REL Freedom Podcast

Dipesh Sitaram - How The Wealthy Really Build Wealth

• Mike Swenson

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What if everything you've been told about building wealth is only part of the story? Dr. Dipesh Sitaram was a practicing dental surgeon who discovered that even a high-income career wasn't enough to create true financial freedom. Instead of relying solely on traditional investments like stocks and retirement accounts, he began building a multi-million-dollar portfolio through private real estate and alternative investments—the same types of opportunities that many wealthy investors have used for decades. 

As the founder of Responsible Real Estate and Acuere Capital Partners, Dipesh helps physicians and everyday investors understand how to evaluate private deals, generate passive income, protect their assets, and build long-term wealth with confidence. We explore why diversification matters, how private investments differ from the public markets, the mindset required to think like an investor instead of an employee, and practical strategies for creating financial freedom that extends beyond a paycheck. This episode will challenge the way you think about money and open the door to opportunities many investors never even know exist.


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Why High Income Still Feels Fragile

SPEAKER_01

The way I saw it is I was one car accident or one skiing accident away from like having no income type of stuff, right? So like if if my hands stop working or or whatever, I mean I can't continue doing uh that. So I have to I had to build up other things that can you know generate a revenue stream.

Show Welcome And Real Estate Mission

Mike Swenson

Welcome to the real freedom show where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together. If you want to get started on your real estate journey, check on our website, freedom throughrealestate.com. It's where we post all of our blogs, all of our episodes for you to find somebody, find a story that you connect with, and hopefully inspire you to get into real estate or to take a bigger path inside of real estate because it's a fun space. There's a lot of cool stuff going on, and excited to talk about

Meet A Dentist Turned Investor

Mike Swenson

some of that today. So we've got DePesh Sideram, practicing dental surgeon, and we realize that trading time for money, even at a high income, wasn't a path for true financial freedom. So you're doing what most physicians never do step outside the stock market, build a multi-million dollar portfolio in private investments. And we've had a couple of folks on that are in the medical field that are doing this. And so I'm really excited, DePesh, to hear your story and what you're building. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01

Looking forward to it, man.

Investing First And Living On Cash Flow

Mike Swenson

Take us back, start us a little bit more uh closer to the beginning here, how real estate and why real estate, and uh we'll take it from there.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Uh, you know, luckily for me, I grew up in hospitality in the hotel industry, right? Being being Indian. And you know, being grown growing up in it, being around it all the time, working in it, uh growing up, it was kind of it just becomes ingrained in you, essentially, right? And I went to to to uh undergraduate college and I was a kind of a business major. Uh you know, part of my part of it was the the business, business management side of things. And I just happened to get into dentistry by chance, right? And in dentistry, I had a successful TMJ and and you know, oral surgery type practice, practiced for 20 years. But the beauty of it is early on, you know, out of the gate post-residency, I got involved in investing in real estate. Uh, so you know, I did it kind of a it was kind of a unique path because typically a normal person would take their surgical income, buy a house, buy a car, do all the things, right? And then do the 401ks retirement plans, yada yada, yada. Uh, I did it kind of backwards. So I would take my surgical income, invest first dollars into either you know real estate stuff, regardless of the asset class. And also I was kind of doing lending on the side as well. And as that kind of grew in the income from that, I would live off of that income. So I would never spend my dentistry income. I would always invest that out, and then I just basically ended up compounding that over 20 years.

Mike Swenson

So early on, uh yeah, kind of what what were you looking for, or kind of what what types of real estate investments?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so early on I naturally migrated into hospitality, whether it was building hotels, buying hotels, uh, and and and the nine yards in even operations. From that, you know, I got involved naturally into multifamily, uh, and then that grew into other asset classes as well, right? So I almost kind of tell people I've I've I've done most all of the asset classes at this point. I've not done like uh retail strip centers or warehouses and data centers or anything like that. But you you know, your modern go-to asset classes have kind of been involved in at some point or the other, uh, which has been interesting. And and the cool thing is you on the PLs, you kind of start quickly learning about the good, bad, and ugly of investing in the various asset classes, right? And then when you study all the historicals, then you start formulating, okay, moving forward, how are you going to make changes? What are you gonna pivot into? How do you reinvent yourself and and those types

Hospitality Deals And Hotel Development Lessons

SPEAKER_01

of things?

Mike Swenson

So for you, having grown up in the hospitality space, it probably comes a little bit more natural for you, but but talk about for somebody looking at different asset classes, what is it about hospitality for you? It's probably probably what's comfort in terms of like it's what you knew and what you're familiar with, but what are some of those benefits that people really like about the hospitality industry, specifically for you know putting their investment dollars?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So the you know, the the the beauty of a hospitality early on was for me it was easy because I I grew up in it, right? So I understood customer service, understood, you know, you know, turning over rooms efficiently, cleanliness, customer service, um, you know, the rate structures, you know, supply and demand type of stuff. So you kind of learned those things growing up because you know, we were kind of a mom and pop type hotel.

Mike Swenson

Were you in Austin growing up or where where was your so we're in small town, Louisiana? Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Little different from where you are today, a lot different than today. So small town population of 2500. And you know, it's uh smaller, small hotel. We kind of grew up in the place, right? Uh, you're doing all the back-end stuff of room cleanliness, you're doing the front end stuff, you're doing the laundry, you you're basically the whole staff uh on it, right? So you learn all the various aspects uh of the business, uh, which was which was great to see as a kid. I kind of kind of wish my kids would do all that kind of stuff too. But you know, times are different now.

Mike Swenson

In terms of you know, kind of picking investments, was it through people that you knew, people you had worked with or connections you had made there, or was it specific opportunities that you had saw that popped out from other hospitality opportunities?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, combination of both. So, you know, doing hotels with people I knew in the market. I was I was doing residency in Indiana at the time. So I did all my dental education at in Indiana. And afterwards, I set up my all my practices there, and all the surgery centers are there, uh, and retired from surgery there as well. Uh after that, I moved to Austin, right? But you know, I started out in the hospitality space for myself in the Indiana market, right? Okay, and then grew from there, you know, outwardly.

Mike Swenson

And are these new ventures? Are these kind of takeovers and kind of re-repositioning assets, or what what types of stuff were you looking for?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so so probably half of the portfolio was like new construction of hotels, uh, and then the other half was acquisitions. Uh, I've only been involved in a handful of repositions, and those are tough. Uh and it gets very expensive really quickly as well, right? Uh but like the development is kind of where I'm more well versed at uh in in that space. And then going through the management cycles, the economic cycles, COVID, kind of seeing how the industry's kind of grown up and changed as well with the market conditions. Uh so it's been an interesting journey, especially in hospitality.

Mike Swenson

I mean, yeah, COVID, COVID, you can probably write a book on itself in terms of how to how to survive and how to adapt and change for lots of industries.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I'm sure it's the same with with your multifamily stuff that you guys do, you know.

Mike Swenson

Well, and I know Airbnb's changed a lot through COVID. And so yeah, there's there's a lot of different stuff there. So now are you bringing in other investment partners that you're having to convince maybe isn't the right word, but kind of show them hey, you you haven't maybe invested in hospitality in the past. Here's that, or is it mostly kind of you and all your friends for for lack of a better term, or kind of business partners or connections you've made in the past that are investing in these deals? Are you going and finding new capital?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so the the way I'm we're doing it now is we do an investment.

Pivot To Healthcare Real Estate Strategy

SPEAKER_01

Usually it's through uh my office, essentially me. And I co-founded the subsidiary company, which is more of a platform company, where if other people want to come alongside investments that I do, then they they can do that. Uh okay. Um and now kind of our our go forward strategy is more in the healthcare space, um, especially like in surgery centers and things like that. Why? Because I understand the operating side of the business, because I was in it for a bunch of years. Uh I understand the mentor and consulting side of it to help the practicing physicians grow, right? And for us now is more of the the real estate play behind the surgery centers uh and and across that sector essentially. But these are all equity takedowns, so we're not really using debt, which is why we'll uh you know, uh we'll partner up with other groups for this purpose.

Mike Swenson

And is is this uh kind of markets all across the US? Are you targeting certain areas and then um new construction builds or is what you're focusing on?

SPEAKER_01

So the surgery centers are gonna be acquisitions that we're doing, right? Acquisitions, long-term holds, um in locationally kind of agnostic, right? It has to be the the right deal, it has to make sense. Um you know, I obviously I have preference to the Midwest, I have preference to Texas, uh just because of geography.

Mike Swenson

So acquisition, so it's something that's uh they're already running their business and struggling with, or you guys are coming in and adding value in in a different way, or how do how does that work, or kind of what are you looking for?

SPEAKER_01

These will be like new build surgery centers. Oh, yeah. Yep, you know, uh triple net structures, tenant occupied, right? So more I would call it stable assets, uh more than anything else. I'm you know, I'm not getting involved in any value add type of stuff at this at this point of where I'm at in my career, you know. Got it.

Mike Swenson

Yeah, that's why because when I said new construction earlier, that's what I was meaning like new new builds, new new surgery centers that are being added, not necessarily something that was already happening and you guys are are taking it over. So um, okay, so then it's it's you know, where you guys are looking is it you're looking for obviously there's there's got to be the need there. So analyzing the markets and determining okay, where where do we need to add this stuff?

SPEAKER_01

And yeah, so look at we look at several things pretty closely, right? So mark where you know where things are needed. Obviously, there's a tremendous need for healthcare, aging population. You know, you've heard the gambit of things. Secondly, we're also looking at what the insurance reimbursement schedules look like per geography as well, right? We're also looking at uh outpatient surgery versus clinic setting reimbursements, how that's changing per payer. Um, and that makes so you know, some geographies are worse than others, uh, you know, as part of the underwriting we do when we're acquiring real estate, uh, because I'm I'm in it, I understand it. I'm kind of looking at that whole scenario, um, just to make sure, hey, is the actual operating business, the actual surgeons that are operating it, are they gonna be successful? They're set up right, right? Uh and that gives me a check mark on is the real estate investment gonna be safe, steady, and stable uh for what we're looking to accomplish, you know.

Mike Swenson

Now, are they are you focusing on dentistry or is it just kind of all types of healthcare?

SPEAKER_01

So these are more like outpatient surgery centers uh type of plays, right? So little bigger operations than the dentistry uh operations, right? A lot of the dentistry ones are gonna be in your trip typical like strip mall settings. Um we're not right.

Mike Swenson

You want bigger, bigger so it's its own property, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Right. So the scale is you know not quite big enough for the institutional guys, but for a single retail investor, it may be a little bit of a reach. Uh so it gives me the opportunity to, you know, maybe team up with somebody and and do a takedown.

Mike Swenson

And how do how are you coming up with, like you had mentioned, you know, mid Midwest and Texas and things like that? So I'm assuming you've got a team of people where you're you're all kind of analyzing, you know, where to go, but you know, finding those the boots on the ground people, finding the the healthcare companies that you're working with. I assume there's a lot of stuff that has to happen, and you've all got to wear a lot of different hats to be able to pull it all together because it's real estate mixed with healthcare, and then you've got the boots on the ground people running it. There's a lot of stuff to coordinate to be able to say, yeah, let's do this thing.

SPEAKER_01

Right. So, and the good thing is we have a strong team, right? Because it it takes a strong team to to pull it off. Um, and the the beauty of it is each member of the team brings on a different set of eyes, different background experience, and all of that, right? Uh, and I enjoy it because my perspective coming from dentistry is totally different than like my analyst guy, uh, who's like a maestro at spreadsheets uh and all of that. Whereas like me, I'm not like a spreadsheets guy, I'm like like you know, looking at other things like insurance reimbursements, you know, how many surgeries is this guy capable of doing? Which what which specialty is he playing in? And because these are our tenants, right? So we're looking at, you know, we want to have strong tenants so that way our rents get paid every month. Uh looking at it from all various aspects.

Mike Swenson

Are you working with like a certain healthcare provider or are you just kind of putting this together on your own? I I was just kind of thinking, like, you know, I'm in Minnesota Mayo, right? So you've got the Mayo name, they've got lots of locations. And so are you partnering with somebody that already has that history, or you're kind of how are you?

SPEAKER_01

No, we're we're we're doing it on our own in terms of the you know, finding the the places for acquisition. Um, a lot of times they're like, you know, a group will want to sell their real estate, so it's kind of a sales lease back type situation in their private groups. Um believe it or not, they're still private groups out there. There's no mostly everybody's selling out to the the bigger hospitals, but right that that space is still there.

Mike Swenson

You know, the surgeons that you have are these people that are already surgeons in that city, and you're kind of just pulling pulling them in and recruiting them over to what you're doing versus grabbing them from you know a different state.

SPEAKER_01

Correct, correct. And in and you know, the the operating companies already exist within the four walls, okay. Uh, so we're not having to like go find tenants and and all of that. Typically, the ones we're acquiring are you know either fully leased out or 95% of the way there. Um and they're relatively newer assets, new construction, uh, newer construction surgery centers.

How Physicians Think About Wealth

Mike Swenson

So let's take a half step back here because you've obviously talked about your background, how it fits well into investing in real estate. But you had mentioned, you know, here getting back to the most physicians, you know, are looking at investing in stocks and mutual funds and all that until they retire. We've had a lot of people on the podcast that have been in the medical field and said either the schedule doesn't work, insurance company, like just tough all the red tape that's in there. And they're like, I want to go build my own thing. So kind of talk about that being in the medical space in a world where, yeah, maybe there's a lot of people that love the the stock markets or the 401ks, and you were in a a completely different path from just how people think differently and kind of how a lot of those folks were thinking and and why obviously your upbringing brought you to a different a different path than them.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Uh in for me, it was like it was cash flow income, right? And then I took that into the passive side. Over time, the passive side outgrows it. Um, and that was kind of the the name of the game, right? So we used the real estate side really for the tax strategy behind it, for the the aspects of depreciation dependent on which sector of real estate that you're in, for the aspects of long-term capital gains versus ordinary income based on the sector of real estate, how long you've held on to it, when you do the sale and all of that kind of stuff, right? So real estate, it's it, you know, it's a it's a complicated game. You gotta learn the nuances, you have to trust who you're investing into really, really well. Most physicians, and I was a culprit of it as well, right? We just didn't have the time to spend do one doing the due diligence, really understanding that side, right? Now, even though I had a leg up in in terms of going into it, understanding it to some degree, right? Uh but you're still dealing with different asset classes, each each one has its ups and downs. The economic times change, right? So that has its flow, interest rates change, it's an ever-changing market environment. Uh whereas, like when we're practicing you know, dentistry, medicine, whatever, it's it's it's a stable, it's relatively stable, right? Of economic conditions and and things like that, um, irrelevant of all the outside noise and and and things. So but you have to kind of what I did was just kind of diversify in a s and and I kept going at it. And through the good deals, the bad deals, the breakeven deals, you learn something and pick up one or two items along the way. Um, and that's what you know ultimately kind of led to success. And it's snowballs.

Mike Swenson

Yeah, because obviously the challenge on the medical side is, you know, unless you have your own practice, right? If you're just, you know, a surgeon, if I don't show up, I don't make money, right? And so that you will never outrun that. Now, granted, when you're making money, you're making good money, but you you have to insert yourself to continue to make money. When you're running a practice, now you're running a business. But but obviously on the real estate side, you know, you you can be involved, and in a lot of ways you are involved, but you have that passive piece to it where you can be making money without having to insert yourself and and show up to work that day and do your surgeries, right?

SPEAKER_01

And for like, you know, physician investors, it's it's important because you know the way I saw it is I was one car accident or one skiing accident away from like having no income type of stuff, right? So like if my hands stop working or or whatever, I mean I can't continue doing uh that. So I have to I had to build up other things that can you know generate a revenue stream. Uh and the name of the game for me was like figuring out whatever strategy I had to to build up multiple revenue streams, because every stream is gonna have his good times and its bad times, right? And you hope that like it averages out and you're okay.

Mike Swenson

What kind of questions you did you get from your other medical professionals that you know they they see you doing this real estate thing and they're like, hey, well, what do you what are you working on over there? How does that work?

SPEAKER_01

A lot of my colleagues are have invested with me in things that I do uh in various asset classes, right? So it's been a great journey. Uh for them, it's been a really good learning process. And the beauty in it for me is I've played on kind of both sides of the fence, right? So I can relate to the to the you know medical investors, I can relate to the true real estate side investors, and vice versa. So it you know, it's kind of a closer touch point, better touch point, uh a better vote of confidence and trust as well. Uh so that part of it. It just makes it a lot easier for me.

Mike Swenson

More than anybody, you understand the demands of the job and the pluses and the minuses, and you can help people, you know, start to build that nest egg and start to build that momentum that you you kind of had a head start at than than most of your colleagues.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And that's it. You said the the best word, like momentum, right? We have to help create the momentum in a righteous way.

Passive Investing Pitch And Next Steps

Mike Swenson

Are you looking to get started or scale in real estate investing but don't know your next step? Are you overwhelmed thinking about finding deals, analyzing deals, doing due diligence, and managing properties on top of it? Go ahead and push the easy button and invest with us. Real estate investing is what we do full time. We've done dozens of deals with hundreds of doors. We have the knowledge and experience to handpick the best deals that most investors can't find. We've at large off-market deals all the time where you can hopefully find returns and economies of scale that you just can't find on your own. The best thing is it's 100% passive to you for less capital than you put down trying to acquire a property on your own. Don't let this year go by where you don't make the leap, add to your portfolio, or you just sit in analysis by paralysis. To find out more, visit freedom throughrealestate.com and click on invest. You can book a call and learn more there. So get to scaling your portfolio now with us by your side. That's freedomthrurealestate.com and click on invest.

Due Diligence Rhythm And Where To Connect

Mike Swenson

So talk a little bit kind of like what what your your day looks like today here, you know, what a what a given week might look like in terms of your your real estate investing side.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so on that side now, my day-to-day is a lot of reading, a lot of due diligence on deals, uh going through pro foremost financial statements, PLs on deals that we're looking to acquire uh or and or lend to, you know. And you know, going through all of the background facts uh and background checks of the deal to make sure everything kind of scopes out really well.

Mike Swenson

And how much of uh your time is bringing in new new investors, or do you kind of have a group of people that you're already growing with?

SPEAKER_01

We have a uh you know a separate company that I'm affiliated with that handles all of that in terms of bringing investors onboarding uh and showing them deals that I'm we're that we're doing, involved in, investing in uh and all of that. So that way there's no like commingling per se. They're coming side by side into things that I'm doing.

Mike Swenson

And mostly medical professionals?

SPEAKER_01

Is that kind of the high percentage of it uh is medical professionals, right? Uh but it's you know a little bit on everybody. Great.

Mike Swenson

Well, thank you so much for for coming on and sharing. For people that want to learn more about you and and learn more about kind of what you're working on, how can they do so?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would uh encourage everyone to visit the website at curecapital.com, that's a cuer capital.com. Um, and more than welcome to reach out, uh, more than happy to talk to uh anybody that can help.

Mike Swenson

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Exciting to hear people that are able to help train others and and kind of lead others to other areas, especially medical, because um, there's some some cool opportunities and what you're doing on this kind of mixing the best of both worlds. So I'm excited to see what you guys continue to do.

SPEAKER_01

This is great. Uh thanks for having me, man. Appreciate it.