The Power of Simplicity: Adiel Gorel on Building Wealth Through Single-Family Rentals
Episode Details
Transcript
In this episode of From Adversity to Abundance, host Jamie Bateman speaks with Adiel Gorel, a veteran real estate investor, bestselling author, and longtime advocate for long-term, buy-and-hold rental property investing. After launching a successful career in the tech world of Silicon Valley, Adiel realized that real wealth and impact weren’t found in the fast-paced corporate grind but in the stability and simplicity of real estate.
With hundreds of rental properties under his belt, Adiel could have retired decades ago. Instead, he's chosen to dedicate his time to educating others and sharing the practical lessons he’s learned along the way. Throughout the conversation, Adiel highlights why single-family residential real estate is his investment vehicle of choice—and how keeping things simple has been the secret to long-term success.
This episode is full of timeless, no-fluff advice for investors at any stage. From his love for long-term rental properties to his perspective on what he calls “the greatest gift the U.S. has to offer,” Adiel’s insights are both inspirational and deeply actionable.
Guest Introduction: Adiel Gorel
Adiel Gorel is an Amazon bestselling author, international speaker, and seasoned real estate investor with decades of experience. He has been featured on numerous media programs and has written five books on real estate and financial freedom. Adiel has successfully built a portfolio of hundreds of rental properties and is passionate about helping others achieve financial independence through simple, long-term investment strategies.
Episode Highlights:
- From Silicon Valley to Single-Family Homes – Adiel shares how he left the tech industry and discovered his passion for real estate.
- Why Simplicity Wins – A breakdown of his long-term, buy-and-hold approach to single-family rental investing.
- Hundreds of Properties, Zero Hype – How Adiel quietly built a real estate empire without complicated strategies or flashy tactics.
- The Greatest Gift in America – Adiel reveals what he believes is the most powerful opportunity available in the U.S.—and it may surprise you.
- A Mission to Educate – Why Adiel continues to teach and inspire others, even though he reached financial freedom years ago.
Key Takeaways:
- Simplicity in real estate investing often leads to the most sustainable results.
- You don’t need to chase trends or overcomplicate your strategy—long-term rentals can be a powerful wealth-building tool.
- True wealth isn’t just about money—it’s about having the freedom to help others and do what you love.
- Education, consistency, and action are more valuable than any secret strategy or overpriced program.
Resources:
Connect with Adiel:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adielgorel/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Adiel.Gorel.Profile/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AdielGorel
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adielgorel/
Adiel’s TedxTalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxtJLO4aK5I
Integrity Income Fund:
https://labradorlending.com/investors/passive-investors/
Labrador Mentorship:
labradorlending.com/investors/active-investors/
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Learn more: jamie.myfinancialhaven.com/
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Connect with Jamie:
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Speaker 0
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode with Adiel Gorel. Adiel has, been on many different media programs. He's an author of five books, an Amazon bestseller, and a longtime real estate investor. And what we really chat about is is his, his story about how he went from tech the tech world in Silicon Valley to getting into real estate investing. And, I love his practical and long term approach. He makes it, investing very, approachable and, keeps things simple, which I love. And you have to tune in to hear what he says is the greatest gift, that our country, the US, has to offer. And it it may surprise you what that is. And and, really, I love the fact that he's so such a big proponent of single family residential real estate investing, long term buy and hold, rental property investing. He's done all kinds of commercial land development, different things, but he is the biggest proponent there is of single family residential rental property investing. And he's could have retired twenty years ago and has hundreds of rental properties himself. But he just loves sharing his knowledge and adding value and changing people's lives through residential real estate investing. His story is definitely inspirational, but it's highly practical. This this episode is is brings a lot of practical value, and I think you're gonna really enjoy it. Speaker 1
From adversity to abundance, hosted by entrepreneur and seasoned real estate investor, niches and a background as a combat veteran, former army officer, and multimillion dollar mortgage note company owner, Jamie brings a wealth of knowledge and inspiring stories to each episode. Through weekly episodes featuring insightful interviews with industry leaders and solo explorations of mindset and strategy, listeners will uncover actionable advice and tips to overcome challenges and build lasting financial success. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting, from adversity to abundance is your road map to turning obstacles into opportunities and achieving financial freedom. Speaker 0
Welcome everybody to another episode of the from adversity to abundance podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman, and I'm pumped today to have with us Adiel Gorel. Adiel is an author, a real estate investor, a speaker, many other things, and we're gonna dive into a lot of that. Ariel, how are you doing today? Speaker 2
Doing well. It's a pleasure to be here, Jamie. Speaker 0
I'm excited for this conversation. This is gonna be a unique, I know you have a unique story, and we're gonna learn a lot from your your story for sure. For the listener who may be unfamiliar with you, who are you, and what are you up to today? Speaker 2
Well, you know, I'll tell you about my my background very shortly, but I'm a high-tech guy from Silicon Valley who veered off into real estate investments decades ago and chose not to retire, although I could have been retired now for over twenty years. And while I tell you the story, you'll understand why I chose not to retire. But in choosing not to retire, because I have something useful to provide that I don't wanna give up on, as you'll all hear in a second, I had to find a balance in my life. So I create music in my home studio. You can see some of my tools over in the background. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
In fact, this is I'm training to be on a stage in LA in a few weeks with the live band with some of the music that I created. It's gonna be fun. Then I have actually I have a health and wellness podcast. But with more than half my time, I help people change their financial future. That's the reason I didn't retire. It'll become clear in a second. So this is where I am today Yeah. Having chosen not to be a retiree in the usual sense Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
But finding the balance between providing what I can provide, which I think is useful, and having my own fun in life. Speaker 0
I love it. It does sound like you've got options for how to spend your time. You've got a lot of control over because it sounds like twenty years ago, you reached, you know, financial freedom where you could have retired, but you're choosing not to because you're choosing to have some fun but add value at the same time to others. I love that. And I I'm not a huge fan of retirement myself. I think, you know, we all need something to to have a, you know, a purpose and a mission and something about really about serving others is what we need in my opinion. Speaker 2
Warren Buffett just announced his almost complete retirement last week Yeah. At the tender age of ninety four and a half and a net worth of a hundred and sixty billion dollars. Speaker 0
That's wild. Yeah. I think it you just finally crushed that that financial threshold where he felt safe to retire. Speaker 2
Right. A hundred hundred and fifty nine billion, I don't feel secure. Speaker 0
Not quite enough. Speaker 2
Sixty billion, I think I can do it. Speaker 0
That's funny. Awesome. Well, let's jump back into your backstory, Adiel. I mean, specifically, before you made you were at that crossroads where you chose to move from high-tech from from tech toward real estate investing. Just paint the picture for us. What were what was the context of your life at that point in time? Speaker 2
So I, come from a classic high-tech background. I was living in Palo Alto right there in Silicon Valley. I did my graduate studies at the university, in electrical engineering and computer science. I taught the university, then I got my first job in Silicon Valley. So that was in the nineteen eighties. Yes, of course, I started when I was one year old. Yes. But, in the nineteen eighties, we didn't have Google, Meta, you know, Amazon. A lot of the companies just that we know now did not even exist yet. We didn't have the web. Sure. You know, stuff like that. So a company that I kinda wanted to work in straight out of the university was Hewlett Packard Labs in Palo Alto. And k. I was fortunate to get a job at the labs. I was very excited about it. And two things happened when I got that first job in Silicon Valley. Number one, HP Labs paid me a lot more than Stanford paid me to teach. And, you know, it's very much like today when you have a young person in Silicon Valley and they get a job at Google, and they say, oh my god. Look at that salary. So it was that kind of feeling. Yeah. And in my research lab at HP Labs, I had some colleagues who were in their fifties and sixties. I was a young man. So to my simple logic, they should have been very wealthy. Because if you work there for thirty years and got paid so incredibly well Yeah. Speaker 0
You Speaker 2
should be wealthy. But once I got to know my colleagues socially, I realized they were not particularly wealthy. They did own their own home, a four zero one k, and that was it. So I told myself, clearly, I need to build, you know, an empire myself to get me to be wealthy when I'm in my fifties and my sixties and beyond. I grew up in a family of real estate developers. As a child, I didn't care what my family did. I just wanted to play. Mhmm. But I was exposed to the power anyway. And so I said, look. I have a great job, good salary, good credit. I'm a young man, single. Expenses are very low. I'm going to buy rental homes and build, you know, an empire of rental homes so that when I get to fifty, I'll be very strong. So back then in the nineteen eighties, there was an unwritten rule, only buy within thirty minutes drive of where you live when you buy real estate. Speaker 0
Yeah. Sure. Speaker 2
I followed the rule. I was a good boy. I was living in Palo Alto. I was buying in Sunnyvale, in San Jose. This is all in Silicon Valley. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
After a few properties, I realized I couldn't build an empire in Silicon Valley. Because even in the nineteen eighties, although all the numbers were much lower than Speaker 0
they are now Right. Right. Speaker 2
The ratios were the same. Speaker 0
Yeah. Gotcha. Speaker 2
The rents were way too low in Silicon Valley Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
Relative to what the prices were. It's the same today. Yeah. Prices are very high. The rents, they don't seem low, but they're very low relative to the prices. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
It was the same back then. I it couldn't sustain. So I said, well, I have to find a place. I'll break the rule of the thirty years of the thirty Thirty miles. Minutes. Speaker 0
Yeah. Thirty minute. Yep. I'll do Speaker 2
a little research and find a place where the numbers work better. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
Of course, I didn't have the web, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page were in kindergarten, I believe. So they couldn't help me a whole lot, but I still had, you know, access to my lab at Stanford. And there, they had the ARPA net, which was the precursor to the Internet. And searching was much more primitive and difficult, but still you could search. So with a little search, I discovered that if I flew about an hour and a half from San Francisco, I would land in a smaller city by the name Las Vegas. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
Mhmm. And I could see that I could buy homes in Vegas that cost about a quarter of the Silicon Valley home price. But very surprisingly, the rents were more like one half Speaker 0
Okay. Of Speaker 2
the Silicon Valley rents. That was a totally different equation, obviously. Speaker 0
It's twice as good. Right? Speaker 2
It's much better. So I started flying to Vegas every weekend. Well, it took me some time because I always looked younger than my age, and back then, I looked like a boy. The people in Vegas had never seen a person buying out of state. So they were sure this crazy boy is gonna waste their time. Nobody wanted to deal with me. Speaker 0
Right. Right. Speaker 2
So I spent my first couple of months doing what I knew I would have to do anyway, looking for local property management firm. Because if I were if I was living in California and buying in Nevada Right. I would clearly need the local property manager to take care. And for the interviewing managers. And after a couple of months, I found the management firm that I liked. I was still very nervous because I never had the chance to really test the managers in the field yet. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
Finally, a local broker took pity on me and said, okay. I'm gonna find you homes, and I started buying. Now I was always very aggressive. And in my first year buying in Vegas, I love the numbers so much. I bought twenty two homes. Now before you and or your viewer listeners get excited or impressed by that number Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
I should tell you that the average home I bought in Las Vegas in the nineteen eighties cost thirty nine thousand dollars for the whole house. Speaker 0
Wow. Speaker 2
Not only that, but back then, Fannie Mae didn't limit the number of loans an individual can have. Yeah. And I could easily put only ten percent down payment with PMI or private mortgage insurance. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
To buy the home, which is what I did. Because even though I was paid well in my job, my cash reserves were small because I was young. Speaker 0
Sure. So you had to work that long. Speaker 2
Now buying twenty two homes doesn't sound so daunting when you hear those numbers. You Speaker 0
know? Right. Right. Speaker 2
For somebody who makes a good salary. Speaker 0
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just curious. Did you so when you you're for the homes you had bought in Silicon Valley, you were self managing those? Speaker 2
No. No. Speaker 0
No. You had property. Speaker 2
Found I had found a property management firm that I liked. Yeah. And finally, I got a chance to use them. I was living in Palo Alto, California. I owned twenty two homes in Las Vegas, Nevada. Yeah. And the local property management firm Mhmm. Was taking care of them. And, of course, my relationship with the management firm became good because they were happy to manage twenty two homes. Sure. Speaker 0
That's quite a bit. Absolutely. I didn't know if you had self managed at first in California, or you're or you're just saying you never even did you buy rental properties in California? Or or Speaker 2
I did. I bought a few in Silicon Valley before I realized Speaker 0
Right. Right. Speaker 2
The numbers were not gonna work. Speaker 0
But, Speaker 2
amazingly, even in Silicon Valley, I opted to use a local property management tool. Speaker 0
Got it. Got it. Speaker 2
Yep. Because number one, I'm not an expert property manager. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
Number two, I was very busy at my job in Silicon Valley. Speaker 0
Right. Right. Speaker 2
And so Makes sense. To use an analogy, I can clean my house. I'm not guaranteeing I'll do a great job, but I can clean my own home. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
Do I? I don't. I hire professional cleaners to come Right. Speaker 0
To Speaker 2
pay them, and they do a better job than me, and I have time to be here on the Zoom with you. Speaker 0
Sure. Absolutely. Makes a lot of sense. I was just curious because, we you know, when I got into rentals, I I have rentals in a couple of states, and originally, same thing much much later. It wasn't in it wasn't in the eighties. But I was, you know, hesitant to buy out of state or or I so I kind of started locally. And I think, as you said, it made a lot more sense in the eighties that you would buy locally because you couldn't search. The Internet was not a thing as you know? But I still think even though technology had come a long way and the Internet had come a long way in the in the following decades, there's still kind of maybe a fear for the new real estate investor to invest out of out of state. Right? And Absolutely. I did self manage for several years, which if you depending on your situation, sometimes I think that makes a lot of sense because then you can learn a a lot about managing properties, and then you can do a better job of managing your your property manager. But the point I'm trying to get to is that, eventually, I realized, why am I you know, I felt so tied down. I felt like I needed to stay in this local area where my rental properties were just in case because that's I I just needed to be there. But I I at this point, now I have a property manager. I I I'd never go to my rental properties. So I've gotten over that fear, and I have out of state rentals now. I've done out of state rehabs. And, you know, I I think some of it is that it was harder to do in the eighties, but some of it is just an and a a fear inherent fear that comes along, you know, and wanting to have that control. And but I think in a lot of ways, it's it's best almost to keep it at a keep the properties at a distance so that you're not too involved with them and you're not too, you know, tied to them emotionally, because after all, it's just it is an investment. So okay. So you had you got twenty two properties in that Speaker 2
first I took I took the concept of using property management to an extreme as you assume here. Speaker 0
Right. Okay. Speaker 2
All my Silicon Valley friends wanted to join me. Speaker 0
Okay. Speaker 2
And, in what I've been doing for the past forty years, I took it to the extreme. But, I mean, even at the beginning when I was using property management firms in Las Vegas, I thought about the thirty minute rule, and I said, okay. Let's say I have a home close to me Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
And it's rented out. By law, I'm not allowed to barge in and, you know, disturb my tenants. Speaker 0
Right. How Speaker 2
is it gonna help that the home is twenty minutes away from me? Speaker 0
And we're Speaker 2
gonna kiss it, you know, good night. Yes. I can't even do that. Speaker 0
That's so true. Speaker 2
Me barging into the yard of my tenant. Speaker 0
Right. No. You're right. Speaker 2
It's many nights. It's totally psychological. Speaker 0
Right. Exactly. That's the point I was trying to get to is because I would drive by my properties that are local and just but I would realize there was no point. I was like, okay. There there it is. There's the property. There there was I would accomplish nothing by driving by. Speaker 2
You drive by, and guess what? Here's the roof. Yeah. Here's the wall. Speaker 0
Here's the yard. Here's Speaker 2
the tree. Right. Speaker 0
It Speaker 2
kinda looks the same all the time, doesn't it? Speaker 0
Right. So I stopped doing that. And, okay. But backing up for a second, I know you said you were exposed to real estate development growing up, but how did you get really the concept of why why did you go into single family rentals? You know, what gave you that idea and that that the why did you wanna move in that direction? Speaker 2
Yes. So here, that's a fantastic question. And here is also the reason why I'm not retired. I discovered something when I started a few decades ago that completely blew my mind. And I've written more than five books about it. I was, you know, invited to do a TEDx, which I'll be happy to share with your viewers. Speaker 0
And we can put that in the the link in the show notes. Speaker 2
Yep. Yeah. You know, I was on PBS on a TV special. Every time I speak, I have not recovered from that one piece of information that I learned a few decades ago. I learned that there's one country, a very, very crazy country in the world, which is the only country to the best of my knowledge, where you can get something which I consider to be the biggest financial gift in the world. The name of that insane country is the United States. What's the name of the crazy gift? The crazy gift has a name that everybody will recognize. The problem is how many people really think about it as a gift. The name of the gift is, you ready, The thirty year fixed rate loan. Speaker 0
Yes. Speaker 2
Now people are listening now and saying, what? Everybody knows about it. There's nothing to add. Come on. Let's look before. Speaker 0
It's no big deal. Speaker 2
Oh, really? Really? Is that what you I think the best way to show how special it is is to illustrate what happens when I get invited to speak in other countries. So here I am in Europe, and I tell them, my Americans can get a loan called thirty years fixed. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
And they ask me, what does it mean? I say, like the name implies, the payments on the loan, principal and interest are always fixed. They will never change no matter what inflation, cost of living, hail, high water. So same. And the loan balance, which actually goes down a little bit with your payments all the time Sure. Also doesn't keep up. The Europeans treat me very harshly when I say that. They say, with all due respect, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. I can't believe I drove a hundred kilometers. You can't believe Speaker 0
it's to come listen to you. Speaker 2
This is complete nonsense. And we'll prove to you how stupid what you're saying is with logic. Are you ready? I said, I'm ready. Let's go. They say, you have inflation in the US. Right? We do. Sometimes it's higher, sometimes it's lower lower, but it's always there. Right? Mhmm. Correct. Forty years ago, you bought a postage stamp in the US for four cents. Today, seventy two cents. Forty years ago, you went to the movies in San Francisco for two bucks. Today, fifteen bucks. If you go to Whole Foods today and you buy a beautiful organic avocado, it's gonna be three dollars. You know, we know, everyone knows in ten years, it's probably gonna be five or six dollars. Inflation. Everything goes up with inflation. And you want to tell us that in the entire US economy, where the cost of tomatoes and avocados and shoes and glasses and rents and houses and everything constantly goes up because inflation makes the dollar weaker and weaker. So you need more dollars to buy more goods. In the midst of all of this, somebody is insane and gives you a loan. That's the only thing in the US economy never to budge while everything else goes up all the time. If that were true, which it can't because, obviously, you're very stupid, that will be the biggest financial gift in the world because inflation would become your very best friend Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
Eroding the real value of your loan every month, every year. It's too good to be true. It's not possible. Nobody is gonna be stupid enough to give you this. So then I say, look. You wanna do a little search? They do a search. Oh my god. You really have this craziness. The next question is always the same. If the Americans can get this unbelievable gift, which will change their lives and by the way, you don't even have to wait for thirty years. In ten years, twelve years, fourteen years, your loan is gonna become so small as to be inconsequential. You'll build so much wealth. If the Americans can get this unbelievable gift, why don't the Americans drop everything they do and run out to get as many of these as possible? My answer is always the same. I don't know, but I sure did. Speaker 0
But I sure did. Yeah. Speaker 2
I sure did. Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
So that the only person in the United States that I've ever been in touch with, who got it before I explained it, is indeed Warren Buffett. He was in touch with me in two thousand and twelve. He thought prices of houses were still low because of the, you know, the aftermath of the big recession. Wanted to buy a large number of homes for his company. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
He wanted to get thirty year fixed rate loan on every home. Fannie Mae said no. But he gets it. Nobody else does. I speak with geniuses from Silicon Valley. Geniuses. They run the biggest companies. Woah. Thirty years. Oh, thirty. Nobody gets it. Speaker 0
That's funny. Speaker 2
I don't want to retire. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
Because I have a life changing message that I don't wanna take with me and be quiet and people Speaker 0
won't have. Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. So let me let me show you what it looks like. I got a call from one of my investors, a doctor, retired now. He says, remember me? I started investing with you when I was forty three. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
I bought one house to begin with, because I was very busy as a doctor. And I wanted to see that the property management firms that you guys use Mhmm. Because we bought my investors bought more than ten thousand homes in the past forty years in thirty markets. We use local property managers who manage a thousand homes for us, two thousand homes. So he said, I wanted to make sure the managers really do the job. She said, I was happy. It was rented. It became boring. So I bought another one, another one. I understood what you explained about the thirty year fixed rate loan. So I put the minimum down payments that I could, get the biggest loans that I could because I consider the loan a gift once I understood. Sure. I ended up buying, he says, twenty two homes. Again, twenty two homes is the exact number of homes that I bought Right. Speaker 0
In Vegas. Speaker 2
A happy coincidence. Yeah. And, again, not particularly difficult because when he was buying these homes, a few years into the game, I realized that to simplify it even more and to make it more accessible to everyone who does it, I like to buy brand new homes. Speaker 0
Okay. Speaker 2
No fixing, no flipping, no changing, no no brand new homes under warranty so that the Silicon Valley person can do it, the doctor can do it. Yeah. The teacher can do it. The truck driver can do it. Nobody has an excuse not to do it. Brand new homes under warranty. Speaker 0
That's what you're doing now or this was Speaker 2
That's what I've been doing for nearly four years. Speaker 0
So do you do build to rent? Or Speaker 2
No. No. Not at all. Not at all. But let me tell you the story of the doctor. Speaker 0
Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2
So he bought brand new homes in good locations. At the time, they were about a hundred and fifty thousand each. He was putting a minimal down payment. For a doctor to buy a twenty two homes is not that hard. And then he said, I started buying when I was forty three. Mhmm. When I turned fifty six, I looked at my twenty two homes. And even though I bought them with a small down payment and a very large mortgage Yeah. After thirteen years, my mortgages were just about one quarter of the value of the homes. That's what inflation does Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
To the only thing in the US economy never to change while the rents and the homes and the the tomatoes and India, everything goes up with inflation. Speaker 0
Sure. So the Speaker 2
loans look like a joke. He said, I was unbelievably excited because over twenty two homes, I had millions of dollars in equity. Millions. But then I took it one step further, he says. I took five of my twenty two homes, and I sold them. I didn't do anything fancy. No ten thirty one exchanges. Nothing. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
Sold five homes, paid my tax, and used the proceeds to pay off the remaining seventeen tiny loans. Interesting. And now even though I was a successful specialist as a doctor, seventeen free and clear homes, I retired at age, well, thirteen years. So fifty six. Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
Retired at fifty six. That guy is the same age as me. He's my friend, and I'm not retired. He bugs me all the time. Let's go to let's go to South America for a month. I'm saying, I'm working. Speaker 0
You know? Right. Right. Speaker 2
You're retired. That story about this doctor is one story out of many thousands of stories. The magic of the thirty year fixed rate loan coupled with an unbelievable power of inflation and the tenants paying rents Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
Have sent thousands of my investors, thousands into retirement, great wealth, because I have investors who bought well over a hundred homes, sending their kids to Stanford and to Harvard without even feeling that it happened. And this is very serious stuff. So this is also the answer as to why I chose single family homes. Speaker 0
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Speaker 2
The thirty year fixed rate loan Speaker 0
is Speaker 2
only given on one to four residential units. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
Primarily, you wanna buy in good areas, single family homes. Yeah. That's why the single family home. Speaker 0
No. I love it. I mean, that's I'm a single family home guy myself. I do, like I mentioned, residential, rental property investing, but I also do mortgage note investing as well. But it's all in that single family wheelhouse. I've never really gotten into the commercial space. I've been a passive investor in some commercial deals. But so did you ever consider going down the commercial path or not really? Speaker 2
Not only have I considered, I've done it. In my forty something this is year forty one for me of doing all of this. In my forty years, I've bought about twenty five apartment complexes. I bought land and subdivided it. I bought commercial. Nothing ever stood a chance, you know, against beautiful brand new single family homes Speaker 0
Interesting. Speaker 2
In good areas, low down payment, thirty year fixed rate loan. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
A local property manager leases the home for you, who really cares about you Right. Because he manages a thousand homes for my investors and never wants to get an email from me. What's going on with Jamie's home? Speaker 0
Right. Right. Right. Sure. Speaker 2
Yeah. So they really care about you. They lease up the home. The home becomes boring. And then your job to do the hardest action for a human being to do. Nothing. Let inflation and your tenant build you wealth for you. Speaker 0
Work for you. Sure. Speaker 2
Not a short term. It's not a get rich quick, but this week. Right. Right. Twelve and fourteen years, it'll change your future. Speaker 0
Yeah. Absolutely. That's really interesting because I'll be honest as a as a real estate investor in the single family space, there's always this, in the back of my mind, this pressure. You know? You're not doing enough. You're supposed to be leveling up the in the if you become a multifamily syndicator, it's you know? That's where the money is, and you can add zeros by doing the same amount of work, blah blah blah. And so there's this internal dialogue of, oh, you're just a single family, you know, rental property investor. That's that's not enough. And I think in on social media, you see all this you know, all the different asset classes and and that kind of thing, and it it can, you know, put this pressure on you. So it it's interesting to hear that from someone who's done so much in in many different asset classes to say that single family is is where it's at. Speaker 2
Nothing even touches it in the United States because of the thirty year fixed rate loan. You don't get the thirty year fixed rate loan the minute you go to five units or above. Speaker 0
Yeah. Sure. Speaker 2
You know, and, you know, there's a notion that you started kindergarten buying single family homes. Then you go to first grade buying duplexes and fourplexes. Then you go to third grade, you buy small apartment building. Then you go to fourth grade. I remained in kindergarten. Speaker 0
I love it. Alright. So, in a bit, we'll get in more to how investors can work with you. But, as far as your story goes, after you bought those twenty two homes in in Vegas, walk us through I know we're we don't have time to cover the whole the whole story. Speaker 2
No. I can do it quickly. I can Walk Speaker 0
us through from there until now as far as some of the highlights. Speaker 2
So during that first year, when I was going buying the twenty two homes, my Silicon Valley friends were mercilessly ribbing me and making fun of me. What are you doing? Nobody's buying out of state. You're insane. This is gonna fail. But after a year, when they saw me with my twenty plus homes, the logic of the engineers started working and they said, you know what? We see what you're doing. We wanna do it too. I said, you should go do it. It'll change your life. They said, are you kidding? We work in Silicon Valley. We have no time to go to the bathroom. Right. You you're you're you're already there with your managers and your realtors and your homes. How about you lead us? I said, okay. So I led a group of twenty engineers. And we bought about two hundred and fifty homes over something like three and a half years, not as a group. She bought six homes for herself. He bought four homes for himself. I bought a few more. And I made a very trivial discovery that even the very cautious engineer who bought just one little home as a test enjoyed the clout, the power of two hundred and fifty homes because the service providers knew if he wasn't happy, he would complain to me. And now I'm not happy with them, and every other manager in Vegas was in touch with me all the time. Come to us. We are better. We are cheaper. We are nicer. We are taller. We are prettier. Who doesn't wanna mention two hundred and fifty homes? Plus, the many dozens we may still buy in the future. Same today. My investors, as I said, bought more than ten thousand homes in over thirty markets. We have markets where the managers manage a thousand, two thousand homes for us. They really care. So even when somebody comes in and buys one home, they know we've given them the power of two thousand homes in a way. Speaker 0
Interesting. So you started not buying as a group, but but kind of pulling, not capital, but but, that that purchasing power that, I guess, street cred and the the Speaker 2
Street cred. Really, that they they have gotten so Yeah. Let's say one of our markets now, we bought, like, twenty two hundred homes. Somebody comes in. We help them. We hold their hand. I strive to make it super simple because most people are busy. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
So they buy a home. Now they have one brand new home. But the property manager is managing twenty two hundred homes. Speaker 0
Right. Right. Sure. Makes sense. So, and then you did that with with a group of people, and then walk us through, you know, how did your, for your for your own investing journey, how did things play out over the years for you? Speaker 2
So I kept I kept buying all the time. And to this day, I'm the biggest investor among all of my thousands of investors. Speaker 0
Okay. Speaker 2
So and I have people who bought well over a hundred homes. I'm still the biggest investor. Speaker 0
Nice. Speaker 2
And and, so, I kept on buying. I kept on investing. Obviously, I've been doing it for forty years, so many of my homes don't have mortgages anymore. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
Some of them do because I refinanced, you know. I never paid attention to what the interest rates were at the time that I was buying. In fact, the twenty two homes in Vegas in the mid nineteen eighties, the interest rates were fourteen percent in the marketplace. Fourteen. Yes. Every one of these homes started out with a negative cash flow because I put a small down payment. I didn't care. I knew that even at fourteen percent, these are fixed loans. But the rent the rents are not fixed, and inflation, of course, was high at fourteen percent. So that's exactly what happened. Within a year or two Speaker 0
Drive the price. Speaker 2
Price went up. Speaker 0
And rents went up. Speaker 2
Break even. Yeah. Then when the rates went down to twelve, I refinanced everything down to twelve. Everything became positive. Then came the unforgettable day. The media was screaming single digit rates. I refinanced everything to nine point ninety five. Everything became super positive. I never care about the rates. That's why it's so funny now when the rates are close to seven. Speaker 0
Yeah. And Speaker 2
everybody, oh my god. The rates are at seven. Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
Really? And with that's what's bugging you? Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
Unbelievable. But, you know, the media is not aware of that. Doesn't matter the media says, sit on the sidelines until the rates go back down again. Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
Well, that's something that may or may not happen in the future. We don't know the the future. Speaker 0
Right. Right. Speaker 2
But if if the rates do go down, let's say they go down to four. I'm just making up a score. Guess what's gonna happen? The media is gonna pump everybody to buy. Demand's gonna be enormous. Prices are gonna zoom up. Mhmm. The competition's gonna hit. Speaker 0
Yeah. It's Speaker 2
great to buy today. Yeah. The media calls millions of people to sit on the sidelines. Demand is low. The sellers are giving incentives. And ironically, actually buying your rates down to entice you Speaker 0
Oh, right. Yeah. I have seen that. Speaker 2
Great to buy today. Then in the future, if the rates go down Speaker 0
Yeah. In refinance. There's always a reason or several reasons not to get in now. Right? There's always there there's always some some some issue or some something that holds people back. Right? It's never a perfect time to get in. So real estate is very forgiving in the long term. So like you said, initially, your several of your properties were not cash flowing, but soon after they were. And and then looking back thirty, forty years, does it really matter that they weren't cash flowing? Speaker 2
When I when I look at this as a twelve to fourteen year investment Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
I don't expect the houses to feed me my food Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
In year one, year two, year three. Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
That's where my salary, my job, my income feeds me. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
But give it to you four, five, six, seven, it gets positive and positive. And then between twelve and fourteen years into the future, life is changed completely. Speaker 0
You know, maybe you can compare and contrast, from what was your financial picture, you know, when you started working in Silicon Valley and then versus now? And you can obviously be as specific as you'd like. Speaker 2
Well, you know, when I started working in Silicon Valley, I was making a good salary. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
So I didn't feel like I wanted for financial learning. But, of course, today, with a very large number of homes Yeah. Many of which are free and clear, it's a very different place to be. Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
Not only that. I work with Silicon Valley people, and the salary could be high, but your taxes Speaker 0
Yeah. These Speaker 2
people pay some of the highest tax Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
In existence. Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
And Silicon Valley is in the state of California, so that's an even higher tax. Speaker 0
True. Speaker 2
When you derive your income from real estate, the tax structure looks different. Speaker 0
Sure. Absolutely. Speaker 2
Be carrying forward a lot of losses from the past. You may be it's so not only do you earn more, you pay less taxes legally and rightfully with the tax law. Speaker 0
Absolutely. So it sounds like you're in a pretty pretty, drastically different financial situation than you were forty years ago. Speaker 2
Yeah. But, again, it's not like I was in a bad place, to be fair. Speaker 0
I want Right. Speaker 2
It's not a rags to riches type. Speaker 0
Sure. Right. Understood. But I love the long term approach. It's not a get rich quick scheme or something like that. So you're not finding any trouble, or having any trouble finding deals that that work these days? Speaker 2
These days are an amazing time because it once again, the media Yeah. Many of the people who write in the media are very young. So their universe is very short. Speaker 0
Sure. Right. Speaker 2
They remember the super low rates Speaker 0
from Speaker 2
the COVID era. Two and a half percent, three percent. So they think six and three quarters percent is the end of the move. Yeah. Historically, these are still very low rates. Speaker 0
Sure. I remember I I I worked at a a tenant company in a mortgage for a mortgage broker, the early two thousands for a few years. And even then, it was like once rates got below six percent, it was, I mean, it it was crazy low. People couldn't believe how low that was. You know? So and then we're never gonna see below five percent. You know? And then, obviously, we did. And so, yeah, we've been spoiled in a sense to believe that a two point five percent mortgage is is normal. Speaker 2
There were two decades of my investment career. Mhmm. Speaker 0
But if Speaker 2
you told me you would give me a loan at seven and a half, I would be dancing in the street for joy. Speaker 0
That's amazing. So Speaker 2
But but but, anyway, today is one of the best times to go in because the media has so much power now. The media is not only the TV and the newspaper like it used to be. Now it's the TikToks and the Facebooks and the this and the Instagrams. So it reaches millions of people telling them don't do anything. Don't do and they don't. So as I said before, demand is low. Supply is pretty good. It's an amazing time to be a buyer. So this is a great time to buy. Speaker 0
Right. Now would you consider the investors that you work with, would you consider them to be passive or active investors? Speaker 2
As close to passive as is humanly possible. Most of my investors have jobs, either in Silicon Valley or doctors or lawyers or teachers or nurses or they have no time to spare on these homes. And luckily, they don't need to because there is a full time local property management firm taking care of a brand new home. Yeah. I make it as simple and, I mean, the least amount of work. I mean, as passive as you can be. Speaker 0
Got it. And what do you think holds people back as far as getting involved with, with real estate investing? Speaker 2
You know, you can get into the psychology of things, fear of success, fear of failure. I don't deserve this. I mean, I think the way to do it is because I like to buy in markets in the country that are affordable. Mhmm. Start with one home. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
Sometimes people call me and say, oh, I have enough money to buy ten homes. So how about you buy one? Buy one. And then you let it rent, you let it lease, you see how it goes. Psychologically, when you buy home number two, it's just a repetition of the same process. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
Buying home number four is already boring. So start with one. Start small. We like to buy in the Sunbelt states Yeah. Where we buy homes even now, brand new homes from the low two hundreds all the way up to the mid three hundreds. Very affordable relative to the expensive markets in the country. Small down payments relatively, so it's affordable to most people with a job. Speaker 0
Sure. Now how are you getting around the if someone wants to buy ten, fifteen homes, as far as the the max number of loans they can have? Speaker 2
Fannie Mae loans. Fannie Mae Yeah. Limits the number of loans for an individual to ten. Mhmm. If you're a married couple and each of you works in a job and can qualify separately Mhmm. Fannie Mae enables you to buy them homes in both your names. Yeah. Husband and wife. But to put only one of your names on the loan, that makes the ten become twenty. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Got it. Speaker 2
I have people who buy sixty and a hundred beyond the Fannie Mae limit. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
You have the non Fannie Mae loans, and there are plenty of lenders who will give you good thirty year fixed rate loans Yeah. Simply not within the Fannie Mae umbrella. Speaker 0
Got it. Understood. Alright. I've got some rapid fire questions. Ariel, are you ready? Speaker 2
Ready. Speaker 0
This one sometimes trips people up a little bit. What do people misunderstand about you? Speaker 2
People sometimes are skeptical that I chose not to retire because I feel like I have something that is changing lives. They think there must be an ulterior motive. Mhmm. But really, I mean, I'm doing all the things I love in life, including travel, but I still let people know about the miracle called the thirty year fixed rate loan right in their backyard. Speaker 0
Got it. What's one of your biggest failures, and what did you learn from that experience? Speaker 2
I always look back and say I should have bought more. All of my investors do. When that doctor told me the success story with his, twenty two homes Yeah. He finishes by saying, I should have bought more. I say the same even on hundreds of homes. And I regret the homes I let go of to, you know, early in the game. I think the best strategy is to buy and hold. Speaker 0
Yeah. Got it. If you could go back and give your eighteen year old self some advice, what would that be? Speaker 2
Start methodically. Start slowly. Don't feel that you have to wait to be perfect. Don't let perfection be, you know, the enemy of good. Mhmm. Speaker 0
Got it. That's really good. If you could have coffee or a drink with any historical figure, whom would you choose? Speaker 2
Well, because of my connection with Warren Buffett and because he's not young anymore, he would be my choice. Speaker 0
Okay. He's he may have a little more more time on his hands now to be able to do that. If you were given ten million dollars tomorrow with no strings attached, what would you do with it? Speaker 2
I would go the same route that I described. Even Warren Buffett when he talked to me in two thousand and twelve, he was already a very, very wealthy Speaker 0
man. Speaker 2
Berkshire. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
Billion. He wanted to buy a large number of homes with a down payment. I'll do the same thing. Buy brand new single family homes with a down payment and get thirty year fixed rate loan whether you give me ten million or a hundred million. Speaker 0
Got it. And speaking of Warren Buffett, I think he I think he eats the same, breakfast every day, but from McDonald's, I believe. But if you had to eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would that be? Speaker 2
It would be a healthy meal, some protein, some I mean, probably some veggies. Yeah. I'm not a vegan, so just a healthy meal with protein. Speaker 0
Got it. Speaker 2
You know, nothing really special. I'm not picky. Speaker 0
Right. Speaking of healthy, I I see your kettlebells in the background there. You said you have a a what? A a health and fitness podcast? What what does that all mean? Speaker 2
Health and wellness podcast. Speaker 0
And Got it. Speaker 2
The name, I can say it's a very creative name. It's called the Adiel Gorel show. Speaker 0
Nice. Speaker 2
You can find it everywhere. Speaker 0
Got it. As far as your your work goes, what is the challenge that you're facing in your your business right now? Speaker 2
The challenge is I see people who are absolutely primed to change their future, but the media managed to scare them into doing nothing and waiting and holding. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
I already know when I meet them ten or fifteen years into the future, they lament not having done anything. Speaker 0
Got it. In your field of expertise, what is something that almost no one agrees with you about? Do you have any controversial views? Speaker 2
Before people hear me explain it, nobody agrees with me that the thirty year loans is the most magical gift in the world. Speaker 0
Right. Got it. Speaker 2
How Speaker 0
do you define mental fitness in the context of real estate investing? Speaker 2
Not being scared to start, taking it one step at a time, building the expertise, resilience, realizing you can be quite passive and do it in the background, and never really letting the media dictate what you think or do. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Love it. Looking forward, what are some emerging challenges you think real estate investors, should be preparing for now? Speaker 2
Well, again, it's very hard to know the next couple of years. The economy is a little bit unstable right now. Yeah. What we are talking about, single family homes, people need a place to live. It's not gonna go away. There is a big shortage of those in the country. Right. So the challenges in this particular sectors are actually limited. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Okay. What is a book or two that you could recommend for our listener? Speaker 2
I hate to sound like that, but one of my own books Yeah. Called remote control retirement riches, which is also the name of my PBS show that I did, I think would make a very good reference book. And then, you know, any other book about single family homes that is simple. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
I mean, people love love to complicate. Speaker 0
Yeah. Yeah. It's true. Speaker 2
I think simplifying is really the key. Speaker 0
Sure. Makes a lot of sense. What is one question, Ariel, that I have not asked you that you wish I had? Speaker 2
Oh, you stumped me there. Speaker 0
That's nice. Speaker 2
So many good questions. I can't think of one. Speaker 0
So I'll ask, who who do you think should not get into single family rental property investing? Speaker 2
Okay. So in order to get these magical loans, the lenders expect you to have a job. So if you don't have a job Mhmm. You might wanna wait until you have some income Yeah. Or maybe a partner or a spouse with an income where you Speaker 0
can Yeah. Speaker 2
One of the things that scares me very much is when I talk to somebody who has a good job. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
And they listen to me and said, oh, I'm so excited. I hate my job. I'm gonna quit it, and I'm gonna buy houses. I say, no. No. No. I love your job. I like your job more than you like your job. Speaker 0
That's funny. Speaker 2
Job is necessary to get these loans. Speaker 0
Yeah. That's really good. I'm glad I asked that question because that's we do talk about that that topic on this show quite a bit is, you know, because we have people who go between passive and active real estate investing. Maybe they've been a passive investor for a while, and then they they wanna get more active and and, they wanna quit their job. So any other advice you can add to that as far as when is the right time to quit your job, should you ever Speaker 2
quit your job? Because of the magic of the thirty year fixed rate loan and from vast experience of decades of doing this over many thousands of people and homes, it's between twelve and fourteen years that the homes will have so such little loans and so much equity so as to change your future completely. So think about it as a twelve to fourteen year term, and then you may never have to work again depending on how many homes you bought. Speaker 0
Got it. That's a great answer. Fantastic. Well, this is this has been really good. It's been both inspirational and practical for sure. You've added a lot of lot of value. If someone wants to reach out to you to to invest with you or just learn more, how can they do that? Speaker 2
Well, I have a lot of articles that I wrote for magazines, the TEDx talk. I'll be happy to share it with anyone. Just send us an email to, you know, info at I c g r e dot com. We have a big event once a quarter. Used to be live where I bring in all our markets. They show us their properties, talk about them. Expert speakers, I take lots of questions. We moved to Zoom during COVID, so now it's by Zoom. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
And it's only four hours long. Our next event is on Saturday, May the seventeenth twenty twenty five. It's coming right up. Mhmm. You can register for free on our website, I c g r e dot com Perfect. Under events, and you're welcome to join us. I think you'll get a lot of information. I because I chose not to retire, would be very happy to talk to you, the listener, the viewer, to you, Jamie Yeah. One on one. I enjoy it because I feel like I'm changing your life. Yeah. So all you need to do is get in touch with us, info at I c g r e dot com, or go to our website, I c g r e dot com, and set up a meeting with me, and I'll talk to you, I'll share with you, I'll guide you. And once again, my motto is make it simple. Speaker 0
I love it. Like I said, so many so many, just I don't know. Simple, like you said, but but timeless, pieces of knowledge that you've dropped today. This has been very good. It it you're definitely changing people's lives for the better, and I really I really like your practical and long term approach to things for sure and big picture approach. So, Adiel Gorel, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. Speaker 2
Thank you, Jamie. It's been a pleasure. Speaker 0
And to the listener, thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us, and that is your time. Thanks, everyone. Take care. Speaker 1
Thank you for joining us on From Adversity to Abundance. We hope today's episode has equipped you with valuable insights and practical advice to elevate your real estate journey. For more inspiring stories and resources, visit us at w w w dot adversity to abundance dot com. If this episode has inspired you, please share it with a friend who could also benefit from our conversation. Together, let's turn adversity into abundance. Until next time, keep building your mental fitness and your real estate empire. 
