RG 353 - Investing in Pandemic and Recession Resistant Asset Classes with Ben Reinberg

RG 353 – Investing in Pandemic and Recession Resistant Asset Classes with Ben Reinberg

What is the value of investing in medical offices? And why are they considered recession and pandemic resistant? Learn more about Ben Reinberg and his fool-proof values as a seasoned and successful entrepreneur.

Ben Reinberg is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of Alliance Consolidated Group of Companies, a real estate investment firm specializing in medical, retail, and industrial office properties with over $350 million in portfolio value.

How did Ben Reinberg and his team at Alliance find a gold mine in medical offices and other ‘necessity’ asset classes? The process wasn’t as simple as you may think. In this week’s episode, Ben shares how Alliance operates and serves investors in the best way possible and sprinkles a few of his insights as an entrepreneur.

Interested in becoming an Investor with Reed? Click here to join his Investor email list.

We learn about Ben as a person and entrepreneur in this lesson-rich interview. Press that ‘Play’ button to learn more about how you can improve as an investor, business owner, and individual as a whole.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

In this business, you will fail, but you must keep pushing yourself forward.
Continuing to work on yourself and your expertise can help you push past the face of adversity.
Medical office is recession and pandemic resistant.
There may be a lot of opportunities while interest rates rise.
Tough times don’t last—tough people do.
Your attitude and motivation are so important when you step into business.

Listen to Podcast

Investing in the U.S. · RG 353 - Investing in Pandemic and Recession Resistant Asset Classes – w/ Ben Reinberg

Podcast Transcript

Reed Goossens (00:00):

Good day. Good day, guys. Now, before we dive into today’s show, I want you to let you know that some of you may be aware that over the past eight years, I have built a substantial multi-family real estate portfolio here in the US worth over half a billion dollars. And in that time, my passive investors have received fantastic double-digit returns. And now you too can invest directly into my deals for as little as $50,000. So if you’re an interested investor, head over to reedgoossens.com to find out more. That’s reedgoossens.com. Now, back into the show,

Ben Reinberg (00:39):

Based on our metrics and where we buy in our buy box or our acquisition criteria, it’s why we have a high percentage of renewals and, and can add a tremendous amount of value throughout the investment process, which I’m really proud we read. We have 200 plus years at least, of leadership team experience outside of me at Alliance. So we’re solutionary oriented. We can solve any challenge out there. We have great resources, we’re resource rich. And when you have a culmination read of all these factors, guess what? Investors love it. They gravitate to it. They see the returns, they see the opportunities, they see the accountability, the transparency.

Speaker 3 (01:28):

Welcome to investing in the us, a podcast for real estate investors, business owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs looking to break into the US market. Join Reed as he interviews, go-getters, risk-takers, and the best in the business about their journey towards financial freedom and the sheer joy of creating something from nothing.

Reed Goossens (01:48):

Good day, good day, a ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another cracking edition of investing in the US Podcast from Los Angeles. I’m your host, Reed Gossens. Good is always to be with us on the show. Now, I’m glad that you’ve all tuned in to learn from my incredible guests, and each and every one of them are the cream of the crop here in the United States when it comes to real estate investing, business investing, and entrepreneurship. Each show I try and tease out their incredible stories of how they have successfully created their businesses here in the us, how they’ve created financial freedom, massive amounts of cashflow, and ultimately created extraordinary lives for themselves and their families. Life by design, as I like to say. Hopefully these guests will inspire all of my cracking listeners, which are you guys, to get off the couch and go and take massive amounts of action.

Reed Goossens (02:35):

If these guys can do it, so can you. Now, as you know, I’m all about sharing the knowledge with my loyal listeners, which is you guys, and there’s absolutely no BS on this show, just straight into the nuts and bolts. Now, if you do like this show, the easiest way to give back is to give us a review on iTunes, and you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter by searching at Reed Gossens. You can find the show wherever you podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play. But you can also find these episodes up on my YouTube channel. So head over to reedgoossens.com, Click on the video link, and it’ll take you to the video recordings of these podcasts where you can see my ugly mug, but the beautiful faces of my guests each and every week. All right, enough outta me. Let’s get cracking and into today’s show,

Reed Goossens (03:20):

Down the show, the pleasure of speaking with Ben Reinberg. Now Ben started building his real estate empire at just the age of 24 years old, with nothing but s shoe leather and a lot of hustle. Today, he owns over 500 million in assets across the country, and he shares his wealth building, commercial real estate, investing, self-empowerment and leadership insights and knowledge with his audience around the world. I’m really pumped and excited to have him here on the show today to share his incredible knowledge and insights, but nothing of me. Let’s get him out here. Good day. Ben, welcome to the show. How you doing today, mate?

Ben Reinberg (03:49):

Uh, good day to you. What a pleasure, Reed. Thank you for having me on. Uh, really appreciate spending some time with you. Good to see you.

Reed Goossens (03:56):

Yeah, mate. No, and you’re just down the road from me at, uh, Newport Beach, right? You’re, uh, you’re, you’re a resident of South SoCal. Was there? I am.

Ben Reinberg (04:04):

I’m now a resident. I was a, I’m a Chicago kid, Uhhuh . I call myself a kid. And, uh, I moved permanently here about a year ago. We had a house in December, 2020. And I, my kids, uh, I have a couple up at USC out in D T L a. One is about to walk the Graduat Ocean ceremony. Mm. And about a week and a half, I’m really excited. Then I have a daughter down here going to high school. So, uh, it’s great. I love the weather. Uh, it’s been a little cold this season, but I’m from Chicago, so it’s not that cold and there’s no snow, there’s no potholes in Orange County. And, and, uh, and I got beautiful beaches in ocean and, uh, and a great view out my window. So yeah, I’m here in Newport Beach. This is our West Coast office. We’re based in Chicago. Uh, I was just there last week at the Boma Healthcare Real Estate Conference, which was a real treat. So awesome stuff. This, this is, this is now I call home.

Reed Goossens (04:57):

Awesome. Well, I, I was, I was detecting a bit of an accent there, but I didn’t want to, uh, didn’t wanna say Chicago. And so, um, but the, uh, but let’s start, and, uh, can you rewind the clock and tell me how you made your first ever dollar as a kid?

Ben Reinberg (05:10):

Uh, when I first, my first dollar, I mean, obviously I used to do lemonade stands and stuff when I was real young, but when I was eight years old, I used to sell cigarettes in a bar in a local town. And that’s how I made some serious cash. And I tell that story a lot cuz it’s, it’s pretty interesting story that I was able to be able to see a supply and demand and be able to undercut current pricing in a bar. You, uh, not really proud of it, but it was something I did because I always wanted to buy slurpies and candies at the local 7-Eleven down the street. That’s all I knew, you know, and Reed where I grew up in the seventies, um, I’m 53 years old there, there was no internet when I was a kid or cell phones. And so you kind of just, you became a street kid and you learn from the street how to deal with people.

Ben Reinberg (05:57):

And I think when I look back at my career and I’ve been doing this commercial real estate investing, um, and my company alliance, we’ve been going at it for almost three decades. Those experiences of the street hustle and learning the street and how to deal with people, I think separate me from a lot of people. I think people my age, we don’t just depend on texting and emails, we depend on handwritten letters, we depend on personal meetings, phone calls. And there’s a real difference when you look at that, uh, paradigm of how to communicate with people. And I talk about this on my podcast, the Ben Reinberg. I own it show and I talk about it throughout my social media that, that pick up the phone and call people, you know, and have that open line of communication. And I think it’s really lacking in our society.

Ben Reinberg (06:46):

And I think it breaks us apart. And I think it doesn’t bridge the gap between people. So I think if people can pick up the phone and call him, you know, I have a friend of mine who’s on my podcast and he said, I’m gonna give everyone a piece of advice. It’s gonna be scary. Next time someone sends you an email, pick up the phone and respond to ’em. They’ll be freaked out. And it was a great piece of advice and it’s so true. And so, um, that’s always my advice is open that line of communication, you’ll see great success.

Reed Goossens (07:14):

But, but, but coming from your learning on the streets and selling loosies in a bar, right? ,

Ben Reinberg (07:19):

Huh? That’s

Reed Goossens (07:20):

Right. Where were you getting, where do you get your supply from?

Ben Reinberg (07:23):

Well, I would, my strategy was I would go and, uh, I would give a, uh, immigrant that was standing on the street in this town. And if you understood the dynamics and the demographics, and I would, let’s say, uh, carton of Marlboro Reds was, you know, eight bucks. And I gave ’em a buck or two bucks to go into the, you know, back then we had mom and pop, uh, pharmacies mm-hmm. and drug stores. And so whenever you need something, you go pay someone, you would go in, get it for you, I’d throw it in a pillow case, put it underneath my hoodie, log in the bar and break it up and start selling. And so, uh, it was kind of like just using leverage cuz obviously at a young age and I looked fairly young and I was short, uh, I couldn’t just walk in and, and buy cigarettes.

Ben Reinberg (08:12):

I think he had to be 16 or 18 at the time in Illinois to buy, uh, cigarettes. So, uh, it was just a, it was just an arbitrage play of saying, Hey, I could buy for X, I could sell it for y and uh, and make some money and develop cash and use it for what my needs were, which was sweets. You know, I’m, everyone knows I’m a huge candy buff, you know, I have my employees from all the country send me packages and I pick up, I’m, everyone knows I love Snickers and Swish Fish and all these different candies. And it’s something, it’s my Achilles heel because Reed, I’m really into my health. I train with a trainer five days a week and I eat healthy, but I indulge in sweets and, and candy when I get a chance to. And so, uh, something that I always love.

Reed Goossens (08:59):

Nice, nice. Well, let’s pivot and talk about the development of alliance in your career. You, you mentioned three decades of being involved in, in real estate, commercial real estate. Do you wanna give us a bit of a snapshot of what Alliance does today and then we’ll go back and, you know, talk about how you built it?

Ben Reinberg (09:16):

Well, I’m a Reed. I’m a, as I told you, I’m an office industrial and retail expert. And so I’ve owned every part of those different food groups as I call ’em, different niches within the commercial real estate space. I’ve owned, financed, you name it, I’ve been through every single process. People call me a seven tool player because of what I can do in a deal. And I have people that work for me that have those capabilities as well. And so, at the end of the day, right now we are focused on medical office. We are experts in medical office. We just launched a brand new fund called the Alliance Medical Property Fund. It’s to acquire medical and veterinarian properties throughout the United States. We’re currently raising equity. It’s, it’s co blowing off the shelf. We have a tremendous amount of people. We’ve added, um, anywhere from 12 to 15 new employees over the past 35, 45 days cuz we see the growth and we see the opportunities coming in this marketplace.

Ben Reinberg (10:12):

So that’s what I currently focus on. We still own industrial, still own some retail. Uh, we’re winding some of that down. We’re gonna launch an industrial fund shortly and some additional medical properties, funds, but then end day I’m what’s called a fiduciary capital. Uh, we make a credit investors and family offices a tremendous amount of money. I have a mid twenties i r r track record in the medical space. And we’re growing that and very excited about the future. I’m in the prime of my career. And what I tell people about commercial real estate, they say, well, what kind of business is it? I say, it’s a marathon business. It’s not trading, it’s not get rich quick. It’s developing your craft. It’s the ability to hold. And these are all the key functions to investing in commercial real estate, understanding the real estate fundamentals. So how the business works, when people ask me, especially the younger generation about what they’re seeing in the future and what they’re about to embark on is you spend the first third of your career on your, on your back, the next third on your feet, and the last third on your stomach.

Ben Reinberg (11:14):

And I’m on my stomach and I’ve been for a while now. And the reason behind that is you learn how to get in and outta deals, navigate, be, swim through. And, and, and so it’s an important concept because for anyone that wants to get into commercial real estate or if you’re in commercial real estate, whether it’s brokerage or different types of brokerage, tenant rep leasing, your investment sales, uh, your principal and different niches out there, whether it’s multifamily like yourself, Reed, things take time. It’s not as liquid as investment. However, you create value. If you work hard, you show up every day and you continue to work hard, you’ll see a consistency and, and a tremendous amount of wealth that you could build in commercial real estate. It is a marathon business. And if you respect the business and you understand that you could do really well, but you have to show up, you gotta grind every day, you gotta keep pushing forward.

Ben Reinberg (12:06):

You gotta fail forward, you’re gonna fail, but you keep pushing forward. And by doing all these little things, you’ll see, you’ll be able to do a look back like I have in my career and say, man, look how far we’ve come. And you don’t see it in the moment and you don’t relish on it. But you can look back and and say, man, we’re doing okay. We’re keep going. We’re. And so this business you’ll see in these different environments with different recessions and depressions and everything we’ve been through as a country, it will shake people out of the business. And why it’s because they don’t continue to work on themselves and their expertise. Mm. And that’s something I encourage everyone to do

Reed Goossens (12:44):

I wanna dive a little bit deeper into the medical office as a, as an investment class. I try to think out of the four or 500 episodes we’ve done over the last seven or eight years. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to anyone who has m o b experience. I know a little bit about it, but you know, not as, as much as I’d like to know cause you’re the expert. So walk us throughs in my basic understanding how to was coming outta the nineties, they had a big, big boom and then coming into the early two thousands, they sort of, people started divesting of it, you know, and I only know this because my old developer boss used to be into it, but now it seems to be coming back around. Talk about what, where we are in the cycle forbs right now, and how you are seeing opportunity with coming outta Covid, all this other stuff and, and, and where you think you can pounce.

Ben Reinberg (13:30):

Yeah. And just to take a step back, the human body is never going outta style. Mm-hmm. . It’s why I love this niche and what we do at Alliance and the new Alliance Medical Property fund. That’s why it’s gonna thrive. And that’s why it’s so hot out there. It’s the best fund on the market. And why is that? Well, number one is medical office is recession and pandemic resilient. I say resilient. It’s not proof. Nothing’s proof, uh, guaranteed. Why is that? Because you still have, you still need medical services and the stuff that we invest in, the properties we invest in Reed are anywhere that you and your family would use those services. It could be surgery centers, gastro, uh, dermatology, orthopedic, um, you name a niche. It’s stuff that we buy and we own. And because of that, the tenants have significant investment in the properties.

Ben Reinberg (14:21):

There’s usually annual rent growth. Uh, they have high eighties percentage renewal rates and they have significant investment in the property. And so based on our metrics and where we buy in our buy box or our acquisition criteria, it’s why we have a high percentage of renewals and, and can add a tremendous amount of value throughout the investment process, which I’m really proud. We Reed, we have 200 plus years at least, of leadership team experience outside of me at Alliance. So we’re solutionary oriented. We can solve any challenge out there. We have great resources, we’re resource rich. And when you have a culmination read of all these factors, guess what? Investors love it. They gravitate to it, they see the returns, they see the opportunities, they see the accountability, the transparency. So my core values at Alliance are transparency, integrity, consistency, and expertise. Gotcha. And, and then you tie in an asset class like medical office to get further into your point is because of tenants and investment, because how the deep roots that they establish in the community and the gre the credit worthiness of a lot of our tenants, it makes it a lot easier to be able to add value to the income process and to these investments.

Ben Reinberg (15:39):

And it’s why we have a mid twenties i r r, it’s why we feel that we’re gonna do great in this market. We feel that with a lot of loans coming due and hard to refinance and the abilities for sellers to sell and values being, uh, devalued because of rental rates are compressing in certain markets, we think it’s a great opportunity for alliance to double down and make our investors a tremendous amount of money. With the way our platform set up, with our experience and the capital that we have behind us, it’s a real privilege to invest in our new fund. And I’m really excited because to offer it to the public and let people say, Hey, I know things could be tough out there, it could be scary. You’re worried about looming recession, rising interest rates, high gas and oil prices. Well guess what folks?

Ben Reinberg (16:26):

We have a solution for you with tax benefits as well. And so I’m really proud of the medical office space. It’s conservative, it’s safe, secure investing with upside. It’s not as sexy as some other product price, but I could tell you we’re slow and steady and we survive and we keep thriving. And that’s what our investors can see. And uh, that’s why we encourage everyone to look us up because let’s see how we can benefit you and your family. Sure. Let us, how we can create wealth for you and your family and create a legacy that you’re looking for.

Reed Goossens (16:59):

Oh no, I, I love it. And it’s part of why a lot of people tuning in, um, to, to to learn more about the different niches out there. So let’s talk about your buy box. What do, when you, you mentioned orthopedic surgeries, you mentioned gastros are these sort of single story strip retail that you’re buying that are outside of the big insurance conglomerates. You know, you’re not going in and buying a hospital, right. You’re going and buying sort of relatively small size mobs that you’ll then advertising to the tenants being the orthodontist, the, you know, the physical therapist, the, the family office, right? Uh, so fa family, family doctor’s office. Correct. Yeah.

Ben Reinberg (17:35):

I mean, it’s part of it. What we look for is significant investment in the properties by our tenants. We look for certain density within a market. We only buy, excuse me, in certain states mm-hmm. of the United States that have population growth, good healthcare markets, good residential growth as well. Cuz that’s important when you look at MOB. So we might not be taking down a large hospital, we’ll leave that for the institutions. But what we’re doing is putting down our great portfolios or the institutions cuz they don’t wanna do all the legwork that Alliance does and create the value they need to for the local teacher in, in Hawaii to get a return in his pension fund. Mm-hmm. . So, and, and, and at the end of the day, so we own everything that you and your family would use. It could be dental, it could be, you know, like I said, gastro orthopedic, it could be a surgery center.

Ben Reinberg (18:26):

We do many hospitals as well. So as we grow, there is an opportunity we will start buying hospitals and get as we grow cuz we’re growing significantly. So there’s all different opportunities out there. It could be down the road when cannabis becomes legal, you know, maybe that’s some, a niche we’re gonna look at. There’s so many things in in healthcare that’s growing. There’s bio, there’s biotech that’s out there in biomed and all these different niches coming about that we keep our eyes open, we have an open mind and we’re always looking to grow and learn. And so I do a lot of things differently. I try to get ahead of the curve when dialysis wasn’t hot and people didn’t understand i. We were buying it and then all of a sudden it became hot and then we were selling it. So we always looked to be a little bit ahead of the curve and look at the new niches coming out and see how can we capitalize on ’em for us and our investors. And so I’m extremely proud of my incredible talented people at Alliance. I’m proud of how far we’ve come and I love Medical Office. It’s a great niche. We have, we have a lot of other niches, but medical office is the best asset class in the United States. And right now it’s hot. And the Alliance medical property funds out there to create wealth for, for all these investors that are looking to diversify and say, let me go into a universe where I can feel, feel safe and secure and, and have a profitable investment with tax benefits.

Reed Goossens (19:53):

Do, do you find a value add strategy of coming in and like identifying the dentist for example, and trying to match up a neighboring x-ray service, you know, or, um, a pt you know, like sort of pulling the, the, the services together. They might be individual tenants, but is that a value add that you, you know, as I’m trying to think about through how you’d come in an add value to an existing quote unquote office building just happens to be focused more as medical. Do you try and lure in those other services to be sort of a one-stop shop to, if someone goes to the dentist, they can then go over to the physio, they could then go and get, you know, an x-ray done, uh, next door

Ben Reinberg (20:29):

Reed. That’s a strategy you can implement. Um, and we’ve done that in the past. A lot of it is knowing what we’re buying, knowing where rents are. We look at the real estate fundamentals. We do a deep dive on where can we add value mm-hmm. , it’s current existing leases. Are we building something? So we’re always looking at where are the opportunities, where are the advantages? Again, go back to the experience level at Alliance because we’ve been there, done that and we’ve had so many deal flows and so many buildings we’ve built. And we have our own internal property and asset management department. We’re very vertically integrated. It allows us to make great decisions. It allows us to look at and focus, okay, where can we invest our capital, our investors’ capital to be able to build wealth and, and value. It could be lease renewals, it could be credit enhancements, it could be a variety of things. It’s building a great portfolio that an institution will pay a premium for. Mm-hmm. . So it’s a holistic approach. It’s not just one angle. And again, that’s the beautiful thing about this business is that experience matters when you have to make these type of decisions and add value. Gotcha.

Reed Goossens (21:36):

As you see coming into the last 12 months, we’ve had, you know, the Fed raise interest rates nearly 500 times or five fivefold go from zero to to 5%. What, how are you seeing that affecting the MOB space? Have, have you seen delinquency tick up? Have you seen people, you know, come outta biz, you know, outta biz because interest rates are higher? Because I know on the multi side we’re still definitely seeing a a, a hangover from covid and people having a bit of high delinquency. We’re obviously seeing the pricing of multifamily go, um, drop. So how has that been affecting in your niche o of s and and other commercial, uh, multi, uh, other commercial real estate you, you invest in?

Ben Reinberg (22:13):

Well, the nice thing, the difference between Austin multifamily is we’re not subject to these crazy eviction laws. You have to see these moratoriums and, and you know, multifamily is a really tough space right now. It’s why a lot of multifamily investors have gravitated to our new fund. But what we see is in a rising interest rate market, there’s opportunities where some of these physician groups, uh, values have decreased. We see rental rates being compressed and so values are dropping. So some folks have loans and they don’t wanna refinance or they, their cashflow has been pinched because like you said, they’re at a low interest rate. Maybe interest rates have doubled, they’re tripled for them depending on who they are. And they look at it and they’re like, it’s just not worth investing. It’s not worth owning this asset. So they come to us and we buy it.

Ben Reinberg (23:00):

And so, uh, that’s one opportunity we see. And then also in, just in, in general, we look at hundreds of deals a week to buy the stuff that we put in our portfolio. But it’s just finding the motivated seller. The key to anything in commercial real estate is you have to have the motivated seller. And when you have the motivated seller and you roll up your sleeves and you put the time in, you know that’s a difference. This is not a nine to five business you wanna get in commercial real estate, you’re in the wrong business. This is, you know, I’m up at the crack of dawn, I go meet my trainer, I work out, I’m in the office. I, I I’ve been to this long time. I still have the same habits. Reed still do the same thing. Working long hours, working late, traveling, you know, my personal brand is taking off the podcast is I do all these things to help build brand awareness and help people involved to learn about commercial real estate and what it means to invest so they could build wealth. Gotcha. And so at the end of the day, I think there’s great opportunities. I think there’s, there’s some uncertainty out there that we can provide certainty and that’s what we do at Alliance.

Reed Goossens (24:02):

H how, how much are you looking to raise in the fund? Um, the new, the new uh, medical fund

Ben Reinberg (24:06):

We’re, we’re raising 15 mil, 50 million. But I think it’s gonna double. I think we’ll end up being a hundred million by the end of the year because of the de the demand and, and the lack of supply. You know, we realize like, okay, well if we’re gonna have this much demand, maybe we gotta increase the fund size, which we can. That’s awesome. And we’re starting to see a large amount of demand and it’s starting to escalate and people are getting upset. They can’t get in. So anyone out there, if you’re listening, you wanna come in, don’t, don’t wait, pull the trigger and, and give us a call and order to get in because life is short. You’ll miss out. There’s only so much space and, uh, and I’m planning on taking some space too. And cuz I love what we dore and I love the fact it’s transparent. I could kick the bricks and mortar, our investors get direct deposits right into their bank accounts. And at the end of the day, to me it’s one of the best investments in the world and I feel really comfortable with it. And I know people out there listening, you can understand what I’m talking about. You’ll feel comfortable with this type of asset class as well.

Reed Goossens (25:10):

For those of you who are interested in staying up to date with all the latest happenings in my business, or to learn more about passively investing directly into my multi-family value add deals, then head over to reedgoossens.com and sign up for my monthly newsletter. By signing up, you’ll automatically be notified about my new up and coming investment opportunities. You’ll be able to stay up to date with all the latest real estate news here in the United States and much, much more. So head over to reedgoossens.com and sign up today. Now back into the show. Well, you mentioned earlier the different states you’re investing in. What, where are those states you’re targeting right now for the fund, um, to be deployed? Uh, around,

Ben Reinberg (25:53):

It’s a great question. I appreciate you asking me that. We start with Maryland, Virginia. We draw a smile smiley face in the United States. So we invest in the, uh, mid Atlantic down, we invest in the southeast, the south southwest parts, uh, mountain west and parts of the west coast. So being from Chicago, you’re probably like, well, how come you’re not investing in Illinois? We see a lot of chaos. I was just in Chicago. Um, we don’t see a lot of law and order unfortunately, but we do see the ability for population growth, uh, great healthcare markets in the markets that we are currently investing. Now, it doesn’t mean the fund can’t go into all these different markets that are not included in my conversation with you, but we really focus and double down on those markets, reed. Mm.

Reed Goossens (26:41):

And do you have a buy team that’s looking at deals in those markets every single day? You got boots on the ground or you sort of have more centralized in the Chicago office to, um, to be able to buy, you know, remotely?

Ben Reinberg (26:51):

Well, we have offices around the country. We have people around the country that work for us and we have an all acquisition department that we look around the country. And so because we own, we own properties in a lot of these states now because of our pedigree and been doing this for almost 30 years, you know, you end up becoming a portfolio and what ends up happening is that you, you’re resource rich and when you’re resource rich, it makes it a lot easier to get through deals and find great opportunities. Reed,

Reed Goossens (27:17):

A hundred percent. I cannot agree with you more, um, given your, your track record. My, my my question always comes in, it’s always good to talk about, you know, the mid 20 IRRs, but what’s been the, the worst deal you’ve ever done? And what and what’d you learn from that deal? Cause I think the, the, the mistakes are the ones that, that they, that, that, that give you callouses.

Ben Reinberg (27:35):

The mistakes are the one that give you callouses, but on top of that, they teach you great lessons. Mm-hmm. , I have deals where I’ve learned, where we’ve made huge profits, I learned valuable lessons, like I’m never gonna do that again. Or I’ve learned where, you know, I bought large office campuses and rental rates have compressed or we get in involved in a serious recession and you lose an anchor tenant and all of a sudden you’re drowning and then you gotta go work something out with your lender and and break even, which we did on one deal. But yeah, it’s, it’s buying asset classes where, you know, when things change, like look at general office, like suburban office, it’s a dying animal. Unfortunately, it breaks my heart. Our headquarters were in Bannockburn, Illinois, and I would look at the buildings we’re in, they’re class A, class B type 19, a construction buildings read and the ghost town.

Ben Reinberg (28:26):

Mm-hmm. Even before the pandemic, then the pandemic happened. I said, oh my God, how are these buildings gonna bounce back? And the problem is the ti packages and the leasing commissions are growing. The rental rates are compressing and the margins are are getting smaller. And so you get involved in these situations and the market changes and it could be outta your control. And that’s where you have challenges. But again, if you have a, a leadership team like I have, and you can become solutionary oriented, you can navigate through some tough waters in this business, you gotta be patient, you gotta do your homework and underwrite. Not every deal’s perfect. You know, I always tell investors, look, if I go eight or nine for 10 outta my career with you and make you millions, that’s a heck of a career. Mm-hmm. Some investors look at it differently. Like, I want perfection outta you a lot. . Well, I can’t guarantee that. I’m sorry. I, I, Im, I’m good and we’re great and excellent at what we do, but we’re not perfect. And I tell people that, I said, look, there’s things that don’t always go well that of our control. Rental rates can compress. We have a terrorist attack, we have a pandemic. Things happen in life out of our control.

Reed Goossens (29:36):

You have rising interest rates, you know,

Ben Reinberg (29:37):

Rising interest rates. It could be anything. It could be not being prudent. So, but at the end of the day, when you have a tracker, you’ve been in business for a long time, success leads clues. And when it leaves clues, it’s like, this company must know what they’re doing. They’ve been around for a long time. They have great leadership team experience. They pay preferred returns, they have great core values. That’s what I lean into is who we are as people. I know everyone in life has challenges. They’re gonna fail. It’s how you deal with your failures. You know, tough times don’t last tough people do. That’s what I tell people. Love it. And there’s no truer statement than that. And so it doesn’t matter if you have a bad deal, you get yourself up, you dust off, you learn the lessons that come out of it and you go from there.

Ben Reinberg (30:25):

I, the first deal I ever did read the first week, I lost 45% of the income. I turned it around and I made a three x multiple on the deal to give you a multifamily term. We don’t use multiples, but I’ll give you a multiple. And it was a little under three x Why that? And there were so many lessons that came outta that first deal. I ended up be, I’m not, I’m not a broker even though I’m a licensed broker in Illinois, I don’t practice brokerage. But I actually, I actually sold that deal myself when I did my first deal. I wanted to learn and see like, how am I gonna position a property and teach an investment sales broker how I want something sold if I don’t do it myself. So I did it myself. I earned, and those great lessons that came out of it that I’m extremely proud of that I incorporate today. So you never forget your first deal, like, you know, your first girlfriend or whatever,

Reed Goossens (31:16):

Your first failure,

Ben Reinberg (31:18):

first failure. Yeah. You, you learn this business. What I love about it, and because I’m a huge personal development guy, is growth. I love growth. I love learning. I love learning new things. I love improving as a person. And that’s what this business offers you. It gives you a platform for growth.

Reed Goossens (31:34):

Yeah. I love it. Look mate, at the end of every show, we like to dive into the top five investing tips. But before we do that, what is your plan between now and the end of the year? What are you looking to acquire? You mentioned the fund. What else you got going on in the business and personally that you are looking to develop in the next sort of six to six to eight months?

Ben Reinberg (31:51):

Well, one of the things is I’m gonna start teaching commercial real estate. I’m working on that. Um, we’re growing the podcast. The Ben Reinberg brand is growing as well. I started a year ago, literally almost a year ago. We started it podcast started May 31st. It’s growing like a weed. We have celebrities and ultra net worth investors or individuals that come on to add value. And so I’m looking forward to expanding that. I’m looking forward to getting into other asset classes that we used to buy and also bringing on talented acquisition people and get into, you know, the hotel space and self-storage and some of other asset classes and really diversify our investors into other categories besides medical office and veterinarian office. So I’m excited about that. I’m 53. I think I got another, I don’t know, 30 years into me . I think I’m gonna double it and I’m looking forward to making people more money and building their wealth.

Ben Reinberg (32:47):

Uh, one of my goals is I want everyone in alliance to be multi-millionaires and become and live the visions that they want. We’re doing some cool things. We’re bringing in a human behaviorist to align our companies, uh, our individuals, our employees, individual personal goals with the company goals and make sure we’re in alignment and learning from that. I’m always working on my health. That’s a, that’s always a work in progress, uh, and learning about the different technology coming out for health. And my goal is delivery to about 150 if I can and be able to create impact to the world, but also be a great example to my kids and watch them and my grandkids grow up so I can create an impact on everyone else too. So, uh, just a lot of things going on. I’m really excited, uh, have a lot of great things.

Ben Reinberg (33:36):

I got wonderful people around me, but I could tell everyone, they’re like, well, how did you do it, Ben? And it is hard work. It’s showing up every day. You know, I, someone told me what, what is success? And success means different things to different people. But I can give you some of the skill sets I’ve seen from my colleagues over the years that create success. And this is gonna be part of my speech. So every Monday we do a leadership team call, and I always inspire ’em with my pearls of wisdom that I’ve learned through my research and my own knowledge. The three things that everyone can take with you is your attitude. Your attitude, how you show up every day, your mental presence, your mindset is so important when you step into the arena of work and life. The other thing is motivation.

Ben Reinberg (34:22):

You have to be motivated to become the best version of yourself in business if that’s what you wanna do. Okay. And the last thing, which is so important is commitment. What does commitment mean? You know, commitment is something where you’ll do whatever it takes to get done. One of my mentors told me when I was a young man, he pulled me aside and he said, and he said, so what do you think of this situation? I said, I’m gonna do my best. He goes, don’t ever say that again. Don’t do your best. Do whatever it takes, Ben. And I’ve always carried that through with me as do whatever it takes. That’s commitment. Commitment is showing up on a Saturday when it’s beautiful out in sunny on a summer day in Chicago, raising equity maybe late at night, uh, calling investors to cater around their schedules, getting in at the crack of dawn.

Ben Reinberg (35:20):

Maybe you have to miss an event here or there to deal with someone showing love to your employees when no one else does. Doing things differently because you’re committed to the success of others. And to create a world for people that maybe they never had. Commitment has a lot of different meanings, Reed. But when you can commit and you could say, I’m gonna be the best version of myself. I’m not gonna best, I’m not just gonna live by society’s rules. I’m gonna step outta my box and become the best version of myself. And that’s why I encourage my employees. I say, I say them, I’m very honest. I go, mediocrity does not live in my life. Hmm. And I’m not gonna accept it, my company. And they understand that. You know why? Because if you wanna be wildly successful in whatever you do in life, you have to commit.

Ben Reinberg (36:07):

And that’s so important. And I hope everyone in your audience understands that because you get up and every day it’s not perfect. You’re tired, you don’t wanna go up to work, go off to work. You don’t have to commute, you don’t have to go to your bedroom wherever you work if you’re remote. And there’s so many things you have to do that you need to do. And you have to balance your mind and your emotions to get up and go do it. And for how long I’ve been doing this, I’ve mastered it. And I encourage everyone is work on yourself and your emotions because your emotions are gonna play games with you. And guess what? Laziness pre prevails and says, eh, I can’t do that. Yes, you can get up and do it. And if you do that and you’re consistent, you’ll be more reliable.

Ben Reinberg (36:55):

You’ll build more trust and you’ll expand your horizon. Accelerate your, your income, your career, and your fulfillment. And I wish someone would’ve told me that when I was younger. I had a, I’m now this 53 year old man that, that learned the hard way of what it’s really about. And so I feel obligated to share this knowledge with you and your audience and everyone out there of, don’t take life for granted. Enjoy every day you get to wake up, enjoy every moment someone pours a great thought, your head that provided value and contribute to your life. There’s so many people that have contributed to my life read that I’m so grateful for. And it took me a long time to understand that.

Reed Goossens (37:36):

Love it. Love it, Ben. We’ll look at the end of every show. I love to dive into the top five investing tips. You ready to get into it? Mm-hmm. mate, question number one is what’s the daily habit you practice to keep on track towards your goals?

Ben Reinberg (37:46):

Oh, that’s a great question. I meditate. I meditate and I exercise every single day.

Reed Goossens (37:53):

Love it. I, I, I, I, I noticed that, uh, if I don’t meditate every day, something’s a little bit off and my day’s just out the window. So Love it.

Ben Reinberg (38:00):

I agree.

Reed Goossens (38:01):

Question number two is, who’d been the most influential person in your career?

Ben Reinberg (38:05):

Oh God. That is tough. I’ve had so many mentors and, and icons. Being from Chicago, we have so many icons in our business. I think the biggest influence on my career is my mother. Um, when I was younger getting started, she gave me a poem by CW Longnecker called The Victor. And I carry a wallet on me and I carry that poem with me. And I always look at, because it’s all about your belief system. And I think if it wasn’t for her to mentally support me when I was starting this journey, I don’t think I’d be the man I am today. So I think she was the most influential of where I am today.

Reed Goossens (38:45):

That’s awesome. That’s awesome. She’s still around.

Ben Reinberg (38:48):

Absolutely. I get to see her. Uh, I get to see her next weekend for Mother’s Day. She’s flying into California. Love it. Yeah. Really excited to see here.

Reed Goossens (38:55):

Treat, treat her well. And I give a big hug. That’s right. Um, question number three is, what’s the most influential tool that you use in your business? And a tool could be a physical tool, like a journal or a phone, or it could be a piece of software you just can’t run the business without. What is it?

Ben Reinberg (39:12):

Well, , there’s so, so much software we invest in. I think for me, one of my biggest tools is, is journaling. It’s also, um, the phone is a big thing for me is having that personal connection, picking up the phone. That’s something I enjoy doing. It’s how I learn life in the business. And, uh, and so those two things are, are really important to me. Right.

Reed Goossens (39:39):

And it goes back to what you were saying earlier about the street smarts and having just a bit more of old school way of picking up the phone, making sure it’s written down, following up with people in a, in the correct manner, rather than just texting and or, or relying on email. So

Ben Reinberg (39:51):

I’ll show you, I’ll show you something real quick. So if you see this, see these legal pad papers? Mm-hmm. , I’ve used thousands of ’em. . And the problem is I have a hoarding problem where I, I have trouble getting rid of ’em because there was no like database thing, like on Outlook where you put a contact assistant would. And so I’d always have to like, pull up a notepad from like eight months ago and be like, so read Goose. Like what, what was his cell phone again? And then like, so that was the story of my career was these legal pad papers. So I’m still, I write everything down even on my leadership team call. Even when I said today is like everyone bring a pad of paper and a pen. Cuz cuz Ben’s gonna start teaching. I’m gonna lay down some knowledge on them. And when you write it by hand and for everyone out there mm-hmm. , okay. Instead of typing, you write it by hand. It will be more ingrained in your brain. That’s a secret for you.

Reed Goossens (40:40):

No, I do exactly the same thing. I’ve written the whole in, uh, conversation down here. Even as you scribble,

Ben Reinberg (40:45):

It’s, I’m a little worried.

Reed Goossens (40:46):

It’s, it’s a little scribble, but it’s, uh, it goes, there’s something, you know, something subconscious that you do when you write it down. And even for me, for my weekly, I’ve got it in my calendar, but I’ve gotta write the week out on a pad and I cross it out the end of the day because then it’s like, it’s a little victory. Like, yeah, look at what you did. You, you look back and you did the five things you said you’re gonna do today, boom. You’re gonna do five more things tomorrow. So, so love it. Question number four in one sentence, what has been the biggest failure you’ve learnt in your career and, you know, what did, what did you, what did you take away from that failure?

Ben Reinberg (41:15):

Biggest failure of my career was, uh, not seeking the truth and what someone was telling me. And lo not just hearing the words but understanding what they were saying to me. And that way I could respond better. And I think that was a lesson that I learned.

Reed Goossens (41:33):

Gotcha. Nice. Last question mate, is where can people reach you to continue the conversation? They wanna be in your sphere, where do they go?

Ben Reinberg (41:39):

Oh, real simple. They can go to alliancecgc.com, that’s alliancecgc.com. Feel free to log on if you wanna invest in the brand new alliance medical property fund selling out quickly. If you wanna follow me, go to benreinberg.com and um, and, and basically you can follow me on every social media platform, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, you name it. And also you can listen to my podcast. It’s called Ben Reinberg. I own it. We’re on all the different platforms, apple, Spotify, stitch, you name it. Um, and it’s all about owning every aspect of your life. Health, wealth, relationships, uh, business, commercial, real estate. We bring icons in all over the world to share knowledge along with me, to provide you value so you can improve your life as well as ours. And so those are the best ways to engage with me and, uh, either personally or business you wanna invest passively in commercial real estate, real, real, uh, reach out to us cuz we’ll show you how to build wealth.

Reed Goossens (42:47):

Awesome stuff, my friend. Well, look, I wanna thank you so much for jumping onto the show today. Um, just wanna reflect some of the things I took away from today’s show. I think it’s really important to understand you, you’re in it for the long run, right? You’ve been doing this for over three decades and you mentioned like you’re on your back, you’re on your front and you’re sort of working for it and you’re in it for the long term. You know, commercial real estate isn’t, isn’t a get rich quick scheme. I think there’s been a, you know, the last five to 10 years, a lot of people have got quite wealthy very, very quickly. Um, and we’re sort of seeing a bit of an adjustment back to sort of a more longer term focus in, in today’s markets, in my personal opinion, which I think goes back to this, you know, the message you’re saying that you’ve gotta be in it for the long term and have that resilience and show up each and every day.

Reed Goossens (43:27):

Um, and then I, you know, I just love what you’re talking about in and around the medical office space and how it’s such an interesting niche that’s coming back into people’s, um, you know, preview of, of of, you know, when they’ve been historically investing in self-storage or multi-family, now they’re sort of saying, Hey, what’s this me medical office building all about and how is that, you know, is it recession resilient? And how can that help protect me and gimme all the tax benefits of these tra other traditional sort of investments we’ve seen in the last five to 10 years? And so, um, I really encourage people to, to reach out to you, but in that little summary, did I miss anything? Did, did leave anything out for you?

Ben Reinberg (43:59):

No. The, the one thing, the key is if anyone’s interested in commercial real estate, it’s about the ability to hold. It’s not location, location, location, ability to hold is so important and I want everyone to understand that, that will help you create wealth, is be able to hold the property, ride through cycles, have enough reserves, understand the real estate fundamentals and you’ll thrive.

Reed Goossens (44:21):

Love it. Alright my friend, look, enjoy the rest of your week and we will catch up very, very soon.

Ben Reinberg (44:25):

Appreciate it.

Reed Goossens (44:26):

We’ll then have another cracking episode jam packed with some incredible advice from Ben. Remember, head over to benweinberg.com or you can head over to alliancecgc.com to check out everything that they’re doing over there in terms of their new fund in and around the medical office space, if that’s in what you’re interested in doing. I wanna thank you all again for taking some time outta your day to tune in, to continue to grow your financial IQ because that’s, we’re all about here on this show. The easiest way to give back is to give it a five star review on iTunes. And we’re gonna do this all again next week’s. Remember, be bold, be brave, and go give life acrack.