From Building to Flipping to Multifamily Mastery with Michael Mannino, Ep 83

Today's guest is Michael Mannino, He is a licensed Master Builder in Michigan and Florida. With over 35 years in the construction industry, he has built, renovated, and remodeled residential houses, including multi-million dollar homes for local celebrities. He is a founder of several multi-million dollar companies that build and flip houses, and invest in multifamily real estate.

Michael talks about his experiences in the real estate industry, from purchasing and renovating homes to making multifamily real estate investments. He stresses the value of having capable partners to help a project succeed. 

He also discusses how cost segregation and tax advantages increase the profitability of real estate investments. A black belt who routinely breaks bricks with his bare hands, Michael gave some inspiring insights in how he overcame imposter syndrome and became a confident real estate investor!

Episode Topics

[01:17]  Meet our guest, Michael Mannino
[03:21] The Art of Buying and Selling Houses
[13:51] The Magic of Multifamily Real Estate
[19:46] The Tax Benefits of Real Estate Investments
[22:07] Transitioning from Flipping to Multifamily
[25:33] The Future of Real Estate: Building Multifamily
[26:27] What is one red flag every investor should look out for?
[27:39] What is a myth about the real estate business?
[31:44] Connecting to Michael

Notable Quotes

• "Money doesn't change you; it just brings out who you really are. If you're a jerk, then you're just gonna be a rich jerk once you have money and vice versa." -Tim Little 
• "When you buy a product might be more important than where you buy it. The time to buy is coming soon."  -Michael Mannino 
• "The real estate market is tricky. Pent-up demand could drive prices higher, even if rates drop. I'll watch with my 2.5% interest rate from the sidelines." -Tim Little 
• "Concentrate on making your company run itself, not needing you in it. Once you do that, you can start another adventure." -Michael Mannino 
• "Cost segregation supercharges depreciation, providing tax-free income. Multifamily distinct returns make it unparalleled. Consult your tax advisor." - Tim Little 
• "Not paying taxes, perks your interest when you're paying a lot of money in taxes here. The problem with making money is you have to pay a lot of money in taxes." -Michael Mannino

Connect with  Michael Mannino

• LinkedIn: Michael Mannino
• Website: Reciprocity Capital Group
• Email: manninomt@gmail.com
• Telephone: 248-202-7357

👉 Connect with Tim

• Linkedin: Tim Little
• Instagram: @tim_at_zana 
• Email: tim@zanainvestments.com 
• Visit www.ZANAinvestments.com for more info on Tim and how you can passively invest in multifamily real estate
• Get your Passive Investor's Cheat Sheet  FREE

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Transcript

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[00:00:00] Michael Mannino: Buying a multifamily is difficult. you gotta learn, you gotta learn how to underwrite the deal. And that's probably one of the hardest parts to do. Understanding what you're going to make. When you buy the property and know that you're correct on it, it's probably one of the hardest things to do.  Once you've got it and you've bought the property, you want to add value. I'm sure a lot of your listeners do the value add. Which is amazing, which is absolutely awesome. We found a property for, me and my partners found a property for, I think it was 850, 000, 16 units in North Carolina. Best thing we've ever done in our life. 

[00:01:07] Tim Little: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the journey to multifamily millions. I'm your host, founder and CEO of ZANA Investments, Tim Little. And on today's show, we have Michael Mannino. Michael is a licensed master builder in Michigan and Florida. With over 35 years in the construction industry, he has built, renovated, and remodeled residential houses, including multi million dollar homes for local celebrities. He is a founder of several multi million dollar companies that build and flip houses and invest in multifamily real estate. Michael, welcome to the show.

[00:01:39] Michael Mannino: Thank you, sir. I really do appreciate it.

[00:01:41] Tim Little: Yeah, it is great to have you. So you have quite a varied real estate background, and I definitely want to get into that. But before I do, I have to ask, can you name any of the famous clients that you've built houses for?

[00:01:54] Michael Mannino: the most famous I can give you, his first name is Manoj. you might know him, as the owner of Five Hour Energy. My first billionaire that I've talked to in my life. One of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. It was just really cool. I had this poor concept of people that had money.  Growing up, I thought the richer the more arrogant, the more mean, and more, just nasty per the higher the nastier. And then when I started meeting millionaires and billionaires, it was the total opposite. The higher they got, the nicer they were.

[00:02:28] Tim Little: Yeah, and I think it's one of those things that I've read, multiple times. Money doesn't change you, it just brings out who you really are. if you're a jerk, then you're just gonna be a rich jerk once you have money and vice versa, right? Alright,

[00:02:42] Michael Mannino: someone had a quote, if I can give you this one, someone had a quote and it said, you can be a jerk and be a millionaire. You can't be a church and be a billionaire.

[00:02:49] Tim Little: I don't know if I completely agree, but I get the point because you need other people,in order to get to that level. That's certainly true. Unless it was just passed down to you from, mommy or daddy, but Alright, please tell us about how you got started on your journey and how you got to where you are today.

[00:03:11] Michael Mannino: That's a, that is a great question. I do appreciate it. That's a multifaceted question. The best way to describe it, the best way to describe it is, one step at a time. The first thing I did at 23 was buy a house. I bought that house and then I fixed up, there's a back, aluminum porch area. I reframed it and then, put, drywall, just redid it. So I added more square footage to the house and I built a garage. I bought that house for 50, 000, sold it for 100, 000. That's really my first real estate venture at 23 years old. And then I got the bug in that one. And I was like, oh, I can find something, fix it up, make more money on it. Let's see what happens. And then, I just kept going through my career, in building, flipping, multi family. And the one part maybe I can share the best with, with your viewers is the personal aspect of,the personal aspect of how you can make money, in your personal life. Being a builder helped out to build my own house. You can hire a builder to do your own house. Houses appreciate the most in the first seven years. So if you hire, if you buy a house. Build it, have somebody build it for you. The next seven years you're going to appreciate it the most. What I did, this is a hack that I would highly suggest if you have the ability to do this is amazing. I bought that house, bought it for 50, sold it for a hundred. Years go by. I built my next house. I built every house after that for myself. My last two houses, I, I built, bought and built, I think I put 400, 000 into one, in Lake Oregon, Michigan. And then I waited four years and then I sold it and then I sold it for 700, 000. I took 300, 000 of profit in my pocket and had paid zero taxes on it. And I'm like, Oh, this is nice. And I thought about all the other houses that I bought. Everybody has this, this conception that if you buy a house, you have to buy it for more. You have to buy another one for more money. You don't have to pay taxes on the property that you just sold.  You don't have to pay taxes on the profit. That's not true. You can buy a house for 50 grand and sell it for a million. Oh, now you can't do that. You can buy a house for 500, 000 and sell it for 750, 000 if you're single and not pay any taxes. All you have to do is stay in it for two years. You have to live in it two of the last five years. Now, if you're married, you can be 500, 000. So it helps you to be married in this country. So I did that twice in the last seven years and I made 600, 000 profit, tax free.

[00:05:44] Tim Little: Yeah, and I think that's an important point, people sometimes just forget about the fundamentals we try to get way too fancy On all these different ways to make money, but there's some very basic stuff out there that people lose sight of, and I understand that, a lot of folks are getting discouraged, nowadays, cause it's not as easy to buy a house, as it was for you or for me, I bought a house before I was 30 also, now if I ask someone who's under 30 if they expect to buy a house, they'd probably laugh at me, Just because of, the interest rates, the affordability, some of that stuff isn't there, but I think they still need to remember some of those basic things like the tax advantages associated. Like you said, living in it for two years, that was your primary residence. So anything you make off that, like you said, tax free, up to a certain point. And then, like you said, if they're married, even better, right? A 500, 000. So remembering those basic lessons as early on as possible, you could take advantage of those and then compound it over time into different things. And, obviously I think a lot of people still accept that owning a home is a way to, to build wealth.

[00:07:04] Michael Mannino: There's, Grant Cardone says, don't own a house, rent it. And I was like, argh, I disagree with him. I'd love to show him the numbers and see how that works.

[00:07:12] Tim Little: yeah, and I don't know. yeah, you could get it as conversational, which makes sense. And it probably depends on the locale and everything else, right? If you're living in New York City or Los Angeles. Does it make sense to try to buy a house for a minimum of a million dollars? if you're on a 60, 000 a year income, probably not. At that point, maybe, it's better to rent and invest the money that would have put for that down payment. That's, those are individual circumstances, so it's so hard to get into that. I know that I have benefited from owning a house, but I'll readily admit the first house I owned, I didn't. I didn't make any money off of it because I bought it in about 2005. so timing is always an issue too, right? Just like it's an issue for people now. I bought my house in 2005, and then, wound up having to sell it in 2008. And while I didn't lose money on it, I was lucky to break even.

[00:08:11] Michael Mannino: Yes.

[00:08:11] Tim Little: And I'll walk away with that one and consider it a win compared to so many people who lost so much during that time, which we spoke about before the podcast. Even started, but sorry, just to get off track, but I just really wanted to emphasize the going with the basics. again, when it comes to simple things like the general tax laws and home ownership, but Sorry, go ahead.

[00:08:35] Michael Mannino: you really pushed on a really big point. I don't think people really understand just yet. I was very blessed to move on to the, I got a canal to the Gulf of Mexico in Florida now. And I learned something since I moved here about a year and a half ago from Michigan that the water rises and falls three feet twice a day. Sometimes it's harder to get out on a boat. And sometimes it's easy to get on the boat. And then my neighbor said, how are you doing with the gulf? And I'm like,I'm learning where, when you go is more important than where you go. And he goes, yeah, that makes sense. Because when tides are high, you can go anywhere in the gulf. But when tides are low, you're gonna hit rocks, you're gonna hit coral, you're gonna, shear off your drive. It's harder to get to where you need to be. Now, really recently, this is probably the greatest gift I can give. Recently, I figured out when you buy a product might be more important than where you buy it. Because you were just alluding to you getting out and getting happy, breaking even with the house. The people that bought an 05 and sold the 09 and 10, they had to lose money. they just had to. Right now it is in our state of affairs in our economy as it is now. The affordability of buying a house that you alluded to is very difficult for new buyers. But it was the same thing in seven and eight, six, seven and eight. Remember, it was just hard to get a house because you had to put so much money down. The interest rates were six, seven percent. It was difficult because it costs too much. It's the same thing right now. I have a feeling we're going to start tipping and going the other way and the values will drop or stay even while income goes up, which is the big problem right now. Our income isn't matching the affordability of the houses. So that's going to be leveling out in the next year and a half, two years. And, that's when you should buy a house or buy a piece of property or buy a multifamily. I really feel that the time to buy is coming soon.

[00:10:24] Tim Little: Yeah, it's tricky though. I talked to some realtors and stuff like that and they bring up some things that I don't really think about because I don't think about it at the single family level all the time because I don't, I just don't plan on moving. But I was like, yeah. And they're like,it may not get better. And the reason is because of so much pent up demand. No one is buying right now. So they're saying if rates drop by even a point, Or a point and a half. they think that there's going to be a ton of people that flood into the market, which is great, right? People are going to be able to get homes. Sellers are going to be able to sell homes, but then what happens then supply demand imbalance and all that demand is going to drive up prices. Even more so I don't know which way it's going to go, but it'll certainly be interesting to see meanwhile. I'll be sitting back comfortably with my 2. 5 percent interest rate staying out of the fray. But

[00:11:23] Michael Mannino: Oh, you're a lucky man. keep that as long as you can. you knock it out of the park with the interest rates. Beautiful. I feel I can't, I can, you can prove either way nowadays with all the information out there, you really can, you can prove either way, but I think, when the government raised interest rates, the only reason they did it was to stagnate the economy. I've noticed one thing over the 50 years, 57 years I've been here, the government's trying to do something. screw something up, they'll do it. They'll do it well. They'll knock it out of the park with that. So I'm hopeful that they'll, they keep talking about a soft landing. I think if things start to tip, and it goes down and they're concentrating on the soft landing, I think that'll help out the economy and the individuals, the people that are struggling the most.

[00:12:06] Tim Little: Oh, yeah. There'll be a ton of benefits. if rates start to go down, I just, I question how fast they'll go down. a lot of people are looking at this with rose colored glasses. I'm like, It's not going to go down as fast as it went up. we were spoiled, literally spoiled for way too long with Zero percent interest rates, which I think personally was just as irresponsible of the fed to even allow that to happen But no one wants to be that guy and say hey, I know everyone's having a party, but we need to shut it down So he was hesitant to do anything about it.

[00:12:38] Michael Mannino: all right Why don't you take us a little further ahead? So you know, you started with your own residence then started building other houses. What did that turn into? That turned into,with, with problems comes adversity. What that turned into was just learning about real estate. I wish I would have learned more when I was younger. If you guys are 20 to 30, just start listening to the podcast, reading books, and just doing as much as you possibly can about real estate. Real estate is the most powerful tool in the world. I think it was,Dwight D. Eisenhower said, compounding interest is the most powerful force in the universe. real estate compounds in multiple different ways. Both me and you know about this,I started off with the building and then, got into the flipping and had each company separate. So we had a building company, we had a flipping company, and then we had a,finding the deals company. and then just. Making the companies run themselves, having a company that you don't need to be there to run it, is an actual business. Everything else is a job. So concentrate on getting your company to the point where you're not needed in the company. So you're just working on the company, not in the company. And then once you do that, you can start another adventure. so just, mine was just basic construction. Flipping, building. Now I'm getting into the multifamily. The last few years I got into the multifamily. That's where everything is. If I would have known how awesome multifamily is now, I would have done that 30 years ago. Buying a multifamily is difficult. you gotta learn, you gotta learn how to underwrite the deal. And that's probably one of the hardest parts to do. Understanding what you're going to make. When you buy the property and know that you're correct on it, it's probably one of the hardest things to do. Once you've got it and you've bought the property, you want to add value. I'm sure a lot of your listeners do the value add. Which is amazing, which is absolutely awesome. We found a property for, me and my partners found a property for, I think it was 850, 000, 16 units in North Carolina. Best thing we've ever done in our life. The cashflow at first, it didn't look, it didn't look that great because he was charged 650 per door. the cashflow doesn't look that right. And this is a year and a half, a year and a half ago. He didn't understand that the rents around the area could go up to a thousand dollars. So we bought this property for 850, 000, probably put 150, 000 into it, and raised the rents from 650, 000 to 1, 000 a month. So we're making 16, 000, income, with your NOI, It's working out absolutely amazing. Now we're trying to refinance the deal and this is the best. I love real estate. I love real estate. There's three ways to, there're three or four different ways to make money. Cash flow, You can make money per month. And then there's appreciation. The property is going to go up in value. And then there's depreciation, which, I highly suggest if anybody's done this, you have to tell everybody about it. This is where the rich don't pay taxes. The depreciation, we did a cost segregation on the property. We did cost segregation on two properties bought last year. And I paid as an entrepreneur, you got to pay your taxes. So the end of the year came around and I put a large sum of money down because my broker, my, my tax accountant said, yeah, put this much away. And then we did the two cost segregations and then the taxes from the other properties each year, the depreciation of the properties. and I ended up getting back 90 percent of what I gave them last year. I was kicking my heels to tell everybody about real estate for the rest of my life. This is just absolutely amazing. Making money and paying little taxes to none is probably the biggest key I could give away on the multifamily. And then, we're refinancing the property right now, a year and a half later. And we, when people were moving out, we fixed up the units. So we probably got about six, ten units. fixed up, we've got six left to do. Some people just aren't leaving. And we raised the rent from, we raised the rent from 650 to 925 and they just stayed. Yeah. Now the actual value of the property was around one. Now we got it up to 1. 7 and we're pulling out 300. We had to put some money down on the property. So we're pulling out 375, 000. And it's debt and we're going to take the income from that debt. We're going to split it up between the partners and we're not going to pay a dime of taxes on that because it's not earned income. And now the value of the property is 1. 7. So this multifamily gig is amazing.

[00:17:03] Tim Little: So that deal right there, was that a joint venture or was that something that you raised money from investors?

[00:17:45] Michael Mannino: Yeah. that was a joint venture. Have a little bit of money, have some friends that have money like joint ventures. There's just a lot less paperwork and, but the key to that is having good partners.

[00:17:53] Tim Little: Absolutely.

[00:17:54] Michael Mannino: the best, I'm sure anybody that's. Had bad partners knows, don't get bad partners.

[00:17:58] Tim Little: Yeah. And I've one of my best performing deals is a joint venture in Ocala. 24 units. You know, it's relatively small. I know that's not small to most people but relatively small And I love it. It's performing better than I expected and you know a secondary market But it's in that path of progress and rents have just kept going up. We've maintained occupancy So things are just working out, right? But like you said you need to have good partners on that And you also need to have a lot of capital up front, right? and so that's one of the challenges versus the syndication model. But then on the syndication model, you have to build in the returns to the investors. So it has to be an even better deal in order to provide that.

[00:18:42] Michael Mannino: agreed a thousand percent. Yeah, the syndication, the syndication aspect of it, just adds another complexity to it, but you need it for the bigger deals, right? Unless you're a billionaire and you can put five million in each property until the day you die, which I don't think everybody does, there's a lot less of those guys out there than most. But joint ventures that I feel are the best and you could correct me if I'm wrong. Syndication is obviously second best. I love those two. And when I, you know what I, here's one thing that I love about syndication is can people outside of multifamily get the returns from any other vehicle than multifamily?

[00:19:15] Tim Little: not that I know of. And I think I would add to that, what you were talking about with the cost segregation analysis that you did on your North Carolina property. And just if people aren't familiar, you're basically fast forwarding, supercharging the depreciation on the property, right? And taking a larger chunk up front rather than doing it over 27 years of the usable life of the property. And they do that by breaking it down into segments and literally figuring out, okay, how much is the carpet depreciated, this, that. Without getting into the nuts and bolts of it, that's the idea. And so that allows you to take a whole lot of depreciation up front and that's not only applicable to the owners because on syndication deals, I think it's important that passive investors understand this, you get that depreciation to, so say you've gotten distributions that year of 2, 000 or whatever it was, it was kicking off some profit, you got your distribution for 2, 000, that's part of your taxable income.

[00:20:12] Michael Mannino: Correct.

[00:20:12] Tim Little: If you get that K one from your sponsor and he says, Hey, passive investor, we got a big chunk of depreciation. Here's yours. And it's 2, 000 of a loss. then guess what? That just cleared out that 2000 in taxable income that you had. So you essentially made 2, Tax free. That's just an example, but it's a very realistic example.

[00:20:34] Michael Mannino: That's a very good point. And if you think about it, let's just put it to 20, 000. You're in a big deal and you have a little bit of money into the property and then you're going to make 20, 000 on this deal. And then you get a 20, 000 loss. It's a 10 million, 20 million property. and you get, 000 and you happen to be doing really good at whatever you're doing in your life. You might be an accountant, have a company or whatever it is that 20, 000. If you were to put it into your earned income, and you're at 40%, you're at a 40 percent tax rate, which is possible for the really good guys, right? 30 to 40%, let's just say 40%, it's 80 grand that you're not paying taxes on. That's a big difference. And if you, like me, find a decent property and they just happen, a brand new bill, what's the depreciation gonna be on a brand new bill? we're thinking about building a property in North Carolina right now, and, if it's $30 million, it could be $10 million, depreciation in the first five years. I, I'm assuming anybody in that deal probably won't be paying taxes for the next five years.

[00:21:30] Tim Little: Yep. No, that's an important point that you know in addition to whatever income you got from that investment if it lowers your tax base. Then that could save you money, you know overall now It's important to point out and I don't think you're a CPA. I'm not a CPA either. None of this is tax advice and you know for someone who isn't a real estate professional You can't use it to write down your personal income from your job, right? So

[00:21:55] Michael Mannino: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, good point. I'm not a tax advisor. We don't, highly suggest you consult with your tax advisor on anything that we say.

[00:22:02] Tim Little: Yeah, it's still an amazing benefit regardless. But yeah, talk to your tax advisor, like you said. All right. I'm interested to know what, what made you make the transition from flipping? and I suppose it's not necessarily a transition if you're still doing it. But what attracted you to multifamily? What was your introduction to multifamily? What did that first deal look like? How did you get involved with it?

[00:22:22] Michael Mannino: That's a great question. Just like I bought my first house for 50, 000. As time goes on, you learn a lot. I've heard all the benefits, probably a podcast like yours saying, Oh, multifamily is the best. And some idiot like me is talking, Oh, I'm not paying taxes. I Perks your interest when you're paying a lot of money in taxes here. The problem with making money is you have to pay a lot of money in taxes. So that was my reason. I'm like, I want to see Robert Kiyosaki. I'm probably going to butcher the name because I don't pay taxes. I don't pay taxes. And I was like, I gotta find out about this, and then my first real introduction, I, had a couple of properties. I had a partner, my son, who's my best partner in the world, found a, four unit in Pontiac, Michigan, which is Not the greatest area. So obviously if it's 40, 000, it's not a great area. We bought it, and we're rehabbers. We started fixing it up, and then, we started putting people in. there's a couple of units that weren't even livable. So we fixed up the units, put the people in, probably put 60, 000 into it, and then a couple years later, we sold it for 200, 000. Now, that's going to be interesting. That's going to, that's going to guide me into, and that was out of cost segregation. That was not paying taxes. That was just literally flipping. we're flipping houses. We got into flipping a four unit. Oh, this is cool. like and then I bought an eight unit. And then we, our partners, bought six units. We bought a 17 unit and an 11 unit. And they're all down in desperate need of repair. I know how to fix stuff up, It works out great for everybody. One of the partners brought the capital, my son found the deal, and I brought the rehab expertise to the deals. And, we fixed them all up. We're in the process of fixing a 17 unit up in Redford, Michigan. That's the hardest one. So at the heart, it doesn't seem like the hardest problems are the most profitable. We found this deal and we couldn't believe it was really super small units. There's 17 up in Rockford, Michigan. The guy wanted to just just take it from me and we offered 225, 000. It's like 11, 000 a door, some ridiculous number, but they need a lot of work. We're putting into the units more, most of them more than we bought them for. Does that make sense? And then we're going to have a, we're going to have an asset worth over a million dollars. So it's. It's cool how I got into it. I love fixing things. I just love it. If you give me a big project to fix, people call me up and say, Hey, we have a 200 unit in Texas. What do you need? We need rehab in a year and a half. All right, let's do it. They looked at me like, is this possible? I like, and because of my expertise, I was very blessed to, to, get involved with a life remodel where we built a house in six days. And so that experience there taught me just how to finite, put every piece together to do anything on any property at any time.

[00:24:46] Tim Little: Yeah. And that's obviously a great skill to have in this business. and one that's in high demand. So along with that, for someone with such a long and accomplished construction background, I would have thought that you'd be doing more development projects and it sounds like you might be going there. I guess I'm just curious why that wasn't a natural segue for you.

[00:25:09] Michael Mannino: Great question. I love your questions. Your questions are the best. So partners,for the last seven, eight years, my son's been my partner and he's been knocking on the park and finding good deals. And he's not interested in building. So he's starting some other adventures. He's doing real estate coaching. So he's showing people how to flip houses, showing how to make a flip house company like we did. He did a great job. He's able to teach it now. So it gives me the freedom to, to do what I've always wanted, build a multifamily. So all we're doing right now is looking for partners and looking for pieces of property that will, will accommodate in the area that's gonna accommodate a new build. And, I love North Carolina, like South Carolina, Florida, and anywhere that's gonna make sense. You know the higher numbers, like you like a hundred to 200. Everybody's telling me two 50. 250 is the number. and I get to live my dream. I'm going to, I'm going to end up moving to wherever I build for the next year and a half and just do something amazing.

[00:26:06] Tim Little: That's awesome. I look forward to seeing where that goes. But right now we do need to head into the turbo round. So are you ready for that?

[00:26:15] Michael Mannino: Born ready.

[00:26:16] Tim Little: All right, so I'm going to ask you three questions that I ask every guest that I have on the show and I just ask you for a relatively quick, honest answer. First one, what is one red flag that every investor should look out for?

[00:26:31] Michael Mannino: Probably the most important, if you're, if you want to, if you want to go my most important, partners. the right partner will make or break a deal, and I've been blessed to have the greatest partners on the planet, period. And,what most people miss is that your husband or your wife is your partner, and they are the number one indicator of whether you're going to fail or succeed in this world. Choose wisely. I've seen so many multi millionaires. Get a divorce and lose half, that's a poor partner decision. Does that make sense?

[00:27:02] Tim Little: Yeah, divorce is expensive.

[00:27:03] Michael Mannino: But from what I've heard from the people that have done it, it's so expensive because it's worth it. If you have a bad partner, paying half to get out is really an option for some people. I've been blessed to have a girl that's 36 years together and married for 32. And she's, thank you, she's the perfect partner. That's really the key. So partner in life and partner in business. That's number one. That's just literally by far and away that dwarfs any other red flag in the world.

[00:27:30] Tim Little: Yeah, no, totally agree. And so vetting those partners is vital knowing who you're getting into those partnerships with. All right. Second question. What is a myth about this business that you would like to set straight?

[00:27:42] Michael Mannino: Myth. That's a good one. That's another good one. The myth is, I can't do it. I'm sure that voice rang in your head and it rang in my head. It didn't really ring in my head. I have a little, I have a little different outlook on life than most people. But a lot of people are like, I can't do it. I can't do it. And,I'm a, I'm, I was a professional brick breaker and a fifth degree black belt. And I taught many people how to do things that they didn't think they could do. Break bricks, break boards, do a hurricane kick. So what I would tell people, what's the hardest part of a martial arts instructor is to pull cant out of my students forehead. If I can just pull cant out of your head, I can get you to do anything. And that cant is probably the biggest thing, the misconception. I can't do it. Real estate. Yes.

[00:28:29] Tim Little: Yeah, that's a really great point. And like you said, with your unique background in martial arts, you've. You've surpassed the can'ts already and now you're on a mission to get other people to do the same and the sooner people can get that can't out of their head, the sooner they can take action because they can't, I think, prevents them from even taking action in the first place and obviously, you can't go anywhere until you take that first step. So

[00:28:53] Michael Mannino: I say this to all my students. Now I teach teachers, teach martial arts, how to teach martial artists, how to teach martial artists. And, I, and I have, whenever I have a seminar or meeting, I say, tell me what you can do and tell me what you can't do. And they say, I can't do this. Okay, cool. What can you do? Oh, I can do this. And the first time I say, what can't I do? You're right. No, I can do this. You're right. Whether you say you can or can't you're right either way

[00:29:20] Tim Little: Yup, absolutely. All right, and the final question, Michael, what does success look like to you?

[00:29:25] Michael Mannino: See I'm at the when just like the boat ride when so what would success look like? To me at 25 is where I'm sitting now. What success looks like to me now it's just to be successful at everything you do now. Let me define that a little bit. You only do five things Right. You're a real estate investor, right? Are you married? Are

[00:29:48] Tim Little: Yes,

[00:29:49] Michael Mannino: Are you a dad?

[00:29:50] Tim Little: I am. Two

[00:29:51] Michael Mannino: Okay. Congratulations. Those are awesome. What about hobbies? What do you do?

[00:29:55] Tim Little: likes to travel. International travel.

[00:29:57] Michael Mannino: Travel. What else do you like to do?

[00:29:58] Tim Little: work out.

[00:29:59] Michael Mannino: Work out. Good. Physical. Yeah. Perfect. Do you do much more, out of those five things that you do you do much more in your time? It's for those five things, the real estate, the wife, the husband, the travel and the workout. What percent of that is your week or month or year?

[00:30:13] Tim Little: Most of it.

[00:30:14] Michael Mannino: There you go. So you only really do five things.That's what I'm trying to say. Being successful is being a great husband, being a great father and then being a great real estate investor and helping people invest in real estate. Being great, for me, it was a martial arts year working out. So you only do five things. Successful is being really good at those five things. That's all you have to do. You know what I mean? That's success to me. And being happy. Being really good at five things and being happy with what you do. That's really truly a success.

[00:30:42] Tim Little: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think that's the first time we've heard that on the show. But it makes sense to me in the sense that, sometimes you need to focus down. We can easily get distracted by so many things in life that sometimes you need to just stop, refocus on those things that matter. And. That's where you need to put your energy.

[00:31:02] Michael Mannino: Yup. Yup. Because you do anyways, you just don't realize it.

[00:31:05] Tim Little: Yeah.

[00:31:06] Michael Mannino: It's like you only do five things. Five to eight things tops most people. Super high performance, eight things. Me, four. it's really just being good at whatever you do in the day. And then, how many days you do it. It's really that simple.

[00:31:19] Tim Little: All right, Michael. hey, this has been awesome I really enjoyed our conversation Please tell our listeners how they can get ahold of you and if there's anything else that you'd like to share with them

[00:31:27] Michael Mannino: just do it. Just do it. Whether you say you can or cannot, you're right either way. Just do it. Get into real estate. It will blow your mind. Multifamily has been just the most knock down, drag out greatest thing I've done. I've done a lot of cool things in this world. to get in touch with me, right now I'm opening a new company, ARK Investment Ventures. I haven't got the website and or the email set up, so I'm going to have to give you my personal information. It's Mannino, M A N N I N O M T @gmail.com. And as soon as I get the other website up, as soon as we get the website up and the email's out, I'll let you know.

[00:32:02] Tim Little: All right. Awesome. we'll definitely have all that in the show notes again, michael thanks for coming on the show and I Appreciate you and look forward to continuing to do see you do big things on your journey to multifamily millions

[00:32:14] Michael Mannino: All right, man. Thank you very much for everything. And if I can help in any way, please let me know. And thanks for the podcast. I really do appreciate it. You really add value to all these people's lives and I hope they do appreciate it.

[00:32:23] Tim Little: thank you. You're doing the same

[00:32:25] Michael Mannino: Thanks brother.