Chasing Deals Is How You Lose Money with Gino Barbaro

The fastest way to lose money in multifamily isn’t a bad market—it’s buying without knowing exactly why.

Most investors don’t fail because they lack deals… they fail because they never defined what a deal actually is.

In this conversation, we break down the moment where growth stops being about hustle—and starts being about discipline. Because once you scale past your first few properties, the rules change fast… and ignoring that shift can cost you years.

If you’re serious about building a real multifamily business—not just collecting units—this is the kind of thinking that separates operators from dabblers.

If you're ready to apply this at a higher level, join us inside the Tribe of Titans community:
→ https://www.thetribeoftitans.com

What You’ll Learn

•  Why most investors hit a wall right after early success 
•  The hidden danger behind “just getting your next deal” 
•  How one bad deal can shape your entire investing philosophy 
•  The real reason scaling too fast creates long-term risk 
•  What disciplined investors do differently in hot markets 
•  Why passing on deals can actually accelerate your growth 

Why This Matters

There’s always pressure to move faster, go bigger, and chase the next opportunity.

But the investors who last aren’t the ones doing the most deals… they’re the ones who understand exactly which deals to do—and which ones to walk away from.

This episode is about building that filter.

Because no deal is better than a bad one.

About the Guest:

Gino Barbaro

Gino Barbaro is a real estate investor, Certified Money Coach®, entrepreneur, and podcast host. He has built a multifamily portfolio of over 1,900 units, representing more than $450 million in assets under management.

Through his platform, Barbaro 360, Gino’s mission is to help families create lasting legacies by restoring traditional values around family, finances, and developing a healthier relationship with money.

He is the best-selling author of Happy Money Happy Family Happy Legacy and lives in St. Augustine, Florida with his wife Julia and their six children.

Learn more about him at: https://barbaro360.com/ or https://tinyurl.com/29bw3p7z 

About the Host:

Brian Briscoe is an apartment operator and founder of Streamline Capital, focused on acquiring and operating multifamily properties in the greater Salt Lake City metro. He hosts the Diary of an Apartment Investor podcast, where he shares real-world operator insights and decision frameworks for aspiring multifamily investors.

If this conversation resonated, there’s more happening inside the Tribe of Titans. It’s where serious investors move beyond surface-level content and into real discussions that drive action. Visit https://www.thetribeoftitans.com/ to learn more.

Transcript

Show Setup And What We Cover

Gino’s Origin Story And First Deals

Brian Briscoe 0:06

Welcome to the Diary of an Apartment Investor Podcast, the show where we cut through the noise and talk about what it actually takes to build a real multifamily investing business. I'm Brian Briscoe, apartment investor, operator, and founder of Streamline Capital, and this podcast is built for the aspiring apartment investor who wants more than just theory. We talk about raising capital, closing deals, managing assets, and making the decisions that separate dabbling from building something that lasts. Now, if you're serious about taking the next step, this conversation continues inside of the Tribe of Titans multifamily investing community where investors work through real deals together with live discussions and direct support. So let's get into today's episode. Welcome to the Diary of an Apartment Investor Podcast. I'm your host, Brian Briscoe. Really excited for today's show. We've got, you know, a great guest. Been on the podcast a couple of times. So warm welcome to Gino Barbaro. So, Gino, welcome. Brian, thanks for having me on, brother. How are you doing? Doing really, really well and excited to talk with you again. And for everybody listening, we got a lot of really, really good stuff coming up. So that said, Gino, do us a little bit of a favor and give us a very high-level background into who is Gino Barbaro.

Gino Barbaro 1:18

Well, I'll start from the beginning and I'll make it 30 seconds real quick. I used to be the restaurant guy. So I partnered up with Jake Stenziano. So he is the drug rep and I'm the pizza guy. That was our moniker. He was working as a pharmaceutical sales rep when he met me back in 2009. We partnered up. We started buying assets in Knoxville in 2013. We took us 18 months to find the first deal. So in 2011, we partnered. Our first deal was a 25-unit deal. Three months later, we bought a 36-unit deal. Then we bought 136 units. And you know, to date, we've transacted on over 2,500 units. We currently own 1900 units in east part of Tennessee, Knoxville, MSA. We've got some in Morristown, some in Jeff City. And it's been for us an incredible ride. Brian, Jake and I would always joke and we say, if we got 100 units, bro, we are we are rich. We're stopping. And then you realize when you hit the hundred units, okay, there's a repeatable process. Yeah.

The Moment Scaling Forced Change

Brian Briscoe 2:14

Started figuring some things out. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, obviously, you get you guys have figured things out. And for people listening, if you ever heard of Jake and Gino, this is the Gino in Jake and Gino. Uh, if you didn't catch that already. So you started out, you bought a couple hundred units, and you figure out we want to repeat it. Okay. How did that go from there? I mean, what challenges did you guys come into through the repeatable phase? And how did you grow your portfolio?

Gino Barbaro 2:39

Well, the interesting thing is that I had a restaurant and I only had one for a little over 20 years. I was stuck in that mindset of I'ma do this, I'm gonna do that, old school Italian dad, you gotta do it my way. And I was really admired in that thinking. But when I met Jake, it's like it's a different business. I can think differently, I can do things differently. I don't know how to scale, but I'm sure we can learn. So when we bought our first deal, it was all that first deal, it was all the focus was on that. Then we bought our second deal. We had resident managers on each property. Jake was boots on the ground. I was doing the accounting. We were splitting things up, doing really well. When we bought that third deal, I think everything changed for us because we realized unconsciously, you can't keep doing the same thing you were doing when you bought your first deal. You can't bootstrap. What got you to the first deal is not going to get you to the fourth or the fifth deal. And we had to be completely honest with ourselves. I don't know about you. I didn't come out of the womb knowing how to scale multifamily. So I went out, I pulled out the pocketbook, and I started throwing money down and we started paying for scaling up. We started paying for traction. And you have to do that because multifamily in real estate is a business. And if you don't understand that it's a business and you think you're just accumulating assets, that's where most investors make mistakes. That's where I made my mistake back in the last market cycle. And I did not want to repeat that mistake in this market cycle.

Brian Briscoe 3:59

Yeah. Well, I'll throw a couple cents in there. You know, I got into a coaching program in 2018 before I heard about Jake and Gino, unfortunately, but we bought eight properties in the next 16 months. Okay. That's fast and that's a lot. And we got to the point to where you were kind of saying, I think we grew faster than we could manage. And then we then we stalled on our acquisitions because we realized, oh my gosh, guys, we have eight properties, you know, and then we had to figure out the management thing. And luckily for us, that kept us from buying properties in 2021 and 2022, you know. So we just pure dumb luck. But yeah, the scaling part is not easy. And a lot of people kind of hit that glass ceiling.

Gino Barbaro 4:43

What you did though during that part of the cycle is you probably bought right. Remember, we were going to talk about a three-step framework buy right, operate, and exit. So you bought at a basis that was probably okay. You bought at the right part of the market cycle because rents are about to start accelerating. But you knew that, I guess with dumb luck. And the fact that you don't want to outgrow your infrastructure, that's where most of us make mistakes. Unfortunately, in our business, when there's deals to be made, sometimes you can't think about that because you've got some incredible deals that maybe may not come back in 10 years.

The Buy Operate Exit Framework

Brian Briscoe 5:14

So you're chasing acquisition fees at point. Well, some people are, but you're chasing acquisition fees, you're chasing unit count, you're chasing those vanity metrics a lot of times, you know. But yeah, anyway, uh buy right. Yeah. So let's talk about your philosophy, the buy right, the operate, the exit, and kind of how that has helped you guys.

Risk First And Investor Expectations

Gino Barbaro 5:32

Let me zoom out for a second for everybody because I think this is important. When we go back to that pre-2008, I had not invested with Jake yet. So I always call it life before Jake. I didn't have a map, I didn't have a process. I was the investor out there that's going, I need a deal. I didn't even know what a deal was. I didn't know what I was gonna do with the deal, and I didn't know how to make money with the deal. I was all over the place and I made so many mistakes before I met Jake. Then I remember in 2013 when we put that first deal down, things started clicking. We're buying from mom and pops, we're buying in a specific market, we're buying at a specific cap rate, we're getting a specific debt, we're gonna buy this deal and operate it this way, and then here's the exit. So the whole business plan or framework started crystallizing after that first deal. And it's just a repeatable process. When you take this framework, you can go out and buy a self-storage with it, you can go out and buy a business with it, and that's alleviated a lot of the mistakes. It was a great run-up until 2021. And like you said, in 21 and 22, the framework was just not allowing us to buy any deals. And we're just like, we're not gonna buy this deal. We know that the finance right doesn't look right here. We know that we can't exit this deal profitably, it doesn't make sense. So for anybody out there, it's buying, it's operating, and it's exiting. When you put all three of those together and you build parameters, obviously the parameters for self-storage to buy an asset are gonna be different than multifamily, but you need to go out there and create it. And the reason why I love this framework is I was at an event about three years ago, it was a syndicator event. I forget the gentleman's name. I am good friends with him too. Um I'm on stage with Jake and I look out to the crowd and I say, Hey, how many of you out there have a buy right criteria? And nobody raised their hands as if they had no idea what I was talking about. And I'm like, you guys don't have immediate income metric, you don't have a place in the market you want to buy, you don't have a unit count, you don't have like two beds, one bath, townhomes, you don't have amenities, you don't have age of the asset. And they were looking at us like deer in the headlights. They were doing what I was doing in that last part of the market cycle. You're not crystal clear on what you're buying, you're gonna be in big trouble. And the problem with that is it does change throughout the market cycles. And if you don't understand or adapt to that, you know, this buy right criteria that I have today is not the same thing that when Jake and I started, it's far from it because the market cycle has changed. So when you look at a framework, whatever one, pick one that works with you. But you need to be able to buy these assets and understand why you're buying them, to be able to tell your investors, to be able to tell the brokers why you're doing it, be able to have to know the operation, which you're talking about, the KPIs and the metrics to run this thing. And then ultimately, how are you going to crystallize that equity? Are you gonna refi the deal? Are you gonna sell the deal, or are you gonna hold this deal long term and you're okay with that? Understanding those three, putting those three together will, as Trump likes to say, limit the downside risk and the upside will take care of itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian Briscoe 8:24

You know, that's something that I think the more that I do this, the more that my focus is on that downside and not the upside. Yes, you know, you know, with the financing, you know, uh, it's just bridge loans, you know, I they always have a chance to bite you, you know. It doesn't matter where you are, if you can mitigate a lot of that downside. The problem is this is uh, I guess it depends on how sophisticated your investors are. If you have really sophisticated investors, they see mitigated downside and they're happy, right? The less sophisticated investors, they're only looking at the upside. This is something that uh, you know, I've been talking with my partner about quite a bit is how do we educate that kind of middle of the road investor to make them see that you want to mitigate the downside first? Because we've had people interested in our deals that have gone other places because their slide deck has a higher number.

Gino Barbaro 9:15

Anyway, love the approach, but is that a bad thing though? Ask yourself, is that a bad thing? Because that may be one of your core values unconsciously, is where you want to limit downside risk and your marketing, your messaging should be to that. And if you want more sophisticated investors and that's what they're gonna want to hear, I don't look at that IRR number. I don't really care about that number because we don't syndicate, even if you are focused on that number. Well, how are you getting to that number? And you know, explain to me what's going on. So for any investor out there, they need to understand that it's really like building a foundation. And if you don't explain that to your investors because all they're looking is at rosy pictures, now the great thing about it is now you've seen what's happened in the last three years. Now people will come back and go, oh, money's not free. People have lost a lot of money in real estate, real estate's risky. Now we're here to really limit that downside risk. We're willing to take a little less on the upside, but we're willing to protect your capital and get your capital back to you. If you have that conversation, that resonates more with I think the average investor as well.

Portfolio Strategy And Vertical Integration

Brian Briscoe 10:16

That's a strong, strong story on that one. So but awesome, awesome, awesome. So you talk about the buy, the execute in in general. What does your portfolio look like right now? And like how did you set it up so that you know you're not in a position that a lot of other operators are in where let's face it, a lot of operators are sitting with a lot of distress, and you know, a lot of them have a couple losses under their belt now.

Market Reality And Conservative Underwriting

Gino Barbaro 10:38

Well, before we hit the record button, we had a I would say a beautiful conversation. I was like pouring my heart out to you. I wish you're pouring your heart out to me. Yeah. And it was interesting. I'm like, Brian, I look good now because I didn't look good back in 08. I made all of those mistakes back in 08. But the difference is that I learned from those mistakes. There was a big problem, and I picked up the phone and I said, Hey, can I join a mentorship program? And at the time, I spent almost 30 grand back in 08 to learn multifamily because I didn't want to lose another 150 grand that I had already lost. So I learned all these processes, and to me, it was like life-changing because I understood I started understanding the business. And then when you know, 21, 22 came around, we didn't start jumping at deals. We said, How is this making any sense? Like we can't make this sense of this. And I'll give you an example how we got lucky. In the beginning, in that market cycle, we were able to buy some deals that had uh seller financing, which really helped us because we didn't have to bring that liquidity in, that equity in. We were able to partner up with our business partner, Mike, who had a strong balance sheet. But who saw the value who saw the value in us? Mike is, you know, runs a hedge fund. He's a smart guy, but he doesn't have time to do multifamily and he loves multi, he loves real estate. So he partnered up with the two Jabronis, Jake and Gino, because we were doing it full time, but we needed him for his balance sheet and liquidity, but he needed us to execute this business plan. So it was a beautiful marriage. In 2017, that word syndication pops around, Brian. And we're like, you know what? We have to start syndicating deals because everybody's doing it and we have to learn it because we want to start teaching it in our community. We syndicated three deals because there was a stop gap. Because what happened was I was still working at the restaurant in 2014. So whatever money I made from the real estate went back into the real estate. So whenever we refinance the deal, it goes back into the real estate. The restaurant is paying for my lifestyle. And I did that for five years. I was actually a beautiful thing if you can do that too. I was fortunate enough to do it. I was working a lot of hours, but I'm like, you know what? I don't need to buy a Porsche. I don't need to, you know, whatever money's coming in, we refired millions several million millions of dollars each. So that was able for us to continue to expand the portfolio. But in 2018, that's when we're like, we're down to money. Let's go out and start syndicating. And we did three syndications, they went for all full cycle, really great. But what Jake and I realized was if we can fund our own deals, you know, we're not going to be able to buy a thousand units a year. That's okay. We'll we're we're we can buy 200, 250 units a year. We're vertically integrated. As you had said before, we can't outgrow our infrastructure. That was the mindset with us. We just started slowing things down, being able to buy things internally within three hours of Knoxville, so we can manage it ourselves. Obviously, there's less deal flow, there's less vanity, but we're really building a business that's scalable, that we can control, that we know understand what our KPIs are. So for us, it was buy ourselves, syndicate, then go back to buy ourselves. And listen, Brian, the toolbox is still there, it's still open. If a deal comes or we can't buy with our own capital, we can always take that hammer out called syndication and syndicate a deal. So I'm not saying it's off the table, but for the last four or five years, we haven't had the need to. But you know, when you say when a dam breaks and these deals start coming, they come all at once. We may not be able to fund them all at once. Yeah.

Brian Briscoe 13:57

Yeah. You know, and right now, I mean, looking at what's on the market, I think I've got 14 properties in my portfolio right now. Looking at where the market is, you know, we're really close to that bottom. You know, I thought we hit the bottom last year, but some markets, you know, are still bottoming out. But when it comes down to it, what seller is going to put a property on the market knowing that we are at the bottom right now? And the answer is the guy that absolutely has to sell.

Gino Barbaro 14:24

Uh-huh. Yeah.

Brian Briscoe 14:25

So I think we're still a year or two before buying starts getting easier, but there's just just not a lot of properties on the market.

Overpaying Lessons And The Value Of Partners

Gino Barbaro 14:32

So and the properties that are on the market, you just got to be very careful. They're older properties, they have a lot of capex. I mean, you can't buy 1970s at a six cap when interest rates were seven. You can't buy negative leverage in this part of the market cycle. So you just have to be wary and you have to buy in actuals and you have to understand in your marketplace where is economic occupancy. Because right now, nationwide, occupancy is at like 92, 93% on average, where two or three years ago is 95, 96. So if you're underwriting for 95% for 2% rent growth, and really it's 90%, if you're lucky in some markets, because some markets are even below that economically, you're going to be in for a world of hurt. That's what the buy right criteria comes in, understanding where you are in the market and being conservative. And what you said rings true, limiting your downside risk. You're not going to get the deal, but that's okay because no deal is better than a bad deal.

Brian Briscoe 15:26

Yeah. You know, makes sense, you know, internally. But the hard part is setting that criteria, being disciplined with that criteria. If you don't have that criteria, and this I'm I'm talking from experience on this one, I remember one of the first deals that we were doing, one of the first deals we had under contract. I was sitting with the broker at lunch and they said, Hey, I've got this deal. The owners told us they just want it, they want to sell it. A couple weeks later, I asked them, Hey, is that still available? And they're like, Actually, right after I told you about it, they told me to pause. And so here I am, knowing that I'm the only person that knows that this is potentially all right. And I'm thinking, no competition. Awesome. I didn't have that criteria set, I was brand new. You know, just the idea of if I can meet that seller's price, I've got a deal. I I've got something, I've got something. And without that criteria, I stretched it a little bit. Looking back at it, I probably overpaid. It was 2019, so yeah, but I overpaid at 2019 prices, and but uh I overpaid at those prices, but fortunately we had a market go up. But that actually, yeah.

Gino Barbaro 16:36

It's important that story because I had told you before we hit record that Jake has never lost money on a real estate deal. And I think he's the only investor that I know that has not lost money in a deal. It's because I did in 2007. The same thing. I bought a property and I vastly overpaid. I did so much capex on it, and I held that property for 10 years. It was like a soul-sucking 10 years. Every time the phone would ring, I'd see Lou, property manager. We got a problem, Gino. What's the problem today, Lou? I mean, it was G- I hear good news every once in a while, Lou. Come on, every I mean, like for 10 years, this thing sucked at my soul. So that's why I was very diligent and having a great partner. And that's the thing. When you're by yourself, you don't have something to bounce off. You have this cognitive dissonance and you have this bias that you think you're smart and you think you're great. But when you pass it off to somebody, they start poking holes in it. It's like, oh, good. You need some objectivity in your life. And I that's what Jake and I give ourselves. So if you're afraid to go it alone, go out and find somebody that you can compliment. Go out and find somebody that you trust and that you value. And you say, Well, that person would be great to be in business with. Because that actually saved Jake a lot more than it saved myself because I was not willing to do a bad deal. Because 10 years thinking about Lou, I don't want to have another 10 years of my life to deal with a problem like that. So we've passed on so many potential deals that now looking back, we should have bought them, but that's okay. Because I'd rather pass on a deal and limit that pain than have the worry about, oh, I made 20 IR. I'd rather take that off the table.

Brian Briscoe 18:12

Yeah, and uh you mentioned this before. I mean, you guys have been very selective on deals, but you've still been able to pick up a couple of good properties. Yes, yes, yeah.

Start Smaller And Build The Process

Gino Barbaro 18:20

And that's the thing when you when you think about it, you could do more in five years than what you think of. And and and in people overestimate what they do in one, but they underestimate what they can do in five. Like in our first year, we got goose eggs, 18 months for our first deal, but within five years, we were at like 700 units. Like things start escalating because people start seeing what you're doing. They start saying, Well, you asked me to invest three years ago, I didn't want to invest with you, but now you got any deals. That's what ends up happening. And don't be enamored by saying to yourself, I need to go big, I need to buy a hundred units on my first deal. That's not how life works. I started with a quad back in 2002 and I bought a couple of smaller deals. Jake and I, our first deal was only a 25 unit property, but it got us in the game. So that's the goal. The goal is to get in the game and see if you like the game and see if the game is where you want to be for the next five or six years. And then once you do, okay, let me learn how to really build this thing. Let me learn how to become diligent on how once again buying, operating, and exiting. And then once you start doing that, it's okay. It's never gonna be the right time to start. I've got six children. I don't ever remember saying to myself, now is the right time to have a kid. It was never the right time to have one kid, and it's never the right time to start something new. It's just once you've decided you've had enough pain being in the restaurant, hiding in the kitchen, washing dishes. Once it comes to that point and you're like, This life sucks. That's when I said to myself, I think real estate's the is the new path for me.

Brian Briscoe 19:54

I'm glad you mentioned the don't go after that hundred first off. You know, I attended a conference recently where their group tells everybody, you know, if you want to end up in the hundred plus units, you might as well start there. You know, and I'm scratching my head thinking, I've been doing this for six years now. My last acquisition was six million dollars 27 units. You know, and I haven't done a hundred plus unit deal in four years, you know.

Gino Barbaro 20:21

And they're hard to come by now.

Brian Briscoe 20:22

That's that's why, yes. And I'm scratching my head thinking, you know, how is somebody brand new gonna, you know, automatically be able to jump in, buy right, and know they're buying right, operate and exit with yeah, zero experience, zero credibility. Anyway, I uh that's one of the things that uh you know really kind of irked me with how they were presenting stuff.

Family Money Education And Barbero360

Gino Barbaro 20:44

But uh let me share a quick metaphor for everybody to understand what we're talking about. If Brian one day decides that he's hitting his midlife crisis and he's like, I want to run a marathon, is Brian gonna get up and run 25 miles tomorrow? He's probably gonna get up and maybe run a half a mile and see if he likes it. He's gotta buy the right shoes, he's gotta be in the right condition, he's gotta feel good, he has to have it on his vision. It has to be really, this is really what I want to do. But you start training slowly and you start building up and you give yourself within the next 12 months, I'm gonna do it. You're not gonna just wake up one day and go, I'm running a marathon next week. Let me hit the tracks, I'm gonna do 25 miles. That's not how life works, and it's the same thing with investing.

Brian Briscoe 21:23

And if if you do that, you know, I know somebody who did that. Now, I am almost 50, so that midlife thing was perfect. Turn 50 later this year, but uh, you know, 10, 15 years ago, active duty military, we're all in pretty good shape. I know somebody that went out and just ran a marathon. You know, his his longest run prior to was 10 miles. It's amazing. But how many people do you know do that? Like, what's the what's the probability of that happening? He did it, but how did he feel the next week? He was out of commission for like the next two weeks, you know, stress fractures, shin splints. You know, so many other problems, and he's he regretted it. He's like, Man, I wish I didn't do that. But uh I mean, I think it's a great example because I've seen somebody try to do it, succeed on the marathon, and then just uh, you know, in the whole next month, limp around because my hip still hurts, my knees still hurts, my ankle still hurts.

Gino Barbaro 22:18

But uh I would recommend the book called Atomic Habits. James Clear wrote it. You probably read it, right? And I'm sure a lot of the listeners have listened to it. It's on the on the shelf behind me.

Brian Briscoe 22:28

Yes, it's I that that's one book that I have on Audible, Kindle, and hard copy.

Gino Barbaro 22:32

Yeah, I I've actually listened to it as I go jogging now, and I've listened to it four times. And when you listen to it, it's not about the 100 unit goal, it's about the process that you need to build up, the process of running that marathon. Once you fall in love with that process of talking to brokers, of talking to investors, of getting on podcasts, of underwriting deals, once you fall in love with that process, inevitably it will take you to the 100 units, but you have to build the muscle to get there, or else you're gonna quit after two weeks because you just burn yourself out and you know it's unrealistic. So get that book, read the book, digest it, read it again, and start mapping out how you're gonna get to your 100 units.

Brian Briscoe 23:08

Yeah. When it comes down to everything, right now, our we're hyper focused on capital raising right now. And what we've realized is exactly what that book teaches. You know, if you do the right things, eventually you're gonna get the results, you know. And if you can consistently make those right things a habit, eventually those results are gonna come in. And so, yeah, you focus on doing the right thing first. So I got three questions always ask at the end. First of those is what's next for you?

Gino Barbaro 23:35

Great question. Yeah, and I've probably hit my post-midlife crisis like you. Um I'm in my mid-50s right now, and it's been great. It's been a good ride multifamily. We're gonna still continue to buy, uh, we're still looking for acquisitions, we're continuing to grow the portfolio. We're trying to become the Chick-fil-A of apartments, believe it or not. And that's Jake's motto. He wants to start delivering superior customer service, whether that's retentions, whether that's maintenance requests, whether that's getting fives on all of our scores when we're turning a unit, when we're delivering a unit, that's what the focus is on the business. On the personal side, I've started a business with my family called Barbero 360. We're really focusing on family, faith, and having families talk about money because families with financial intelligence can change the world for the better. And once we empower families and parents to be able to talk to their kids about money and not avoid that conversation and prepare them for the real world. So when they become adults, they can have some semblance of a good relationship with money. If we can help parents and families do that, that's what the mission is for us.

Brian Briscoe 24:42

And that's huge. I mean, you're one of very few people that have more kids than I do. I've got five. I think you said six, you know. You won that game. Um, but uh yeah, it's that that's a hard one, you know. Hard subject to to talk about and get kids to listen. I think that's the harder part is uh getting the kids to listen.

Gino Barbaro 25:01

But you gotta make it fun. You have to make it fun. I wrote a book called Baby Money Soldiers. I mean, if you want to email, I can email to anybody. It's Gino at Jake and Gino.com. It's basically teaching kids finance through through games, through visuals. You know, sit down and play Monopoly with the kid. Sit down and play cash flow from Robert Kiyosaki as a kid. Don't tell them, but involve them. I mean, Robert Kiyosaki's game is great. He's got a balance sheet and an income statement there. A 13-year-old's filling it out. It's fun. Then all of a sudden they say, Oh, wow, what's an asset? It's on there. So you have to make it fun, but you're mirroring that that uh skill or that habit to the child. So you just need to be careful if you're mirroring stress and anger when it comes to money, kids pick up on that unconsciously. So just be aware of how you are towards them. And the worst thing is to avoid it altogether because you don't want a child growing up in their 20s going, I don't even know how to balance a checkbook. That's what you'd want to try to avoid at all costs.

Mentorship Over Street Learning

Brian Briscoe 26:02

That resonates. I mean, I I think I've done better than my parents, but one thing that I definitely make sure I do is if I've got my kids in a car and I'm close to one of our properties, uh swing by. Yes, yes. Yeah, we'll walk in, we'll talk to our leasing agent or the property manager or whoever's there. I'll grab the keys to the vacant units. And um, that's one thing that uh that I try to do. And my son got, I mean, he was this is several years ago. He was probably like six or seven years old. He's he's he's 13 now. Um, but I remember explaining it to him, and I said, Well, we buy the property, and then the people that live here pay us money. And he just thought about it, and his eyes got really big. He inhaled, like, oh dad, we need to buy more of those. You know, but uh yeah, that was that was like the the best learned teaching moment I think I had ever. But uh um anyway, people listening, uh Barbaro360.com. I'll throw that link in the show notes. And then he also mentioned his free book. I'll I'll throw a link to how to get that in the show notes as well. All right, Gino, next question for you. If you had to give advice to somebody who is just starting out, what would that advice be?

Gino Barbaro 27:16

There's two ways to learn. You can either learn on the street or you can learn in the classroom. Most of us learn on the street, we don't know any better, and now the streets become AI, right? I think if you're really serious about this business and doing this long term, if people are willing to spend $200,000 on a four-year degree, that is pretty worthless at the end of the day. Your RI is horrible. Go out and find a mentor. If you want to learn how to coach a multifamily, Brian is here. He coaches people. Find somebody who resonates with you, find somebody who aligns with your values, find someone who has had success because success leaves clues, and go and I don't want to say just mentor, actually pay that individual. Because once you start investing in your education and once you start having some skin in the game, everything changes. You know, Claude is great, Claude can teach you anything, but you're not accountable, Claude. Are you gonna take Claude's advice? But if you've got a coaching called Brian next week and he's paying you, and you've got to in, you know, look at three markets, underrate five deals, and that Brian is expecting you to do it. You're not letting Brian down. You'll let Claude down, but you're not letting Brian down. You're gonna do the uncomfortable call, you know. Yeah, it is. Make it as concise as possible. If you're serious about being in the business, go out and find a community and a group to invest in.

Brian Briscoe 28:35

Yeah. Love it, love it, love it. And uh, you know, just doubling down on that one, you know, my biggest kind of hockey stick growth moments have all come after state coaching, you know. So I wish I would have, you know, cracked that nut a lot earlier. I think I was 41, 42 when I same here, brother.

Gino Barbaro 28:54

Yeah, same here. Wow. At least you cracked it. Most people don't crack it. That's the thing. You cracked it. Cracked it. All right. Last question. How can listeners learn more about you? Just go to barberow360.com. If any of this resonates with you, if you want to work with your family, if you want to subscribe to our podcast, we have the Jake and Gino show. And I've I've actually got a show with my son. He's 23 years old. We call it the Happy Money Podcast. It's really a conversation between a young adult and somebody who's made a lot of money and see what the differences are. If you want to be part of that community, just go to barbo360.com.

Brian Briscoe 29:27

Awesome. And we'll put a link. I already said we put a link to that. But yeah, you can find the podcast there and and everything. Now, I did pull up that link, and there's also a Julia and Gino show.

Gino Barbaro 29:38

Yes, me and my wife have been doing a podcast for seven years. We actually, in yeah, because we've we've really, my wife's a life coach. Yeah, family coach, high, high performance coach. She's incredible. Homeschools the kids. So she got at one point, she saw me being a life coach. She goes, What's this life coaching thing? So she became a life coach, and we've been able to you know interview guys like Dr. Gary Chapman three times, Dr. John Gray, who wrote Men Are from Mars, Women A From Venus. We've we've interviewed some incredible people on the show, and it's like our weekly therapy. We get to sit there, we banter back and forth, and we're able to have these conversations with these incredible thought leaders.

Brian Briscoe 30:12

Awesome, awesome. Well, for people listening, that's also available. I didn't know you'd been doing that for that long, but uh wow, I just saw on the Gino 360 or the Barbera 360, and I'm like, that's that must be new. But uh fun. Wow, awesome. Well, hey, Gino, very much appreciate your time today. You know, a lot of you know, golden nuggets for people who are listening. And if you listen to this podcast, go back and listen to it again. I mean, there's a lot of things in there that you need to hear again, that I need to hear again too. But thanks a lot, appreciate you, and I'll be following you now on Barbero360.

Gino Barbaro 30:46

Yeah, thanks, Brian.

Brian Briscoe 30:49

Hey, I hope you got a lot from today's conversation. Uh, if you did, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. We're on all major podcast platforms and YouTube as well. Now, if you're ready to move from listening to actually doing, check out the Tribe of Titans multifamily investing community. That's where investors go deeper with live discussions, real time QA, and practical support around capital raising, finding deals, asset management, all of it. All right, you'll find everything you need at thetriboftitans.com. That link's in the show notes, tap it, and we'll see you there.