Transitioning from a Career in Dentistry to Real Estate w/ Dr. Roshan Kalra

In this episode of Let's Talk Teeth, we have Dr. Roshan Kalra sharing his journey from dental school to becoming a successful real estate investor. Dr. Kalra began his career in dentistry after graduating from Nova Southeastern in 2017 and immediately opened a practice in Oklahoma. He worked intensively, balancing full-time dentistry and real estate investing, eventually selling his dental practice in 2023 to focus entirely on real estate. Throughout the conversation, Dr. Kalra provides insights into his motivations, strategies for achieving financial freedom, and valuable advice for dental students interested in real estate. Key topics discussed include different methods of property investment, the challenges and rewards of commercial versus residential properties, and the mindset shift necessary to pursue financial independence. Tune in to gain valuable knowledge on leveraging your dental career to achieve financial security and flexibility.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:23 Dr. Roshan Kalra's Journey into Dentistry

01:05 Transition from Dentistry to Real Estate

02:50 Diving into Real Estate Investing

04:19 Challenges and Strategies in Real Estate

09:05 Commercial Real Estate Ventures

13:45 Financial Freedom and Real Estate Advice

30:41 Final Thoughts and Advice for Dental Students

Transcript

Introduction and Guest Welcome

Saad Alamgir 0:07

All right, everyone. What's up? Welcome back to another episode of let's talk teeth. Today we have Dr. Roshan Kalra. Roshan, if you don't mind just. Telling us about a little about yourself where you went to dental school, what you're doing now, and we can just go from there.

Roshan Kalra 0:23

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. My name is Roshan Kalra. I graduated dental school from Nova Southeastern in Fort Lauderdale in 2017. Got an opportunity to open up a practice right out of school. So I opened up a comfort dental location here in moved to Oklahoma all the way from Florida,

Victor Razi 0:42

Oh wow,

Roshan Kalra 0:42

to Oklahoma.

Saad Alamgir 0:43

Nice.

Roshan Kalra 0:44

From beautiful beaches to landlocked state.

Victor Razi 0:47

right, for

Roshan Kalra 0:48

did it with the idea that, I had this opportunity to open up practice right out of school, know, if I didn't do it, I would have always felt like, what if? So

Victor Razi 0:58

sure,

Roshan Kalra 0:58

I was young enough and that if I made a mistake, I could recover. And

Transition from Dentistry to Real Estate

Saad Alamgir 1:04

Right.

Roshan Kalra 1:05

That happened in 2017, opened up my office in October of 2017, practice full time dentistry and did a full time investing in real estate also. So I was working anywhere between 60 to 80, 85 hours a week. And

Saad Alamgir 1:22

Wow.

Roshan Kalra 1:23

in of 2023. I was able to sell my practice and fully exit out of clinical dentistry. Now, now my entire income comes from a real estate.

Saad Alamgir 1:36

Nice. So what got you into that field of real estate? You open to practice and there's enough struggles as it is, learning how to run a business. What kind of led you into also delving into real estate?

Roshan Kalra 1:48

I didn't actually know that I wanted to exit dentistry until a couple of years into the grind pun intended,

Victor Razi 1:54

right,

Roshan Kalra 1:55

I didn't know I wanted to exit dentistry so early on. I just knew that I wanted financial freedom. I wanted the ability to travel the world.

Victor Razi 2:03

right,

Roshan Kalra 2:04

I wanted to able to do what I wanted to do on my own terms, hang out with whoever I wanted to hang out with.

Victor Razi 2:11

right,

Roshan Kalra 2:12

so I started looking in my fourth year of dental school. I started reading just about every book on retirement finance strategies, investing strategies I could get my hands on.

Victor Razi 2:22

right,

Diving into Real Estate Investing

Roshan Kalra 2:23

what it came down to is, you have the traditional method. Which definitely works, which is, over a long period of time, be good about your savings rate, put it into an index fund, S and P 500 index fund, let it compound for 20, 30 years. And with the dental income, you should have, you should definitely have millions in the bank by, by the time you're 50 years old, if you do it right. so there was that and then the other option that I was looking into was real estate and what got me interested in real estate was I set out a goal for myself that I wanted to achieve financial freedom in 10 years or less And the only way to do it that kind of compressed timeline and not making you know I wasn't ever making a million dollars a year as a dentist

Victor Razi 3:13

right,

Roshan Kalra 3:13

have a ridiculous dental income You

Victor Razi 3:16

sure, right,

Roshan Kalra 3:18

and be predictable was real estate investing. So then eventually decided that was the way. And I got really lucky. I joined my comfort dental office. I opened my comfort dental office because of my partner. If he was in Alaska, I would have been in Alaska.

Saad Alamgir 3:33

Mhm.

Roshan Kalra 3:34

happened that, Oklahoma is an excellent market for real estate.

Victor Razi 3:38

right,

Roshan Kalra 3:38

Started investing and the rest is history.

Victor Razi 3:41

awesome.

Saad Alamgir 3:42

Yeah.

Victor Razi 3:42

So how did it work? Did you get into the realty like brokerage side of it? Or was it just like flip houses? How did, how'd you transition into that?

Roshan Kalra 3:51

Yeah, I'm a pure investor. I am not a trader of one job for another job. So I don't work for anyone else. I do not list houses. I don't sell houses for anybody else. I'm not a broker or realtor. In fact, I'm still not a broker or realtor.

Victor Razi 4:10

Right,

Roshan Kalra 4:10

Bought houses. were good investments

Victor Razi 4:14

right,

Roshan Kalra 4:15

and started doing that and just kept on compounding

Challenges and Strategies in Real Estate

Victor Razi 4:18

right. Where or do most of your real estate purchases, are they like distressed houses? Or most of them are like, Just like easy flips.

Roshan Kalra 4:28

Yeah, I love that you asked that because I didn't even know what a distressed house was in my second year of dental school So I think it's fantastic that you already know that term in the beginning and for anyone who's listening who doesn't know a distressed house is a house that is Either the seller is distressed, which means that they need to sell quickly, usually under market value in, in return for selling quickly. So you're getting a deal per se.

Victor Razi 4:55

Right.

Roshan Kalra 4:55

if they're distressed because it needs a lot of work, it needs a lot of fixes, has a lot of repairs that need to happen. I started my path by buying houses that were ready to go, either rented or ready to go.

Victor Razi 5:10

Right.

Roshan Kalra 5:10

found out later on that if I bought distressed houses, I could make my money go way further. And in fact you can actually infinitely buy houses if you do it the right method. By buying a distressed house, increasing the value by fixing it up and then refinancing against the increased value.

Victor Razi 5:31

Nice. So did you have like, where are your resources? That's pretty cool. Like how you were able to just transit. I'm sure it wasn't as totally smooth transition for you to go.

Roshan Kalra 5:41

Oh no, no. It was,

Victor Razi 5:43

Yeah,

Roshan Kalra 5:44

it was I really had a second full time job, which was investing in real estate, not working

Victor Razi 5:50

right.

Roshan Kalra 5:51

But like finding deals, managing contractors, managing property managers,

Victor Razi 5:56

Right.

Roshan Kalra 5:56

Going to the courthouse to evict people. There were all sorts of. obstacles and hurdles and things that had to be taken care of,

Victor Razi 6:03

For sure.

Roshan Kalra 6:05

during that time. So for sure, yeah, it was not a smooth sailing.

Victor Razi 6:09

I can imagine. Yeah. Did you have a mentors on the way or was it just one man shop doing it all?

Roshan Kalra 6:16

I really I read a lot of books and I found people who had who were in places that I wanted to be at and,

Victor Razi 6:24

Right,

Roshan Kalra 6:24

them, Hey what can I do to earn an hour of your time, took them out to lunch, dinner, whatever, basically pelted them with questions, just trying to absorb as much as I could.

Victor Razi 6:35

right,

Roshan Kalra 6:36

then I think one thing that differentiates me from a lot of other people is I didn't hesitate. To jump in I felt like I knew enough and Did I know everything absolutely not but I knew enough to at least buy the house

Victor Razi 6:49

right,

Roshan Kalra 6:50

you know some were lessons and some were home runs

Saad Alamgir 6:53

Mhm. So whenever you're realizing your shift away from clinical dentistry, what made you realize, Oh, this is 100 percent the path I want to take. Was it just one successful flip? Did you have initially and then you ended up, hit hitting gold and then going from there. Was that a tough decision for you to switch out of clinical dentistry?

Roshan Kalra 7:15

So my goal was always financial freedom, which to me was, replacing my dental income And so I replaced I was getting closer and closer to replacing my dental income over time And the closer I got the more disillusioned I got with dentistry I mean It's certainly a wonderful career. Don't let anyone hear my words and think that I'm poo pooing all over dentistry. You get to help people, you get paid exceptionally well, but anyone who says it's not hard on your back, it's not hard on your

Saad Alamgir 7:45

Right.

Roshan Kalra 7:46

state, is out of their mind. It's absolutely hard on your body, it's hard on your mental state,

Victor Razi 7:51

right,

Roshan Kalra 7:52

managing staff can be difficult. Managing a business is its own thing.

Victor Razi 7:57

right. Right.

Roshan Kalra 7:58

and so you get into those kinds of aspects and I'm on one side making money a lot easier than another side. But every day I'm going into the dental chair and dealing with insurances and, you guys as dental students don't have to deal with this yet. But when you have claims, man, they really just suck Of you because you already did the work at that point. And even if you. Sometimes we'll send it into insurance to be like, Hey, give me a preauthorization to get a preauthorization, do the work. And then the claim gets denied. It's crazy.

Victor Razi 8:32

Yeah, that's insane.

Roshan Kalra 8:34

it is just, it ultimately came down to what is my ideal lifestyle. And if I'm able to earn the same money or now currently earn even more money than what dentistry was providing me, why wouldn't I take the easier route?

Victor Razi 8:48

For sure.

Commercial Real Estate Ventures

Saad Alamgir 8:49

100%. I I like the fact that you brought up, the insurance claims and stuff. We haven't yet started clinic, but I'm sure, everyone, all the upperclassmen seem to complain, all the dentists, so I'm sure we'll be getting the first hand experience next year. But I was just curious. So nowadays, what is the majority of your portfolio look like in terms of real estate?

Roshan Kalra 9:11

it's funny what kind of allowed me to get to the point of being able to transition out of dentistry is now by and large, a very small part of my portfolio. I got up to, I don't know, 57 doors or units of residential housing and then now I've transitioned more to the commercial world. And so have five commercial buildings. I do flips I do quite a bit of stuff, but overall portfolio the value, not, I'm not saying my net worth because I have partners and everything like

Saad Alamgir 9:45

Right.

Roshan Kalra 9:45

look at my overall portfolio. Now the value is over 30 million

Victor Razi 9:50

Nice. What what inspired you?

Roshan Kalra 9:53

commercial.

Victor Razi 9:53

Right. Yeah, that's what I was about to say. What kind of inspired you to go the commercial route? Was that always the goal? Or is it harder? Talk a little bit about that.

Roshan Kalra 10:03

Yeah. So I had one call with a buddy and he was doing well in commercial. And like I said, I guess I'm dangerous enough to know enough to jump in.

Victor Razi 10:12

Right.

Roshan Kalra 10:13

now I preach others to be a little bit more cautious than I was in commercial because, when you're dealing with a problem in a house, a single family house at least in Oklahoma, just about any problem can be fixed with an extra 20 grand. commercial, that's not the case. You might need an extra 200, 400, 600 grand.

Victor Razi 10:33

Right.

Roshan Kalra 10:34

So I knew I had a conversation with a buddy of mine. He can, he told me the benefits of commercial started looking into it and jumped in within, yeah, within just over just a little over two years, two years and three months with partners I bought about 20 million a commercial. And

Victor Razi 10:53

Right.

Roshan Kalra 10:53

it became, if I can make. same money from commercial with way less work

Victor Razi 11:00

Right.

Roshan Kalra 11:01

families. And what, what was,

Victor Razi 11:02

Sure.

Roshan Kalra 11:03

doing, getting me transition me out of dentistry, I'm always going for a return on time.

Victor Razi 11:10

Right.

Roshan Kalra 11:10

think,

Saad Alamgir 11:10

Right.

Roshan Kalra 11:11

About return on investment, the ROI, I think that's level one level two then becomes return on equity. ROE. And it means maybe I only put in, let's say I put in 50 grand to buy a 250, 000 house and I'm earning, let's say 5, 000. that's a return on investment of 10%. I earned 5, 000 on a 50 grand down payment.

Victor Razi 11:34

Right.

Roshan Kalra 11:35

But if that 250, 000 house has now become 450, just, obviously that's not the case, but let's say it did. You have the 50 grand that you put down as equity plus the additional 200, 000 of equity. So now you have 250k of equity that's earning you only 5, 000. So then ROE, even though your ROI is still 10 percent or more, your ROE is significantly

Victor Razi 12:00

Right.

Roshan Kalra 12:01

That tells you, Hey, I need to sell this asset, move it into something that gives me a better ROE.

Victor Razi 12:06

Right.

Roshan Kalra 12:06

level two. Level three then becomes ROT, return on time. And so now it's like, all right, I don't actually care so much about ROI and ROE. Like I'm good because my expenses, my lifestyle, everything

Victor Razi 12:20

It's comfortable.

Roshan Kalra 12:21

but now what I want to do is maximize the amount of money I make with the minimal amount of effort.

Victor Razi 12:28

Right.

Roshan Kalra 12:28

that's where commercial really stuck out for me is because it takes

Victor Razi 12:32

Yeah.

Roshan Kalra 12:33

time in comparison than single family houses.

Victor Razi 12:36

That makes perfect sense. And I assume that initially you were going into it on mainly an ROI and then potentially a little bit of ROE and you've transitioned into ROT,

Roshan Kalra 12:47

That's exactly right. Yeah, ROI was what allowed me to have my metrics on whether I bought a house or not. And so if it met my cash on cash standards, then I would pull the trigger.

Victor Razi 12:59

right.

Roshan Kalra 13:00

then eventually, between 2020 and 2023, we had this huge jump in values and now they're cooling off a little bit, but they're still inflated compared to 2020. during that time, now my ROE went down instead of selling my assets. I did huge refinances. So I

Victor Razi 13:18

Okay.

Roshan Kalra 13:19

Off of the new higher value took that money and reinvested that money. And

Victor Razi 13:25

Right.

Roshan Kalra 13:25

that's really where I went from, okay, I got my art. My ROE was too high or too low. Rather I refinanced it and now my ROE is again, back to normal. It's good, but now I have this huge amount of money. What can I do with it to increase my ROT, my return on

Financial Freedom and Real Estate Advice

Victor Razi 13:44

Yeah, that makes sense. Rohan, I got a kind of a controversial maybe to some people topic and it sounds like you're pretty risk averse. So I want to ask, what's your take on like debt? I know you're in real estate. And real estate is a very, yeah.

Roshan Kalra 14:00

called risk averse. I think most people think I'm way too risky. Yeah, I have over 20 million dollars of debt. So I think most people think that I have way too much risk

Victor Razi 14:11

Okay. Yeah.

Roshan Kalra 14:13

I think that there is certainly I actually had a big mindset shift recently in the last year. And it was because of an issue on a commercial property where this would be an issue that could cost upwards of 2 million. And so now I've realized, okay, debt has allowed me to grow where I wanted to grow.

Victor Razi 14:32

Right.

Roshan Kalra 14:33

I'm 32 right now. My goal was by the age of 40 to have an asset. a portfolio of assets worth a hundred million not again, not net worth, just the value, right? So it would be like a hundred million of assets against maybe 80 million of debt.

Victor Razi 14:48

Right.

Roshan Kalra 14:49

when I realized, Hey, we're dealing with something that could cause a loss of a million, 2 million plus. I had a mindset shift where I'm like, all right, I've grown enough. I have plenty of assets. Now I'm going to focus the next eight years on paying down debt. So absolutely. I think there's a such thing as good debt and bad debt.

Victor Razi 15:09

Right.

Roshan Kalra 15:09

good debt creates you, gives you income, bad debt, loses you money.

Victor Razi 15:14

Right.

Roshan Kalra 15:15

But then once you reach a certain point, it is, I think in my eyes, at least it's beneficial to start thinking about, okay, even though it may not be the biggest. R. O. I.

Victor Razi 15:25

Sure.

Roshan Kalra 15:26

To be able to get rid of my debt so I can sleep easier at night and have no have nothing happen where if I lose a million or 2 million, like where It's going to suck. There's no doubt about it, but I'm not going

Victor Razi 15:39

Right.

Roshan Kalra 15:39

I'm not going to be like having seriously dark thoughts because of it,

Victor Razi 15:44

Fair enough. Yeah, that makes sense. So like early on in your game, did you leverage your dental income right out of school to get into real estate? Or did you take on private loans per se? Use another financing route to, to delve into real estate.

Roshan Kalra 16:01

man. You've done your research on these topics. I'm assuming like have you read books on real estate or People?

Victor Razi 16:07

my cousin, he's he actually he's big in real estate, big big on like flipping, not he's an agent too, but he's more on like the development side. So I just, honestly, I talk and listen to him. So I got to give him credit for the little bit of what I have also.

Saad Alamgir 16:22

Yeah. He's

Victor Razi 16:23

Cool.

Saad Alamgir 16:23

his cousin is actually my neighbor. So I've known him and his cousin for like over 15 years, but yeah, that, that guy has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to real estate.

Roshan Kalra 16:33

that's pretty cool. To answer your question, I took on bank debt when I bought properties and then actually I made partnerships, which allowed my. Partners to put in the money versus me putting in the money

Victor Razi 16:47

Right.

Roshan Kalra 16:47

I set it up where they would put the money up front They would put the money up front, but then I would pay them back over time my portion of the down payment So let's say a down payment was 20 grand And let's say it was me and one partner technically it should have been 10 grand him and 10 grand me, but he's putting the full 20 grand So he puts the full 20 grand I do all the work You And I'll pay him the 10 grand back over time, over five years. And so what I did was I started by taking all my dental income and every time I made 20 grand, 25 grand, I would take that, use it as a down payment for another house. Then. I started getting into the partnership model where now I get someone else to put the down payments and I'll trade all the work and do the sweat equity per se not like construction. Like I, I don't know which hammer hits the nail, like not that,

Victor Razi 17:46

Fair.

Roshan Kalra 17:46

work in terms of

Victor Razi 17:47

Right.

Roshan Kalra 17:48

the contractor, handling the property managers, finding the house, figuring out the funding in terms of bank loans, All of that kind of higher level stuff I handled and so it allowed me to scale and the same thing I did with commercial and so what that's allowed me to do is be highly leveraged But also be no money down for my entire board.

Victor Razi 18:11

Nice.

Saad Alamgir 18:12

So I'm not as in tune with real estate as Victor is. And I'm sure some of our listeners are feeling the same way. So could you provide an example possibly of what an ideal investment for you in a real estate looks like?

Roshan Kalra 18:25

Sure. There's so many different asset classes. So An asset class is basically are we talking about a single family house? Are we talking about an apartment complex? Are we talking about a commercial building? Are we talking about, now I act as a bank, so I actually lend money to other people to do fix and flips. What, all of those have different ideals. Which one are you specifically referring to?

Victor Razi 18:51

I feel like I want to answer this for him. I feel like someone that is just getting out of dental school and wants to get into real estate. Would you say that's what you're thinking?

Saad Alamgir 18:59

Yeah, definitely.

Roshan Kalra 19:01

There's two ways to think about this. You can have someone, specifically this is going to be for someone getting out of dental school. I talk and teach to a lot of dentists. right out of dental school as well as 20 30 years into their career. So someone getting out of dental school, you have two, two options. One you generally will have an associateship. You generally have a contract and a salary off of which you could buy an investment property that you don't live in and they, banks will look at what's called a debt to income. And so they're going to make sure that with your student loan debt and now with this new mortgage that you're going to owe, you're still able to cover your expenses and you can buy a house in your name without living in it. 20 percent down doing it that method. One is very hard to find nowadays because the price of real estate is so inflated and so expensive compared to what you can get it rented for. Generally you buy a nice house and let's say you rent it out for 2, 500 bucks. mortgage might be 3200. So you're actually negative cash flow. So that what I'm going to say, the ideal that is almost never the case right now, although it used to be the case and potentially could be the case in the future. For a solid amount of cashflow. Let's say what I always tell people is determine your idea of what return you want. So let's say it's 8 percent or 10 percent or 12 percent doesn't matter. What you're going to look for is that your rent. Subtract out your principal, interest, taxes, and insurance, that's called PITI, and subtract out four other things that most people don't do. One is property management, even if you self manage. one is going to be maintenance, even if it's condition. Another one is called capital expenditures. And I'll explain that in a second. And the last one is vacancy, even if it's 100 percent rented. Reason you have a property management expense allocated. So my formula is going to be, I want 12 percent return, which is rent minus your PITI, and I'm 28 percent of rent to cover for property management, maintenance, capex, and a vacancy. The reason why you're going to include property management regardless of whether you're self managing or not is the idea of real estate is to have freedom and Freedom if you're managing this house. Maybe in the beginning you do. I managed the first 15 houses until finally my time was worth more than what I would traditionally have. Have to pay a manager,

Victor Razi 21:46

Right.

Roshan Kalra 21:46

eventually the point of this is freedom, right? We're not investing in real estate because we want to deal with problems in real estate and landlording issues We're doing it. We want freedom.

Saad Alamgir 21:56

Right?

Roshan Kalra 21:57

Eventually even if you don't have it right now, we'll want a manager So you have to allocate some expenses for that managers are generally eight to ten percent then Maintenance issues even if you have a brand new house, there are maintenance issues that are going to happen sure over time Maybe it's not as much But you still gonna have to deal with maintenance. And so if you're not expensing for that in your formula, when it happens, you may actually find out after all, and said, all is said and done, but you didn't actually make any money. So you want to expense for maintenance X, which is capital expenditures. Those are big ticket items like roof AT& T or AC system, foundation, flooring, things that don't really get replaced all that often. But when they do get replaced, it's a 5, 000, 10, 000, 15, 000 expense.

Saad Alamgir 22:46

Right?

Roshan Kalra 22:46

For that in the beginning you start allocating for that as soon as you buy it So that way in five years when you do deal with that problem, it's not coming out of your cash flow You already hadn't saved up

Saad Alamgir 22:58

Almost like a rainy day fund.

Roshan Kalra 22:59

In the last vacancy because no matter how good your house is There is going to be a moment when you have vacancy And so You're putting I put five percent you put five percent away for vacancy So that way You know, you have it rented for, let's say two or three years, and then suddenly you have two or three months of vacancy because you have to repair, the normal wear and tear of a, someone being in there for a couple of years, you

Saad Alamgir 23:23

Yeah. Yeah.

Roshan Kalra 23:29

You're not losing cashflow either because you saved away for that. So in my I do 8 percent for management, seven and a half for per cent for maintenance, seven and a half for capex. And 5 percent for vacancy, but it's extremely location specific. What I tell you doesn't matter to anyone else. I'm saying is if you want to find your ideal number, you've got to figure out first, what is your return that you want? 8%, 6%, 10%, 12%, whatever return you want, allocate, okay, what's rent, subtract out PITI, and then also variable expenses that may happen in the future or fixed expenses like property management. Things like that will allow you to get into A unquote ideal investment. The second one, as a new grad is use a doctor loan, which will allow you to be 0% down. Get into a house that would make money, live in there for a year, move out, and now you can rent that house. So you're basically buying a house that will future be a rental. You get to do it with 0 percent down because there's doctor loans that allow that. And then you have to only live in there for a year after a year, you get to move out and rent it out. Now, when you're a hundred percent leverage, chances are you aren't going to cashflow. But if I told you, Victor, or if I told you guys, Hey, you got into this house for no money downs, 300, 000 house. It's only going to break even for the next 20 years or 30 years. But at the end of 30 years, that 300, 000 house is worth 700 or 800, 000. And you literally paid nothing for it.

Victor Razi 25:12

Right.

Roshan Kalra 25:12

imagine if you do that as many times as you can, which is 10 times.

Victor Razi 25:16

Yeah. That's it. It

Roshan Kalra 25:18

no reason why someone, especially a new grad shouldn't be able to start figuring out the plans to have a three to 5 million real estate portfolio, even with little to no money down.

Victor Razi 25:31

makes sense.

Saad Alamgir 25:32

I really appreciate that information. You made it clear and understandable. So

Victor Razi 25:38

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir 25:38

As someone who doesn't really understand real estate, that was very easy to follow along and I'm sure our listeners will appreciate that. But I had a question about. That actual real estate properties that you own is you mentioned that it's a site specific. So are your most of your real estate properties around the area where you're from? Or do you have any properties that are maybe across the country or in another state or things like that?

Roshan Kalra 26:01

So my residentials are all in Oklahoma City where I'm based out of now. Because residential properties require more management, more hands on oversight, even if you have contractors working for you, even if you have a property manager working for you, it's extremely difficult to manage a rental, especially once there's turnover, once a tenant moves out and you need to get it fixed, it's extremely difficult to manage that from a, from like outside of the city. If you're more than two hours away from that house, it's extremely difficult to manage. all my residential rentals are here in Oklahoma City. Now when you get into commercial you get a different level of sophistication on your property manager Those property managers are generally college educated have extremely Well done systems. Usually the firm that's managing your property has an in house accountant In house like every like the sophistication level of someone who is a commercial property manager is generally many times Higher than a residential and because of that You can manage from outside of the city. So I have one commercial property in Oklahoma city and four in four other states, one in Indiana, one in Florida, one in Missouri I forget the one in Virginia.

Saad Alamgir 27:22

That makes perfect sense. I guess I had a question. So you've obviously delved a lot into the real estate now. And you had to take out a lot of debt for dental school. Is there any type of regret for going to dental school or is it all just part of the process?

Roshan Kalra 27:38

That's a great question. So let me answer it two ways if you don't mind. If I had to do it again, knowing what I know now, there's zero chance I would have done it. Because I know there's an easier way to get to where I am at right now without needing to go through dental school. the caveat to that is going to be, I am not where I'm at right now dental school.

Saad Alamgir 28:01

Right.

Roshan Kalra 28:02

was because of dental school that I forced myself to learn about financial freedom. And also, my partners in commercial and residential are all dentists. who's

Saad Alamgir 28:13

Really?

Roshan Kalra 28:14

not have had the opportunity, or who's to say I would have had the

Victor Razi 28:17

Right.

Roshan Kalra 28:18

I have now, had I not gone to dental school.

Victor Razi 28:20

Makes sense.

Roshan Kalra 28:21

no regrets whatsoever. However, with the knowledge I have now, if I had to do it again,

Victor Razi 28:26

Yeah,

Roshan Kalra 28:27

be no need.

Saad Alamgir 28:28

Yeah.

Victor Razi 28:29

that makes sense. What Roshan, what advantages would you say that I know you mentioned the 0 percent down for the doctor loan, but what other advantages would you say a dentist has when a dentist wants to get into real estate versus just the average Joe, if any?

Roshan Kalra 28:47

Dentists are like a banker's wet dreams. We,

Victor Razi 28:51

Fair enough.

Roshan Kalra 28:51

they love, they salivate over us.

Victor Razi 28:53

Yeah.

Roshan Kalra 28:54

historically make a lot of money. And typically are with bad money management tend to do extremely well compared to the average American and the ability to service debt is quite optimal for a lot of bankers. I think having your license and the fact that you are a dentist makes it easier to approach banks and be bankable.

Victor Razi 29:20

Right.

Roshan Kalra 29:22

perfect example of this is I bought my first real estate transaction was actually for eight houses at one time

Saad Alamgir 29:30

Wow.

Roshan Kalra 29:31

did not have, I was an owner, right? So I didn't have a W 2, I didn't have a salary,

Saad Alamgir 29:37

Right.

Roshan Kalra 29:37

have a tax return. I was eight months into my ownership

Victor Razi 29:42

Right.

Roshan Kalra 29:42

filed my first year of taxes. And I got a loan on that those eight houses on a commercial loan because a bank believed in me because I was a dentist

Saad Alamgir 29:52

Right.

Roshan Kalra 29:52

I was just a normal real estate investor There's no way a bank would have let me money as a self employed

Victor Razi 29:59

Makes sense. There's a lot of leeway. It sounds like with the a few, the few letters we have behind our name to be able to have the financial opportunity to do that

Roshan Kalra 30:10

Yeah, absolutely You know Regardless of whether you want to continue doing dentistry for the rest of your life or for a shorter period of time I was, I always say it doesn't, it should, a dentist should only, it should only be 10 years or less for a dentist to achieve financial freedom. And I was fortunate enough to do it in six years, but really that's a dentist, not an average person because of those letters behind her names that open up doors. That the average joe would not have access to

Final Thoughts and Advice for Dental Students

Victor Razi 30:40

for sure. And Roshan, as we're closing here, what what kind of inspired you to, it seems like the, with the situation you're given, I guess I would have the idea of maybe going like brick and mortar, like opening up dental offices, as opposed to real estate and kind of, Leveraging real estate in that fashion. What kind of, was that an idea you had at all? Or you just wanted to completely disassociate from that industry, the industry.

Roshan Kalra 31:08

okay, so this will be a good one for your listeners I believe in you guys as well Dentistry will make you more money than real estate if you go that route and you open up multiple practices, you will become wealthier than me You'll become wealthier than most real estate investors dentistry Especially when you open up multiple practices And you do it successfully and you do it well. If you have that entrepreneur bone in your body, you're going to be wealthier off of that, ultimately at the end of the day for me. Dentists are extremely stubborn, hard headed, and tend to be hard to work with, and hire, and manage. And a house doesn't talk back.

Saad Alamgir 31:49

I like that.

Victor Razi 31:50

Yeah, that makes sense. It's actually close.

Roshan Kalra 31:53

if I had to manage 50 dentists, or if I had to manage 50 houses, I know which one I'm picking, even if that's not the most financially prudent

Victor Razi 32:02

Yeah, a property manager sounds like it's a lot harder in the dental field than in real estate. As

Roshan Kalra 32:10

100%.

Victor Razi 32:11

we close here, Roshan, do you have any final advice for dental students that want to transition into real estate? Any general opinions or expertise you have?

Roshan Kalra 32:22

Yeah, I would say never think about actually transitioning. Your goal shouldn't be to necessarily change careers or change jobs. Yeah, I think it's a fine goal to have. Trying to achieve financial freedom because let's say you're a dentist and you want to open up a Cosmetic, you know only practice or a med spa kind of style practice or an implant only practice the idea behind financial freedom is that it gives you options and choice So you can become the exact kind of dentist you want to be if that is a certain kind of dentist or in my case You can become the kind of dentist I that I want to be which is a volunteer I go and shadow and that's excuse me not shadow. I go and volunteer and have people shadow me As a volunteer dentist, things like that. And so what it really needs to be is don't have your goal as I want to transition to real estate because that's

Victor Razi 33:19

For sure.

Roshan Kalra 33:20

You, your goal should be, I want to have financial freedom so that I have choices and then when I have choices and I can choose the kind of dentistry I want, for example, I want to a fee for service office. If your income, your dental income, doesn't need to be necessary for you to have the lifestyle you have, you're able to make your money from other sources of then you can go fee for service and do the kind of dentistry you want to do. And then when you're happy doing the kind of dentistry you want to do, you're going to become an even more excellent clinician and practitioner. Practitioner. So

Victor Razi 33:54

Yeah.

Roshan Kalra 33:54

my thing would be, Hey, just don't think about transitioning. Think about financial freedom. Start at the end in the envision Your perfect ideal life, figure out what that's going to take and work backwards to achieve it.

Saad Alamgir 34:09

Right.

Victor Razi 34:10

Awesome.

Saad Alamgir 34:10

that's great. Trish on. We really appreciate having you on and I feel like our listeners really enjoy this one just because it's so different than the type of content we have, but we really appreciate or respect your grind and appreciate you taking the

Victor Razi 34:25

For sure, man.

Saad Alamgir 34:26

us. Thank you again, man.

Victor Razi 34:27

Yeah,

Roshan Kalra 34:28

Thanks for having me on.