The Brad Weisman Show

The Blueprint For A Hard Asset Empire w/ Ben Reinberg

Brad Weisman

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0:00 | 35:58

We dig into building wealth with hard (tangible) assets, why medical office cash flow endures, and how to leverage time, teams, and tax strategy to create durable returns. Ben Reinberg shares his blueprint, lessons from early deals, and practical paths for accredited investors to get started.

• defining hard assets and the difference between rich and wealth
• why institutions are shifting back to tangible, cash-flowing assets
• the hard asset empire blueprint and free download
• medical office fundamentals and resilience
• investing with smart money to compress the learning curve
• funds vs syndications vs REITs explained
• the importance of the ability to hold through cycles
• expected returns, cash flow, reserves, and loan flexibility
self-directed IRAs, custodians, and tax trade-offs
• diversification, focus, and leveraging relationships and time
• mindset for leadership, persistence, and responding under stress
• where to buy the book and how to follow Ben

Buy the book at benreinberg.com or Amazon, download the Hard Asset Empire blueprint for free, and follow Ben on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok


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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real people, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealPeopleRealLife 

Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller. 

Setting The Stage: From Mindset To Money

SPEAKER_04

Alright, here we go. Rock and roll. From real estate to the market as a whole, it's going to sometimes affect it. Right, you know, in real life. We all learn it. If you think about it, Wayne Dyer might not attract everybody and everything in between.

SPEAKER_00

The mission was really to help people just to reach their full potential.

SPEAKER_01

The Brad Wiseman show. And now your host, Brad Wiseman.

SPEAKER_04

All right. We're back. We got a good one here. This is going to be a little different. We've been doing a lot of self-help, a lot of mindset stuff, a lot of uh deep thinking. Uh, and we're gonna go back to some uh how to make some money. Ooh, right. How to make some money, how to, how to do something a little different than a 401k, a 403B, a little bit different than an IRA. This is um, this guy is all about hard assets and and really those are like more tangible items. Um, so I've I've found him uh through Instagram, um, through his his manager or our marketing people, and uh it is very interesting because he's really into it. He has a podcast called I Own It. It's actually now gonna be called Ben Reinberg Show. So without any delay, we are gonna bring Ben on the show. There he is. Hello there. What's up, Ben? How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02

Mr. Weisman, thank you so much for having me. What what a privilege, Mr. Weisman. That's funny.

SPEAKER_04

Mr. Weissman? Not not much. My wife will call me Bradley Scott Weisman when she's pissed. Yeah, when she's pissed. And she's pissed. But otherwise, I don't really don't. And my mom too still calls me Bradley Scott, you know. Of course. Does your your parents still around or no?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, if my mom's mad at me, she'll say Benjamin. So yeah, so I'm used to the full name.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, you got it. You got it right. And you know, it's funny, you have the EI too, just like me. So does anybody ever call you Reenberg or you know, anything like that?

SPEAKER_02

It's interesting. Um, if you're not a member of the tribe, you don't seem to understand how to pronounce my last name. So it's it's it's a hit or miss. Most people, before I get on a show, either on TV or on radio or on a podcast, Brad, the first thing they do is say, Can you say your last name? And I'm like, Why don't you say it for me? I want to hear you say it. And so I'm always constantly testing people, and people are like, Reinberg, Breenberg? Breenberg? It's just amazing. I can't figure it out. Well, you said my name perfect. Well, I mean, come on, that's easy.

SPEAKER_04

Wiseman. I mean, we get Weisman, I get Wisman, I get all kinds of stuff. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02

People don't understand English language. That's right.

Defining Hard Assets And Wealth

SPEAKER_04

That's right, that's right. So I'm excited to have you on here because I've been I've been watching uh shows that you've been on, been watching, looking at your company online with your website, uh, looked at uh, you know, the book that you wrote, and um you're you're really into, and I I just want to hit the the beginning here with explaining what a hard asset is. I mean, I I just think sometimes we we get so into our businesses, we get so into what we do, and I just like to try and have it basic in the beginning so that the audience can start out knowing what we're talking about. So you know, explain what is a hard asset? And then also, uh, why why are they the way to go?

SPEAKER_02

Like, why are you into the hard assets? Well, let me take a step back and and explain. I come from Chicago, okay, and my philosophy is building wealth, not rich. Right. Gotcha. Anyone rich is what you own today. Wealth is building secured assets that will enhance your future and build a future empire like I have. So I talk about building wealth and I do it through hard assets. And so when I was in Chicago, I used to see all these wealthy families like the Crowns and the Pritzkers and Sam Zell in commercial real estate. And I said, how do they do that? How do they produce wealth? How do they have all this wealth and abundance? It was through hard assets. And so hard assets is capital that's tied to something real, Brad. It's it's something that pays you. So it's disciplined capital that's backed by assets, and it's not a fantasy and it's not a speculation. So that's how you build resilience because when markets crack, hard money keeps paying you and keeps you in control. So commercial real estate is an example of a hard asset. That's my expertise, that's my love. And so I talk about it. And so my new book, Hard Assets and Hard Money for Hard Times, it's all written for you, the audience. It's not about me. It's not a memoir, it's not about my career. What it is is how do you produce wealth by building a hard asset empire? And I give examples, I give war stories because I want people to be higher on the learning curve as they go through life. Because I look at it and I say, well, why am I writing this book? I don't need to write a book. I did it for the Ben Reinberg 32 years ago, who started his career. That's how long I've been in commercial real estate. And I look at it and I say, for that guy, but it's also for the billionaire that's been successful. Because what it is, it allows you, I have a hard asset empire blueprint in the book. And you could download it. My gift to your audience today is they can download the blueprint for free if they go to benreinberg.com. And so when you go to my website and you see the blueprint, it's gonna show you how to build your capstones and keystones and protect your vaults. And it's you're building a fortress. And it doesn't matter what level you're at. And the reason is because you're gonna be able to go back and let's say you're a billionaire, you're gonna look at it and say, you know what, I got to work on data security. I didn't think about that. Or I need to think of this variable. Or as technology changes and life changes, we have to constantly adapt. And so what I did was I said to my team, I said, you know, we wrote the book, we got to go a level deeper. So I said, let's create like college-level courses 101, 201, 301, 401, and let's create courses that you can take to bring the book to life to really learn how to build a hard asset empire. And so hard assets to me are the biggest clue because you know, what's interesting is the smartest families and institutions and sovereign wealth and money, they're all shifting back to hard assets right now. And that tells you everything. That's the tell. And so if you want to produce wealth and massive wealth, that's what I teach. It's through hard assets. Yeah.

The Hard Asset Empire Blueprint

SPEAKER_04

Well, it's something you can grab onto. You can you can hold on to it. You can, it's real. You know, we had a little conversation, Hugo and I, before we went on uh with you, just talking about like, you know, stocks and bonds and all these different things. And, you know, and just I've been in real estate for 33 years. So I I totally um, you know, I'm I'm in that same boat as far as being around tangible hard assets and selling them. Of course, it's in the way of a residential property, but I've always say, like, and I've owned commercial and and multi-units, and it's never worth nothing. You know, so a company, you could buy a stock and the company goes out of business, and your stock is worth zero, absolutely zero. So the good thing about I always think about real estate is that, you know, yeah, you might it might go down a little bit, um, but I can pretty much tell you it's gonna go back up and it's never worth zero. There's always something there that you can loan against, you can rent it, you can get you create passive income. You have a tax shelter there. There's so many benefits as opposed to just owning uh a piece of paper.

SPEAKER_02

Uh let me give you some knowledge. I mean, hard assets are what real wealth is built on, and and what shifts in today's landscape is pushing them to the forefront because, like we talked about, hard assets, which are real tangible cash flowing assets, they don't disappear when the market throws a tantrum.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And so paper wealth, we've seen drop in 40% in a week, and that's a large number. So hard assets hold their value, like you just mentioned, and they produce income through the storm or any storm. And so, like I said, the reason why you have this shift in the money into hard assets, it's because of the tell, because they look and they say, well, how do I diversify my capital? How do I produce consistent cash flow? One of the reasons why we invest in medical office, it's a large presence, we're one of the leaders in the United States, is because it's tangible. Everyone has to go to the doctor. Human body never goes out of style. Our tenants are based on the human body, and that's a hard asset that produces income but also creates appreciation. I mean, one of the things that's crazy in this market is we're in one of the most chaotic markets we've seen in decades. We have inflation, we have rates that were rising, we have geopolitical risk going on. And most people, Brad, are scared and confused. And I am a little bit too at times. I look at this market, I'm like, where is it going? And so I wrote this book for clarity and control, not for headlines and hype. It wasn't something that I thought of, you know, I'm just gonna write a book. I thought it was apropos to existing what the market is, because when the world gets shaky like it is, you can either guess or you can follow proven principles. And this book is the playbook for this environment. It's for how do you continue to build wealth and how do you continue to create consistency and build an empire in your life? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Now that with that being said, is is is this type of an investment? I mean, I think what happens too is people glaze over as soon as they hear the word hard asset or they hear the word commercial real estate. Are you chunking it down that people that normally wouldn't be able to invest in in a hard asset like this of commercial, industrial, medical buildings, things like that? Is that what you do? Are you compiling investors together to then go and purchase the properties?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, and it's a great point. We bring in high net worth of credit investors, family offices, people all over the world that will invest in our funds and our syndications. And there's something I touch on in the book, which I think is really interesting that you touch on, is I talk about investing in smart money. What smart money is someone that has a track record. Like we have 250 years of leadership team experience in my company. We've been around for a long time. We're smart money. We've been there, we've done that. We can solve challenges in commercial real estate. So when I invest in other asset classes or other hard money, or if it's gold or silver or cryptocurrency or digital assets or of companies, whatever might I might invest capital into, I'm investing in smart money. People that have been there that are higher on the learning curve because you only have so much time in the day. And so you have to invest in smart money. And so the reason why investors invest with us, like doctors like to invest in the medical fund. We have other investors of all different from the world and different industries that invest with us because they don't want to go on the learning curve. They don't want to deal with tenants, they don't want to deal with property management, they don't want to deal with lease negotiations, lenders. The list goes on and on. It's a complicated business. And I don't blame them. If I was in this business for three decades and I had capital and I want to invest in hard assets, I would invest in a alliance, my company type company because there's so many nuances and so many variables to deal with. We're in the weeds every single day, Brad. And because of that, that's why investors invest with us. How do I get a current return? How do I get great equity? How do I get, you know, mid-20s on medical fund returns? It's incredible. So we allow people to come in our universe and say, okay, for 100,000, 500,000, a million, whatever you want to invest, you can come in our universe. We'll pay every quarter. We're gonna send you letters, we're gonna send you statements, you get K1s. Oh, by the way, we're gonna give you incredible tax benefits through cost segregation studies. Yeah. Oh, that's great. We look at all this and we say, okay, well, you want to build your hard asset empire. Great. You invest through Alliance. And I talk about in the book of invest in smart money. Okay. You only have so much time in the day. Be smart with your time. It's your biggest asset you have.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. And you're so going through there, you kind of answered the question a little bit. So somebody could come into this and say, look, I've got 100 grand or 200 grand. I just sold a property and I want to invest it in in Alliance. So that is that is a way that they could start out. You don't have to come in with$2 million to be an investor with Alliance.

Why Medical Office Cash Flows

SPEAKER_02

No, you you can start small and I mean it's a lot of money, but relative to more money, it's it's a way for people to start building wealth. We have investors that have started with us years ago and we've made them millions of dollars and they continue to invest with us. And what's interesting is they realize, they say, okay, well, now I can't get a return on my money, but I can get great tax benefits where maybe I could take those tax benefits and offset other passive income investment of mine. So it's the gift that keeps on giving commercial real estate. That's what I love about what we do. I'm a I'm a large fan of it. I'm a big investor of ours and what we do. And um, it's why I'm still in the business. I mean, I love what I do and and I love helping people. And I love the fact that this book can kind of open the door and open the mind of someone out there saying, you know what? I've been trying to figure this out how to build wealth. Let me figure it out. And so the book is cheap. The Hard Ass and Empire blueprint, you get download for free. Yeah. And it's my way to say, let me get you higher on the learning curve and go read the book and go download the blueprint. And if you want to go even deeper, you could take the classes too.

SPEAKER_04

So this the book starts at a at a at a level that's understandable for anybody that can just pick it up and start reading it and and going, going in and going, okay, this is something I understand. I can I can grab one.

SPEAKER_02

And it's authentic. It's uh like I share some war stories. I'm like, yeah, let me tell you something. Uh, you're gonna go through some interesting times. You're gonna have some shifts in attorneys and your accountants. You're gonna look at your inner circle and say, well, who's in my green room that I want my circle? The last chapter is critical because I talk about mindset. I talk about personal development, I talk about how you're gonna deal with ups and downs as you go through life and business and building your hard ass and empire. You're gonna deal with people, you're gonna eliminate family members, friends, you're gonna outgrow people, you're gonna do things differently. And so when you go through this, and this is from the forge fires that I've been in and my colleagues have been in, this is real world experience. It's not fluff. Yeah, it's real world. And and so it's building. And so we look at this stuff and we say, okay, well, let's give them the hard facts. Let's give them like, hey, it's gonna be mentally challenging. So guess what? The last chapter is on your mind and your mindset and how to deal with things, and because you're gonna deal with people and you're gonna grow and change as a person. I know the Ben Reinberg from 22 years old, who's now almost 56 in a couple weeks. He is completely different. If you knew me then and now, you're like, he was a baby then. Now he's a mature guy. He's been through billions of transactions. He's different. He looks at the world differently. He's kind, he's he's empathetic, he listens, he doesn't have this armor over him anymore. And so this is in the book because it talks about that you're gonna go through times where it's not so easy or deals don't work out as well. And I talk about this in the book because I want people to realize, because no one does that. No one says, you know what, everyone talks about the highs that they have, but no one's gonna say, well, let me give you reality because you're gonna go through some situations or some deals or some investments where maybe it doesn't work out as well. So how are you gonna deal with it, Brad? Are you going to react or are you gonna respond? Yeah. And I teach people of this between your ears is everything. How you control your emotions, whether it be with employees, outside resources, because people say to me, like, why do you do so much personal development? And why do you meditate and do all these things? Because I need to make sure my mind's right. I need to make sure that I'm present with people like I am with you right now, and that I show that I care because that's how I influence people is becoming a good listener. That's how you lead, that's how you inspire. And people always ask me, like, how do I become a good leader? Here's a little secret for everyone out there listening. You want to be a great leader, you have to inspire people, and you do that by listening and taking time to care and give a shit about people. Absolutely, you do that, you'll be a great leader.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, absolutely. So true. So true. Um, so going through here, um, what's the difference between the syndication and what you do? Is is is that syndication what you're doing as far as um with with the properties?

Investing With Smart Money

SPEAKER_02

We do both. We do funds, discretionary funds where we pick the properties for our investors. We also have syndications where let's say we're buying a single asset, we'll raise money specifically for that investment. It might be a portfolio, it might be a single asset. It's a specific vehicle for that acquisition. A fund is where it could be we are uh acquiring uh 25 properties in the fund, and you own a piece of every property in the fund. So it's diversification.

SPEAKER_04

And as far as like a REIT, like a real estate investment trust, totally different than also, right? It's different, different rules. Yeah, this is a a private fund that we run. Gotcha. Whereas a REIT is something you can actually buy on the stock market or whatever on the market.

SPEAKER_02

Potentially, there are private REITs as well, but they have different rules and regulations they adhere to.

SPEAKER_04

Just because I know people probably thinking what's the difference between those different ones there. Um, yeah, so did you start out coming out of high school going, I want to be doing this with hard assets? I mean, what what was your goal? What was your goal coming out of high school or college or whatever you did? Just curious how you got into this.

SPEAKER_02

I think when I was eight years old, I saw I saw these people. I said, All right, well, I don't come from wealth. How do I build wealth? Yeah. And like I said, I did the research when I was uh an early adult. And I said, okay, people are doing it through hard assets. And so uh for me, I went to Indiana University. I graduated from the business school. And when I came out of the school, I said, okay, I'm a CPA. I need to get a job. I'm in a recession. My mother said, go get a job. You need a job. We're in a recession. I got a job as a CPA. I hate it. But I was on audit and a billionaire influenced me. And it influenced me to go out on my own. I decided to go out on my own, get into real estate, commercial real estate. You know, I was a little bit different, and I don't advise this to people. I went straight in as a principal. I went, I jumped right in the deep water and said, okay, let's buy a deal. I buy a 95,000 square foot industrial building. I have no balance sheet. Um, I went to my godfather to get a loan. He sat on a board of a bank. I made a presentation, I got a loan, I signed with recourse because I had nothing to lose.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Funds vs Syndications vs REITs

SPEAKER_02

And I raised a few million bucks in 30 days. And then, yes, 30 days. And the lesson wasn't in the deal. I three X'd it in three years, but that wasn't the lesson. It was everything that I learned along the way. How to deal with negotiations, how to deal with roofs and HVAC, how to deal with parking, how to negotiate with tenants, how to deal with your lender and financing and paying returns to investors. The deal exposed me to all the variables I had to really get my arms around and develop and cultivate. And it kept compounding deal after deal after deal and building buildings and et cetera. And what's great about commercial real estate, it's a marathon business. And so now I'm in the prime of my career, Brad, and allows me, you know, in our business, how it works is you spend the first third of your career on your back, the second third on your feet, and the last third on your stomach because you're swimming and navigating pretty quickly at that point. And so I'm in the prime of my career. I've been through a lot of deals. And at the end of the day, uh, it's what you have to do to become successful in this business. You got to be persistent and resilient. And I talk about this in the book. I want to give people a real view of what I've been through because I want you higher on the learning curve instead of me. I don't want you to endure the pain and the different things I've been through in the business. I'd rather say, look, let me show you, let me expose it to you. And you know what? You can make a decision. You can say, I want to be a principal, I want to do what Ben Reinberg does. Great. Or a lot of people, what I see is they're saying, I'd rather just invest with Ben Reinberg as his company because it's so complex and such a pain in the ass. I'm going to focus on my niche. I am an incredible attorney. I'm going to focus on being an attorney. If I'm an accountant, insurance agent, if I sell residential real estate, I'm going to be the best at what I do because guess what? In life, you get rewarded for focus. And I will say that again. Life, when you pick a niche, I see more guys, they got like all these different companies and they boast, hey, I got this business and this business, but they're not making money and they're not building wealth because they're not focused. And so for me, I give you a realistic viewpoint. My my focus for decades has been commercial real estate. That's how I've been able to live the life I live. And I tell people, once you make disposable income, then start building your hard asset empire. Invest with an alliance, invest with smart money, invest with a brad if he's buying residential houses and rehabbing and whatever it is. That's how you do it. You can't be the jack of all trades. You know, I'm a seven-tool player in commercial real estate, but I'm not in digital assets or tokenization. I bring in people to understand that. I talk to my kids, I talk to friends, and I learn and grow, and I'm a sponge. So you have to be smart and you have to appreciate time. Time is your biggest asset. I'll give you something we did, and I can enhance your audience that we did years ago. We brought in our leadership team into our West Coast office in Newport Beach. And our we have a chief people officer. She's one of the most well known, respected human behaviorists. And she said, at that time, now don't hold me this because the average lifespan I think is older now with health. It was 77 years old. Okay. Um let's say at the time I was 50 years old. Okay. So if you take 77 minus 50 times 52 weeks, you know, you got X amount of weeks, whatever that is. I'll tell you right now, you got you know, this is the problem when you're in commercial real estate.

SPEAKER_04

You're in some do you have the old school calculator sitting there? I do.

SPEAKER_02

I have an old school calculator. Does it have the paper in it? I take the paper out. Look at this. This baby is gorgeous.

SPEAKER_04

Oh my gosh, that is old school. That's old school.

SPEAKER_02

This is old enough. They still work though. Hewlett Packer 3C. I I this thing is so valuable. Like I would cry if I ever lost it. I I don't even have paper in it. Oh, I just hammer through like an accountant. It's beautiful. So 1404 weeks left in my life. Wow. Now we had someone else on our leadership team, and I think she was like 30 years old at the time. Okay. So she had like three times as many weeks as me as me. But if you think about time, you say, okay, I got let now let's say I got 1100 weeks left to live based on that calculation. Yeah. You're gonna pick who you hang out with, who you spend time with, what podcasts you go on, right? You're gonna talk about where am I spending my time, what's important to me at that point. Yeah. So your lens is different as you age. Oh, absolutely. And then you look at I'm right there with you. Right. You look at time and you're like, okay, well, why am I going on this learning curve to build my hard acid empire to take it full circle?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I'm saying to myself, Well, that doesn't make sense. And so when I write the book, I explain of investing in smart money. It's all based on time.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Definitely. No, it's a good point. It was something we had a guest on here at some point. I can't remember who it was, but um, I it they have children. I have uh a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old, and they said, you know, don't look at it this way, instead of looking at wow, they're 13, they're gonna be around for how many more years, whatever. Look at it this way. You have maybe four summers with your 13-year-old that they're gonna want to hang out with you. That's right. Four summers. That's it. Yep. You know, so when you when you bring it down to that level as opposed to thinking, oh, there's so many years here, whatever. But when you think about it as summers or winters or whatever, it really changes how you how you look at things, which is the same thing about how many we said you have 1,404 weeks or no, um, um, yeah, weeks or whatever to was it lit to live? Is that what you said? Or to 75 or 77?

Ben’s First Deal And Lessons

SPEAKER_02

We we we talked about our parents. My parents are in the 80s, they live in Chicago, I live on the West Coast, and it was interesting. Someone that worked for me on my leadership team, I do this 7 a.m. pep talk with my acquisitions and investor relations guys, the sales guys. And one of the guys said he runs our multifamily division. He's like, Yeah, I went home with my parents, they're getting old. And and it made me think of what we just talked about, time. Man, I got to go home and see my parents because again, how many more times do I have holidays and and experiences and stuff? And so you take that stuff for granted, and you're like, well, wait a minute. If I go see them twice a year in Chicago, and let's say they have four, five, six, whatever, eight years left, yeah, I got 10 more times of experience. And that starts to resonate with you. You look at it, so we all take it for granted, time, and you really like whittle it down and say, look at the reality, and you are aware of the situation. You say, okay, well, if I'm gonna build a hard ass and empire, how am I gonna do it? Well, I'm gonna invest with smart money and people, and that's what it's about. It's like, how do I leverage my time? And when you look at the first season of my show, it used to be I own it, my podcast. Now it's gonna be the Ben Reinberg show. It's gonna be on USA Today soon on January 22nd. Oh, cool. It launches. And so when I look at that, the first season was leverage. Yeah, now it's not like your debt leverage, that's one type of it's leveraging your time, leveraging relationships, leveraging intelligence, technology. That's what it was about. It was a really cool season that show because we talked about leverage, using it in all different ways. And so when you're building a hard ass and umpire, you're gonna use leverage by leveraging into people and technology and resources. That's how you do it. You have to do that in commercial real estate. You can't know everything, you got to bring in great resources to help you grow. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04

Now, it's interesting, you know, as we're going through this, is that you know, I didn't, you know, I didn't think about this whole thing as being um a time saver. I really didn't, you know, and and because I I I looked at it as being an alternative to a 401k or an IRA or you know, those kind of things, which is actually just a time saver, also. We could do our own stocks if we want to. We could pick our own portfolio if we want to, but not many people, those are called day traders, not many people actually do that. They usually hire somebody to do that job because we don't have the time to research it. But what's interesting about this, it's the same thing, but it's um, but it's back with a more tangible type asset, which is, you know, which is awesome. Um, before we wrap this up, I mean we're gonna be have to wrap it up here soon, but the returns I was seeing that you that you showed were like in the 25% range returns. I mean, that's unbelievable. Is that common?

SPEAKER_02

Well, you know, it depends because in medical office we've been about 24%, maybe a little bit higher, close to 25% in medical office. Overall, our portfolio has been upper 20s, 28% on office, industrial retail and medical office. And why that is, is because we've we just know the money's in the dirt, the money is where we buy. We've had some great opportunities, some great markets to sell into. And the reason behind that, Brad, is I am a big philosopher in the real estate fundamentals. I learned the business the right way. The key to this business is the ability to hold. You'll hear me say that online numerous times because when you can ride a cycle, see, everyone thinks that real estate just descends in the air. It's like real, it's like moguls. You know, if you ever go skiing or you see hills, it's like moguls. You know, you go through a cycle, you're up top, you could sell it, comes down, values drop, you go back up. You have to time it. And so having the ability to hold, have enough reserves, flexibility in your loans, making sure you can carry the property, making sure you've got good real estate fundamentals, you can renew your tenants. These are all things you have to deal with in commercial real estate. It goes back to smart money. Like I don't, if I wasn't in this business, I wouldn't want to invest by myself in commercial real estate. It's complicated. It's like you need relationships with people, whether the resources and contractors and engineers and and and issues come up with municipalities, and then you got tenants to deal with, and then you got your staff to deal with as well. It's a lot of things to manage. And when you understand it, you say, Well, I'm gonna let Alliance do the heavy lifting. Why am I doing that? And so that's why people invest with us, and that's why I tell people in the book, I give them a realistic viewpoint of, hey, you want to do it, God bless you, go at it. However, um, think about investing in smart money.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Hugo had said before we started the show here, we were talking about a little bit before you got on, was about the can can can somebody pull money from their IRA and actually invest through their IRA to do this, or do are you pulling it out, taking the penalty or whatever, and then investing it uh directly? You can't do it through that that vehicle, can you?

SPEAKER_02

You can so we have a lot of investors that take self-directed IRAs and they invest in our funds and our syndications. And what happens is we pay returns directly to the custodian. Gotcha. You can't touch the money. Gotcha. So you can do it. So that's a good question. Yeah, so Hugo, Hugo, great question. Yeah, it's a good question. Give us a call. It's a wonderful question. It's it's a huge niche. There's actually a company in Pennsylvania where you guys are, it's called Camma Plan. Okay. And CAM are a they're a trustee, a custodian for uh self-directed IRAs. Interesting. So a lot of people can set it up. We pay the returns into the custodian and they're tax-free returns until you pull them out. Correct. That's that's that's a good question, Hannah. It's a great question. Yeah, thing is the only downside to doing that is you don't get you don't get to receive the tax benefits. Gotcha. Because you're deferring taxes and that's so if we have significant depreciation that we're offsetting the income, you don't get the benefit of that. So there's plus and minuses to it, but uh, we have a lot of investors that have done self-directed. We have a lot of different custodians throughout the United States. It's a wonderful vehicle, it's a wonderful common, Hugo, because uh you're you're absolutely right. It's a great way to invest.

Focus, Time, And Leverage

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, that's that's cool. I I was there anything else that that we didn't cover here. I just want to make sure we cover everything that was the most important stuff that I wanted to cover. The other thing is um I was thinking about had more to do with the RA and the 401B, the 401ks and stuff like that. So you can use the RA vehicle, you can run it through there. Do you suggest that people diversify? Obviously, you you still think they should keep their 401k and and things like that. They shouldn't pull everything out of there and and just uh say I'm going into this 100%.

SPEAKER_02

No, you should defer. I have a 401k through the company. I invest in digital assets, I invest in companies.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

And I have a large percentage in commercial real estate because I know what we do, I know how well we do it, and I know how to make money. And I love the tax benefits. I absolutely love the tax benefits. And so with that being said, um, you know, people say to me, Well, tell me about the hard asset blueprint. And the blueprint is the roadmap for everyone, if they're wondering. And it's something I've used for decades. It's how I find and buy and finance and scale hard assets the right way. That's what the blueprint is, and it's free if you download it. It's not theory. Does the book, does the book help explain that blueprint? Yes, it does. It helps it. So does the classes. Yeah. Okay, good. And we have on the website as well. And so it's step one, it's step two, and step three, whether you're starting your first deal or protecting an eight-figure portfolio. The goal is simple with the blueprint. It's cash flow, it's tax efficiency, it's long-term security, it's not gambling, it's building. Like I said, this blueprint and this book was forged in the fires of Ben Reinberg's experience and all my colleagues. And we came together and we said, okay, let's talk about how do you build a hard asset empire. And then I said, and then I'm gonna create this blueprint, which is gonna show you how to build your fortress. Awesome, man. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_04

Good stuff. I I learned a lot. And Hugo, anything else that you have any other questions?

SPEAKER_00

That was very good. Just just how to how do how do people get a hold of it?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, how do you get a hold of you? What's the best way to reach out? I know we can go on and look up um your name, Ben Reinberg. When I did that, it's it's in there pretty much. But give us the best way to get in touch with you.

SPEAKER_02

Well, there's a couple things. If you go to benreinberg.com, okay, you can buy the book. We have accountants' attorneys and people all over the place buying it in bulk. You go to Amazon to get the book or Barnes and Noble. And you can also download the Hard Ass and Empire blueprint for free from the website. You can follow me on all different social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, you name it, TikTok. We're all over the place. That's great. And I am all about adding value online. My online is business focused. It's it's you know, I'm I might see a little lifestyle here and there, but at the end of the day, it's all about adding value and trying to help you learn. It's my way of giving back. And so you the it's your first move. I mean, you don't have to be rich. You just need to start with the right strategy, which is what I give you. And if you're serious about building wealth, Brad, this is where you begin. It's awesome. So it's it's I don't know, the book is maybe 29 bucks. It's a small investment. The classes are very reasonable and they're detailed, and you could start building a hard asset empire right away. And my advice to everyone out there listening is just get started. You don't need money, you can leverage other people's money, read the book, and you'll see. And you'll see that it's not so easy. It's not for the faint of heart. But if you put the work in and you're resilient and persistent and you show up every day, you will be successful.

SPEAKER_04

Awesome. I appreciate it, man. Thanks so much for being on the show. We'll talk to you soon. My pleasure. All right, there you go. Ben Reinberg. That was amazing. Host of I Own It Podcast, but now it's going to be the Ben Reinberg Show. Want to check that out? The author of Hard Assets, Hard Money, and for Hard Times, CEO of Alliance, Consolidated Group of Companies. You want to check him out. If you look up his name, you will find him. If you're looking into investing in hard assets, this is the guy, man. I'll tell you what, he knows a lot and he's been through a lot. It's awesome. All right, thanks for coming here every Thursday at 7 p.m. We'll see you next week.

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