Our guests for today has redefined the face of real estate by offering professional and On-Demand service. She services the commercial real estate market as a realtor and investor and syndicator. She has closed successively over three hundred million dollars in commercial transactions and is recognized as a serial networker who has a knack for connecting buyers, sellers, and investors.
Our guest is dedicated to maximizing clients’ profits and taking clients through the process from beginning to end
Let’s dive right in and learn from Esther Reizes-Lowenbein on how real estate has changed her life.
[00:01 – 7:44] Opening Segment
[7:45 – 12:44] Switching From Residential to Commercial Agent and Syndication
[12:45 – 20:56] What Can We Be Doing To Level Up Our Networking Abilities?
[20:57 – 33:40] Closing Segment
“you know, being a residential realtor, you need to be a marriage counselor. You need to be a psychologist” – Esther Reizes-Lowenbein
“I started this as a hobby just to get myself out of that rut that I was in at the time.” – Esther Reizes-Lowenbein
“My initial goal was to allow people to come in just so they could smell the benefits of real estate. They can see what's going on. You can make money as a passive investor while you're sleeping without doing anything.” – Esther Reizes-Lowenbein
Connect with Esther Reizes-Lowenbein! See the links below:
Go to his LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, pages to connect with Esther Reizes-Lowenbein. Visit her Website.
LEAVE A REVIEW if you liked this episode!!
Keep up with the podcast! Follow us on Apple, Stitcher, Google, and other podcast streaming platforms.
To learn more, visit us at https://invictusmultifamily.com/.
**Want to learn more about investing with us?**
We’d love to learn more about you and your investment goals. Please fill out this form and let’s schedule a call: https://invictusmultifamily.com/contact/
**Let’s Connect On Social Media!**
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11681388/admin/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InvictusMultifamily
YouTube: https://bit.ly/2Lc0ctX
Our guests for today has redefined the face of real estate by offering professional and On-Demand service. She services the commercial real estate market as a realtor and investor and syndicator. She has closed successively over three hundred million dollars in commercial transactions and is recognized as a serial networker who has a knack for connecting buyers, sellers, and investors.
Our guest is dedicated to maximizing clients’ profits and taking clients through the process from beginning to end
Let’s dive right in and learn from Esther Reizes-Lowenbein on how real estate has changed her life.
[00:01 – 7:44] Opening Segment
[7:45 – 12:44] Switching From Residential to Commercial Agent and Syndication
[12:45 – 20:56] What Can We Be Doing To Level Up Our Networking Abilities?
[20:57 – 33:40] Closing Segment
“you know, being a residential realtor, you need to be a marriage counselor. You need to be a psychologist” – Esther Reizes-Lowenbein
“I started this as a hobby just to get myself out of that rut that I was in at the time.” – Esther Reizes-Lowenbein
“My initial goal was to allow people to come in just so they could smell the benefits of real estate. They can see what's going on. You can make money as a passive investor while you're sleeping without doing anything.” – Esther Reizes-Lowenbein
Connect with Esther Reizes-Lowenbein! See the links below:
Go to his LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, pages to connect with Esther Reizes-Lowenbein. Visit her Website.
LEAVE A REVIEW if you liked this episode!!
Keep up with the podcast! Follow us on Apple, Stitcher, Google, and other podcast streaming platforms.
To learn more, visit us at https://invictusmultifamily.com/.
**Want to learn more about investing with us?**
We’d love to learn more about you and your investment goals. Please fill out this form and let’s schedule a call: https://invictusmultifamily.com/contact/
**Let’s Connect On Social Media!**
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11681388/admin/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InvictusMultifamily
YouTube: https://bit.ly/2Lc0ctX
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:15] Hello and welcome to Multifamily Investing Made Simple, the podcast, it's all about taking the complexity out of real estate investing so that you can take action today. I'm your host, as always, Anthony, the CEO of Invictus Capital, joined by the one the only Dan, he's looking at the sun-kissed Kruger
Dan Kreuger: [00:00:31] Either much better than the last of them he came up with.
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:33] Yeah, sometimes my nicknames are a little bit rough, but I just occurred to me, you know, you went for a walk around the block at seventy-five degrees and beautiful. And I don't know if you have Mediterranean blood, but you just tan like a Greek God like you just put it on
Dan Kreuger: [00:00:49] The
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:50] Italian. You look good. So darn weak.
Dan Kreuger: [00:00:53] Is that how we're taking us down
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:54] A weird rabbit hole. That's how we start a podcast. So our listeners, they are used to this. Now for our listeners at home, if you're on the treadmill from the bicycle, if you're in the car driving to work, you are going to want to buckle up, get ready for one fantastic episode because we have a legend in the making with us here today. We have Esther Rises, lo and behold, who has redefined the face of real estate by offering professional and On-Demand service. She services the commercial real estate market as a realtor and investor and syndicator. She has closed successively over three hundred million dollars in commercial transactions and is recognized as a serial networker who has a knack for connecting buyers, sellers, and investors. So without further ado, the one the only. Esther, how are you doing?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:01:40] Doing great. Thanks for having me on.
Dan Kreuger: [00:01:42] Thanks for being a pleasure. And you are currently in Brooklyn, is that correct?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:01:48] I am. I am. I got stuck in traffic, so I'm currently doing this podcast from my car. So I hope that's
Anthony Vicino: [00:01:54] Just that's to make it happen. Spirit right there. Right. You've got to find a way or make way.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:01:59] Yes. I'm on my way to my destination, but we're always on the way to the destination. We're living on the road future.
Dan Kreuger: [00:02:09] So I was kind of curious about sorry, I thought I was going to
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:13] Dive into the promenade cohosts is that we just trip on each other. I'll sit here
Dan Kreuger: [00:02:17] Quietly. I'm just super curious what your background, eh? It sounds like you're in New York now. I'm kind of curious if you've always been in the real estate space in New York and what areas you're looking at and just kind of curious about how you got to where you're at today and when you got into the real estate and like how this all kind of came to be.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:02:34] Oh, my whole journey. I'm thirty-six years old. I was like, OK. So I actually grew up in Brooklyn where I am right now. And then I moved to Rockland County. So when I lived in Brooklyn, I worked as a speech-language pathologist. Oh, I graduated two thousand seven from Adelphi University, went back to do my bilingual extension, did that for many years, really enjoyed it. But living in Brooklyn, I worked in one school with one agency and it was pretty easy to work in speech-language largest. Then when I moved to Rockland, the whole system was very different. I would have to like travel from house to house or location to location. So I said the only way I'm going from house to house is selling these homes and not working in them. So that's how I shifted careers. That was in one major shift. I also have several children and as my children were getting to the age of the children I was working with, it became very difficult and draining for me to work with children. And I come home to children. I needed that shift to work with adults, a more professional environment. So now those are two major reasons I shifted from being a speech-language pathologist to, you know, to real estate, originally residential. And then I moved into the commercial space. I still am a speech-language pathologist. I hold my master's, I continue my studies, but I'm not practicing at the moment.
Anthony Vicino: [00:04:03] My, it's funny, my girlfriend is a speech pathologist, and it sounds like I have no experience with it, I don't work with children and that's probably good for everybody. But it sounds like a very difficult job and very emotionally taxing. And you have to be very involved. And so I can imagine having to do that and then also come home to a full house full of kids running around. It's like that's a whole lot. So what was that? Was that transition difficult? Was it scary? Like what was going through your head at that time that made you feel confident that you could make that job?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:04:36] So there are many things. I mean, I reached a point in my life that just I wasn't in a good place and I had a really low point in my life. And I think at that point I felt like it couldn't get any worse. So I had nothing to lose but to try something that I thought would bring me satisfaction. I loved meeting people. I love networking. So I figured, you know, real estate is the perfect job for me. I don't have to go back to school for three years for it. I don't you know, I can just dive into it, start learning. But if you hear my story and you know that I share many times when I got started, I didn't know a thing about financial knowledge. I had no financial knowledge whatsoever to the point that when we bought our first home, I didn't even know what a mortgage was. And that was about four and a half years ago. So I have a husband that spoils me to no end and he would like do all of the work and pay all the bills. And all I would do is swipe the credit card and do my job as a speech-language geologist. But I had no knowledge otherwise. So one day I was like with everything. I just need to know what's going on in the world. And it's like holding my financial skills and just learning something. So I just started learning and researching and listening to podcasts and asking questions and reading books. And I haven't stopped since.
Anthony Vicino: [00:05:53] Did you somebody in your family already in real estate or like what was y y was real estate the first thing that kind of or was it the first thing that jumped to mind and think I could jump to that? Was there something in your past that there was a through-line there or was it just kind of like you looked at and said, I want to sell houses? That sounds cool.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:06:11] So I actually know my husband was involved in real estate before, but I had nothing to do with that. I don't even know what he was doing. He was buying notes and stuff like he's in the business world. So real estate for him was like a side hustle. But I was not involved, so I knew nothing of it. And it wasn't something like he spoke about often. You're in there. I'd hear about it. So really? No, I had absolutely nobody in my family or no one in my sphere that I could say, like, wow, they inspired me to go into it. It was totally on my own.
Dan Kreuger: [00:06:44] We'll certainly get a sense as soon as you start to go down that rabbit hole, because one thing I noticed is, you know, I came from a finance background, so I didn't have some of the same learning curves to go through as some people. But even with that background, it was really clear right away that this was a pretty simple business model. Once you actually get down to a compared to other things where it could be intimidating with some of the lingoes. But once you get down to the, you know, the meat and potatoes of it, just the fundamentals of the business and how it works, it's actually quite simple and infinitely scalable. So I'm sure it just kind of started a snowball effect as you started listening to a podcast reading books that the more you learned, the more just kind of all clicked like this is this is simple, so easy. It's a lot of work, but it's something
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:07:29] That's true by the same hand. There's so much to know and so many aspects know. Every asset and every location has its own set of things you need to learn. And there are so many aspects of real estate you can go into just the No. Part.
Dan Kreuger: [00:07:45] That's part of the fun, too. I mean, it's like you're constantly growing and getting better and fine-tuning and figuring out what you like, what you don't like. So that's fascinating. Now, how did you then switch from being a residential agent to being an investor and then a syndicator? And like, how did this keep kind of parlay it up like that?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:08:04] So actually, I never really wanted to go into the residential space. I always felt like, you know, commercials, a more professional environment, like it would be better for me. But what I went into the broker for the first time, she's like, you need to start on the residential end. And I'm like, that doesn't really make sense. But I didn't mind. I didn't mind, like, you know, getting out there and learning what's there. And I actually enjoyed seeing the home. So I wanted to know that part, too. So I started on that. And, you know, there are too many brokers in my area. So I was like got a little bit too much. So that was like one reason I'm just leaving. I like to be at peace with all my neighbors. So it's like that frankly and honestly. Like that was one major reason. So I can
Dan Kreuger: [00:08:51] Get a little cut-through.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:08:52] It can I'll leave the rest to the interpretation. And then also, you know, being a residential realtor, you need to be a marriage counselor. You need to be a psychologist. You need to I'm going to be Dr.
Dan Kreuger: [00:09:15] Phil
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:09:16] Guy. We need to also give up your Sunday. So it's like I don't want to be a psychologist. I like the commercial real estate aspect that it's there's no emotion involved. It's like you like the numbers. They like the deal with you. Like flotation. Yes. Yes. No, no. So that's I'm very like down to earth practical. I don't have time for, like, all the back and forth between the couple and. No, but it was fun, and still, it's fun to go see homes and it's exciting, both of them have nice parts to it.
Dan Kreuger: [00:09:51] Yeah, I agree. I said I'm not residential and I should say, like, I'm not a single-family home investor at all. However, I do still really love just walking around and looking at cool houses and basically shopping for myself.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:10:05] So it's a back to ask me how I transitioned, right? Yes. All right. So then one person I sold the residential home to, I ended up transacting six deals because of him. Commercial deals. Is he like I of multifamily? That's the word. I found something for him. And from that one connection that one deal sparked six other transactions from his buyer and seller. Yeah. And then that same person actually came to ask me for capital if I know of someone that would be able to come in as an equity partner on one of the deals. And that's how I got into the raising capital part. You know, just word got out that I had raised for that multifamily in Connecticut and that, like, snowballed into raising capital for others. And I come in as an investment manager and I just people also with the equity. And now I'm working on starting a fund. So it's amazing how everything started and is rolling and things are moving so fast.
Dan Kreuger: [00:11:12] It's amazing. I think it really speaks to just the the the the the idea of just making sure that you're in the right rooms and in the proximity of where you want to be because sometimes it can be intimidating, trying to figure out like, how am I going to get from X to Y to that point I'm trying to get to. But if you just put yourself in the proximity of the people that you are going to be transacting with in the future, like it works out, like you never know when that one or two those one or two connections are going to cross paths with you that lead to all these things down the road. So even though the, you know, the residential thing might have been an obnoxious detour for you, initially, it actually puts you right where you need to be to get to where you want to be, which is awesome.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:11:52] One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And also, like, people are like, wow, you raised thirty million in eight months. How do you do that? So my thing is I had that network of people before from being a realtor. I just tapped into my network and I, you know, I was in that environment already and I had those people that I was dealing with daily anyways. And I just approached them with these deals. And it was fairly easy to raise that money because I had the right people right there. Yeah.
Dan Kreuger: [00:12:26] So it's a relationship business. You hear it all the time. It's you know, it's a cliche, but you're proof that if you've got the the the people skills and you you're good with knowing people and making sure you can connect people with the right opportunities, then I mean, that's really all that that's what it's all about. The commercial real estate
Anthony Vicino: [00:12:45] And that kind of stuff is into my next question, which is what can we be doing or thinking about as like to level up our networking abilities? You know, you talk about being a serial networker and you're in the right place at the right time, near the right people. How are you approaching that where you're doing that with intentionality, or are you just naturally kind of a serial connector?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:13:05] I love talking to people, so maybe I have that natural part of that. But there is something just like being you've been yourself putting yourself out there, try not to be someone else, try to be yourself. And I feel like also when you are out there to help others like things come back to you. So I don't do it with the intention of coming back to me. But I sincerely try to help as many people as I can. And it's amazing to see what actually happens when you do so. You never know, like, you know, give and then things will rebound back to you that I'm a big believer of that
Anthony Vicino: [00:13:44] I am I'm a big fan of the idea of like return on karma, which is like put out good into the universe and then good returns to you. And you can't measure it. But it's the most powerful return metric that I know of.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:13:57] Now, I started writing as I started learning about real estate. I started writing articles for a magazine as well. So I started teaching to the next person, without pay or anything. You know exactly what I was learning. So people it helped me down the line. However, I just want publicity or making connections, establishing rapport with people. And I did it purely with no intention in mind. I started this as a hobby just to get myself out of that rut that I was in at the time. So I didn't never in my wildest dreams had I imagined making Transactive three hundred million in a three-and-a-half-year period alone, starting out as a rookie.
Anthony Vicino: [00:14:40] Go ahead. I want your
Dan Kreuger: [00:14:41] Closure this time. I was going to ask a little bit more specifically about what it is that you're looking at from an investment perspective now after you made that shift from residential into the commercial space, you're raising capital for these deals. Are you looking at New York multifamily assets there? You're looking all over the US. Is it just multifamily? I'd like to hear a little bit about what it is that you guys are invested in.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:15:02] Yeah. So same about putting this out there. My husband started noticing my post and what I put out there, and I started realizing all the deals that I was posting. And he's like, why don't you send that to me? Why do you think that? Yeah, that's how he got back into investing just several months ago. And, you know, he's not my biggest client. So, you know, that came back to me.
Anthony Vicino: [00:15:27] A good relationship. Yeah.
Dan Kreuger: [00:15:29] Forgot about it.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:15:30] Yeah. So I initially always wanted to go into multifamily. My initial plan was to go in as an LP investor in several deals. I wanted to document the journey. I had this whole plan of what I was going to do. But then my husband partnered with someone that had transacted close to a billion dollars of commercial real estate sorry. He acquired close to a billion dollars of commercial real estate and he came upon an industrial property. So we just we couldn't refuse that. So that's just where we went. And now we're investing in industrial office, not retail, but we're looking at any good deal anywhere.
Dan Kreuger: [00:16:13] And is that I'm sorry, is that anywhere in the US, or do you guys look at the New York area
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:16:18] Anywhere in the US
Dan Kreuger: [00:16:19] Where he said industrial retail,
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:16:23] Not retail and office
Dan Kreuger: [00:16:27] Office? Some kind of curious I don't want to hijack this. If if you've got another question to throw in there,
Anthony Vicino: [00:16:33] If you actually ask the question I was going to ask. So I'll let you keep rolling. You're in my brain. Yeah.
Dan Kreuger: [00:16:38] So, I mean, the elephant in the room is the whole retail and office environment. Now, I'm assuming that you should be able to find some historically good quality assets at rock bottom prices. Are you looking at any extensive repositions of office and retail into something else? Are you or what's the angle that you guys are taking with some of that stuff?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:16:58] Yeah, every deal has its own story and we have a plan for each deal as we go. There was one deal that was just a crazy good deal was a vacant property. It was such a good deal that we put it in cash like really quickly that when that happens, I've been in New York. So it was just something like we couldn't pass on what we're going to do with it. We're under contract, so let's see what happens. And once we close, we can either we can go either way, we can sell it or we can flip it. You know, that was a cash deal. Every every property has its own story. And we also have some business, some of it we're using as an end-user, some of the industrial space, triple net leases, two of them that retail. We're you know, obviously it has to be in the right location, has to be a good tenant. And the lease terms have to be good. It has to have several years left on the lease. Yeah. So where does it go?
Anthony Vicino: [00:17:54] What do you say to the investors out there who say things like you can't find good deals and X, Y, Z market, you're investing in New York and you hear it all the time. People can't find a good deal in New York, can't find a good deal in California, but you guys are finding deals and you're making it work. What would you say to those people?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:18:11] It is hard to find deals right now. It is true, we just haven't we are sending deals and this partner sourcing a lot of deals. Yes. Brokers coming to him because he has that reputation of acquiring things very quickly. So people are coming to us. It is hard to source good deals and there is a good deal. Get snatched in five seconds. If you have anything else, sorry, I got lost for a second.
Dan Kreuger: [00:18:47] We're back now.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:18:48] Sorry I got a call on my phone. No worries. Yes, I do have some deals in New York. If anyone's out there that wants to buy in New York, there, there, a little discounted from what they were before. But there it's coming back. New York is coming back no matter the situation people are buying in New York.
Dan Kreuger: [00:19:08] Yeah. I mean, if 9/11 didn't kill the real estate market in Manhattan, what would what could I feel like that if there was anything that would have really negatively impacted that specific area, that was it. And it came back really strongly.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:19:24] I feel like now it's even worse because of the eviction moratorium. It's really like affecting so many people, including myself, like properties that I'm working on that I was trying to sell before suddenly have issues because suddenly you can evict lieutenants. So the property without income and you can't sell it. Sellers are at a loss. Brokers are stuck in the middle of nowhere. Some people are selling houses right now with the tenant at one price, right. Without the tenant at another price. It is a mess. It's a real mess. I don't think we have that after 9/11. So I think it's even worse than that at the moment.
Anthony Vicino: [00:20:05] Yeah, but on a long enough time frame, this is one of the things I find interesting about the conversation about people leaving California. Are people leaving New York because, it is very difficult to operate in those markets right now? Land landlord-tenant regulations make it tricky and people are leaving for reasons of fear. But at its core, there's still a reason why people want to live in those areas, and that's not going away. New York is still a financial hub. It's still a hub of the world. And that's not going to just disappear overnight. And so on a long enough time frame, it will bounce back. It will be strong again. In the meantime, it's hard to operate, but it sounds like if you have your ear close enough to the ground and you have the ears of good brokers and you have the right team, that you can move quickly on opportunities that there are still deals that can get done.
Dan Kreuger: [00:20:51] Yeah, relationships.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:20:54] Yeah, I have no one.
Anthony Vicino: [00:20:57] So it is that one of the reasons for the fund you mentioned that you guys are launching a fund. Is that part of that so that you can move quickly or what exactly is the logic behind the fund?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:21:08] Ok, so the fund has nothing to do with my investments at the moment. And so far we're good with our partners. But the fund is because I start educating people about investing in real estate, preaching, and writing articles. I wanted to enable people to start investing. So my initial goal of the fund was to allow smaller size, check investors to come into syndications where they otherwise couldn't. Most indications require fifty thousand one hundred thousand to join. My initial goal was to allow people to come in just so they could smell the benefits of real estate. They can see what's going on. You can make money as a passive investor while you're sleeping without doing anything. So I wanted to enable people to experience that. Really, because I don't know, just for the fun of it. I wanted to help people out. And it's important that people realize now they should invest in real estate versus leaving their money in the bank account. We'll see what's happening with inflation. I mean, the money is going to be worth less than the bank account than it would be worth if you put it into syndication, or in my opinion, it's safer than investing in the stock market. We see what happens right back up the way down. Real estate investments are more steady. They're more predictable and more tangible. So I'm going on. James, I want to enable people to have that experience. But I already have a deal. We got to call again. I already have a deal that I'm going to be raising for, so I don't know if I'm going to go with my original idea of enabling people that I'm going to attempt to make the minimum lower as low as possible. None know that has to make sense because starting funds is expensive. As long as it makes sense. I'm going to do the minimum that I can enable people to go in and.
Anthony Vicino: [00:23:06] What kind of assets would you be looking to deploy those funds into? Is that still an industrial retail office space or is that be multifamily?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:23:14] Yeah. So this first deal that I'm going to be raising for a multifamily deal. Oh, yeah. As of now, I'm going to be raising for everything except retail and hotel at the moment. I hired an underwriter and the writer has to review the deal, I have to vet the sponsor the essence of our track record, and they have to be a good person in honesty. And transparency is super important. And I'm going to be investing in every fund, every deal that I am raising for I'm putting my own money in. So I have to really believe in the deal in order to go into it. Mm-hmm.
Anthony Vicino: [00:23:54] Yeah, I think that's massive. Is putting your own skin in the game. Is it important that you touch on something there? I think that we should dive deeper because it's something that Dan and I talk about constantly on the show is that it's more important to the operators than it is to vet the deals. So as the fund manager, really what's happening is people are coming in and they're investing in you and they're saying, I trust your judgment to go and find an operator and find a deal to put these funds to work. And so what's your approach? What are you looking for in an operator before you would think about deploying your funds with them?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:24:29] Yeah, that's exactly true, 100 percent. Obviously, the deal has to make sense, the numbers location, but then the sponsor has to be the number one. What's what am I looking for? Just within a few-minute conversation, I can generally feel what type of person I'm dealing with. Obviously, I want to see their track record, what they've done. I want to see people that invested with them in the past. And if they were happy customers, sort of like getting references. Yeah, whatever I can. I'm I am checking out I'm checking their Googling them, checking all their social media platforms. I want to see who I'm dealing with. And I my little time doing this, I already can tell you who I'm going with and I'm not like I can feel it besides for actually seeing the numbers. And I have my underwriter also have to ask to give the OK.
Dan Kreuger: [00:25:29] And how big is the funding you're going to be launching? Have you identified the dollar amount?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:25:35] So this first one that I'm going to be starting with, I mean, right now I have one property. If I have another property, basically, I have tons of properties that are looking for money, but I'm only going onto the deals that signed me up as a GP. I need to do some work on the deal besides raising capital, according to the FCC regulations. So this deals taking me on as a GP and whatever it is, you know, agreement and I'm doing, I'm going to be doing some work on the deal and assisting with the capital raise. This particular one's a nine million raise. Got a. Here you go. And this is the first of many
Dan Kreuger: [00:26:15] A gotcha, gotcha. And before we get past it too far here, we're already kind of rocking and rolling here. I don't want to miss our bad investing tip of the week. So we've already talked a lot about, like your underwriting practices and your journey into the business. I'm kind of curious along the way if you've heard any bits and pieces of conventional knowledge, quote-unquote, that get tossed around, that that really doesn't really jibe with you.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:26:41] Yeah, so actually, what we just spoke about is, number one, people think that you're investing in the deal that's important, investing with the sponsors, so much more important. So that's my no-no or go to or however, you want to phrase it. Yeah. Investing a sponsor with the right sponsors would be more important than investing in the actual deal.
Dan Kreuger: [00:27:04] I love it. Yeah, we like the adventure before we talk about that all the time on our podcast takes a lot of people just to get too far into the weeds too early. They need to look at the teams that are going to be working with first, find those rock stars, and then even the worst deal or the worst catastrophe, if it's in the hands of the best operators, are going to be as good as you possibly could be. So exactly.
Anthony Vicino: [00:27:27] Yeah, my favorite way of putting that is if you give lemons to a bad operator, they are just going to throw the lemonade onto the floor like you could hand them lemons and they're going to eliminate and they're going to destroy it. Yeah, but if you give a good operator, lemons are going to make lemonade. And so at the end of the day, its operators that make the deal are spreadsheets. We can make them say whatever we want, like or you want what you want.
Dan Kreuger: [00:27:55] Lemon, yellow. That might even be better than lemonade.
Anthony Vicino: [00:27:58] What's lemon. Oh, that you
Dan Kreuger: [00:28:00] Know, lemon cello. I don't know if that is the lemon liqueur. You Italian, that sounds.
Anthony Vicino: [00:28:08] Yeah, but you know me. I'm a lightweight. I drink like I drink my apple tinies I'm all right. I'm a man.
Dan Kreuger: [00:28:15] Anyway, Danny DeVito makes a living. You never know. Google it. Later you'll see this episode.
Anthony Vicino: [00:28:21] It's cracked me up. We got some weird directions.
Dan Kreuger: [00:28:25] We're not a focus group. I can tell you that right now. We're all over the place.
Anthony Vicino: [00:28:28] Family investing should be
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:28:29] Fun first and foremost. Oh, always serving lemonade.
Dan Kreuger: [00:28:35] So.
Anthony Vicino: [00:28:36] So we are getting up to the top of the hour. So I want and I want to be respectful of your time. So let's get to our book recommendation. I'm curious what something that you've been reading recently that you're like, that's fantastic. That's a must-read.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:28:48] Yeah. So I don't have time to read.
Anthony Vicino: [00:28:55] And he froze, that wasn't a dramatic, positive
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:28:59] Story to my end,
Dan Kreuger: [00:29:01] You froze, right? I don't have time for his drama.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:29:08] I said I have eight children. I don't have time to read pause. Yeah, but I actually write for a magazine that having time to read it. Yeah, but the book that I do read or my husband reads me like snippets here and there is the power of now and new earth by actually all-powerful, powerful stuff. That's like my psychology guide living in the present, being present at the moment, you know, not rushing to go to the next thing stuck in traffic with the listening to podcasts, enjoy the ride, look at the scenery. It's just being, you know, don't rush to get them to the next destination. Enjoy the process of what you're doing. You know life is always ups and downs and everyone's, like, often rushing to get to the next deal or the next place. And they can't they're not relaxed until they get there. So this book is a really good reminder of just being in the moment.
Dan Kreuger: [00:30:12] It's a really good one to make sure you've got your head folks on the right stuff. And I will say, for those of you who don't have time to read the audiobook version of that, one is quite good. I don't know if they actually got actually reading it, but whoever is reading it, whether it's him or somebody else, the voice is very appropriate for that book. It's very calming, is very therapeutic. So if you just want to listen to it, it's actually a very enjoyable and insightful read.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:30:35] Funny you say that because I can't stand his voice like he's like an afterthought. Yeah. I actually like when he interviews Oprah Winfrey that I find him more exciting because it's not just monotonous. It's a back and forth where you
Dan Kreuger: [00:30:50] Got Oprah on there and mix it up a little bit.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:30:51] It's yeah. And he's also a little more exciting over there. And it's very interesting. If you don't want to read the whole book, just go listen to some of those interviews. Really interesting.
Anthony Vicino: [00:31:02] I love it. I think I think we have this tendency not just as entrepreneurs and investors, to always think that we're running towards a destination without realizing that there never really is a destination. It's just the road keeps going ever on. You get to the end, you get to where you were looking on the horizon, and then you realize, oh, this is there's this more road. And so unless you can find enjoyment at the moment where you are, you're always going to be in a state of chasing something that you'll never catch. And that's not a good place to be. But Esther, Esther, really appreciate you and your time and taking the time to share your story. I think it's a really cool story. Before we let you go, where can people get a hold of you if they want to follow up and they want to reach out and learn more?
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:31:44] Pretty much all over social media except for Twitter. And I'm not yet on what is that clubhouse? I haven't seen that yet. I have an Android phone. I think they can tell
Anthony Vicino: [00:31:57] I can't get
Dan Kreuger: [00:31:58] A pulse is really high. And yeah, everyone was like excited initially. No one cares anymore. So I just said
Anthony Vicino: [00:32:06] I'm super bummed I missed it. I missed
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:32:07] That boat. OK, that's OK. You save time. That's a good point. Oh yeah. I'm on LinkedIn as pasteurize as Long Binh Bustelo and Vine on Instagram. Facebook. My website is HESTA Rises dot com. I know I have a lot of names, but if you have a hard time finding me, just message me on any and all connected.
Dan Kreuger: [00:32:28] I just put your name into Google and you popped up all over the place so you can also take that approach. There are not many people with your exact name, so you're very gullible
Anthony Vicino: [00:32:36] And we'll put some links in the show notes. If you're listening to this at home and you're like, I don't know how to spell any of that, that's fine. Just go to the Schnitz. You can click on links. We make it really easy for you.
Esther Reizes-Lowenbein: [00:32:45] Excellent. You can find more awesome.
Anthony Vicino: [00:32:48] So that's going to do it for us guys and gals at home. Thank you, as always, for taking a little bit of time out of your day to join us. We appreciate you. I appreciate you out on it. Dan, does Dan do you appreciate them? Yeah, most of the audience who appreciate them
Dan Kreuger: [00:33:01] On the days that end and why I do.
Anthony Vicino: [00:33:04] That's every day. All right, so that's going to do it for us, guys. We'll see you next week.
[00:33:08] Thanks, guys.