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Losing $50 Million with Rod Khleif
In this interview with Rod Khleif, he shares his inspiring story of immigrating to the U.S., struggling financially, and rising to become a successful real estate investor and podcast host. He talks about mindset, how he got into real estate at 18, and the importance of psychology in achieving success, particularly in the uncertain real estate market.
Avery: Hey y’all, welcome back to the Short Term Show. We have a super interesting guest today, and there are a lot of reasons he’s really interesting. He has lost and gotten back a lot of money over the course of the past several recessions and real estate cycles, and we’re here at the beginning of July 2022.
Avery: So there’s a lot of uncertainty in the market right now, and I think he’s going to be a really interesting guest to have. But I wanted to make sure that I let you guys know the date so in case things change over the next couple of weeks before this comes out, you know exactly where we are.
Avery: So I’ve got Mr. Rod Khleif. How’s it going? Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Rod: Awesome, Avery, no, it’s fantastic, and it’s exciting with what’s happening in the economy right now, so we can talk about that later. But let me, if you don’t know who I am, my name is Rod Khleif. I also host a podcast, which I’m blessed to say is the largest commercial real estate podcast, really, in the world. We just broke 13 million downloads and had our 700th episode three weeks ago.
Rod: Which is just mind-blowing. You want to make God laugh? You tell Him your plans. I never planned to do any of this. But, you know, I’m an immigrant. I was born in the Netherlands, you know, wooden shoes and windmills. Came over when I was six years old with my brother Albert. My mother’s Vancha ended up in Denver, Colorado. We really struggled initially.
Rod: In fact, I remember eating expired food, shopping at an expired food store, and drinking powdered milk with our cereal in the morning, which, trust me, sounds better than it is, and wearing clothes from the Goodwill and Salvation Army all the way through junior high school until I finally got disgusted and lied about my age at Burger King when I was 14 so I could buy my own clothes.
Rod: And I’m sure you’ve got listeners that have it harder than I did or had it harder than I did, but see, I knew I wanted more. Luckily, my mom had an incredible work ethic, Avery, so she babysat kids so we’d have enough money to eat. And with her babysitting money, she was a bit of an entrepreneur. She invested in the stock market successfully in IPOs and real estate. And this is babysitting money! I’m not kidding; we always had a house full of kids.
Rod: And so, her first real estate acquisition was the house right across the street from us when I was 14. She paid about 30 grand. And then when I was 17, she told me she’d made 20 dollars in her sleep. That had gone up in value by 20 thousand dollars. And I’m like, what? You made 20 grand? You didn’t do anything? Screw college. I’m getting into real estate.
Rod: So I went out and got my real estate broker’s license right when I turned 18. I wasn’t just an agent. I was a broker. You could do that back then. With education, they got smart now. You need some experience to be a broker, but I could even have my own office.
Rod: But my first year in real estate, I made about eight grand. My second year, I made about 10 grand, but my third year, I made over a hundred thousand dollars. So what happened between your two and three that caused me to 10x my income? Well, what happened was I was smart enough to go work for a broker, and I was dating his daughter, and he taught me. He started the conversation with me around the importance of mindset and psychology—how really 80 to 90 percent of your success in anything, short-term rentals, multi-family…