Wealth Formula

By now, you know my paradox. The more I invest in real estate, the less I pay in taxes because of my real estate professional designation.

It could be worse. I could not have the designation and not be able to apply passive losses to all sources of my income! It’s a good problem to have.

My situation makes me think about the profound impact of the basic tenet of microeconomics. That is, people do things because they are incentivized to do so.

In my case, I am incentivized to invest in real estate. Because I have profound tax advantages from investing in real estate, it makes me hyperaware of investments and expenditures that do not have any tax advantage.

It’s the reason that I won’t even consider investing in the equity markets. If I’m operating outside of my real estate happy place, there better be tremendous yield potential (ie bitcoin), a benefit beyond just the investment itself (Wealth Formula Banking), or something else compelling.

As a car guy, this has put me in a difficult spot. I love cars—especially Italian sports cars. But buying a Ferrari off the lot just makes no economic sense at all. It’s guaranteed to depreciate by no less than 50 percent over the next 20 years. Then, it may or may not start to regain its value.

Another option I have considered is focusing on maximally depreciated sports cars—say something from ten or fifteen years ago. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about losing value as much.

What I would really like to do eventually is have a collection of classic cars. I’ve mentioned this before and almost did pull the trigger on my first acquisition a few months back after a perceived near death experience. But the microeconomic incentives once again prevailed. I also realized that I didn’t really have the garage space to park a multiple six figure investment.

So…for now, I am still driving my Prius. However, to be clear, I still love the idea of buying nice things that will likely appreciate over time. Nothing you buy from Ikea will ever go up in value. So, why not buy some things that are more expensive that you can enjoy for a lifetime and sell them at a profit someday?

Anyway, I will follow my own advice soon enough when it comes to cars. In the meantime, I have found a super cool business that allows you to own a fraction of your favorite classic or rare supercar and trade it via an on-line marketplace.

The business is called Rally Rd. and it functions solely as a mobile application. It’s a fascinating business model and one that you may particularly enjoy if you like to combine your hobbies with investing.

This week’s Wealth Formula Podcast features an interview with one of its founders, Rob Petrozzo!

I am in a financial position that may seem somewhat unusual to you. You see, the IRS rewards me for my real estate investments by taxing me less. If, on the other hand, I keep my income in the bank, or invest it in traditional equities or bonds, the IRS shows me no mercy!

Admittedly this is by design. I am a real estate professional. One of the great benefits to that designation is that all of my passive losses flow through my personal tax returns. In other words, all that depreciation and mortgage interest I get by investing in real estate not only builds my net worth, but SAVES me money in the form of tax mitigation. Not a bad deal right?

To illustrate the power of these completely legal tax advantages, remember that with bonus depreciation even limited partners often end up with K1 losses of 50-100 percent of invested capital. Those losses add up in a hurry!

With that perspective in mind, why would I EVER consider investing in anything that is not tax advantaged? Think about the returns I would need to get in order to simply break even with the tax breaks I’m getting from investing in real estate. The returns would need to be HUGE. I’m not going to get that through Vanguard ETFs!

In fact, I truly believe that the only way I can get higher tax equivalent returns on capital is by investing in asymmetric risk type investments. For me, that means a little bit of bitcoin.

You may think I am crazy, but I actually don’t even consider investing in bitcoin all that risky. Sure it’s volatile, but I’m pretty darn sure that 5 years down the line anyone who buys bitcoin today will be pretty happy. I’m less sure about all of the alternative coins/tokens. They may have more explosive returns or they may simply go to zero. But bitcoin going to zero?—ain’t going to happen if you ask me.

Now I don’t overdo it with my bitcoin portfolio. For one, it’s important to have discipline and value add real estate is my bread and butter. In fact, I bought bitcoin with only about 5 percent of my investable assets this year. Aside from its riskier nature, buying bitcoin does not save me any money! It’s not tax advantaged.

So what’s a bitcoin HODLR to do? How about “Buy, borrow, and die”? That’s the mantra of the ultra-wealthy. The idea is that you can borrow against most assets that you own and invest in something else. You don’t get taxed on your loan and you’ve got a way to create liquidity out of an asset that is sitting around waiting to appreciate. If you invest those borrowed funds into real estate, not only do you get the benefit of investing your capital in two places at once, but you also get the tax advantages!

You can do this with all kinds of assets. Traditionally, the wealthy have done this with brokerage accounts and other real estate but also with gold and fine art.

The good news is that these days you can even do it with bitcoin and that’s what this week’s show is all about. Zac Prince is the founder of a cutting edge company called BlockFi. BlockFi is essentially creating financial products from the cryptocurrency ecosystem including the origination of loans and even savings accounts that pay cryptocurrency in interest.

In this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast, Zac tells us all about it and gives us his take on the massive infrastructure that is creeping slowly but surely into the bitcoin ecosystem. Whether or not you buy bitcoin, you are going to want to understand what’s going on in the digital ecosystem because soon it will be part of your every day reality. Don’t miss this show!

There is clearly fear in the heart of investors in the equity markets and real estate alike as talk of trade wars and recessions abound.

Meanwhile, I’m investing more in multifamily real estate this year than I ever have. In fact, I’m investing my 80 year old dad’s money in the same offerings—the opportunities everyone sees in Investor Club!

So why would I do this? Well, lots of reasons. Here are just a few:

1. I can’t time the market. The podcast echo chamber has been warning of the impending zombie apocalypse for at least 4 years now. Since then, I have been in and out of multiple deals creating permanent wealth. If we do have a recession (which I don’t doubt), does it have to be a blood bath? Remember, the average length between recessions is 5.5 years. If you enter an investment today, you could very well be back at the top of the cycle by the time you are ready to sell.

2. I only invest in quality assets that are in quality markets. What does that mean? Well, I like multifamily real estate located in high growth areas. If there is strong growth in population and in jobs organically today, then there is no reason that demographic trend shouldn’t continue with or without a recession over the long term. That means a lot of people needing to live somewhere and multifamily real estate solves that problem. While it may be the case that my returns slow down for a year or two if rent growth slows, if I invest in quality assets in quality areas, I don’t worry too much about it. I don’t believe I will lose money.

3. What makes me so confident that I won’t lose money? Well, the basic thesis of my investing is to not buy and hope. For those in INVESTOR CLUB, you know that I am a believer in forcing equity through value-add strategies. That means we are dynamically decompressing our own property cap rates and giving ourselves a bigger cushion in the event of any slow-down. We create value from day one and that’s why our multifamily investment returns have averaged 30 percent annualized over the last 6 years—way above proforma's. If a downturn happens, we have a big cushion!

4. I believe in the volume averaging approach. This goes back to the fact that I cannot predict market cycles. I prefer potentially less growth and capital preservation during a recession (real estate) over negative growth or losing money (money in the bank or stock market). As long as I invest in the right deals with the right operators, I just keep deploying capital on a regular basis. The ups and downs of the market cycles will take care of themselves.

5. The longer I’m in the investing game, the more I’m convinced it has more to do with the team than the asset itself. Right now, I have operators that I trust that make it very easy for me to deploy capital and that is the BIGGEST reason I am investing so much in real estate NOW. Even if there is an economic downturn, I’m in a very safe position with an extremely competent team. In fact, we will continue to buy through any potential downturn and follow it all the way back up!

Do I sound too optimistic? I would say I’m being realistic. Understand that, although I won’t be surprised to see a downturn in the next 12 months or so, I believe the next decade will be the “roaring 20s”—just like the ITR economics guys told us in a previous podcast. I don’t want to miss any of that!

That said, I’m always listening to what economists and other experts have to say. In fact, on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast, I have a highly respected economist who specializes in multifamily real estate. His name is Ryan Davis and he definitely knows what he’s talking about so make sure to tune in!

Up to 10 percent of my liquid assets are in very risky stuff—specifically digital assets and startups.

A lot of people people think I am being irresponsible—particularly because I have a captive audience with whom I have influence.

Now if I was shooting at the hip and telling you to put all your money in this stuff, I would understand. But even highly volatile investments (ie. gambling) may have their role in your portfolio.

To be clear, every year, I allocate no less than 80 percent of the money I invest into real estate through Investor Club. There are many “wealth advisors” out there who would tell me that’s nuts too—that I would be better with a substantial portfolio of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Ain’t gonna happen.

One of the great benefits of becoming financially literate is that you get to make your own decisions and feel confident about them. You don’t need someone with a three month long accreditation course to tell you what makes sense.

In my opinion, residential real estate isn’t risky if you know what you are doing or invest with someone who does. People have to live somewhere regardless of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Real estate in the hands of an ambitious immigrant with no money (my dad), ultimately paid for my upper middle-class upbringing and my education through medical school! Why would I consider it risky? The only time my dad got in trouble was when he invested in the stock market.

Now, let’s go back to this buying digital currency thing again. You and I know this is seriously risky. But you know what?— a lot of people have gotten very wealthy off this stuff already and it’s still in its early days.

So let me ask you this. Say you invested $20K into a variety of cryptocurrency projects today and lost it all. Would that kill you? Alternatively, say your $20K became $2 million—is it worth it for you to at least have a chance of this happening in your lifetime?

That’s the kind of analysis you need to do for yourself when considering investments of the asymmetric risk profile variety. Chances are if you are a follower of Wealth Formula Podcast, you are already doing fine. You make a great income and have all the basic things you need to live a happy life. But what if you had exposure to something that could put you in another league of wealth entirely? Would it be worth putting a little capital at risk to make this happen?

It is for me and that is why I invest in cryptocurrency. This is not foolish—this is calculated risk. It is the kind of risk that the wealthy take all the time. It’s how millionaires become billionaires and how ordinary people can make money that they never imagined possible.

In fact, even the largest, most respected university endowments like Yale and Stanford are getting in the game with small allocations in the digital currency space just to make sure they don’t miss out.

And why now? Well—because no one is talking about it. The bull market of 2017 had everyone and their mother investing in cryptocurrencies. Two years later, technology is better and institutional money is starting to get in, but investors don’t seem that interested.

That’s exactly why, if you have not gotten exposure to digital assets, now may be the best time to take the leap. The more you read about this stuff, the more excited you will get!

To help you understand what is going on with cryptocurrency and whether you should consider getting into the game, I invited Teeka Tiwari back on Wealth Formula Podcast. He’s a former Wall Street guy with serious credibility with institutional investors and family offices.

He is also a great teacher so make sure you tune into this week’s show.

P.S. To find out EXACTLY why investing in cryptocurrency makes sense NOW, make sure to sign up for Teeka’s upcoming webinar HERE:

https://pages.exct.palmbeachgroup.com/page.aspx?QS=773ed3059447707dab10bf1b399f25b36bb74c900e3c63c5873ccff64e36c190&source=x

Last week I was in Monterrey for car week. While I still drive my Toyota Prius from 2008 that I purchased during my final surgical residency year, I have an appreciation for vintage Italian cars so I attended the annual Concorso Italiano.

Those old Ferrari's are beautiful! There was a particularly stunning silver 1973 Ferrari Dino that I couldn’t get out of my mind. There is a guy at my YMCA who drives a Dino (only in Montecito)—he bought it brand new in 1975! I was telling him about the event and, as it turned out, he was there too.

“Yeah—but Dino’s are slow,” he said. “If I buy a new car, it’s going to be a Tesla. Those things are crazy fast!”

“But Tesla’s have no soul!” I argued.

To me we were talking about two different things. He was talking about performance, and I was talking about art. Now, I’m not much of an art guy but I think my love for old Ferrari’s is much more inline with an art critic’s love of Andy Warhol rather then a guy who just wants a fast car.

I could care less if that Ferrari is slow. I just want to appreciate it for what it is. It’s a sensory masterpiece. Look at it. Listen to it! Tesla's are silent and damn ugly in my opinion—especially that SUV. It looks like an overgrown Prius.

Now why did I go to this car show anyway? Just to torture myself with envy? No… I’ve been thinking about buying my first vintage car. There’s a few I have in mind. I love Ferrari's but a 1967 Lincoln Convertible sounds cool too, and I could throw all my kids and their friends in the back seat (and the rest of the neighborhood as well).

A couple years ago, I would have never even considered buying something so “frivolous”. That’s because I never saw it as investment. While it’s true that buying a fancy new car would guarantee a loss of money for the foreseeable future, buying one that has fully depreciated in value and pivoted to become a collectors item is a totally different animal.

The new car is what Robert Kiyosaki would call a “doodad”. While a vintage collectible car would be, what I would call, an asset. Sure it doesn’t cash flow but neither does gold. I would rather have a Dino than a few ounces of gold any day!

In the world of the affluent, the theme of buying things that you can enjoy today and have as something worth more ten years from now is quite common. I didn’t really notice it until some of my wealthy friends opened my eyes. If you can afford it—it’s a very smart way to live. Just think about the amount you spend on cars, furniture, watches, and wall decorations that are sure to be worth zero some day. What if you could replace all of those with appreciating assets?

It’s a very interesting way to live and one that I am really starting to warm up to—that’s not easy for a guy who still drives his 12 year old Prius.

Now I get that not everyone can afford to spend $300K on a vintage car or $3 million on a piece of art. But financial technology is really making some of the things that were previously not attainable for most of us into a reality.

How about owning an Andy Warhol? Did you know that right now you can invest as little as $25 and own part of a famous Warhol piece? You can even visit the painting at a gallery in New York and enjoy it for yourself.

This whole new world of investing is very exciting and my guest on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast is one of the entrepreneurs who is making it happen.

So, if you want your piece of that Warhol or whatever blue chip artist gets you excited, listen to Scott Lynn tell us exactly how to do it.

With the rocky stock market and concern for recession in the air, it is always interesting to go back and reflect on investing behaviors over time.

These days, when people are frightened, they don’t invest. Instead, they keep all of their money in the bank. Why? Well, you’ve probably never witnessed a bank failure and lost your money. In fact, unless you've lived through the Great Depression, you’ve seen nothing but bank bailouts and smaller banks being gobbled up by huge banks that are too big to fail!

But during the Great Depression, thousands of banks failed and there was no FDIC protection for those who lost their life savings. People living in that period of time experienced banks closing their doors and not allowing them to withdraw funds on a regular basis.

As it turns out, as banks turned their backs on people, the life insurance industry provided its policy holders with substantial amounts of liquidity at a time when it was much needed. Cash value life insurance policies saved many families from financial ruin.

It is no surprise, therefore, that after World War II the life insurance industry entered a Golden Age. Those living through the Great Depression wanted nothing more than reliable growth and stability. Bank failures and the stock market crashes were fresh in people’s minds making the safe haven of life insurance all the more appealing.

It is this sense of steady growth and security that has made Wealth Formula Banking such a major part of my investment strategy. It is a dynamic tool providing tax free growth, the ability to have access to significant asset protected liquidity and an opportunity to provide leverage to all of my cash flow investments (double dipping as I call it). Apart from all of these features, it is simply the safest investment I have.

Now don’t get me wrong, the majority of my money is in real estate which, when done properly, can be pretty darn robust in a downturn as well. In fact, part of what makes insurance companies as strong as they are is that they own a lot of the most expensive real estate in the country.

The stability of life insurance products makes it incredibly appealing to me. How do I use it? Well, typically people have portfolios of stocks and bonds. In my case, I own almost no stocks. I own real estate instead of stocks. My version of bonds is Wealth Formula Banking.

What's funny to me about being such an advocate for Wealth Formula Banking is that, despite the fact that it is a life insurance product, I think of it as an investment tool for when I am living. Until recently, I didn't even think about the death benefit. But recent false health alarms in my life have led me to start considering legacy and the value of the death benefit as well.

As investors, we don’t get to see the upside of the death benefit on our own policies obviously. However, there is a way to get exposure to this part of the life insurance benefit—by buying someone else’s life insurance policy.

You see, permanent life insurance policies are assets that can be legally sold to someone else. When I first heard about this concept a few years ago, I was amazed that I had never heard about it. As it turns out, it was because only hedge funds, banks, and other institutional players were playing in this market.

When I set out to find a way to get exposure to this asset class myself, I was lucky enough to run into a company called ASR that, after significant due diligence, I decided to partner with and they have been part of my team since that time.

Tim Wright is a partner at ASR and a wealth of knowledge when it comes to life insurance products and their role throughout history and in your portfolio. If you need some hedging in your portfolio, you are not going to want to miss this week’s episode as I talk to Tim about the different ways to get exposure to life insurance policies as an investment.

A while back, I had a guy on the show who had created an entire business focused on the creation of new Udemy content. Udemy is an app that allows anyone to make a course and publish it for others to buy.

Courses are peer reviewed so you get a pretty good idea of what might be worth your time. It’s actually a really good deal. You can cherry pick only highly reviewed courses and buy them for just a few bucks. It’s amazing how cheap learning can be online these days.

Because of that, I have developed a rather bad habit of accumulating courses that I never watch. So, this morning, while at the YMCA chugging away on the elliptical, I decided to pick out a course to finally start. I had several options dating back to over six years ago. Most of them were not really that relevant.

The archive of courses gave me an interesting glance into my thought patterns over the last few years. I once bought a course on how to buy probate properties. It’s probably fine for someone doing this kind of thing full time, but the idea of sending out letters to executors about buying single family homes and hoping someone responds doesn’t quite make any sense any more.

It sounds like a lot of work for relatively modest gains—sort of like wholesaling or flipping houses. I know some of you are probably really good at it but it’s not an easy thing to do and even harder to scale into an eight or nine figure business.

Frankly, I have come to realize that the effort required to scale something to eight figures is not any more than what it takes to get to six figures. The only difference is the monetary reward of each endeavor. If you are in the wrong business, you can very easily be highly successful yet struggling to pay your bills.

So, if you are just starting out, make sure you focus on something with some real upside. Here’s an example—rather than flip houses, why not flip apartment buildings instead? You can make millions of dollars that way. Don’t think it can be done? Well, that’s how Western Wealth Capital started and now they have over a billion dollars of multifamily real estate under management. Just watch one of our Investor Club presentations and it will blow you away!

It took me a while to come into this kind of state of mind—to think only big and to say no to everything else. I used to have a problem that a lot of entrepreneurs have—chasing shiny objects. Not anymore!

That’s why you don’t see me at every conference and you don’t see me investing with a million different groups. It’s really not about how much you work. It’s about spending your time doing things that are actually impactful.

I have found that the best course of action is to find something that works that is scaleable and keep working on it rather than looking for new projects or partners.

I wish I had come to this realization earlier but I’ve never really had a mentor to help me get there quicker. I’m not sure it would help as I have been told that I am uncoachable anyway. That said, I am always happy to share my own experiences and evolving perspectives these days to anyone who will listen. That’s why I do “Ask Buck” shows like the one I recorded for you this week!

Everything was fine until I got up from that recliner and walked down the stairs of my parents home to call it a night. Suddenly something seemed very wrong. It was like I was in a dream. I could not keep a thought and my whole body started to feel very heavy.

I made it down stairs and saw my wife getting ready for bed. As I lie down, I felt like I was losing consciousness. “Olivia, call 911. Something is very wrong with me.”, I said.

She looked very confused and I told her what was going on. She called 911 and the next thing you know, a couple of horribly out of shape paramedics showed up. My elderly parents also came down the stairs. My mother was terrified and took a bad spill on the stairs as the ambulance loaded me up.

As a physician, I was trying to figure out what was going on. I had no chest pain. My vital signs were normal. But I couldn’t stand up, my body was tingling all over, and I had an impending sense of doom. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

As the ambulance took me to the University Medical Center (in case I was having a stroke), I felt that there was a very good chance that I was about to die. I was terrified of losing consciousness for fear of never waking up.

I started thinking about my wife and kids. Had I set them up properly? Christian and Rod were finalizing a significantly larger life insurance policy for me that was lacking just one thing—my signature! I couldn’t believe it. Had I taken care of that a day earlier, my family would have been set for life. Now I was thinking about what I actually had and wondered if it would be enough.

I also started wondering how my wife would ever know about where to find all of our investments. I had not done a good job of keeping her in the loop on the basic stuff. Just imagine my poor wife, Olivia, trying to get into my crypto accounts! What a nightmare.

And all that investing and deferred gratitude—was it worth it? Would it really have hurt if I had splurged on that Vintage Ferrari that was up on my bulletin board or that 1967 Lincoln convertible that I passed on for more real estate positions or bitcoin?

Indeed, all of those years of hard work coming down to these last few hours—all I could think about was how I didn’t adequately take care of my wife and kids with enough life insurance and cars I didn’t buy.

When I got to the hospital, they put me through a myriad of tests. The good news was that they seemed to rule out anything big and bad. I started to feel a little better mentally at that point—maybe I was going to make it after all.

Then, after a few hours of tests, I was given three liters of fluid and I started to feel normal again. As it turned out, it was a false alarm. I just had a very bad drug reaction and the fluids seemed to wash it all away.

I spent that night in the hospital but fortunately went home with my wife and three little girls the next morning. I felt very grateful for being alive and seeing those little faces again. For the next few days, I was on a bit of a high and grateful for everything around me.

And of course, as soon as I could, I signed those life insurance documents and vowed to make Wealth Formula Banking an even more important aspect of my personal portfolio.

What would you be thinking about if you were convinced that you were going to die in just a few hours? It can happen to anyone at any age of course. Tyler Jenks, who was on my show a couple of times died suddenly a couple weeks ago. He was on Twitter posting videos just a day or two before that and there was no indication that there was anything wrong with him.

And what about all of those people who got killed in the recent mass shootings? No one expected it. It just happened. I was lucky. Not everyone gets to “stress test” their own sudden death. I found that I wasn’t ready for it but I’m getting another chance.

Most of us never really think about mortality despite the fact that it remains the only guarantee in life. You may thin

Is this market hot? Are real estate and equity prices too high? Invariably you are hearing this left and right these days. In fact, I can honestly say that I have been hearing that for at least the last three or four years.

My initial response to the impending zombie apocalypse was to stop deploying capital. That was a mistake. While those of us listening to Chicken Little sat on cash a few years back, other investors made money hand over fist.

So who’s to say that that people sitting on cash three years from now won’t be saying the same thing? It is very difficult to time the market.

So, what do you do? If you lose money by not deploying cash and letting inflation eat away at it and if you are worried about deploying capital into an over-heated market, what’s left to do?

Of course there are options like building up cash in Wealth Formula Banking that may make sense for cash accumulation that is very conservative. However, another simple concept is to be selective of where you deploy capital!

For those of you in Investor Club, you know that I am deploying capital heavily right now. Why? Well, the projects we are doing are not of the “buy and hope” variety. We are buying heavy value add properties and budgeting significantly for capital expenditures.

We are not relying on market appreciation to increase the value of properties, we are creating value through forced equity. In doing so, we effectively deleverage ourselves and perpetually de-risk our assets.

Am I afraid of an oncoming recession? Not really. A recession is part of the business cycle. We just happen to be in the longest economic expansion in the history of the United States. I fully expect a recession in the next few years. But a recession does not necessarily mean zombie apocalypse. We used to have recessions all the time that people barely noticed.

Despite my belief that a recession will happen sooner or later, I am also of the belief that the next decade will be one of prosperity along with a fair amount of inflation. That long-term perspective helps me to focus on the idea of buying high quality assets in good markets and the creation of equity through value add strategies. Even if the economy slows and markets correct a bit, I consider this is a pretty solid approach and superior to sitting on cash that simply erodes in value over time.

Now, I should point out that when times are good like they are now, it is also not a bad idea to take some profits off the table. If you were lucky enough to invest in real estate over the last five years, you look like a genius right about now—even if all you did was buy and hope.

Selling a business is a pretty good play as well given private equity’s on-going quest to find yield wherever they can.

Whether you’re selling a business or real estate, liquidity events can be very exciting. The idea of a big lump of money headed my way always puts a smile on my face. But one of the things you have to think about before it gets to you is how you are going to keep as much of it as you possibly can. If you don’t, the tax man will be happy to take some of that big wad of cash out of your hands.

Unfortunately, most people having liquidation events have little knowledge of all of the potential options that they have to defer taxes. In fact, there are multiple strategies to do so and my guest on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast is here to tell us exactly what they are.

Don’t miss it.

At a recent investor conference in Tenafly, NJ, I spoke on the topic of what I call Wealth 2.0. This is my preferred paradigm for investing that can be simplified into the the following equation:

Wealth=Leverage(Mass X Velocity)

Mass is simply the amount of money that is actually deployed into investments. After all, it doesn’t matter what kind of return you get if you aren’t investing any money in the first place. You’ve got to deploy enough to move the needle. The good news is that mass, like all variables in this equation, can be manipulated by the savvy investor.

For example, paying attention to the tax implications of your investments can actually decrease your tax burden and free up more money to invest. Case in point, I have invested a significant sum of money into projects that we have presented through our Investor Club this year. I am estimating that, in addition to creating equity through my investments, I am simultaneously significantly reducing my tax burden for this year—up to 80 percent of all my invested capital should be tax deductible!

How is that possible you ask? Well, It’s because I am a real estate professional and can utilize bonus depreciation on all of my real estate investments (even those done passively in syndications). If you navigate the tax law thoughtfully, you will have more money to invest. It’s that simple.

Now let’s look at the next variable—velocity. People often talk about a certain cash on cash return when they think about investing. That’s useful, but I prefer to ask the question, “How long before I get my money back?”. You see, 10 percent cash on cash is great but that means that for the first ten years of my investment, I’m just getting my own money back.

I prefer investing in opportunities that get me ALL of my invested capital back within 5 years and yet still allow me to keep my equity in the asset. In that case, my cash on cash return is not five or ten percent—it’s infinite! Think about it. If you have all your initial invested capital back in your pocket and still have equity in a deal, its like recycling capital and using the same money in multiple deals. That certainly speeds up the wealth building process—another reason to call this variable velocity!

The last variable in our equation may also be one of the more underrated—leverage. Leverage is critical to building wealth. In fact, infinite returns as I have described above, are virtually impossible to attain without the skilled use of leverage. Most people familiar with real estate understand instinctually that leverage is important to making money in real estate. But when you do the math, the numbers can be staggering and explains why so many real estate investor have become so darn wealthy.

However, leverage is not just about borrowing money from the bank. Inherently, the word leverage simply implies the use of a tool that amplifies ones efforts. Certainly bank money fits that description but there are many other creative uses of leverage that often go underutilized.

For example, what if there was a way to leverage your charitable giving? In other words, what if you could support your cause by donating a certain amount of money that had the simultaneous benefit of amplifying the size of the deduction on your tax returns? Wouldn’t it be great if you could donate $10K but get the benefit of donating 50K on your returns? Believe it or not, there are ways to do things like that.

My guest on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast is in the business of land conservation. It’s something that, in my opinion, is a very important cause that I would support even without the financial benefit. However, there happens to be some pretty significant leveraged benefits to this kind of giving so it’s even more appealing.

Suffice it to say, this is an interview that you simply cannot afford to miss!