5 Talents Podcast

Alain Villegas is a chemical engineer who moved from the Philippines, read Rich Dad Poor Dad, and started buying single family rentals until they became a second job. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Alain talk about the moment he stopped doing it alone.

In this episode:

• The wall: "after almost a year of doing it by ourselves, I have zero doors acquired."
• The breakthrough in four words: "This is a team sport," and its corollary, "if you're not on a team, you're not going anywhere."
• The team he built: a CPA partner for financials and tax, a project management partner for oversight, himself on operations, and a mentor who "returned my money more than twenty times."
• What a team buys you: on his 408 unit deal, "our appraisal came in at more than $1.05 million higher than our purchase price, equity that's already gained the moment we close."
• Why scattered single family rentals became the second job he had to escape.

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate

Matt Faircloth of the DeRosa Group buys ugly on purpose: C and D class value add, bought cheap enough to cash flow while he owns them. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Matt find the niche the big players cannot touch.

In this episode:

• The buy box: "the kind of stuff we buy makes money during ownership, because we buy them affordably enough that we can cash flow while we own them."
• The niche math: institutions cannot staff on site payroll under a threshold, "the magic number on payroll is typically around 80 units," so "there's less competition in the 10 to 60 or 70 unit space."
• His non negotiable at that size: "I would only work with a property manager that has in house maintenance," or you get marked up labor and you are not the priority.
• Aligning interests: he made a property manager an owner, moving their profit from management markup "to the bottom line where I make money too."
• Why every point here is an expense side point: control the operating line and you control the deal.

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate

David Lagat is a former bank accountant who built a portfolio of more than $300 million and roughly 4,000 apartment doors with no syndication at all. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and David break down the creative financing that made it possible.

In this episode:

• The engine was applied knowledge, not capital: "1031 exchanges, owner financing, creative financing, refinancing, and buying in a portfolio."
• The question he leads every negotiation with: "you got to know what the seller wants. Why are they selling it?" Own the seller's problem and the terms follow.
• The proof: he owner financed a $6 million deal and once a $25 million complex.
• Same math, more zeros: "the same concepts in single family homes, 1031 exchange, owner financing, they work the same. You're just adding zeros."
• The flywheel: "the first deal determines your next deal and your next deal and your next deal."

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate

Adrian Salazar is an acquisitions first operator who plays offense. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Adrian talk about building a deal finding machine and why the money is in the database.

In this episode:

• The mindset: "my thing is finding deals. I don't wait for deals to hit my email. I go out and find them. I play offense."
• What SYSTEM stands for: "save yourself time, energy and money," a CRM, drip campaigns, automations, and virtual assistants tied to one acquisitions machine.
• The real asset: "The money's in the database." He tracks every owner and every investor because "we're not running sprints here, we're running marathons."
• The proof: the 88 unit deal he and Abel now share was first walked 2 years earlier at 80 percent occupancy, kept warm, then reopened and closed at 98 percent. "The fortunes in follow up."
• Abel's framing: it comes down to lists, names, and numbers, and how many touches you have at the top of the funnel.

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate

David Toupin bought his first apartment at 20 and by 25 was a key principal in nearly $100 million of real estate. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and David make the case that the deal is won on the buy, and that underwriting reps are the whole moat.

In this episode:

• Why he succeeds: "it's the number one reason why I've been successful, is because I understand the numbers."
• The engine underneath it: "all I did was just analyze deal after deal. Every deal I could even find," thousands of them in his first two years.
• The 4 number screen: "the year it was built, the price per door, the average size of the units, and the average rental rate. I can tell you pretty quickly if that's gonna make sense."
• The durable rule: "You make money when you buy, not when you sell," because "you can't manage your way out of a bad buy."
• The volume behind it: 500 to 600 deals underwritten to buy 5.

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate

Brian Mitchell has spent 10 years writing commercial insurance for landlords and multifamily syndications coast to coast. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Brian expose the gap between "insured" and "insured correctly," and how it can quietly gut a deal.

In this episode:

• Coinsurance, taught live: "did divided by should times the loss less your deductible," what you carry over what you should carry.
• Why it stings at scale: "a $10 million building that should've been insured for $10 million but was only insured for $7 million. You're effectively insured for 70% to value. So even at a $100,000 loss, you're only gonna get 70%."
• The number to distrust: "you're gonna get your T12s, and they'll have an insurance number. 98% of the time that insurance number is wrong."
• How he actually values it: town assessor, frame or masonry, sprinklered or not, a benchmark like $175 per square foot through a replacement cost estimator.
• The renewal discipline: watch it 120 days out, not on the day of the fire.

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate

Dan Lewkowicz is a national net lease broker who rebuilt his business on one idea: you cannot know everything, so leverage the people who do. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Dan talk about finding the right broker and staying in your lane.

In this episode:

• Why he refers business away: "You wanna buy multifamily right now? I will refer you to the best in the business, because it isn't me."
• Henry Ford's desk of buttons, one for the best engineer, one for the best financier: "you can leverage other people's knowledge, experience, money."
• The lesson learned the hard way: a stranger at a sheriff sale lost "$42,500 down the toilet" bidding on a second mortgage he did not understand.
• The conclusion: "You gotta work with experts."
• Abel goes further: even with hundreds of millions, "I'd probably even have better experts around me than I have today."

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate

Whitney Sewell built a capital raising machine out of a daily podcast and relentless follow up. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Whitney talk about building relationships and trust, and the engine behind a $10.2 million raise in 10 hours.

In this episode:

• The volume math: a daily podcast adds "seven people a week" to your network instead of one. He recorded over 800 shows in about 2 and a half years, taking investor calls at 5 AM before a full time day job.
• The result: he raised $10.2 million in 10 hours.
• Why relationship beat reach. He led with his mission, not his asset class: "when I would follow up, they would remember that why, that mission, as opposed to us just talking about multifamily."
• His rule for investors: "it is so much more about the sponsor than it is about the deal."
• The texture: notes on every investor's kids, and a follow up that referenced them by name.

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate

Feras Moussa is an ex Microsoft engineer and co-founder of Disrupt Equity who fired 5 property management companies and rebuilt management in house because the back office was bleeding money nobody could see. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Feras trace the jump from tech to real estate.

In this episode:

• The verdict: "third party management is broken. It's a really dated business."
• The concrete cost: over roughly 30 months a manager would "rack up $150,000 of payables" on turns with no verification, and "a vendor might slip in an invoice for a flooring he didn't do." He took over deals with "$50,000 owed to one vendor."
• The fix was systems, not more people: every call recorded and transcribed, VAs auditing whether staff answered the phone, and "every invoice has to have a unit number. Did the before and after make sense?"
• The owner's mindset: "if something doesn't perform, ultimately it's still my fault."
• The tech insight: do not build new software, tie the tools together. "Toyota assembles the car, but they're not building the airbags."

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate

Nate and Bethany Smith, known as Your Cash Flow Couple, teach a simple wealth sequence: it is not what you make, it is what you do with it. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Nate talk about keeping capital liquid so you can strike when a deal appears.

In this episode:

• The core idea: "it wasn't so much what you make or how much you make, it's what you do with what you make," and "what the wealthy do is they accumulate cash until they have enough to actually leverage it and invest."
• Why liquidity changes what you see: "when you start having that cash available, you start noticing those opportunities. But if you don't have the cash available, it's not even on your radar."
• Abel's operator version: "when it's time, I need to have that money liquid, be able to access it today, put my letter of intent out and go do the dang deal."
• The launchpad was income: a house hacked fourplex that "covered about 50% of her previous income" and let Bethany go full time into multifamily in 2019.
• The flywheel: "make 100, invest 100, make 100, invest 100."

Abel Pacheco is a San Antonio real estate operator who went from 8 single family houses to a share of roughly 1,500 apartment doors, and now works as a fractional Chief AI Officer helping small and mid sized businesses put the back office on autopilot.

Go deeper and connect:

• Abel Pacheco
• 5 Talents, fractional Chief AI Officer
• The Open Door, the book
• 5 Talents commercial real estate