BIO: Gino Barbaro is the co-founder of Jake & Gino. He is an investor, business owner, author and entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, he has grown his real estate portfolio to over 2,120 multifamily units & $280,000,000 in assets under management.

STORY: Gino invested and lost $172,000 in mobile home parks that he didn’t even know what they looked like or where they were.

LEARNING: Know your values before you form a business partnership with anyone. Do due diligence to understand what you’re investing in.

“A person with money needs a person with experience. The person with the experience gets the money. The person with the money gets the experience.”

Gino Barbaro

Guest profile

Gino Barbaro is the co-founder of Jake & Gino. He is an investor, business owner, author and entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, he has grown his real estate portfolio to over 2,120 multifamily units & $280,000,000 in assets under management.

Gino and his partner, Jake, are teaching others how to do the same through Jake & Gino, the premier multifamily real estate education community. Their students have closed over 71,000 units and have $4 Billion in deal volume!

Gino is the best-selling author of three books, “Wheelbarrow Profits,” “The Honey Bee,” and “Family, Food and the Friars.” He currently resides in St. Augustine, Florida, with his beautiful wife Julia and their six children.

Worst investment ever

In 2005, Gino had $172,000 sitting in the bank. His friend and accountant told him of an investment from a gentleman he’d been investing with for years. The gentleman was doing mobile home parks.

Though Gino knew nothing about mobile home parks, he was interested in the investment. He met the gentleman, who came driving a gold Maserati. He pitched him this syndicated deal. The parks were in Florida, but Gino never went to see them. He believed the gentleman’s word.

The first six months were great, and Gino was getting distribution checks. Six months later, the checks stopped. Gino and his accountant decided to find out what was happening. They searched the parks online, and what they saw was awful. The parks were in the middle of nowhere. No one would want to buy them.

Lessons learned

Buy right, manage right, and finance right.
Know your values before you form a business partnership with anyone.
Do due diligence to understand what you’re investing in. If you don’t know how to do it, hire an attorney or find a company to help you.
Learn each process before you invest in it.
Learn how to underwrite an asset to see if the numbers make sense.
Decide your investment goals and what you are trying to accomplish with each investment because it’s not always about chasing the highest yield. Ask yourself if each investment aligns with your goals,

Andrew’s takeaways

Never invest with somebody who approaches you with an investment. Do your own research.
Illiquid types of investments require much more due diligence than liquid ones.

Actionable advice

Get on the plane and fly down to the property. Take some pictures, then make your decision whether to invest or not.

Gino’s recommendations

Gino recommends listening to podcasts on his website to listen to interviews of thought leaders, people who think outside the box, and entrepreneurs. The website also has a ton of other valuable resources.

No.1 goal for the next 12 months

Gino’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to close another 300 real estate deals. He also hopes to continue to scale the education company and bring more students on.

Parting words

“Continue to listen to this podcast because you’re going to hear a lot more horror stories in the weeks, months, and years to follow. It’s only beginning.”

Gino Barbaro

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Further reading mentioned

19: Susan Miller - Love, Success and The Planets That Rule Your Life