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

Sterling White finds deals other people never see, and he built his following the same way he builds his pipeline: with commitment. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Sterling break down off market deal finding and the mindset behind it.

In this episode:

• The most recent off market purchase: 156 units, sourced from a self built list, not a broker's inbox.
• The funnel: a database like Reonomy or CoStar, filter to a unit band, keep only what hasn't sold in 5 years, screen for distress and mom and pop ownership, research the LLC, then cold call.
• The opener that works: "why now in terms of your consideration on selling?"
• The mindset from his mentor: "creativity follows commitment. If you're committed enough, you will figure it out. If not, you'll come up with an excuse."
• Where he started: on food stamps, first deal at 23 with negative funds in the bank.

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

Juan Vargas left BMW with a wife, 3 kids, and a mortgage, and never looked back. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Juan talk about creating value, building a team, and acting before you know everything.

In this episode:

• Burning the ship: "whenever I left W2, that was my form of pulling the trigger and burning the ship. I can't go back. I'm not going back."
• The cure for analysis paralysis: "you're never gonna know everything. It's just about learning enough and then pulling the trigger."
• The team answer for someone with no track record: everyone can bring something, "underwriting, deal flow, lending, raising capital, property management, construction. There's no I in team."
• Abel's coaching line: be honest about your skills, "you're trying to partner on your weaknesses."
• The math, stripped to the bone: "there's income, there's expenses, there's debt service. If there's anything left after that, then the thing is cash flowing."

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

Kathy Kersten is a Gallup StrengthsFinder coach and a former Rackspace colleague of Abel's. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Kathy make the case that you do not fix your weaknesses, you build a team around them.

In this episode:

• The doctrine: "it's better to invest in your areas of strength than focusing on your weaknesses, then partner around for the weaknesses. Because if you can find someone who is world class in your area of weakness, you're unstoppable."
• She lives it: "if you look at my top five, you don't see any analytical. I hate numbers. Every year around tax time I hire an accountant."
• The maxim from their mutual mentor Graham Weston: "individuals can have weaknesses. But teams cannot."
• Abel applied to a deal: "there are no lone wolves in real estate." Property management, asset management, your CPA, your K-1s, cost segregation, each is a strength you have or you partner for.
• Her third step, intentionality: "I'm not gonna waste any of my time on the things that I'm not good at."

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

Todd Thorpe negotiates telecom agreements for apartment owners, and his whole message is that the cable line item is not a fixed cost, it is 4 ways to make money. On this episode, host Abel Pacheco and Todd turn a boring contract into real value.

In this episode:

• The 4 buckets hiding in your cable contract: door fees, revenue share, courtesy services, and bulk.
• Why most owners never work them: "you don't know what you don't know. You're just gonna allow the cable provider to continue serving your property without any benefit to you."
• The defensive first move: stop the auto renewal, because "once you go into an auto renewal, you just lost all of your leverage."
• The math Abel runs: negotiate a $300 a month saving, and "if I take $3,600 a year of expenses that I've now saved and divide it by the cap rate, that's $72,000 of value that we've created."
• The durable principle: any expense you cut, divided by your cap rate, becomes many dollars of value at exit.

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