a daily basis, which is Eckhart Tolle's book is amazing, by the way. If anybody would like to pick that up on Amazon, Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, and then Miracle Morning, my friend Hal Elrod, in his book [00:24:57 Unintelligible] all those great books are there. So we can actually learn from the books and the videos and YouTube is amazing, what a great mentor, you could just look at any subject and it teaches you so much. So even right now, I'm so much into learning and I just think there's so much to spread.
Steven: [00:25:19] Yeah. Well the book Think and Grow Rich, if you guys haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's one of those that when you really read it at the right time and with real intention, it opens your mind to all types of things, and you start layering with all these different ideas. And it can really be a game changer.
Vinney: [00:25:36] Totally and law of attraction. I really believed in The Secret. There's a movie out there a secret book, Rhonda Byrne, but before that, even in 1910/1915, a lot of those principles have been defined, but manifestation of the positivity and the signalling, how strongly your signals are. What you want to achieve in life is so important with total convictions, please send out in the Cosmo I say energy that I want to accomplish that goal. Somehow it happens. It has happened in my life, in a lot of people's lives. I'm in senior living for example, Assisted senior living. I've been thinking about getting into that field for three years. Here I'm an apartment operator and buyer, already built apartments. I said, God, how can I get into senior living? To the Cosmo I got John Rousson came into my fold and he said Vinney, you got to talk to my buddy in Ron who went to school with me and he's building senior living now. How many get the connection and now we are tied at the hip. We are doing so many assisted luxury senior living, ground ups [00:26:58 Unintelligible] stabilized and it's multifamily added score, because 80/90 units collect $4 million in a year. So I found out that senior living is the safest investment for passive investors too, because we don't have to change jobs. Economy has 0 effect on assisted senior living. Not in nursing homes, not others, a lot of things affect those or independent livings, but we just found this soft spot of assisted living.
Steven: [00:27:34] Yeah. Senior Living is such a hot topic right now. It's something that a lot of people are talking about, but people don't really know where to get started. Before we part ways for the day, what resources would you recommend if somebody is interested in learning more about senior living?
Vinney: [00:27:49] I would say that in a big shift. The big shift book came out, but you could even just Google the word silver tsunami, please just Google the word silver tsunami, you'll find out how 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 every day in the USA. 10,000 of that population is turning 65. Similarly, 75/85 is also progressing along, we have almost 5.7 million 85 plus seniors in our community, they're going to be 20,000,00 3 times more because we're aging, and we are living longer. So what we are finding is that assisted senior living, that's when somebody has a slip and fall or one partner passes away in the 83 200 years of age, that's the age group but they need to not be able to cook so we need meals and everything. They cannot dress well or things like that. So that's assisted living, which we have found as the sweet spot where we can build luxury. One level so COVID didn't hurt us at all. We had zero deaths and zero Coronavirus in the 14 that we are managing right now. And we are building them more and then we'll have four or six next year and next year. So demand is strong. The best thing I love in Assisted Senior Living is it's multifamily. Residential is there too but I'm not in it. I lost residential way back, I sold every home we had and everything. So senior living is about 80 to 90 units we built and with movie theatres and spa set and a salon set for dining halls, Five Star dining in the assisted living unheard of.
Steven: [00:30:01] Yeah. These are the kind of places that people are willing to spend a lot of money to come and live in these types of homes because people aren't necessarily wanting to move in, but they're going to have all these other benefits and they're at a point in their life where that's where things are at.
Vinney: [00:30:17] I'm so glad you said it Steven. The key thing is when we are as comparable to regular assisted living, because we are able to buy buildings cheaper for us to fall. So loans are lower amount mortgages and all but we are coming with 4000 to 5000 for the whole month, including all the amenities and we are building in Michigan, in Texas, in Virginia, in Florida of course, the same thing over there. If I bring it here to Bay Area where I live near San Francisco, it will be 12,000 I'm sure people will say, Vinney at this facility, I'm willing to pay 12,000 per month, that kind of facility, but we are giving at an affordable price there because our loans are lower and construction cost is lower.
Steven: [00:31:12] Yeah. It makes sense, it gives you a little bit of competitiveness. So this has been really great Vinney. Where can people find out more about you or get in touch?
Vinney: [00:31:20] Thank you. My website is vinneychopra.com. and then I also have a very new website also seniorlivinginvesting.com, and I'm on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Steven: [00:31:47] Great work, we will include that link, so people can find out about you in the show notes. Thanks so much for joining us, and I look forward to the next time we get to hang out.
Vinney: [00:31:56] Thank you, Steven. God bless you, and congratulations on your podcast and all the great information you're bringing to lots of people. So good luck to you.
Steven: [00:32:08] I appreciate that so much.
OUTRO: Thank you for listening to The Investor Mindset Podcast. If you like what you heard, make sure to rate, review, subscribe and share with a friend. Head over to theinvestormindset.com to join the insider club, where we share tools and strategies from the top investors and entrepreneurs and how to take it to the next level.