Turning Dreams into Deals and Crafting an Extraordinary Vision of Life, with Pasha Esfandiary

Join us as we delve into the extraordinary life and career of Pasha Esfandiary in this captivating episode. Pasha's journey encompasses diverse experiences in real estate and entrepreneurship, including a lucrative stint as a professional poker player. With his sharp strategic thinking and calculated risks, he achieved financial success that surpassed even top executives. He made a pivotal decision to transition into the world of real estate, which he considered his ultimate end game. Throughout the episode, Pasha generously shares invaluable insights from his entrepreneurial journey, reflecting on the lessons he gleaned from poker and offering firsthand experiences navigating the dynamic real estate market. 

Prepare to be inspired by Pasha Esfandiary's remarkable story of charting an unconventional path and pursuing passions beyond the confines of convention. Don't miss out on this episode, where you'll gain exclusive insights from Pasha, a real estate flipper, investor, professional poker player, and the visionary founder of the Evoke Capital Fund.

 
Links mentioned in today's episode:
Evoke Capital
Road to 100

About Pasha Esfandiary

Pasha Esfandiary started his real estate career in 2011, flipping auctioned homes. With over $250 million in transactions, he has worked on various property types, including residential homes, boutique motels, and large multifamily properties. In 2021, Pasha founded Evoke Capital to help others achieve financial freedom through real estate. With a focus on community development, Evoke Capital aims to provide more than just housing, fostering educational resources and empowering residents to thrive. Pasha's commitment to growth ensures that Evoke Capital is just beginning its real estate journey.


Tweetables:

“I get super like crystal freaking clear of my vision and who I want to be in my vision and I emotionally attach myself to that vision.” (15:06:0662)

“Would I rather listen to my limiting belief or would I rather live in my vision?” (17:56:642)

“Whatever you think about, you become.” (19:10:826)

“And when there’s good communication and trust there, you can weather the storm.” ((33:43:922)

“If I could teach any child the power of I can go accomplish this, just that one thought alone can change the trajectory of somebody’s life tremendously.” (46:56:618)

“Environment is stronger than willpower until willpower is stronger than the environment.” (48:21:678)

The main sponsor of our podcast is Rx Real Estate Investment. They make everything we do possible, and our conversations and interviews would not be available without their support. If you want to diversify your retirement portfolio and get into commercial real estate investing, working with Rx Real Estate Investment may be a great match for you. Check out the website at www.rxrei.com. 

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Claude Condo
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Transcript

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Hello friends. Hello family. Welcome to another episode of the Rx Investor Podcast. Happy to have you here with us today. I am Jeff Stark, your host. We also have Claude Condo, my co-host. What's up Claude? How you doing brother?

Claude:

Good, good, I'm really excited and looking forward to speak to my good buddy, one of my few best friends in the world.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Ah dude, I love you. I hope not to bore your audience. Let's just put it that way.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Not gonna happen! Definitely not gonna happen so

Pasha Esfandiary:

Ah!

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

our our guest today is Pasha Espandiary uh you know I I say every now and then I think Claude is probably one of the most interesting guys in the world that I know... Pasha is probably gonna rival him for that uh here in this episode

Pasha Esfandiary:

Uh-uh, no dude, Claude's story is incredible, man. I look up to Claude, so. But thanks for even putting me into the same category.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Hey man

Pasha Esfandiary:

There's obviously a bromance that's going on here and like, and you're sandwiched right between it and we love you also, but this is kind of fun. Yeah.

claude:

That's it.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

We're happy to have you. This is going to be an awesome conversation.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Thank you.

claude:

Yes.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

We both have been really looking forward to getting you on the podcast for a while. Just a little bit about your background. You're a residential real estate flipper and investor. You're a professional poker player and you recently launched the Evoque Capital Fund, which we want to hear a lot about. But

Pasha Esfandiary:

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

if you can, that's the Cliff Notes version. But go a little deeper. Tell us a little bit about who you are, where you grew up, and who Pasha is.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Okay, sure. Yeah. Um, my blood type is, and my social security number is no,

claude:

Hehehehehehe

Pasha Esfandiary:

I, uh, no. So, uh, you know, immigrant, immigrant father, uh, came here when I was three years old and he had to work two jobs to provide for me and my brother essentially. And I had a, going through school, um, had to raise myself very quickly realized, uh, early on in my, uh, academic career, as you would put it that It wasn't for me. College wasn't for me. And as soon as I got out of college, which means I essentially left after about one semester, I quickly got into poker. Um, and I started to realize that I could make a lot of money playing poker. I was very young and I was making more than most executives were making at big corporations. And I did that up until about 26 years old, uh, when I really wanted to take my life a lot more seriously. I realized my long-term goals. Um, my wife would put it, that's when I really matured and, and, uh, started to develop these, these skills for like long, um, for potentially what I wanted to create in the future. Right. And so at that time I quit poker, wanted to get in real estate because real estate was always my end game. Um, during that time I got really heavy into personal development work for about two years, I dedicated my life to personal development, knowing that this will become the foundation of my future. Uh, got into real estate, uh, very quickly on, uh, I, I got my license to be an agent, not to sell, but I quickly had a very vast network of people who wanted to buy for me. So I used that plus on my poker winnings to go and buy my first flip property side on scene auction, where I interned at a family friend of mine for three months. He taught me how to flip homes very quickly. Got the bug. Made all the mistakes that you could ever imagine in that first flip, but I still made $3,000 net That is not including taxes which becomes way more important later on And uh, I so I caught the bug and I did a ton of homes in in las vegas in a few years I did about 40 to 50 depending what if you're counting Partnerships or not moved to los angeles I flipped one home here and quickly realized that i'm a very small fish in a big pond

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Hmm.

Pasha Esfandiary:

And because of my poker background Decided that I want to go where there's less competition and more reward That was land up construction in LA on hillside and in the path of progression Sector and I did that for close to five years. I'm still finishing up my last projects But about two years ago made the switch into multifamily Again, I found out that multifamily for me At least it wasn't giving me the returns that I wanted even after a few buildings that I bought Bought my first mobile home park kicking and screaming essentially,

Pasha Esfandiary:

my now partner convinced me to do it. I realized that that mobile home park netted me more equity and more cash flows than the multifamily did. There's less competition, more stigma around it, and it was a safer bet in my opinion. And so I have a tendency in my career and my lifetime to go where there's less competition. And that's exactly what I did with mobile home parks. And that's where we're at now. We identified this really kind of untapped resource and commercial real estate for

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Hmm.

Pasha Esfandiary:

us. And we wanted to really accelerate our results on this. So we did a few syndications, really decided to create a fund. And now that's where we're at. We launched our first fund, excuse me, in November of last year. And

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

awesome.

Pasha Esfandiary:

we started with a $15 million fund, very quickly realized that we are now gonna be expanding it out. to a $20 million fund. And so that is where we're at now. We only strictly buy mobile home parks.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Wow. Amazing.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

So there's a lot there, and we're going to hopefully have time to get into all of it. One question I want to ask you about is your foundation. You mentioned that you went through a really intensive period of about two years, and this, I think, was early on in your investment career,

Pasha Esfandiary:

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

of personal development. What happened to you in that two years? How did you grow personally, and how did you discover? what you want it to grow into. Because I feel like there's probably some themes here or some things that you learned that are impacting you even to today, which I'm curious to hear about.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah, sure. Great question. So when I was 26 years old, I think, I think before that, I think we all at some point early on in our, our lives, maybe some later, some earlier, we have faint reminiscence of, of what we want to do in the future. So I knew I always eventually wanted to get in real estate. I eventually wanted to buy real estate most likely because it was my father's dream and he just couldn't afford to do it. And so I feel like I adopted my father's dreams. And now he's, you know, like to this day, anytime I tackle anything, he's the first one I text and he's just so happy for me because he wished he could get a real estate. Right. So, but I always knew I wanted to be in real estate, but 26 years old, I'll paint a picture. Um, you know, I really was, uh, pretty depressed. I feel like that word gets, uh, thrown around very easily. I was depressed for most of my life. Um, I was very antisocial on, on anxiety medication and. This personal development course taught me how to feel my emotions again. I was so walled off because of what happened in my childhood when my mother leaving and how I internalized it. I had a great childhood, but how I internalized it was quite difficult. And I didn't really allow myself to open up emotionally to love and to people until I really joined this intensive emotional intelligence work. And once I started to finally be able to get my express my emotions, get my emotions out. be human, what makes us really human, it kind of was the floodgates open and I realized I need more of this. And so during that two year period, I learned who I was authentically, down to my core. I learned what kind of love I wanted in my life. I learned who I wanted to attract, not just in a relationship, but with my friendships. So I got really connected to

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Wow.

Pasha Esfandiary:

who I was because in the previous 26 years, I had shelled off every emotion and became a cage of internally. And so

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Hmm.

Pasha Esfandiary:

it was just kind of an open floodgate. So I got really clear on everything, going back and releasing a lot of past perceived trauma that I had and whatnot. So it really helped me explore what avenue I want to go to. It really got me clear on my vision for the future, what I wanted to create for the future. And it gave me a foundation, a new work ethic. that my vision is larger than myself. And so that's, I apply everything that I've learned there, mastery of emotions, mastery of communication, mastery of vision-driven success, I learned from that period. And I became quite obsessed at that time, yeah.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Man, thank you so much for sharing that and being vulnerable. I feel like, well, I think everybody has some kind of emotional thing that they're working through. And I'm thinking of people that might be listening to this that are so dug into a career and maybe they don't see a way out or they're just stuck emotionally somewhere that would. keep them from growing into the next stage of their life. And, you know, there's dozens of different ways to be stuck. But hearing your story, thank you for being so vulnerable and explaining that. That's pretty cool the way that you really like found your core and peeled back those layers. And it's really cool to see your progression there.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Thank you so much.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Yeah, man.

Pasha Esfandiary:

I feel quite blessed to have done that because I don't think there's anything, I don't think there's no better feeling to be truly connected to what you subconsciously want and then to be actively going for it as well too. So I feel incredibly blessed in life. I'm absolutely grateful for everything that's happened to me because everything that's happened to me that was perceived bad at the time is now the things I am most grateful for. It was all the hard times that, who have made me who I am today.

claude:

Yeah, man, that's deep. That's why my few people that I love to talk to, right? Because we usually go deeper than just in one question. I love how you went deep, and thank you, Jeff, for that question. So I want to go a little bit further than that. So would you tell someone that is kind of going through the same thing? I can speak as a pharmacist, because we tend to be a little bit. you know, shy, we don't want to talk to people, new people, we want to be, you know, you know,

Pasha Esfandiary:

Mm-hmm.

claude:

who I'm talking about. So we want to be just in a place that is so comfortable that we know of, you know, being in the pharmacy environment shelf that, you know, okay, customer come and talk to me versus me going to talk to the customer, right? So how do you tell someone like that to face their, you know, their perceived, perceived, I'm saying perceived because it's perceived weaknesses, like go

Pasha Esfandiary:

Mm-hmm.

claude:

out and speak to people and go out, actually embrace your dream, go out and sit down and think. And, you know, here's where I wanna go and here's what it will take for me to get there. Like, how do you tell people to overcome those perceived limitations or weaknesses just to go after their dreams? You know, if my job is not fulfilling me, let me dream of what else can I do, right? If

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah.

claude:

I'm not happy with my environment right now, what else can I do to push myself?

Pasha Esfandiary:

I think that's such an important question that you asked, but I think it's a question that I don't think one person can answer in a direct way. There's no structure for this. What I can tell you from at least my personal experience is that I attach my identity and my limiting of beliefs. I wouldn't say attach, I address them rather by having a vision. Right this like keyword vision is always gets talked about but I have such a clear vision of what i'm going to create in The next 10 years and I let that be my driving force, right? So I get super like crystal freaking clear down to the emotions the smells The feelings the emotions the people the sense. I mean everything I get so clear on my vision And who I want to be in my vision And I emotionally attach myself to that vision that there is no other possibility that that can happen. When I do that, it pulls me to become the person I need to be, right? Like an easy example is let's just say people wanna make more money, right? And what happens is you focus, if you start to focus on the end goal first, let me just, I guess the best way to put it is you're making, let's say, $50,000 a year. Right, and now you wanna make $200,000 a year, right? And you dedicate yourself to 100% that goal. What ends up happening is if you're training yourself every single day, and I journal every single day, and I write my goals down at least five times every single day to remind myself every single day what I'm going for, that my mind starts to see opportunity for 200K per year rather than only seeing 50K. And what happens is, you mentally start to see an opportunity and then you start to put yourself through that door that has a potential opportunity. You start to think about, oh, I wonder if this career or I wonder if this side job or wonder if I make this jump over here, you start to see opportunity differently. And then what happens is because your vision is bigger than your, or it's bigger than everything else that you're dedicated to, you will have fears that naturally come up. Oh, well, what if I jump from this 50K thing to this 200K thing? Well, what if it fails and I'm like, I have a, like a cushion here and whatnot. But the end conversation becomes if I am dedicated to my goals and my vision, I have to take this risk. Right. And so you can obviously limit and downsize your risk by more education and learning and mentorship and all of this. But I let my vision drive me. bigger than any of my limiting beliefs. Cause anytime I limiting beliefs, I asked one simple question, would I rather listen to my limiting belief or would I rather live in my vision? And it's a hundred percent live in my vision. When you answer that, you gotta be truthful yourself and then go through that door, which is whatever that risk is. And so that's how I look at it. And that's what I believe people are drawn to it and we'll get over

claude:

Yes.

Pasha Esfandiary:

that limiting belief. Your priority is different.

claude:

Such an important thing because it took me close to 20 years to kind of understand what you're saying, right? Where it's good, most people, we do our visions, we do write our goals, but you review those goals maybe six months after and then you forget about the goals. But the important, the secret thing is the secret sauce is to write your goals and to review them daily and to rewrite them daily. Jim Rohn said something great. He says that you write your goals daily. Take a new page, wake up in the morning, write your goals. Don't even look at the page from yesterday. Write a new page, write your goals. The more you write, it becomes part of who you are, part of your nature. And then eventually you come to pass. Eventually you come to be...

Pasha Esfandiary:

I want to add on top of that, it's subconscious training. Affirmations is really big in my life. And when I was retraining myself to become who I needed to become, affirmations were like, I would drill myself mentally about a thousand times per day. And I'm not even joking about who I am and what I'm becoming. And that becomes who you are, right? Whatever you think about, you become. And then

claude:

Yes.

Pasha Esfandiary:

another thing that I don't think gets talked about enough is people... This is at least what I do. Okay, and I've noticed that when I would write goals in certain peak moments in my life, or sometimes you feel a lot of inspiration when you write goals, and sometimes you're like, I don't know how the hell

claude:

Yeah.

Pasha Esfandiary:

I'm gonna hit these goals. Like, shh, crap, you know? But when I write goals, when I go for that 10-year vision, because I redo my 10-year vision every 10 years, right? Naturally. I get myself into a peak state. I get myself so confident. I get all the confidence. Whatever that... means for you that can mean working out and grunting and flexing in your muscles or putting yourself in a deep meditation. I come from a place that's so pure that that's where I write my goals not when I'm just sitting down and it's a relaxed day and whatnot because when you're super confident and you're energized after a workout you're like man I'm going to conquer the world I can do this and we vastly underestimate what we can create in 10 years. So

claude:

Yeah.

Pasha Esfandiary:

I write, I get super confident. I write goals that scare the hell out of me when I'm in a confident state. And then I just dedicate myself to that vision. And I just think I'll figure it out because I'd rather, and it sounds morbid, I'd rather not die with any regrets. And so I work myself back.

claude:

Wow. Now, just to recap what you just said, which is really deep, I'll probably suggest everyone to go back and re-listen this part because it's so key for success, right? If you want to change your life, write your goals daily. Do the daily affirmation to the point that I'm so extreme with that practice that I even record my voice and then I'll re-listen to my voice

Pasha Esfandiary:

Awesome.

claude:

a couple of times a day just to rewire my mindset, right? Because I'm more than enough. I am a great speaker. I don't have accent, even though I have accent, I'm just saying. But

Pasha Esfandiary:

It's a great accent. Don't ever get rid of it. I love it.

claude:

thank you

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Super cool accent!

claude:

Exactly. Yeah. Amen. Yeah, I love it. So just telling myself that's because the world or situations or life will always come after you like, hey, you're not good enough. Or look how you speak. You can't even speak what you are thinking, right? So just those daily affirmations are key to change your life. I love it. But. Jeff, do you have anything to add or?

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Uh, not nothing to add on this part of the conversation. I kind of want to, if you're good with it, I kind of want to transition and go towards like the real estate investment side and talk, talk to him about syndication. So, you know, there, there's other podcasts out there, Pasha, where that you've, that you've been a guest on where you, you talk at length about like your start in residential real estate and some of the other things that you've done along the way, I kind of want to give you a platform and really talk to you and. dive deep about syndication and what you're doing in mobile home parks lately, since that's kind of new for you. And I know that it's a very big part of your 10 year vision. So if you can tell us a little bit about how you got into mobile home park investing in the first place, what drew you to it, and then, uh, maybe bring us, bring us current.

claude:

Yeah.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Okay. Yeah, sure

claude:

Before, before you jump, Pash, I'm sorry, before you jump, but, you know, I just wanted to, if you can just tell our audience what syndications and then you, you, you went to mobile parks that, so you say that multi-family was not that great return for you, if you can just expand more on that and just tell our audience those differences and why was it beneficial to you going that route.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Okay, sure. So the reason why I stopped developing and wanted to get into more multifamily and passive income is for that reason. I wanted to create cashflow for my family. And I wanted to have that monthly amount coming in passively. And this is why I jumped into multifamily and apartment complexes in the first place. And so I went to traditional route. There's so much information out there on multifamily. And the education that we can get online is immense, right? And so I educated myself for about two years before I bought my first multifamily deal. And I just, when I was fighting for these deals, I was just realizing that cash flows were very small in the beginning, typically, right? For most apartment complexes. And so as long, I'm dedicated to my goal about hitting, not about. to hit 100,000 net passive income, right, a month, then I have to look for different avenues, right? I'm living in my vision, I have to look for different avenues to create more better cash flows. And I do know just by networking that mobile home parks had better cash flows, but it had more stigmas around it. There was less information about it, less learnings about it. So, you know, like everything I do in my life, I just massively go educate myself. I go find mentors, I go learn every single thing that I can read on, that I can online. I pick everybody's brain to the point of nauseam about mobile home parks. And so what I really quickly started to realize that it was higher cash flows coming in, typically on a mobile home, like a multifamily, we were getting about four to 6%. cash flows the first year on on your cash on cash right and in mobile home parks I can easily achieve eight to ten percent in the first year and so that was very attractive to me and then I learned that mobile home parks were non-transitory so in apartment complex You have people who are coming and going out of the apartment complex every single year There's you know things that happen in my apartment complex at this time to where there was bed bugs and I had to go you know, all these like little things that would happen and property management and it was, you know, but like, so I was just seeing these things where I was eating up my cashflow, but my mobile home park is just spitting off cashflow and not giving me any headaches. And so because of the non-transitory nature of it, there's a stat where half of all tenants in the US that live in a mobile home park have lived there for 14 years, right? That

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Wow.

Pasha Esfandiary:

is consistent cashflow coming in. My repairs and maintenance is about sub 30% where in a multifamily apartment complex, it's about 50 Right because I just own the land and they own their own home And so I just quickly realized okay, there's all these components that I really like and In my opinion i'm getting safer returns because it's less transitory Okay, then I also learned about the depreciation benefits that come with mobile home parks compared to apartment complexes. And so an apartment complex, if we do a cost, say, get a bonus depreciation, I really quickly touch on it. You get about 35% of the purchase price up one year and for high earners. That's really important. And then for mobile home parks, I'm getting about 75% of the purchase price

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Whoa.

Pasha Esfandiary:

up front. So I'm able to write off, you know, double or more of depreciation, which I live in California. They just like to tax you. And so that's that means that's very meaningful to me. So it just fit a lot of boxes for me. It became a no brainer. And again, I just love the fact that people are scared of it because there's more stigma around it. I will say that the stigmas are there for a reason. Mobile home parks are more troublesome up front. It is harder tenant base, but that's OK. But with like anything, you got to go in and do the hard work. And that's what we do. And now we have a property management vertically integrated with our company. And so we don't mind it more pain upfront, more reward on the back end. And I've always lived that motto of delayed gratification. And that's what mobile home parks.

claude:

Hmm. Wow. Can you speak to us about as an investor? Because we do speak to our investors. We do have pharmacists, health care, nurses.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Mm-hmm.

claude:

They have W2 income. They are high earners. So what do you tell them if they do invest? If you want to say, let me call Jeff or Claude or Pasha. I want to invest in their deals. What would you give them the benefit? You mentioned very quickly about 75% depreciation versus 35% on multifamily.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah.

claude:

Can you speak a little bit in details and a little bit deeper than that?

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah.

claude:

What's depreciation? Just our audience, we have such a large, where we're trying to make sure everyone is fed, right? And from sophisticated investors to someone that's just doing residential that have no idea about depreciation.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah. Yeah. So strictly talking about depreciation, and I'm not a CPA. I'm like literally trained to like say that every time. Now that I say this, just because I've been on so many investor calls, but you know, uh, because you can, you can essentially depreciate every building that you buy over the course of 30 years, but because of some policies that are in place right now, you can depreciate all of that 30 years in year one, if you do a cost segregation report. And a cost segregation report essentially just takes all the parts of your buildings or your mobile home parks or whatever your real estate is and breaks it down into every single part to how to be able to accelerate the depreciation. So. You know, if we buy a mobile home park for $1 million, because I'm able to depreciate 75% because of the policies that are in place right now, even though we buy this million dollar park and we do about a $300,000. down on it we are able to depreciate seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars up front in year one so for high earners right if we're just buying it on a case by case basis that means not only do i put three hundred thousand in but i get an alpha or a delta of 450,000 of extra depreciation that i get a write-off right now there's a recapture in the future that just essentially a term that at some point the tax man is going to want their taxes but when you're in growth mode and you're growing your nest, the less taxes that you take, the longer the trajectory or the bigger the trajectory is going to be. Right. You want to have that capital working as hard as possible to keep growing in a tax efficient way, because your your trajectory will skyrocket compared to paying taxes and investing, paying taxes and investing. We will eventually pay taxes, but it's going to be on a very much larger figure down the line because we've already done the growth mode from there on. Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Rock and roll.

Pasha Esfandiary:

So just just letting you guys know I think this is a really important question because I Think everybody has a once you get into this world you start to realize that there's a lot of different options between syndicators and Operators, I think at the end of the day the first thing that you need to evaluate is trust That is the most important thing that you can do. It's not about the property, it's not about the numbers, it's not about anything. It's about do I trust this person with my hard earned money, right? It's gotta be at the forefront of everything because when you trust somebody, you're gonna be able to, let's say God forbid anything happens, you're gonna trust that they're gonna do the right thing with your money, right? At the end of the day, when you give your money to someone, there are a lot of set of documents, but then they... You are betting that that person is going to be able to do their job The way I like to look at it and the analogy that i'm coming up with uh lately in my mind It's like i'm a football team At the end of the day what makes a successful football team is that everybody does their job And that's what you need to do and so I think um What happens is a lot of people get into this real estate game and want to syndicate and they want to be operators and i'm not trying to Generalize everybody there's so many good operators out there But they get a little bit too excited about the deal and the money that they're gonna make in their short term instead of looking At as a long-term game, right? So everything I do Claude Is because I know that I'm gonna be in this game for 15 years from now I know I need to do good by every single investor. I know that I want to over communicate because of a few things. A, I invest very heavily into my deals. Secondly, I have invested in deals in the past where I got no communication. What is my money doing? I have like, I just gave you $100,000. What is it do? Like what, how is my money growing and working? And, and when there's good communication and trust there, you can weather the storm. For example, I invested in a restaurant here in LA. And lo and behold, it was right before COVID, but they communicated every step of the process of this is what's happening, this is what's happening, this is what's happening. And actually I just finally got my first distribution. They even did an extra capital call, but because of that, I trust them.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Hmm.

Pasha Esfandiary:

They got out of it. They came through and I've had other operators where I've invested my money, zero communication, and that's just such a red flag. So I treat my deals as such as Uh, it's my money in there and I also invest very heavily in my money. So, you know, the biggest feedback I got, which is I think a little crazy to think is that, uh, I communicate. I get the K ones on time and I, I try to over communicate in my, in my quarterly updates, because at the end of the day, it's your money, right? You trusted me enough and I should have enough, uh, compassion to give you updates on what your money is doing. And so there's. There's that and it's just like the football analogy I just need to do what I promise that I'm gonna do and I promise to also over communicate everything that we're doing Right and at the end of the day, this is the way I look at it whether you choose me whether they choose you Claude Whether they choose anybody real estate investments in general for good operators are all within a few percentage points of your preferred returns. They're all within a few percentage points of your IRRs. And then there's just a wide variety of different flavors. Right? And some people want to have a flavor of a bunch of different ice creams. A lot of people want to be heavy on one. They have their like rocky road flavor and that's just all they want. And another one's like a vanilla and they just want vanilla. And so it really just depends on what you want and find those operators that have a track history. that you trust and are willing to be transparent. And I would say for anyone who's on this, listening to this podcast, drill anybody who's an operator, right? Like drill them in the sense of, is this person transparent? Do I feel like they're giving me all the information? Do I feel like they care for me? These things are very important on on the person because you can push somebody's buttons and then you can see how they react and if they just see you as a Money sign that'll very clearly come out if they say No problem. I'll get you all the information that you need or hey, I don't have the answer now Let me find out for you But I promise to get it to you that is someone that's going to go back for you and you can tell that they have an investor forward Mindset so there are ways to go about it. I even had I always share the story. I had one person ask me in a call, a very savvy investor, hey, can I run your credit report and background check on you? And I was like, sure, go ahead, like no

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Okay.

Pasha Esfandiary:

problem. But I had no problem doing it because I have nothing to hide. Luckily he did invest, I'm not gonna say who it is, but I don't mind that. And I think any operator who's very transparent doesn't mind those tough questions and don't mind that extra digging as well. Right. So that's something to really consider is how do they respond to you? How do they care? And it's, it's the actions that can speak louder than the words. Cause there are a lot of good salesmen out there as well

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Yeah.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Man, I love a good sports analogy. I use, uh, so like I think in, in your deals and probably our deals, Claude, like you're kind of taking the quarterback position, right? You're like directing the troops, you're, you're calling the play and then the team is, the team is falling in line and it's everybody else's job to just go out and execute. So sports analogy always hits home for me. I love that. Um, you also mentioned like from the investor perspective, figuring out what flavor you like. That was something that you said a couple of times. So like from, as an investor, you know, somebody that's looking at a deal, maybe they don't know their flavor yet.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

What a, like, how, how would you direct people to help them figure out if investing with you is actually right for them, or maybe they're better off going with another group? How, how do you kind of steer people when they're trying to figure out their flavor?

Pasha Esfandiary:

I just I just keep imagining cookies and cream ice cream every time you say that and like now I'm getting hungry

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Cookies and cream.

Pasha Esfandiary:

It's the best right? It's the freaking best flavor Well, so what I would say is that again this leads back to the original Conversation we're having is figure out what you want to work yourself backwards, but a very easy Uncomplicated way to look at it is are you trying to build your net worth or are you trying to build your cash flows, right? If let's and to take extreme polarities here If you're trying to build your net worth go find an operator who's in development deals Right if you want high cash flows Go to something like mobile home parks if you want something that's in the middle and safe Go find triple net go find like,

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Mm-hmm.

Pasha Esfandiary:

you know commercial So you just have different flavors of what you're looking for Some people want both some people want high cash flow. Some people want this So it just really kind of depends on what you're looking for, but always what I learned very early on as I started to make a little bit of money is don't just shoot off an investment just because it's an investment, right? I think it's like a shiny object syndrome. Really find out what your goals are in the future and then keep dedicating your time and energy to finding operators in that way and to get you to there, right? Because I wish I could go back. very early on and just say, hey, man, I wish I'd rather invested all in these different businesses and whatnot into just this one thing. It would have grown quicker. I would have achieved my goals quicker instead of just saying, hey, this is just an investment. So it sounds good. Let me just do it. Would love to. Hmm. Nope. Hehehe You want to know my end goal is what you're asking?

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

spill the beans!

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah, sure. So everything that I'm doing right now is because I'm living in a bigger goal for myself. And when I look, I was just going to go deep. When I look at my life on my deathbed and I work backwards, there's a few fundamental things that I want to feel satisfied and proud of myself for. I want to feel proud of myself for having a family and knowing that I was the best father and husband that I could be. And then secondly, that on our finite time amount on this earth, I want to leave a massive impact on families. Because because I had to raise myself, I put myself in the shoes of other children in this world that had it way tougher than me in way un impoverished areas. where the culture is, uh, not empowering or uplifting. And so my big goal is that to create these communities where it's a privatized community, because I've tried to build low income communities through the light tech route, which is a sub, uh, subsidies from the government, but it's slow. It's actually for more for the middle income bracket, more than the low income bracket, it's very often overlooked. So is to serve 5,000 families where in these communities where you're living is super safe has Education i'm talking all forms of education emotional intelligence nutrition. I want to free provide free Daycare, right? I want to provide residents Tutorship for the kids and if they get better grades a little bit down on their rent And I don't need to make money on this because I know I can't die with money and I don't really care, but I do know at the same time, which is a duality that I have, an internal struggle, that money doesn't matter, but it does matter because that's the way we play in this society. And with more money, I can do more impact in the future. And so everything I do is to build to this. And how I got into multifamily was because I wanted to go buy one low income apartment complex to learn. what my tenants may need and to slowly build systems. And then I got drawn to mobile home parks. And then now I'm like understanding my tenant base much more. But when I can get to that 100 net passive income per month, I know I feel very safe to go put that 100K into my own and fund my own communities. So this is what everything that I'm doing because me and my family are gonna be taking care of no matter what. So yes. This is my overall goal. This is my dream. I will accomplish it. And this is everything that I'm working so hard for in the future, only because I wanna be able to replicate this in every, in major cities. And I, so I'm gonna go self fund the first one. No problem. I don't really care. I would love to do it. And I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of people who wanna be along with the journey with me and to create a nonprofit around all of this. Because imagine if you're living in the low income community, What is the culture that you're surrounded by? You're always told you can't do this, you can't do that. Education's stupid, or you know, but when you feel safe in your community and you have people that come and say, hey, I've been able to do this, so if I could teach any child the power of I can go accomplish this, just that one thought alone can change the trajectory of somebody's life tremendously, and that's what I'm looking for, and to creating. And so what if I die with less money? Who cares? So that is my overall goal. And thank you, Claude, for asking me because I don't typically share it. So thank you for putting me on the spot.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

I'm so glad I did, I'm so hyped right now.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Hahaha.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Yeah

Pasha Esfandiary:

Thank you. I want to treat the source and not the bandaid. And I think it all starts with the environment. And there's this quote that I love. I don't know who wrote it, but it says, environment is stronger than willpower until willpower is stronger than environment. But that latter part of that saying is so strong. Like it's so hard to do. to get the willpower to get out of the environment is so incredibly hard when you really think about it. And so I wanna create the environment where it nurtures the willpower.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Powerful stuff, man. Wow. It's a big vision. Maybe if you can tell us a little bit about evoke. You know, you mentioned at one point that I think you started it late last year. So I would imagine that's a big piece of crafting this future vision for and the impact that you want to have. It's going to be a big piece of that. So tell us a little bit about evoke and where people can find out about it.

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, we started evoke closer to years ago. We did start the fund late last year. Um, and so if anyone wants to find out more about me, you can just go to evoke capital.net. Um, or you can email me at pasha at evoke capital.net as well. Um, and really if anyone is interested in ever investing, I always have a one-on-one with them. I'm, you know, I always get to want to get to know who I'm investing with. Cause like I said, I am building a family of investors and I truly mean that. So I always have to have a one-on-one with somebody get to know who they are, you know, and so we can go from there as well. So. Yep.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Uh, one other question that we'd like to ask towards the end is like, uh, I'll just try to get an idea of like where, like where your attention is right now and like where you're learning or who, who has your attention. Maybe there's like a podcast that, that you're learning a lot about or like a book or a YouTube channel, but where does, uh, where, where do you go to like stay in tune with something that you're learning about?

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah, shameless plug. Me and my buddy, Cody Littlewood also have

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Yes!

Pasha Esfandiary:

our own podcast. It's called Road to 100. So we just talk about people who are successful, but try to be as authentic as possible because there's so much more to life than just growing and all this. But what I've really, really been super honed in on is that there's this podcast called Founders and it's incredible. I am so hooked to this and the All In podcast. That's just like a no brainer. but the founders podcast, he reads autobiographies and then digests it and tells you about the person's life. And I have been learning more about business through listening to this podcast and mindset on overall concepts than I think on any book. And so really to like, it's incredible. I love it. And then I just also love autobiographies. I love people. who have really created something out of nothing, out of an idea, and then you can learn so much from autobiographies, right? Because you're like, oh, this has been done before, how do I do it? And then it becomes a different question. And so I've been really, really just spending a ton of my energy on that. And then also secondly, a lot of my energy has been going into building out the infrastructure to what we're gonna be doing with Evoque. So I like to, I'm someone who likes to be overly prepared for everything. So a lot of my energy is hiring new employees and building out the systems so that we can absorb more and more property so we never get a fall behind on anything. Cause that's just not who I am. That's what, what we're focused on right now.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Founders that's a new one we don't think, I don't think anybody

Pasha Esfandiary:

It's awesome. I love it. I'm hooked.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

I don't think any guests so far has mentioned that one and I'm kind of surprised but I'm gonna check it out

Pasha Esfandiary:

I...  yeah, please do. It's incredible. No. You're just too kind. That's all. I think we all learn from each other.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Totally. Claude, you got anything else before we wrap it up?

Pasha Esfandiary:

Yeah. I really appreciate being on here. You know you mean the world to me. And Jeff, awesome as always. And really loved being here, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Thanks for joining us, Pasha. Appreciate it. Uh, thank you again for being so vulnerable. Tell us about your growth journey and about evoke. This was amazing, man. We are going to point all of our listeners over to your website. So,

Pasha Esfandiary:

Thank you.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

uh, be prepared to, uh, get an onslaught. Hopefully. Thanks again, man. Appreciate it.

Pasha Esfandiary:

I appreciate you guys. Thank you.

Jeff Stark (RxREI.com):

Boom, that's a pod!

Pasha Esfandiary:

Boom!