Vinney Chopra: We could progress. Don’t worry about yesterday. Learn from yesterday, but never spend time in the ashes. I call it ashes, but today’s the only day. Don’t worry about tomorrow either. Tomorrow is going to be today. Tim is one of the most authentic and genuine people I’ve ever met. Sincerely believe he’s coming from a position of giving and that means a lot.

Tim Mai: Hi everybody. Welcome to today’s Capital Raising show. Today I have. An amazing guest speaker was on the line with us. I’m so excited to interview him because he’s probably the only one that knows the smile more than I do, and even has the nickname smile in his name so that’s amazing.

Mr. Vinny smiles at Chopra, an amazing human being. I’ve gotten to know Vinny. Through his books and his audiobook that I listened to, and then got introduced through a friend, and, as the more and more I learned about Vinny Act and Vinny I was actually on one of your capital raising calls as well.

Just to listen in. And yeah like I just love who you are. I love it. You’re, you, gosh, everything about you the way that you’re such a family man, the way that you’re positive thinking you’re always so enthusiastic and excited. I love that you take your positive thinking to a whole new level and master sage level right when you live it you don’t only.

Try to do it like most of us. We try to do it when we feel good, but you embody it and live this. I love that. Vinny’s a very experienced real estate investor syndicator international best-selling author of two books, host of three podcasts multifamily investor educator principal syndicator mentor Dedicated husband of over 40 years.

Wow. Congratulations. A father of two children, Neil and Monica. And we get to see their name in all of his brandings, by the way. If you see his branding, Vinny and his family have lived in Danville, California, near San Francisco, for 40-plus years. Vinny came to this country with only 7 in his pocket.

And… A dream, of course, and Vinny has now built a portfolio of over 6, 500 units, amounting to over 650 million asset worth of multi-family senior assisted living and hospitality arenas. He is passionate about helping others achieve financial freedom and is currently focused on giving back. to our seniors who have given us so much through the development of assisted living facilities and memory care.

So let’s give Vinny a big welcome y’all. 

Vinney Chopra: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It’s such a pleasure. I’m humbled to be here with y’all and I hope I can bring great value To each one of you because you are meeting for a very special purpose to raise money and to have a party at the same time. I love the word party because you have to work hard but play harder.

I always say that, enjoy life because this is the moment. It’s not later on in life you should enjoy. We should enjoy it right now, every day, celebrate it with the best possible results and activities, and also make it so much fun so that we get up tomorrow with a bigger passion. 

Tim Mai: That’s awesome.

Yes, for sure. So Vinny, if you can share with us a little bit about your journey, how you got, how you came to the U. S. and especially how you get started in the multifamily commercial real estate space?

Vinney Chopra: Sure. I’m from India. I’m a mechanical engineer. I always wanted to be one. So I grew up in New Delhi and worked for a very large corporation in Bombay.

I wanted to do my MBA in marketing. I thought that as an engineer, mechanical engineer, and marketing, I could make a good living. So I came to this country. I could only bring 7, I remember coming to LaGuardia airport, and everything. I wrote it in the book also. And there was a kind of like.

A positive attitude is in my mind. So there was a, the airline was on strike and they said, we cannot get you to Washington DC. I kept on bugging them or whatever I did. They put me in a helicopter that afternoon, took me from LaGuardia to New York, New Jersey airport, and then got me on a plane.

So the key thing is you’ve got to be persistent, you’ve got to be always looking at there is a solution. If there is a win situation, it will come in your lap, anyway, but I started that way. I went to George Washington to do my MBA in marketing, sold books, sold a Hindu, I’m from India, Hindu, selling Bible books, door to door.

and encyclopedias and educational books and cookbooks. I still remember 80 hours a week. We would work 80 hours a week. I still have certificates right there on the back. Those are my most precious certificates. Three summers in a row. I worked six days a week. 13 hours to 13 and a half hours a day. So that gets you into this mindset of persistence, taking rejection, getting motivated, and so on.

Anyway, then we live from there to Ohio. I got married 42 years back. And then the same year, 1980, we moved to the Bay Area, but my friends were in real estate here. Wow. How do peers affect your thinking? And that’s when we got into real estate, single-family homes, then multifamily became. Took a big plunge in 2008.

I started learning about multifamily in 2007 and 8. And that has been my biggest growth in the last five, six years because we started our own company. Me, my family, which is more Neil investment group, money management group, money, hospitality, money, this and that. Yeah. 

Tim Mai: Yes. And that’s what I was referring to about his children’s name in all of all, yeah, all of your brands.

That’s awesome. I love how you do that. And wow I didn’t realize that you’ve only got into the multifamily since 2008 Tom, which is perfect timing for the market. Yeah. Yeah, it was super good for multifamily at that time in the sense of lots of distressed properties. I remember a friend of mine who got started around that same time. I wish I got into it that time when he did.

But yeah, he was buying. He was buying multifamily from banks, bank foreclosed properties for cheap enough that he was able to use hard money. loans to buy them. And yeah, that was a great time. And you started, especially on the multifamily side, when you first started did you learn it from a book?

Do you learn it from a mentor or do you just trial and error your way into it? Or how did you get started? 

Vinney Chopra: Yes, I always believe in investing. Things in myself, I hope. I’m sure all of us do. And that’s what I’ve been doing from Tony Robbins when I started in sales to Dale Carnegie, to all these Toastmasters clubs and getting lots of books, thousands of books and reading, and then the CDs and the DVDs, all that stuff.

So I did find the top coach in the USA. I went on Google and found Dave Lindahl, and he’s my mentor, he’s the coach I paid for. I think my team and I paid about 135, 000 back then to get us trained. All five, six of us, not everybody survived, I caught the vision. We had personal coaching and so forth.

And now, I’m into teaching other people actually in my academy and all my knowledge and all. 

Tim Mai: That’s great. Yes. And how much money would you say you have raised so far for all the commercial-related real estate assets?

Vinney Chopra: I would say still going over 200 million.

I started from one investor who gave me 50, 000. I sat in his, which I talked about in my podcast, also in his living room with four slides on multifamily and he bought into it. Great. Thank you. And then he brought 29 million out of this 200 million, only one person brought that much. So I have looked at not one investor as one investor, but I look at their whole tree of contacts, their family, their friends, because if I get into their circle and win them for trust.

and confidence, they’re going to tell other people about it. That’s what happened with the same investor. He’s into my so many, I’ve done 38 deals now, 38 syndications, right? So he has brought seven people. He says, Vinny, would you come Saturday morning for a little coffee at Starbucks? I showed up there.

And my golly, all those IT people and directors and everybody, they started investing with me, the children. So that’s how I grew. Yeah. Yeah. That’s 

Tim Mai: awesome. Now I’m curious as to, going from raising that first 50. thousand to over two hundred million dollars. It’s a huge number. Have you ever thought that, hey, I’m going to go out there and I’m going to raise this two hundred million?

Or was there a I guess a light bulb moment that turned on for you that made you go, oh, I can raise a whole lot more money than what I’m currently raising. 

Vinney Chopra: Sure. Tim, I would love to share, my philosophy has always been big. I’m sure all of us are in that frame of mind. So I made a decision way back not to get any more 50, 000.

That particular investor ended up giving me 125 for that project, which was in Odessa, Texas. I gave. 243%, 43% per year returns in that deal, which was very exciting. 70, 30 deal. We did it back then, but the key thing was that we want to make sure we raise our expectations high to hitch and reach higher numbers.

So I. Might have gotten a few people not to come into my syndication 14 years back or 15 years back because they couldn’t afford 100 or something like it, but right from the second asset. And now I have 38 of them. I set a bottom line at 100. So I have been staying with Hundred. Then a few years later, I started thinking about tier investing.

What that meant was that you get so much perforate at a hundred, but if you do 200, you do higher. You get higher at, I didn’t do 500 back then, but now I do a hundred, 2 50, 500, and a million. I see. So that way, more and more people started opening up their wallets. My top investors have 5 million with me.

What? Who is giving me a hundred thousand, but because they have so much in retirement funds and cash and business and all, we have high power investors, and I’ve turned their money back again and again. Essentially one more nugget I would love to share with everybody.

Please do quarterly meetings, and live Zoom quarterly meetings with your investors. You record them. And after going over the asset that you are talking about, put a blurb about your future deals. You’ve got to be always in the mode of telling them what you are going to buy next. And that has been the secret sauce for me.

So I’ve never done a webinar for my investors ever in the last 15 years, I’ve never done a public webinar. Or to my investors’ webinar at all. I’ve only done quarterly meetings. I see. And then I know if those investors who forgot to join or something, I’m going to send a recording. They’re going to go through the whole presentation.

So by just sending an email, I’ve been getting these like 20 million I raised in six weeks. You and I were just talking about just recently. And that happened without any webinar without anything. Yeah. Wow. 

Tim Mai: Very impressive. We’re going to get into the details of that here. I do want to touch on it, you mentioned you gotta think big.

So I’m curious what your goal is in terms of dollar assets under management or number of units? What’s your big goal? 

Vinney Chopra: Can I share the screen for a second? Yes. I don’t know if I can. Okay. There we are. I just opened up. This little PowerPoint. Look at that. 

Tim Mai: 2 billion.

Vinney Chopra: That’s all. Yes. That’s my goal. And I know I’m going to reach it because the key thing is it’s all in the power of thinking. Oh, this is the silver tsunami, of course. I think it’s this one, the very first slide. Sorry about that. So I’ve been teaching about this, silver tsunamis and all, but this is the one slide that I wanted to talk about.

It’s all in your mindset when you start thinking about multifamily, looking at these three tsunamis, the millennial tsunami, and the senior living tsunami, which is huge. And then also the immigration tsunami. Those are the three tsunamis, which are making the USA A renters nation again, and again.

So it’s a huge thing and I’m diversifying. That’s the other part. I’m in a multifamily. I’m in senior living developments, purchasing them, hospitality, Bitcoin mining, unicorn startups, you name it. So that’s my goal. That’s my passion. And I’ll be 70 next month. 70. I know retirement is in me. I want to dive into working, like having fun, which is about 30 years from now, hopefully.

So I want to live up to a hundred. You’re all invited. Oh, we love parties. 

Tim Mai: I love it. So many, Billion dollars is a big number for a lot of people. Even a billion dollars is a huge number. What would you share with the audience listening? If someone’s I can’t even conceive above, let’s say a hundred million.

What would it be, what would you recommend them to do, or what perspective to look at? That a billion-dollar asset under management or 2 billion assets under management is possible for them.

Vinney Chopra: Tim, I’m glad you said that the biggest thing is everything starts in the mind, right? Conscious and subconscious again, setting smaller goals.

That’s how I was, right? I was setting them. But as I saw the progress of getting, and by the way, we are back to that 2008 and nine with different. Aspects right now, it’s changing from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. The people who are going to gain a lot are the ones who can raise money, just like this whole conference is.

It’s a matter of raising money. Putting the people together. It’s not rocket science at all. That’s what I say in my book also, right? Syndication, my whole world changed with this one word, which is syndication right there, which is like-minded people working together for a common goal.

And you’re able to get handsomely paid. You get paid four times for learning this art of syndication. pulling the money together, getting a deal, joining hands with the investors, giving them returns, and doing it over and over and over and over again. So I would say start small if you’re in the 10 units, 15 units, or 30 units, excellent.

But think about Wouldn’t you be able to get 100 units if you’ve got two other people to join hands? It’s the net worth and the cash flow, right? The liquidity, the cash equity, right? That’s the only thing. And that’s what it started. I raised only 1, 150, 000 for my first deal. And that was a big, tall order for me.

It was, but the thing was slowly, you go get on that path. It gets easier. The second syndication is easier. Third is much easier. And then you figure out a way, go into one particular area, and put the blinders on. That’s the other part. Sometimes we try to do this and these different segments.

I just stayed the course for 31 multi-families. I bought it, I just am selling my Austin deal. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it. In the last 15 years, that’s my biggest home run ever. Because in COVID 2020, my property in Orlando, Melbourne, was doing so well. Engineers were there. I’m an engineer. So in COVID, I say, Vinny, where is the next place I should go to, where people are moving to?

Austin, Texas. So I just on the phone went to Austin, Texas, and never traveled. And we bought a deal for 34 million, seven 50 in September of 2020, we are selling for 63 million today.

Wow. Oh my gosh. I can’t believe it. It’s happening in this market during COVID and 4 million. They’ve already wired me hard money. 4 million at the sign of the contract. Yeah. Wow. Because our interest rate is very low. Interest rates have gone up. I locked in with my partner 2. 89% and now it’s running at five and, quarters, but let’s go back to, again, it’s, I hope anything you can get today from me is just dream big, think big.

And how can you put equities together? See, the thing is you’re not asking money from people at all. You’re helping them. You’re serving your friends. You’re serving your colleagues. The next investor who has a million dollars to invest with you is in your iPhone or your Android. I see that all the time.

They’re not far away. They are right around you. 

Tim Mai: Wow. That’s awesome. So I guess. If you can share with us what were some of the biggest challenges you faced in, especially your first deal raising when you did your very first race, what were the biggest challenges, then, and then what are some of your challenges now in doing, You raised 20 something million in six weeks.

So that’s, does it sound like a challenge at all?

Vinney Chopra: The very first deal, things were crashing. I had a deal, which was actually from the bank repossessed, they have done underwriting. The renovations and all, and I couldn’t because I had 1. 2 million on Friday. Then the stock market went down in September of 2008 by, I don’t know, 900 points or something Monday morning.

I had half that money because nobody wanted to take it out of their accounts because they lost so much. So I didn’t get that deal, but my first deal took me 11 months, 11 months, and my 14 units took 11 months. Would I be here today? If I didn’t get that 11, 280, 000 deal, 11 units. If I did not stick and get that, and then my next deal was 109 units, it would take me about 12 months to get that one.

Nobody will give me a loan. Nobody will give it to me. They say, would you be moving to Texas Vinnie? I said, no. Do you have a deal under, you have a loan, and this and that? I said, no. Seller financing. Wow. Nobody will give us a loan. So we found a way with seller financing, 40% down. Oh, wow. The seller will not give us a loan.

They said you have zero experience. We don’t want to run this property to the ground. And then I come and take it over. So 40% we gave down. So you, there were challenges, lots of challenges, Tim, but the idea is to look at big challenges, small challenges, every challenge. Makes us grow better.

I have gone this 15 years with lawsuits, with this, with that. You name it, right? And you name it with the property management. I had 152 people on my full-time payroll. I’m giving every two weeks in my money management group, right? Every asset we kept on buying, we kept on managing. It comes with lots of ups and downs.

So essentially you want to start where you are and set definite goals for this quarter, next quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, and then follow through and don’t do it solo. It’s not a solo sport. You’ve got to have a team, one partner, two partners, and all of them working towards raising money. I say, Raising money should be everybody’s job.

Kim Lisa Taylor, my very good friend, SEC attorney, you probably know her. She did 26 of the syndication packages, 26 of them. And Gene Trowbridge, I’m interviewing him today, father of syndication at two o’clock, he’s a great guy, right from California. So Gene Trowbridge, Kim Lisa Taylor. And the biggest thing is if you’re not syndicated, It’s not a gorilla.

I see that a lot of people told me when you get sued and all that. No, if you do it right. Nobody can come after you, you know you do with full transparency, with full honesty, all the, everything and I show my investors. The snaps of never short an XL ever to my investors, always the snippet from my software, where my properties are managed.

And with the authenticity of the date and time, when I filled out the report, it’s not in your digging old port in the investors. And out of my 500, some I have now over 500, only nine have traveled to any assets. In 15 years, only nine, but I used to bring the assets to them every quarter: the pictures, the renovation pictures, the before, the after the staff pictures, everything.

Whenever I travel or just ask the property management to send me the new pictures and put them into the slide. So those are small tidbits that bring confidence. In the eyes of the investor, because we’re talking about raising money, we have to make sure that if they have any kind of question, you stop everything.

And you take care of that. Our investors, 532, I think nobody knows who they are in the whole corporation, except me, my daughter, my wife, and our vice president of accounting, who’s been with me for 15 years. Wow. 

Tim Mai: Yeah. So you, you mentioned Vinny, that our phone here is a ton of our contacts here is a ton of money sitting here.

Oh, yes. Now we all have all kinds of people on our contact list, from our doctors, lawyers, friends, and family. All kinds of people. Yes. Do you, would you recommend, is there a way to prioritize what type of profile you are reaching out to first? Or how would you teach?

What would you teach someone to work through like a strategy or way to work through their contact list?

Vinney Chopra: Tim, the key thing is people who trust you. People who will have the best code with you. They know who you are. They know they have dealt with you a little bit.

It’s harder to bring trust into somebody brand new. So you need to look at your roller deck. I call it or contact list. Start from the inside out. Who can invest with you and your family? Your relatives, your friends, your cousins, your sisters, your grandparents, everybody’s got and look at their, what kind of richness they have.

Let’s say that word. They have some money tied up in different places. And they are getting so few returns. I’m telling you, the older we get, I always say we, the younger we get, I tell my kids. Daddy’s getting younger every birthday. I’m going to go backward and you’re going to be older.

So we’re going to meet somewhere.

It’s that attitude, but the big thing is you’ve got to start from inside out the people, your business associates, your doctor, who you’ve been going to, or the laundromat place, let me talk about it, I mentioned a few times in my podcast. Car care center. I took this to my friend Toby here.

Nobody knows Toby, he says, I would take my car. He’ll charge me whatever for oil changes and all. He says, Vinnie, I want to buy this building. I said, Oh, great. What kind of loan are you going to get? And this and that he says, no, I’m going to pay 4 million cash. 

Tim Mai: Wow. 

Vinney Chopra: Holy cow. Wow. If you think about that, what I just said, I never knew he had so much money.

So that’s what I’m trying to tell you guys. Also all the business people, all the context you come across, everybody’s got money. Everybody’s got a hundred thousand, 200, 300, again, if they don’t, that’s okay too, but you are always thinking in your list, who are the people they know most. You, they can just hang on with you and you say, Hey, I’m learning this business.

I’ve taken some students who were doing something in the medical profession. And now in two years, they’re raising a hundred million dollar funds. What a hundred million dollars, because the whole attitude is different. They got a silver plate from me. All my tools and all my PowerPoints and all my whatever, whatever, right?

So we give that. But the thing is, you’ve got to see everything happen twice. Stephen Covey talks about it, right? One time is in our mind, imagination. The second time, physically, it happens. Everything they thought. So just have the attitude of plenty of abundance. will take us to a lot of places. So prioritizing, yes, doctors, attorneys, CPAs.

People who are into their own business and IT directors you name it, teachers, of course, the thing is you got to put an Excel or CRM together. And you take your time yourself, how long you have known that person, first of all, put down in a column. Secondly, what’s your business, what business they are in that second one, then the third is going to be what they might have been earning.

But here, these are all internal equations you’re putting right to prioritize. And then you start from the top, go to the bottom. 

Tim Mai: I like that. I like that a lot. You mentioned you do a quarterly meeting for your investors. Now, I assume those are people who already invested in your deal, correct?

What about all these new people that you’re reaching out to? How do you get them into the funnel?

Vinney Chopra: Now, actually we have lots more. I have 1, 475 more on the other side. They’re coming through, my funnels, like you just said, they’re not ready to meet. Go the extra mile yet.

You’ve got to educate them through my email system. So I have not been that prominent in giving webinars, my time is so important, but I tried to show them. And then when the new deals come, like my 506 C deals accredited investors only. We have been funneling into them also, and then trying to attract people coming that way, or my team members are meeting with them.

And then if there is interest in meetings with them, and then they come to me, then I bring them into this side. Yes. 

Tim Mai: Gotcha. Okay. And are you, obviously you have your books that you’re out there constantly giving out your books. Is that the book your main way of attracting new investors or what are some of your top ways of attracting new investors?

Vinney Chopra: I’ve got a million dollars. Somebody who read this book and they reached out to me and they said, Vinny, I have a million dollars to invest with you. I gained so much. From my podcasts also, I’m humbled. People see my genuineness or something and they say, Vinny, you know what? I want to deal with you. I want to work with you.

I want to give you this much money and blah, blah. So these two books have been my big assets. You’re right. Yes. Yes. And my third book is coming on senior living investing, which is also almost ready. So that’s going to bring again, a big channel because we’ll be 92 million seniors, 10, 000 baby boomers are turning 65 every night in the USA, 10, 000 and about 6, 000 turning 70 and 4, 000 every day turning 80.

It’s going to be a mecca of opportunities in Senior Assisted Living and Memory Care Dementia. 

Tim Mai: That’s awesome. And I noticed that the title of your books leads them into the asset class that you’re looking for, that you’re investing in, that you want them to invest in. And even your positivity, you turn that into, positivity to pos profitability.

So you love that? Yeah, I love it. I love it. And yeah, you can, voting themes like, Hey, you can, yeah you can make it profitable until you drive them into that investing mindset. So I love the way that you structure it. 

Vinney Chopra: What you just said, because see, There is how much 32 trillion in retirement funds.

I just heard somebody from Advantage there. I’ve been connected to Alex Perny over there. And we’ve been sending investors his way. And then Damien Lupo is great from EQRP and a lot of other great people. And my syndication, other attorneys, and wealth advisors. The key thing is you have to have an attitude of abundance.

There are millions of dollars. There is one in the Bay Area alone. I think there are four trillion dollars. What? Note 4 billion, but trillion dollars is right here in my backyard and it’s all over the USA. The key thing is, do we know how to approach them? Do we have to set, avenues to harness all these different things we have now digitally to reach them, to get into a dialogue, right?

And then you’ll be able to, share with them with a serving mind attitude, how you could give them returns of eight or 9% cashflow plus 12 or 20, percent overall returns, which is what we are all giving now, 18 to 20% per year. But the key thing is the tax benefits. , you’ve got to sell that.

Now, hospitality. I love hospitality because in the hospitality arena, the limited partners’ cash flow and their losses, limited partners’ losses can be batted against their active income. I don’t know how many people knew that on this webinar, 42 of us on this one. So it’s a huge game changer for high-net-worth people who are making millions of dollars a year.

If we can give them 700, 000, my investors would give me a million dollars in hospitality. I give them 70% minus 7, 800, 000 on their active income, even though they’re limited partners. Wow. So it’s a life changer for them. And that’s how it is with the multifamily also to give them the techniques. Like I’m doing Bitcoin mining now, right?

Someone into the blockchain. Some people are not, but these millennials are really into Bitcoin because Bitcoin is going to stay here and I can mine it with efficient systems with my partner at 13, 000. A coin right now, 13, 000. Of course, it’s selling at 22, 000 right now. So I can make that 9, 000 a day on each coin.

And then we put it into wallets and all that, but we are giving our investors, I’m not saying anybody to join, accredited investors only 1. 5% a month. To 7% a month returns. Wow. Wow. When it was 60, 000, we had so much profit that we were giving it back to the investors. So we were giving 5% per month, that’s 60%.

And 75% returns on their depreciation loss because these are computers with the bonus depreciation, 100% of their whole thing is written off, so it’s exciting. Yeah. All those things. 

Tim Mai: That’s awesome. I love that. Okay. And so besides the quarterly update meetings do you also send out a monthly newsletter?

Vinney Chopra: Yes. I’m not that frequent now. Can you believe it? But before when I was building my business to where I am now, I just. Get sold out so fast, within eight hours, I’m able to raise nine to 10 million in about eight, nine hours. But the thing is, I just feel like it’s a good, very good thing to do with the communication, the newsletters, and telling your investor base to even ask for more referrals so that you could get more people under your belt and meet on the Zoom or phone call.

Or like that and keep them abreast of what’s happening in your feet. Also, keep them abreast of that newsletter. People don’t have time. I used to do five pages. I do only one page or two pages maximum with a lot of links. Now it’s digital. It’s digital, right? But give them some. Important information so that they click on it and look forward to it getting two weeks, every two weeks we do it, biweekly.

Tim Mai: Okay. That’s great. That’s pretty frequent. And you mentioned referrals. Asking for referrals. Yes. What would you say is the percentage of your investors that came from referral versus the percentage? That just, oh my gosh, outta sight.

Vinney Chopra: You know what? I had no website whatsoever from 2008.

To 2013. So six years, almost five years. I had no presence wherever it was only from my investors within from one to six to 16 to 26 investors. I just stayed there for a little while. Then it jumped to 39. I remember a crucial number 69. So I was sitting right there. But it was because they were referring to me to other people, and we always send a gift around Thanksgiving, never a Christmas gift.

But since I started my business, I’ve been giving my team members bonuses for a year. One in June and one at the end of November, even with the 139 or 42 people I had on my team. Now we have sold so many assets. So we are working with third parties like gray star bell partners and RAM partners. They manage my assets but it’s good to give something substantial, something to appreciate that they are in our life.

And remind them every Thanksgiving to give thanks to them. So we spend about maybe $2000 now, every year to give this special Harry and David. I think our daughter gets those three-tier boxes, five-tier boxes of different things, and they come with a ribbon and everything when it shows up at the house.

So I get investors to open with their kids and take pictures or movies and send it back, all that stuff, so it’s good to appreciate them. And then in my PowerPoint, it tells them also that we are transparent. They could reach me anytime. This is my text number.

This is my cell number. This is my email address and then portal investor portals are very important for all those things. So communication is so important, so very important, and giving them updates on the asset, good, bad, ugly, because investors appreciate you when you tell them what’s happening with their money, they can sleep well at night if they know what’s happening.

Tim Mai: That’s awesome. And why Thanksgiving and not Christmas?

Vinney Chopra: Now, see, everybody, send gifts on Christmas, everybody, and you’ll be getting lost in the shuffle. They’ll just look at it and then the next gift comes, or maybe six rare gifts are sitting outside the door. Who cares, right? So Thanksgiving is right about the end of November, it’s a great time to thank them.

That’s how I look at it. I love it. We have a nice card that goes out and everything. The other good part, if I may say to everybody, is that digital picture of you. is so important everywhere as you see me all over the place, on social media and others, even with my correspondence, daily correspondence, my signature is dynamic with my picture.

I change pictures now even though I have two reels of pictures. I’m just a geek. I just like to get different things going, so that it makes a big impact in the eyes of people because they feel like they just talk to you. They look at the picture or, moving videos or whatever. They feel like they just touched you and I’ve been doing it for 40 years.

I used to meet my clients only once a year during my motivational speaking days and presentations. Speaking in front of 15, 000 presentations, I’ve given maybe even more now, but I used to be the guy with the lapel microphone and getting out between a thousand people and just making so much fun and excitement.

But the key thing is. Clients saw me only once a year and they remembered my name as I walked in the door. So it’s all because of the power of communication and having your digital presence in their mind with your picture and all those things. 

Tim Mai: I love it. I love it. I know you, you mentioned about diversifying.

Yes. Do your investors like the fact that you diversify? In, multiple different asset types.

Vinney Chopra: Good point. Very good point. What you just said, Tim, it’s a fine line. See, they want to make sure you’re a specialist in one thing and then you’re taking good care of their money. Perfect.

Multifamily has been my game, but then moving into senior living space also, I never wanted to go into residential senior living. No. I want to do multifamily senior living with 90 units or 100 units, which can give me 5 million in revenue a year. What? I bought a 52 million deal in Orlando. My revenues per year are 3.

75 million. Wow. I can build my senior assisted living ground up in 2022 for 17 million and my revenue is. 4 million or 5 million because the rent given it’s got involvement with the food and everything right to the three meals and all the experience and spas and movie theaters and everything that we build in our senior living.

But the rent is 5,000 a month. 4, 000 to 5, 000. That’s how the revenues are higher, right? So essentially, I state the course, but I was trained by investors going from cash flow driven, which is a multifamily momentum place. To senior living developments and I told them dirt, there is no money in the dirt. We are just starting to build.

So they bought into the whole system, no returns in the first year, maybe some returns in the second year, but 30-year huge returns and gave them 18% per year, 54% in three years. Guaranteed, by the way, in the sense that I put the PPM together so that they keep their 18, 18, 18 set amount. If there is a dollar left after that, then only we make money, my partner and I.

So that gives them confidence, so they are different. Creative ways to do it. Now I’ve gone into startups and all, but I didn’t bring my whole congregation into it. I only shared the startups and unicorns, in which I’m investing. And I just tell my top investors only, I know they have money. So if they want to jump with me, because I’ve looked at these things that way, Bitcoin mining, I’m going big time because that’s where the future is also.

And then NTF Metaverse is my other space. I’m very intrigued because being an engineer in all these different things, artificial intelligence is going to rock the world. Web3 is coming before we know it. So that’s where I’m in that space also. I’m an advisor and director in those businesses.

Tim Mai: I love that. Do you have a fund?

Vinney Chopra: Oh, yeah, I do. Okay. I do have a fund. And the main part of the fund was I had so much money coming at me and not proper, not enough deals. So what I did was let me do something diversified fund, I call it because, in that fund, I have four prong attacks, my investors can put 100, 200, and 500 million. Thank you.

And I’ll buy a multifamily which is already built. I will buy the construction of the development of the senior assisted living in the fund. I’ll buy hotels in the fund, and also I buy. After I have developed assisted living in three years, we do an exit, take the investors out, and put new investors in.

So we already built our own assisted living also. So four prong attacks, we put it in there. We haven’t put Bitcoin mining in there yet, but that’s what my fund is for 50 million accredited investors only. And it’s a great way to then park the money and you can keep on raising money. And then deploying it. So it’s a good concept. 

Tim Mai: I like it. So I love to hear the advantages and disadvantages or what you like more, the syndication model or the fund model. 

Vinney Chopra: Sure. Sure. See syndication fund also is a syndication, by the way, it’s just a syndication for three years long, rather than a syndication for a specified offering.

We call it only 90 days. So we are just looking at one property, one asset, and you’re raising the amount for that particular asset in the fund. It’s a combination of many assets. You could have a fund with only a multifamily focus, and it’s a great thing. The only thing I would tell you is that if you’re doing a blind fund, Then you need to have a following who believes in you that you have done some exits and they will pour the money into your fund because of your track record.

If you don’t have a track record, it’s a little harder to do a fund unless you have one property already under contract, but even two in contract, and then you could set up the stage for a fund and then say that you’ll be getting more. Investments like these in the monies that you’re raising and you also give credit to the people who come there early rather than the people who come there late.

So usually in the fund, we put an 8% premium from the first year to the second year. What that means is if the share price is 1, 000 per share next year, it’s going to be 8% more or 1, or 080 is the share price and you take that extra money, give it to the early investors, then everybody’s at the same pace. So there’s some semantics, okay, 

Tim Mai: That’s very cool. Very cool. What are some of your favorite tools or resources? 

Vinney Chopra: Oh, wow. Of course, Dropbox, business Dropbox, we live on that. And I can run and I travel a lot with the family and everything. I can run my whole business from the iPhone, signing contracts, viewing, and reaching out, to my Dropbox business with extra space in there and making a link, and sharing everything.

iPad and I, this MacBook Pro. I Do it. So that one, right? Then I have signed easily, or you could even do it with the Acrobat reader signing in blue ink, right? I love that. So that’s an app. I love to. Then I do have app folio software where my investor portal is. So that’s where they look at their, all the assets they have put money in on a dashboard and it shows them how much they put in, how much they made up to the last quarter, all that I would say, zoom in.

Oh, some other ones. I know I didn’t get into too much Asana and Trello. I bought all these systems, but then at this time to bring my business to a new height, it’s of course, ActiveCampaign, ClickFunnel, and MailChimp. So I use all three, but now somebody shared with me something very creative.

It’s called Go High Level. Go high level. So that is my newest platform where I can put my whole structure of the business and click funnels and email systems. And then I can give it at a very low price and duplicate it. So I bought it. S A S system. So in other words, I can duplicate my whole business and give it to somebody running the business and then they can take over it.

Everything is done for them. So that’s my next technique. The software goes high level, go high.

Tim Mai: That’s awesome. Yes. I am familiar with that. That’s phenomenal software for sure. Yeah. Especially in the multifamily space in 2008 at the last market crash. And so you, where do you see this market going? How similar is it? How different is it? What, what’s your crystal ball telling you?

Vinney Chopra: Oh totally. See, in 2008, I couldn’t raise much money. I was in C minus assets in C class or C assets in B class. I know San Antonio, we went to Alamo Heights, anybody from San Antonio, we bought six assets there, C class in A area, right?

So my thinking has always been To buy B and an area or c and b area, just like all of you do. I went to Houston and I bought 14 assets, I think from 2013. 13 to 2022. At 21, I just sold my last asset there. Now I just bought it. 63 million dollar deal with my partners in the med center of Houston. I love it.

I love that place because we bought it off the market and we are already increasing rents and it’s got 108. 1, 000 people, three miles away from our property, 108, 000. And there are 3. 25 billion. Expansion is coming up with a lot of people from Houston. So I’m very high on Houston right now.

And I’m coming back. I left after so many years and last year I only left six months back. I’m back again, but I just got a hotel also. In the vicinity of the med center. So I’m making a deal right now at 26 million I think or something. I’ve got another hotel in Texas also I bought for 6 million with my partner. We are selling for 12 million.

We just made 6 million equity. So we have 7 million, 1031 going into three hotel portfolios right now as I speak. 

Tim Mai: Wow. Wow. Wow. I’m here in Houston. So definitely the next time you’re in town, I’d love to take you out to some good food here in Houston.

Vinney Chopra: I love that. I am coming. My partners, we were just talking the other day.

They’re gonna be flying in and I’ll be flying in. I love Tim. I’ll keep you abreast buddy. And then Tampa. I am flying to Tampa to talk in front of 1100 investors over there. I don’t go too far, too much to be truthful. Last six years I’ve been to only three conventions. In the last six years, I’ll be going to only one this year in October.

That’s all I get invited to many times, it’s just that I’m just a small guy, just doing my own thing. 

Tim Mai: That’s awesome. Regarding the market changes in a down market like this, do you see that investors are more hesitant, to invest their money? Do they hold on to a title or not at all?

Vinney Chopra: We should raise more money. This is the million millionaire maker time coming right now. See when the market shifts from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market we are coming to the bottom over here. I’m telling you, and that is what happened in 2008, and nine people stayed in the game. They’ve made a lot of money.

I started even when I started my new company, by the way, our sole private proprietorship, my wife and I in 2014, November. So the majority of the growth has come not from 2008 at all. It has come when I could raise millions of dollars quickly. And then from 2015 till now. I’ve reached 750 million. It will be about a billion.

If I put my senior living developments, which I’m building five of them in, I didn’t count them in yet. So once they’re built, I’ll take my eggs and put them in there. So I’ll be close to three. And then my portfolio of hotels, we are buying at about a 30% discount, let’s say, because of COVID and all.

So we’re going to be putting our business plan in place just to give you an idea. You’ve got to look for great deals. How do you get great deals if you are in the market? If you’re shaking the brokers, if you’re talking to them, if you’re texting them, every other week or so, which I teach every 10 days, they need to hear from you.

I got four deals in Houston, brother. By just sending it to the presidents of the company, they sent me four off-market deals in Houston. That’s awesome. Look at that. Yeah, I love it. Copy paste. That’s it. I’m doing that in Tampa. I’m doing that over there in Melbourne. I’m doing that in Nashville, Tennessee.

That’s all my trick is nothing major. And then they start conversing with me. I tell them I have 25 million to deploy, which is true. I’ve already deployed this 23 million. I’ve got 25 million. I have some investors with a hundred million. What they said, Vinny, you bring the deal. They are billionaires. Now they got into my circle.

They said, Vinny. You just bring a deal. You bring a deal in Houston, plus a deal. Is anybody listening to me? If you have an off-market deal, come on together. We could close this and I closed every single deal in the last 15 years. From a letter of intent to closing 38 deals, 38 deals is my record and a hundred percent closing.

Tim Mai: That’s awesome. I love that. I love that. That’s great. Vinny, I’m curious if you can go back to your younger years or even to your kids right now. I don’t know. What are your kids?

Vinney Chopra: Neil is 38 and Monica is 35.

Tim Mai: Okay, they’re both much older. But if you can, yeah, like for the younger ones or your younger self, even I have a 15-year-old and an 18-year-old son, two boys.

What would you share, like what’s, an important lesson that you would teach your younger self or your, your younger children? 

Vinney Chopra: I’m so glad you’re saying that. That’s my passion. Also, I have part of my university as Youth Academy, I call it, and it’s free. It will be free after I die. Also, I’m trying to do some other stuff so that we can teach entrepreneurship and success habits and goal setting and attitude control, and taking rejection.

At a 14-year age level, that is like a junior high level. If anybody wants to partner with me or whatever, the thing is you got to teach them literally because you are setting the stage rather than them spending time and energy watching TV. Getting into gangs and other stuff and not keeping their mindset right on the right path.

That’s what I’m very passionate about right now. Also, not only for seniors, but for the younger generation and you could take them slowly towards real estate because that’s where millionaires are made, even though they will live their profession of doctor or attorney or whatever they want to do or engineering.

But the thing is they need to be entrepreneurs. They need to be a salesperson before. Let them read the book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill. Let them read the book, David J. Schwartz, Magic of Thinking Big. Let them read the book, Dale Carnegie’s, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Those were the books which we bought 40 years back. My wife and I had three copies and our kids read them all. And our daughter now is in our business, which is very exciting. We are giving our company slowly to her for a hundred dollars every year. The millions of dollars will be transferred legally to her partner.

Tim Mai: That’s awesome. Wow. Wow. Wow. All right. I have a last question for you and that is what are the last words of wisdom you’d like to have? leave us with all, leave with all of us today.

Vinney Chopra: I would say, please, everybody’s capable of doing more than what we are doing. I’m more capable of doing what I’m doing right now.

I need to spend time multiplying myself. How do you multiply yourself by taking time to yourself in setting the time blinders up and seeing where you have been? Where are you going? Making a difference. Today is the only day we could progress. Don’t worry about yesterday. Learn from yesterday, but never spend time in the ashes.

I call it ashes, but today’s the only day. Don’t worry about tomorrow either. Tomorrow is going to be today, tomorrow, right? So we have to be focused now. And what’s most important is Talking to people, talking to brokers, analyzing deals, raising money, that’s it. We need to spend time on that, not watching things and creating things and, emailing things or social media.

See, I do everything. I have no appointments, only three today. There was one interview in the front, one now, and one at two o’clock with Dean Trowbridge. I’m done for the day, but the businesses are running because you put people in the right place. I love it. All right. Move the needle every day. That’s what I say.

Tim Mai: Yeah, I love it. Move the needles every day. And yeah, so we’re gonna open up for Q nine just a little bit here, but before we do that we wanna wrap up this part of the interview. If the folks want to reach out to you and get in contact with you, what’s the best place for them to do that, Vinny?

Vinney Chopra: Sure. You could go to vinnychopra.com. That’s V as in Victor, i n e Y. You can just Google me. I have a YouTube channel, Instagram, and Twitter. Pages Facebook, LinkedIn, and then vinnychopra.com slash free book. If you do that, you’ll get me, the Syndication Made Easy, Apartment Syndication Made Easy, or you could go to this one, apartmentsyndicationmadeeasy.com. So we have that one. And we also have positivity and profitability on Amazon. And also we are putting a funnel system now into this one. Also, you could invest with me, and learn from me, I’m just a regular guy. 

Tim Mai: I love it. And you’re an open book. That’s what I love about you. You’re so generous.

Yeah. Not only are you positive, you’re generous. You always, I’ve used, you’re so humble. It’s amazing. And yeah, you’re always open to sharing and always open to help. And so thank you so much for who you are. Thank you so much for being the amazing human beings that you are.

I such an honor for me to have this opportunity to interview with you today, 

Vinney Chopra: Tim. Thank you for what you’re doing, brother. I want to accolade everybody here today. They remember to share their secrets with everybody. Do you know why? Because your tree of investors with the branches and the leaves and flowers and everything is whole different than other people.

So don’t worry about it. There is no competition. See, it’s such a big pie, have that attitude of abundance and give energy, give everybody all you’ve got because it’s going to come back manyfold. When we give energy out, it comes in abundance. I believe in love attraction, love manifestation, love, everything.

The key thing is to just give you so much will be coming. I never knew. I’ll be on this path six years back, literally. We had zero sales in my new company, zero, right? But the investors moved from the previous company I had, so we shut that down. Ideal Investment Group with a partnership.

Which was a very bad partnership. I was in, I just felt like, okay, we’ll figure out a way to sell those assets. We did not have a fire sale, but we sold them well, but then, the key thing is, keep your chin up and every day you could, we can all be better and have more enthusiasm, more positivity, and more smiling, and we can get so much done.