Episode 9 - Interview with Burt Mulwitz

 In this episode of Disclosures & Consequences, I sit down with veteran real estate broker, investor, mentor, and author Burt Mulwitz. With decades of experience buying, selling, investing, and navigating changing markets, Burt shares the lessons he's learned from a lifetime in real estate. 

www.burtmentor.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to Disclosures and Consequences. I'm your host, Jason Piske. And today I have a special guest with me. I have Bert Mulwitz. He's a 50-year veteran in real estate, has done over a billion dollars worth of transactions. And he's here to talk about uh some of the things that he's done and how that kind of relates to uh the disclosures and the consequences accordingly. Uh so Bert, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

So a little bit of background about me. I started as an agent in Los Angeles. Um I know I don't look that old, but yeah, I am what I am. I started in 1972 as a real estate agent in Century City next to Beverly Hills. And I was um became very proficient at cold calling owners. We uh it's directory of owners, uh, it's still made today, and uh, but I was afraid to meet anyone, so I would send my partner to uh get listings, and we did really well for about the first three months, and then by accident, I decided to buy my own listing, which was a 10-unit building in Hollywood, and I just kind of reinvested my commission, and I I'm not mechanical and I didn't trust the management company, so I decided uh the minute after I bought it uh and closed that I would um resell it. So it was a highly leveraged transaction because I reinvested my the commission, so I really didn't make any money yet, and I sold it. Um actually, my first transaction was a little more complicated than I expected. Uh, I traded for some income property, uh, a house and a building lot, and I just picked a number literally out of the air what I wanted to sell it for, the building, my the 10 unit. I um I didn't do anything to it, I was actually only there once. And um, so I got six times the amount of money that I put up uh within about two weeks. Uh yeah, it was the this nice, very nice lady. I have this great long-term memory, so I remember details from 50 years ago. Her name was Madge Bratmarkle. How could you forget that name? And um, she just drove by the building and she says, I'll give you the the price you want, and but I'm not gonna give you any money. In today's world, most people just hang up. I said, Yeah, sure, that sounds nice. And she says, I have an equity and a rental house in Glendale, and I got a building lot in Northern California. And so I went to look at her properties and we decided to trade deeds, and then I sold her property. So it was kind of a multi-step procedure. But from that point on, um, I said, I think I should keep cold calling as a buyer. I just changed my mind from being an agent to a buyer, and I bought and sold that way over a hundred times in um California and about seven other states. The largest building, um, which is one of my um transactions that will be on my course at Burtmentor.com, by the way. If I could plug my my website, it's B-U-R-T-M-E-N-T-O-R.com. And so the largest property I ever bought with um no money down for five million dollars, and in Houston, Texas, 340 units on 18 acres. And when I was done negotiating with senior lenders, one of them being the government, um, my costs went from 5 million down to under 3 million. Um, so that's the largest one I have. But I've had a lot of buildings around LA that were like 30, 40, 50 unit buildings, and so I just taught myself, totally self-taught. There were no books and courses about anything, and how to very uh patiently take every step along the way from finding it to you know to closing on it. Uh I did own buildings for a period of time, but a lot of times, especially when I was younger, I would just, you know, find a buyer to pay more than I was, even without closing it yet. So it's called a double escrow. Right. Uh, because you know, of course, the escrow company knew, the buyer knew, the seller knew in most cases, and you know, nobody ever complained about anything that I did. In fact, um, I've had a broker's license in 76, 1976, not 1876, 1976. And I've never had one complaint, not even a complaint. So I was very careful, and I believe in win-win. Uh, I would always analyze what people wanted, what their motivation was, and whatever I could do to make the transaction work. So, you know, nobody complained afterwards. So I was always very straightforward with you know what I was doing. And it was kind of being uh, I guess a hybrid between being an agent and a long-term buyer. I I just didn't like management, and I didn't, you know, for the most part, not all the time, but trust other management companies. So um I've done many, many different types of transactions. Uh I could tell you one more I did. I was there was a building, I used to play golf every day. I was a golf addict. Did you ever play golf?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Are you a golfer?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah, I'm terrible, but yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Well, I'm terrible now, but I wasn't terrible then. That was in the mid-80s. So uh the golf pro at my country club was trying to sell an 18-unit building in Phoenix. And um a few I wasn't interested then, but a few months later, I said, Did you sell the building? Because I was into much bigger stuff then. And he says, No, it's in foreclosure. And I said, Why? You you owe like 300 and something, it's worth 500 and something. And uh he says, Well, we had a balloon payment due of 60,000, a second mortgage. And the limited partners just decided they didn't want to come up with their share. And so I said, Well, then I guess just deed it to me. I didn't even look at it. So now I own this building, I go look at it, and I cured the foreclosure and uh decided this building should be condos. Well, there were no condos anywhere around it, but I thought, okay, I'll be the first condo conversion in that neighborhood, which is what I did, and I went through every step along the way, never did it before, and I hired a lawyer, and I probably earned close to 500,000 with none of my own money because I just got a new loan to pay off the existing loans, and I used um some very creative, you know, totally legal, of course, uh techniques to allow buyers who were non-owner occupants to buy it with 10% down. Do you know what PMI insurance is?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

So I had to, I remember I had to use, I don't remember why, but I had to use three different PMI companies to ensure the first, well, I guess 10 or 20% of the loan, so that I could just market it to um uh investors with 10% down. So I sold the whole building, paid the loans back, and I was very happy. So I taught myself from A to Z how to do that. And that's one of uh the courses that I'm teaching, or one of the classes on what my whole mindset was from A to Z, even though I had never done it before. Um for some reason, I um I love puzzles. Anything that's difficult, uh if it's too simple, I get bored. So if it's a complicated transaction and it has a lot of twists and turns, I just learned from my father if you're gonna start something, then figure out a way to finish it. So my dad was a brilliant guy and he took me everywhere and he solved problems instantly. Like I've never seen anybody solve problems that quickly. So that's more of my education than going to college. And my mother was an artist and she was very creative and very funny. So they're both inside me all the time.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

I want to talk a little bit about um, because you you covered quite a bit there. Um so primarily you've done transactions where you're buying residential properties, um, and then either you're flipping them or you're holding on to some of them as ongoing rental income. Is that my yeah?

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Well, the longest building I've had was for five years, quite quickly. I was in Dallas, Texas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Uh but a lot of times, you know, I would, because they're highly leveraged a lot of times, and uh again, very simple. I'm not mechanical and I didn't trust management companies. So, you know, like why am I doing this? Um, and it was, you know, if I didn't think that I could make more because I wasn't at that point early on when I was 24, I wasn't even asking for a listing on a building. I was just I'd already decided that if I can pay this, then I could sell it for this. But the hard part is I'm not touching the building, I'm not raising rents, uh I'm not doing anything except it's all called, you know, knowing what the value is of what you're buying. It's not very easy to do, but you got to know the value. Right. Um, I in fact I bought more 24-unit buildings because I got used to it. You know, it's uh we're creatures of habit to some degree. And so I just got comfortable with a certain type of building. It was in the San Fernando Valley, and I call them sea buildings in sea areas because um the next person who was going to purchase it uh from me always saw the potential of what he could do. And that's why he would pay, well, at least more than I was paying. Otherwise, I I've never sold something at a loss. I just knew what I was doing because I taught myself what the value was or what it could be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

So when when you're when you're looking for a property, um, you said you're you know what you're looking for and and everything else, but are you doing any kind of um other than market analysis? Are you doing any kind of due diligence on the condition of the property at all? Or uh when you're when you're approaching them, are you asking them to disclose like if they have any issues with termites or or lead pipes or or anything like that? Or are you just buying it as is and then literally flipping it to somebody else?

SPEAKER_00 10:42

You know, it's a very good question. The ones that I decided to keep, I would go through everything you're talking about. But you know, I just had a whatever sense that I'm I'm that that I'm buying this undervalued. There were many times I didn't even inspect the building. I just knew that um the building had uh potential for increased value. But because I really in these cases where I was double escrowing them, I wasn't uh the the of course the person who's actually buying it from me would go through all those steps.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Right. And you know, and I'd have to be the uh intermediary to uh to solve those problems because I was dealing with the seller and the buyer at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

But in those cases, you're telling the the new buyer that you're still in the process of buying it yourself, and so you don't necessarily know the condition of anything, so you're not you're not hiding anything from them. You're just you're you're the like you said, the mediary. You're buying it from this person, selling it to this person, and the the the new buyer has to just do their own due diligence and make sure that they're they're getting everything that they need.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Right. It was, I guess, just using the word hybrid, that's really what it was in those cases. I was between being an agent or a broker and a long-term hold. And the title company knew what I was doing, the escrow company knew. So I, you know, and the the lender knew because I didn't have title.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

But as far as due diligence, the the last person, which would be the person I'm selling it to, would go go through those steps and I would, you know, have him come to the building and inspect everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

No, I thought that makes sense. And that's and that's still something that can be done today, especially in in the kind of this litigious world we live in, especially I mean, I'm in the state of California, that's where you've done most of your transactions. But um, is that still something that can be done today without getting you know, without fear of being sued after the fact?

SPEAKER_00 12:49

As long as you have full disclosure of any every kind you could think of, can't have enough. Right? So there's no hidden things unless someone says they didn't read the document. But I understand that's that's what you do. You explain it to them. I'm you know, I don't I my profession is not what you're doing. I hope that they could, you know, hopefully read English. If they didn't, well, we got an interpreter, but you know, here's all everything. I I mean anyone can look under my license, you know, and see I've never even had a complaint, which I'm kind of surprised at because some people say, well, he bought the building, he sold the building. Never had one complaint.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Well, no, I I think that's kind of more my question because you've you've got this course that you're uh you're you're starting to teach uh through through your website. Um and so you're you're trying to transfer all this knowledge that you've gained over the over the years to kind of the next generation, if you will. And I I think that the the listeners that are are are listening, especially because you said like your very first transaction, you you know, you you were able to to sell it quickly and and double escrow's and all that kind of thing. And and if that's something that's still available today and and and doable today, I think, especially people that are just kind of entering this this sort of world, it'd be good to know that that's still something that's that's potentially available.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Well, I would say probably, I don't know, a very high percentage of people never did what I did, and they buy a building to keep it long term. I mean, I could say that the you know, I've made some mistakes in not keeping things for, you know, 40 or 50 years, because that, but that's how I made a living. You know, I've been around the world several times and had a few toys. So it was usually almost every time more than it would have been if it was a commission as an agent. It just, you know, was it maybe it was it was more difficult, but I wasn't at that point when I did this, I wasn't asking about a listing. I was just going in as a buyer. It's a whole different mindset.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

It really is. And that's I that that's kind of another thing I kind of want to point out is um as a as a realtor in in California today, I get bombarded daily, uh, usually many times a day with just random text messages from house flippers that are looking for off-market listings to go in and buy low and flip and sell high, and they're doing all the work and they're trying to turn it over within 30 to 60 days and all that kind of thing. Um, you weren't even doing that. You were buying it and immediately selling it without even touching it. Um, and the other people that tend to go after the multi-unit properties, um, at least from my experience, they're looking at it more from a standpoint of, okay, I'm going to buy this, I'm going to fix it up just to a point, and then I'll turn it over to somebody else and sell it to somebody else. And you weren't even doing that. You were going much faster, shortening that that turnaround time because you weren't looking at, oh, I need this kind of rent or anything else. You didn't, you didn't even really care about the rentals in particular. You were just flipping it. Am I following that right?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yes. And it was, you know, I didn't like raising rents. I didn't like displacing anybody. And, you know, that's one of the reasons I didn't want to own something, uh, I mean, for too long. I just I don't know, because I put myself in their position. If I was a tenant and I'm there for 20 years, even though I'm paying half of what I should be. So I didn't like that. So it was kind of a it was a shortcut, so I didn't have to deal with what you know, those issues, management problems. Um, I mean, I have managed my own buildings in the beginning, which I just, you know, I didn't like. It's I guess it's like the book, and I didn't read it, which is The Art of the Deal by your favorite president, which was I guess he only liked the, you know, the art of the deal, the beginning and the end. I found that I liked the beginning and the end. That was more, I can't say, stimulating for me. I mean, I literally when I think I was probably 27, I owned this uh, I don't know, 40-unit building, and I called the manager on the eighth day of the month. I said, and I said, How much do we have in the account? I just want to make sure I can make the payments, right? Till I sold it. So, and a lot of these buildings, I was only like the ones I was flipping, maybe they're just once, right? Or maybe again when I, you know, was showing it to a prospective buyer or inspecting the building with the buyer. Um, so anyway, the whole thing is I just didn't like management. Uh but I do hold the record. If anybody can beat this record about the shortest escrow of all time, you want to hear that story real quick?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yeah, I'm I'm very curious.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

So one, you know, again, probably 90% of the time I'd be cold calling, but occasionally, if I was in the mood, I'd answer an ad in the newspaper. So 46 units in Van Eyes. Right, and it was an ad in the paper. Okay. And so I talked to the owner directly, which was most of the time, one way or another, even with a broker, I would want to talk to the owner to see what kind of flexibility it was. Right. So it was a big burly Russian weightlifter, and he was an actor and very nice man. And uh so I said, I'm going to Hawaii in a few days, but I like the sound of your building. Can we meet at a we met at a delhi. And so I decided to buy the building, and he agreed to sell to me with 10% down and take um the the loan subject to. So I wasn't assuming liability. It was okay with him, subject to, because I was gonna just keep making the payments, of course, until um I sold it. Well, during that week, through a few conversations, I realized he only cared about getting money in the future. He didn't really care about now. So I don't remember every detail, but instead of buying it for 10% down, I bought it for 1.4% down. That's pretty good leverage. What is that worth? What's that worth to someone else? I don't know. I just knew it had value. I didn't calculate it exactly, but I just decided to put an and the paper for um, I think it was I laid out 18,000 for a million three building. I put an end to paper to try and sell it for 200,000 more. Now that takes a lot of nerve, right? I only owned a building like a week. Um, I don't know what most people do. Maybe they'd say, well, okay, I put out 18,000. I own the building. I want to make $10,000, but I put an ad in for $200, so someone just starting out in the business called me and he drove by the building. And uh he says, uh, I'd like to buy the building. We went back and forth on the phone for three or four days on the price. He says, I'm willing to give you $125,000 and I'll take over your loans. I'll take over the building. And now I said to him, which was very impulsively on the phone, I hadn't met him yet. I said, on one condition that we open escrow tomorrow morning and we close uh tomorrow afternoon. Now, how many people would say that to a buyer without scaring them away? Would you say that to a buyer?

SPEAKER_01 20:29

No, I I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Well, for whatever reason I did. I felt comfortable that that was a possibility. He said, Sure. We met at the escrow company parking lot, and the first thing he said was, We're not going inside. It's not my money. I said, Is the money green? Whose money is it? Where's the money? Show me the money. He said, It's my tax attorney's money. He says, Within two hours, you'll have your money. Went to the Century City to the tax attorney, and he gave me a check for $125,000. Right. Um, and that was it. I've done business with him since then, but that's the closest, I mean, the shortest escrow I've ever experienced. It was about two hours. Right? Actually, there was no technical escrow. I just gave him the deed. I quickly named the building to him. Wow. So that's unusual. But a lot of stuff I've done is unusual. That's why people want to go and join the course. But a lot of this stuff is tenacity, nerve. I actually asked Chat GBT, give me 50 words that describe what I've done. All 50 words were correct. It's just amazing how it gets to know you. Anyway, so in the course, I would be like I'm going to have like 10 classes that just go over everything, my whole mindset from A to Z, how I found the transaction and how I went the whole way. And I'm actually going to have an interactive class with people asking questions. I would stop the video that I've, you know, that I've done, which is the curriculum, and I'd say, Mary, just Whoever's in the class, how would you handle this objection? What would you do if you were me? And then I would continue, you know, the video saying, Well, this is what I did. So it would be an interactive class with everyone. I would ask them questions, make sure they're paying attention. And so it's basically I want to kind of clone myself, but I there's certain things I can't teach how much nerve you have, how creative you are. But I've come up with answers to objections very quickly. And again, it was my father's, you know, my upbringing with my father, because he was just brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Uh another question that I want to have, and I'm I'm already picking this up from you, is that when you were when you do your transactions, you're not looking at um, oh, I need to sell this to get one over on somebody because I have to get a certain profit. You you already know kind of what that future value is of the property. You're getting it at a lower price. Not that you're pulling a fast one or doing any kind of shenanigans on the front end either. You're offering a fair value to the current owner, knowing that you've got connections that are are going to get garner a higher price. And so you're just doing it all kind of upfront. Am I yeah?

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Well, nobody ever complained about anything. They they got what they they wanted. I mean, sometimes obviously the price might be higher than if it was higher than what I thought the current value was, um, I would go on to the next one. Because unfortunately, I didn't have a friend or a partner or broker, I'd say, here, list the building with with, you know, I just went on to the next one. In fact, it it does uh remind me of one story. Um, by the way, my CRM, if everybody knows what a CRM is here, custom relations management, was a shoebox with eight by ten cards and days of the week, the month, I'd fill up, talk to Joe. He's going bowling tomorrow, call him the next day and ask him how his bowling was. I had hundreds of those conversations going, right? And now, of course, they have CRMs to, you know, to do all that. Um so I would have continued, and then oh, I know where I was going with that. So I remember going to meet someone at a building at West Hollywood to to buy the building, and the price that I th I thought was above market, or certainly above what I wanted to pay to either own it or flip it. And I didn't buy it. I called them a year later, and uh the price was higher, but the market value was much higher too. So I did buy the building. That was the first time I've ever done anything like that. I actually paid more than I could have a year ago, but this the spread, it's it's really kind of you could call it real estate arbitrage, is really what it is.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

And that's really what it sounds like. Um yeah. Okay, nice. So um kind of shifting gears a little bit here. Um, I see also that you're that you're an author, um, and and that you you you wrote a book uh a few years ago. Uh can you tell me a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Well, it's about personal experiences about yeah, it's called The House That Built Me. It's on Amazon. And uh unfortunately I lost my wife when my uh she was 30 years old. She died in her sleep. And I just built a big house, and uh my daughter is three. So I raised her uh myself. I I did have nannies, and but um there were a lot of uh you know in you know inferences in the book about how I raised a child by myself, and I'm a big kid to begin with, but uh I did, excuse me, have to pat myself on the back. I did such a good job. She's she's a professional athlete and she's very happy in her life, does very well. And um, she replaced me though with her boyfriend, which I couldn't have found a better mate for her. He's fabulous. She listens to him. She doesn't listen to me so much, but she listens to him. So anyway, I'm very proud of myself for doing that. So the book is partially about that and some experiences that I've had, and it's called The House that's built me. It's on Amazon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

And that's more on your personal life. It's a little bit of real estate too. Yeah, it's somewhat. Yeah, but it didn't list all these different transactions that I want to have, you know, in my course. I basically picked out 10 interesting um challenging transactions that I've done, which is the curriculum for the course. The first thing, if I could explain, and I'm open to suggestions, is uh to have a and I will have an intake form. I want to make sure someone's interested and can afford something. And they fill that out first on the website, and then I look at that and decide, you know, who I want to speak with for free for like 15 minutes or longer to get an idea of what they want to learn, what level of they are, are they a beginner, you know, so I can you know put them in the right class so they're not they're not bored, but it could be a new person, so I can you know talk about simple things or very sophisticated things. So I don't want to have too many really like experts in the class with a beginner because I would bore. So it's a kind of matter of combining the right class anyway, and it would be live interactive. And um, the next thing is to join a free class, I would go over from A to Z one transaction, and they would ask questions like, How did you do that? What did you think of this? And you know, and I'd want it to be interactive, so they felt like they're learning something, and I could see that they're learning. And I would ask, so I have an objection that I've already handled, of course. I would say, okay, how would you handle this? And I'd ask everybody in the class. So that could go on, who knows? There's no time limit, could go on for at least an hour, even though the actual video um interpretation of the transaction would might be three or four minutes, but I would stop the video and say, Okay, guys, what would you do here? Right. And hopefully they would learn if they you know had how to do what I did, either no matter what part of it, no matter what part of the transaction they want to learn from.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

That's that's interesting because not all courses are interactive that way. Um, trust me, I've been through dozens of real estate courses and everything else. And a lot of times it's just speaking at you. Um that's why I thought of it. They'll ask, you know, maybe some questions just to make sure that somebody's paying attention, but it's not they're not really trying to get uh that that interaction of, hey, what would you do in this case? And then try and get them, try and get the student to uh respond, whatever I'd like that.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

If I were to have been taught that way when I was young, I would have been a better student, especially in a smaller class. I I want it to be interactive. I want to see what they're what they're comfortable doing or not comfortable doing. So I'm learning from their experience. So uh that's why I like the I've never seen a class taught like this being interactive.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Okay, and and what's the website that our listeners can go to to find your class again?

SPEAKER_00 29:21

I forgot because I'm old. Uh oh, sorry. Uh burtmentor.com, b-urtm-e-n-t-o-r.com. Burtmentor.com. Okay, excellent. Very original idea. No one else has that name on that site, so that's why I got it.com. Yeah. So I I I would appreciate anyone wanting to go there or contact me. And they could have all any kind of question they have. It could be a beginner, they could have uh, for example, they they could have their uncle owns an apartment building. They could be a real estate agent at residential, and they, well, how do I what do I do with my uncle's apartment building? So I would guide them, you know, what to do, whether they're licensed or not. Just, you know, advice. If they if they want one-on-one after we do this first free class, that's up to them, right? So, but I'm very open in the beginning as to people's suggestions. It's kind of like a combination focus group. My skill, one of my best skills is listening. I will tell you, the the partner I started with 50 years ago, he said to me one day, I'll never forget this, he says, You already know what you know. If you want to know what somebody else knows, shut up and listen. It's not just listening, it's it's really uh comprehending. And it's like exercise. When you ask the right questions and somebody tells you their answer, you're reacting to what they're saying. You may have all these thoughts in your mind, which most people were like, I want to just continue this, I want to get my thoughts out. I taught myself how to park my thoughts. I put it over here, even though that's the next thing I wanted to say. But instead of keep going, I reacted to what they said because I'm trying to solve their problem.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

That's good advice. No matter what industry you're in, that's that's very good advice.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah, doesn't matter what it's in. You want I always said there's only one thing moving to make this transaction work. There's only one thing, it's not the building. In fact, I'm gonna ask you, what's the one thing moving to get a transaction done? If I ask the question right, what's moving?

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Uh it's the the current owner moving the moving the the property. That would be my answer.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

You got really close there. Very proud of you. The hand with the pen. That's what's moving. I once did a transaction on I think it was 60 units, and uh you know, he took he wanted to take the contract home. He was in my office, and I said, fine. But I also, you know, because I know the contracts, I want to explain it to him. He said, No, I want to take it home. Well, for some reason, impulsively I said, you know, I'm holding the pen in my hand. And I I said, uh okay, how about just initial the pages? I asked him. I didn't say you have to do anything. He took the pen and initial the pages. He says, Okay, I might as well sign them. I didn't, I don't know. I didn't expect that.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

That's brilliant. I think I think they teach car salesmen that.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Um, okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

I I it just it I think that's brilliant, actually. That you know, you because you got him nodding yes. Um, you know, he's reading the contract, he's already in the process mentally of okay, I'm initialing this, I'm initialing this, and so I might as well just sign it, just like you said. It's very um, I don't want to say it's a mind game, but it almost is. Like you you got him to agree to buy it, and he's seeing himself signing all the papers, and so might as well just go ahead and sign on the dotted line at the well, he had already agreed to sell it.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Right. That was that was no question. He just wanna, I don't blame him. I wish I knew you then. You just sit there and say, okay, let's go over this contract.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah, that's that is what I do. Um yeah, and I would have gone over I would have read it first and then just gone over everything and highlighted the important parts that are important to him, answer any questions that he has, and then yeah, and then go from there. Yeah. So uh you've you've got this course going on, um, and you're you're you're semi-retired. I I believe you live in Thailand now.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Uh I live part-time in Thailand, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Okay. So you're you're you're kind of retired to doing this. So um what's what's next for you?

SPEAKER_00 33:55

My large uh dream is it's uh it I I don't know if the technology is here, but I'm working on with all these conversations about cloning myself and being an AI. So I'll be able to scale this with everyone's help, you know, because I'm gonna train, you know, I chat GB told me some of the steps and apps and whatever to use. So hopefully in you know, six months, uh you'll be able to talk to me, but um, it'll be my clone. So I can I can scale it and and have thousands of people talking to my AI. I mean, I could talk to thousands of people at once, but you know, I might get tired. So my AI would be me. I don't know how many people are doing that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

So you're trying to upload your knowledge, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

And how I re my knowledge, how I react. So when someone asks me a question, there's there's no you know, very minimal delay, like just like ChatGPT does now. So I said I want to be an AI. That's what that's my biggest goal. That's but I have fun teaching. I'll tell you where this idea came from in case uh anybody wants to know.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

I uh years ago I owned a rental house in Van Nuys. You know where that is? Van Ise, California. Yep. And uh and so the principal of a high school came to buy the house for me, which he did. And he said, his name was Hal. He said, How do you make a living? And I'd been in the business, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 years. I said, I just buy and sell buildings for a living. That's what I do. He says, Well, how do you do this? How do you do that? He asked me questions for over a week almost every day. I said, Hal, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna give you a list of uh numbers to call. You make the appointments, I'll meet you there. And that's what we did. We bought this whole, I think, six buildings together. And that's where this whole idea about mentoring came from. What do I want to do? Because I like the term that I've given to myself, digital nomad. So now I could do this with all the technology from anywhere, right? You know, so I've been to 62 countries. I'm on my little iPad here, it works fine, and um I'm willing to talk to anybody about anything. You want to sell baseball cards? I'll help you sell baseball cards. Doesn't matter what it is.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Nice. Okay. Well, Bert, it has been an absolute pleasure having you um on my podcast today. Um, do you have any parting words or anything you'd like to say before we end?

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Uh no, I'm I'm I'm happy to do this, uh, and I'm hoping that enough people watch it and want to contact me. I do plan on having uh, we talked about this my own podcast. Um and you are gonna be my first guest.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Oh, I appreciate that. I'd I'd be honored.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Okay. I look forward to talking to you further, you know, and whenever you like.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Absolutely. And uh maybe, maybe in the future I can have you back on again as your uh course starts to take off and and you've got more information to to share. Thank you. Of course. Uh Bert uh Bert Mulwitz, uh, thank you again for for joining the the podcast today. And um and I appreciate it. And we'll I'll I'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Okay, thank you. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.