5 Talents Podcast

Ola Dantis went from asking "is this it? We do this and we die?" to sourcing about $40 million in real estate. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Ola talk about the expensive detour and why motivation without skill is a liability.

In this episode:

• The costly detour into flipping, chased because HGTV made it look easy: "that two year gap, it almost felt like 10 years."
• The line that anchors it: "there's always a price to pay, and there's never a discount. You always have to pay the full price."
• What saved him: a mentor group and relentless reps, not raw motivation.
• The warning: without the skill set "you're just gonna be like what I call a motivated fool."
• Abel's version of the shortcut trap: a coworker who Googled the answers he was paid to know.

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

Rey Reyes is a retired Army lieutenant colonel who built his way from accidental landlord to general partner across 382 units by learning on someone else's dime first. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Rey trace the passive to active path.

In this episode:

• Learn passive first: "what I wanted to do was learn it from the passive side first, get the lingo down, understand the nuances, while I was getting paid as a limited partner."
• Do not reinvent the wheel: "by becoming a general partner in someone else's deal, you buy into that network. You don't have to create it from scratch."
• The warning against fake progress: "a lot of people do a lot of mark time. They're just marching in place. They never get anywhere."
• Abel's sequence: "Get educated and take action."
• Why he chose his market before he chose his operator.

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

Bethany Babcock built Foresight into a firm managing over $100 million with deals in about 13 states. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Bethany talk about credibility, follow through, and growing at the rate of people.

In this episode:

• The blunt truth about getting taken seriously among a hundred buyers: "I wish that there was something else I could tell you, that your smile will get you through the door, but the reality is money speaks."
• Credibility is a built asset: "put together a really good resume, and if you close a deal, get a letter or a little quote from that broker saying, they closed and they didn't retrade."
• Her governor on growth: "We're growing at the rate of people."
• Abel from the buy side: "the more of it you do, the better buyer you're gonna be."
• Why revenue in a deal business is trust times reach: keep the funnel full and never drop the follow through.

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

William Walker left Ernst & Young with no funding, lived on peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and built roughly $100 million in assets by refusing to wait for permission. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and William run a capital raising masterclass rooted in betting on yourself.

In this episode:

• His plain formula: "finding great relationships, educating yourself, and taking action. If you do those three things consistently, you're gonna get some results."
• The on ramp for anyone raising money: "if you're not capable of going out and getting $50,000 from one investor, then raising 5 million might be more than you can bite off right now. Start with where you are."
• The covenant Abel names behind the bet: "the knee to knee, eye to eye discussion, hand in hand."
• The arithmetic underneath the sandwiches: income minus expenses, deal after deal, compounded by trust.
• Why the law of the first deal turns brokers and investors into a pipeline.

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

Anna Kelley built roughly 2,000 doors by treating underwriting as a learnable skill, not a talent. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Anna talk about the reps that build judgment and the mindset that gets in the way.

In this episode:

• How proficiency is built: "You look at deals, you analyze deals, and you do it over and over and over again, and you become proficient." A single book and a few P&Ls got her started.
• The mindset gate: "If you tell yourself, I'm not financially minded, I'm not financially proficient, then you'll give yourself an excuse not to learn."
• Abel's payoff of reps: "if you don't have the practice, you may not even be able to find the diamond in the rough."
• Why the safest job in America taught her the market was not safe, and why she trusts income she can underwrite herself.
• The takeaway: judgment is built by repetition, and repetition is how you see the deal before anyone else does.

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

Daniel Holmlund runs a multifamily general partner career on top of a full time job at Intel by engineering his week around the clock. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Daniel talk about building a real estate business while keeping the W2.

In this episode:

• The system: "the first thing I do in the morning, especially on Mondays, is I start laying down all the different tasks I'm gonna do on a half hour block basis for the week," with asset management calls at 7 AM and email after hours.
• Partition by what runs without you: "I partner on things that can be done after business hours, a lot of investor relations, potentially asset management, dealing with CPAs."
• The stress test Abel pulled out: a 55 percent break even occupancy, the number that tells you how far income can fall before the deal is in trouble.
• Why, for a W2 operator, the scarcest expense is his own time.
• The mindset: "Nobody gave me permission. I decided I was gonna do it."

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

Lee Yoder took a 25 to 30 percent pay cut on purpose, not to buy time but to buy bandwidth. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Lee talk about scaling into multifamily from single family flipping.

In this episode:

• Why he took the pay cut: he left a job that "consumed" his thinking for one that gave him "the time and the energy and just the capacity, the bandwidth to really start thinking about it."
• What he buys: "You have to take the properties that the big boys aren't interested in."
• The result: he "created $300,000 of equity with this nice, pretty slick plan," on a $350K building nobody else would touch.
• The real scarce resource: not hours, but bandwidth, the mental capacity to make good decisions and spot the overlooked deal.
• The reflection: "We've moved so much slower, and yet we've moved so much farther."

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

Bruce Petersen reframes the whole game: "you're buying an existing proven operating business. It's not real estate. It's a business that owns real estate." On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Bruce talk about running the operation and scaling without burning out.

In this episode:

• The core reframe: "It's not real estate. It's a business that owns real estate."
• The cost of forgetting it: burned out doing every job himself, he fired his third party manager and became the management company.
• How he survived: "with scale, I started putting really talented people around me so I didn't have to wear every single management company hat, because it was driving me into the ground."
• Abel extends it: "what we're buying, we're buying businesses, we're buying streams of cash flow."
• Why a business that owns real estate lives or dies on operations, and operations are the expense side.

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

Tim Kelly reframes capital raising from a burden into an offer. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Tim talk about networking, visibility, and raising money by giving value first.

In this episode:

• The reframe: "you're not asking people for money. You're offering an opportunity for people who are actually looking for an opportunity."
• The tier of networking most people miss: "it's a little bit about what you know. It's more about who you know. But it's most about who knows you."
• The income law: "your income is in direct connection to how much value you give."
• Abel's sales doctrine from his dad through Zig Ziglar: "you can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want."
• Why capital flows to the operator whose network knows what they offer.

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

Chris Salerno's company held 364 units and beat a group holding over 15,000 for a Greenville deal, on trust and conviction, not size. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Chris talk about winning deals through relationships and forcing appreciation.

In this episode:

• How the smaller group won: "Broker even came to me and said, I don't know this group, but I know you guys. I put a significant amount of hard money down, because that's how confident I am on the deal."
• Disciplined income creation: buying at just over $95K a door in a $129K market and manufacturing value.
• Abel ran the math live: "from the creation of net operating income, the valuation is much different than a single family house."
• Why you never get to force appreciation on a deal you cannot win.
• How broker relationships and credibility at the top of the funnel feed the whole pipeline.

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