Jason Malabut: Conquering Cerebral Palsy and Corporate America to Become a Real Estate Powerhouse
Feb 15, 2024
David McIlwaine
When life threw a curveball at my friend Jason Malibut, he didn't just swing; he hit it out of the park. His journey from CPA to real estate giant is not only about financial success but also about triumphing over the physical challenges of cerebral palsy. In our latest episode, Jason walks us through his transformation from navigating the structured world of corporate America to the dynamic realm of real estate investing. His tale isn't just about property acquisition; it's a lesson in utilizing adversity as a catalyst for growth. With his expertise in accounting, Jason reveals how he leveraged tax advantages in real estate syndication to build a portfolio that sets a new benchmark in the industry.
Listeners will be engrossed as Jason divulges the pivotal role of applying what you learn to what you do, a philosophy that propelled his early investments in Indianapolis to remarkable heights. Jason's narrative is a testament to the belief that value creation is the cornerstone of wealth—an ethos he embodies through his rigorous commitment and mentorship program, Cashflow Champs. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned investor, Jason's guidance offers a wealth of knowledge on navigating financial freedom, underscoring the profound impact of mentorship in achieving success. Tune in for an episode that not only spotlights the ingenuity of a tenacious investor but also provides actionable insights for anyone ready to redefine their own path to achievement.
When life threw a curveball at my friend Jason Malibut, he didn't just swing; he hit it out of the park. His journey from CPA to real estate giant is not only about financial success but also about triumphing over the physical challenges of cerebral palsy. In our latest episode, Jason walks us through his transformation from navigating the structured world of corporate America to the dynamic realm of real estate investing. His tale isn't just about property acquisition; it's a lesson in utilizing adversity as a catalyst for growth. With his expertise in accounting, Jason reveals how he leveraged tax advantages in real estate syndication to build a portfolio that sets a new benchmark in the industry.
Listeners will be engrossed as Jason divulges the pivotal role of applying what you learn to what you do, a philosophy that propelled his early investments in Indianapolis to remarkable heights. Jason's narrative is a testament to the belief that value creation is the cornerstone of wealth—an ethos he embodies through his rigorous commitment and mentorship program, Cashflow Champs. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned investor, Jason's guidance offers a wealth of knowledge on navigating financial freedom, underscoring the profound impact of mentorship in achieving success. Tune in for an episode that not only spotlights the ingenuity of a tenacious investor but also provides actionable insights for anyone ready to redefine their own path to achievement.
Hey everybody, david McElwain, with another episode of Break your Golden Handcuffs. Today, I'm excited to have on the show a friend of mine that I met through networking long ago. Jason Malibut is an MBA graduate, born in LA, and he's a seasoned real estate investor, an active philanthropist and a certified public accountant, commonly known as a CPA. Jason started his real estate journey in 2018, studied real estate for an entire year before finally investing in three rentals in the very first part of 2019 in Indianapolis. After successfully following the investment strategy we all know of as BRR by rehab, rent, refinance and repeat for multiple properties, he took the leap from single family to multi-family investing. Jason focuses on the Atlanta, indianapolis and Kansas City markets. He's a general partner on a 160 unit deal in Atlanta. Jason is also the co-organizer of the Pasadena-Lindale-California chapter of multi-family masters meetup group. In Los Angeles, jason is a regular blog contributor for Bigger Pockets and American Apartment Owners Association. He is head of accounting and finance reporting for Cash Flow Champs. Jason, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:
David, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:
You know, the thing I love about our relationship is that you didn't mention the fact that you are a battler of cerebral palsy. I asked the listeners to bear with us, and your message is so powerful it's not even in your bio. Why not?
Speaker 2:
Because there's more to me than just someone who has cerebral palsy.
Speaker 1:
Such a beautiful answer and I will testify to that. We met on a real estate forum at one point in time and we've been talking off and on. I've done some due diligence for you, you've done some due diligence for me, and we just haven't quite found the right deal together. Yet. Tell me, this podcast is called Break your Golden Handcuffs. Have you ever had golden handcuffs?
Speaker 2:
Well, I definitely had handcuffs. You know, symbolic handcuffs, I'm not talking about real handcuffs.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, symbolic ones, of course, right. Yeah, we're not talking about being in jail and getting your fingerprints.
Speaker 2:
Exactly, but sometimes I question if they were golden. But when I think about looking, without my struggles I would have not been the person that I am today.
Speaker 1:
Wow. So, if I hear you right, what you just said was without your struggles, you wouldn't be the person you are today. So what I take from that is that you have gratitude for your struggles.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, of course I don't want to. You know, I don't want to bore people by me not talking too much about like religion and spirituality, but I would consider myself a very spiritual person and believe that everything happened for a reason. I believe that God gives us strongest soldiers the toughest test because he knows that not everybody can handle the test that I've been doing life and by me passing this test, I believe that God has given me gifts that he doesn't give anybody else.
Speaker 1:
Man. That is just amazing. You know I don't talk about religion on here, but I too am a spiritual person and what I'm thinking about is you share this that God gives us toughest soldiers. The hardest tasks is when my first wife was pregnant with our first child or our second child, and we were so scared they'd be born with something not perfect, and I remember telling my wife I would not have been able to handle that. And about a year later, a friend of ours had a child born with autism and it was their second of four children, and I know that I couldn't have handled that. So I say to you I agree, I don't have the strength to do some of the things that other people do, and I'm not saying that to be placating, I'm just honest. Right, I know that that wouldn't work, but I imagine, like you said, you don't want to talk about this that much, so let's dive in. Did you ever work in corporate America with an MBA and a CPA? My guess is you probably had a corporate job here or there.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I was an accountant before I got into real estate investing and I'm very thankful for my previous employment. I got some valuable experience working with a CPA firm and I'm actually able to still apply a lot of my accounting knowledge to our team because, for our team, everyone that handles the monthly reporting to the investors, everyone reviewing their financial statements. So even though accounting and the reading attacks accountant wasn't really for me, it still serves me because I'm able to add so much value to our team due to my background, without a doubt.
Speaker 1:
So as an accountant, there's so much to experience in real estate. Put it on your CPA hat for a second. What do you see as the biggest reason why, as a CPA, you chose to go from an accounting firm to being a real estate syndicator? What was the reason from an accounting point of view?
Speaker 2:
Well, everybody knows that real estate has one of the best tax benefits because of the depreciation. Also, rental income is taxed at age. So I think that the question that you're asking correct me from wrong is how do I stumble on real estate?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, how do you stumble there?
Speaker 2:
So, growing up with sympathy, my dad always kept it real with me. He never sugarcoated anything to me.
Speaker 2:
He said that Payton, I know that you like to have fancy things in life and you like to have nice experiences, but unfortunately, when you go up, you're going to have a hard time finding a high paying job compared to your friends and your peers because of your disability. So he always pushed me towards entrepreneurship. So growing up, I always had that in the back of my mind. However, just like most young people, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to get into.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, isn't it crazy that, as a college system, we expect teenagers to know what they're going to do for their whole lives? Someone said that to me recently and I was like holy shit, he's right. How can a teenager possibly know what they're going to?
Speaker 2:
do. Yeah, I mean, if you asked me when I was 15, 16, 17 what I wanted to be, I mean I was convinced. I was so delusional, I was convinced that I was going to be the first professional basketball player with disability and spoiler alert, david, I was a terrible basketball player. But it's that mindset, it's having the faith, it's having the belief that I can do anything that I want to do, as long as I put the work in. I was able to take that same mentality from basketball and apply it to my business, which is a real estate investing. So go back to your question.
Speaker 2:
One day, I was preparing a client's tax return and then I discovered that he is making a lot of passive income from his rental property without him doing anything. And that's what I'm interested as a wow, this is really interesting. This is what I want to do. I want to get to real estate. So I remember I discovered that in the end of 2017, I went into that and 18 came around and I didn't tell anybody that I wanted to get to real estate. Instead, I spent the entire year about 2018 listening to bigger politics, reading all the books, watching my podcast. I was watching a great condom and stuff. So so I didn't really buy any properties until 2019, and I was using my own money back then because I knew that I was green between the years and I knew that I was going to make a lot of mistakes, which I did, so that's why I wanted to learn with my own money instead of using other black.
Speaker 1:
I applaud you for that. I did something very similar, but it's interesting. You came to it reading somebody's tax returns as an employee and you recognized oh, my dad put this entrepreneurial spark in me. He's making a lot of passive income. I need to pay attention to this. And then you went to school, and you went to the school of reality, right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, at school hard knocks.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I'm kind of trying to go away from this cliche hard knocks thing and let's talk about reality. Like I don't have an MBA, but I guarantee this, I'd go up against any MBA in the country and I will have the experience, after 30 years in corporate America, to understand exactly what's going on. And if I don't know how to do it, I can outsource it to the guy that will. And what I love is a school of reality, and what you're talking about is you went to school without a tuition and you soaked it all up, so why did you gravitate to bigger pockets?
Speaker 2:
Because I remember going on Google I was going to Google random forums and researching everywhere and then I was asking everybody online how do you learn? How do you do real estate investing? And then I think a couple people said check out bigger pockets, you can post in their forum and they have a bunch of videos on YouTube. So it started there. I went into a deep rabbit hole just reading everything, watching everything. That's just something that people don't know about me. Maybe this is like when I'm really fascinated about something, I become very, very obsessed with it. I want to learn everything about it. It doesn't matter if it's real estate or going to the gym. Once I'm fascinated with something, I'm obsessed with it.
Speaker 1:
I love that Sometime I was working with somebody once and they asked me to describe me and they describe me as a lifelong learner and when I heard that, I was like, oh, that's right, and it sounds like you have that same passion. When you get that interest, you want to dive in. And it makes me curious how deep a rabbit hole did you go down in the 2018 digging in stage?
Speaker 2:
Well, that rabbit hole was so deep that I suddenly lost interest and it almost came out of China. I was reading everything, I was posting multiple questions a day, I was watching on a podcast and even to this day, when I go to a seminar, I always make a point to sit in the front row next to me and ask so many questions during seminars.
Speaker 1:
What's one of your favorite questions to ask?
Speaker 2:
My favorite question to ask is I'm always trying to figure out three things how, why and who. I always would, hello.
Speaker 1:
How, why and who. So let's dig into that. It's an H, a W and a W right. So what's the how you're trying to learn?
Speaker 2:
How do I do something? How do I do?
Speaker 1:
it Okay.
Speaker 2:
How do I do something? Why is it important? And the question is who can help me solve my problem? Who can help me retry a goal?
Speaker 1:
How do I do it? Why do I do it and who can help? That's great. I was thinking you're going to go into how do I make money. I think you see where my brain goes.
Speaker 2:
I think that money follows whoever gives the most value.
Speaker 1:
Money follows whoever gives the most value. That's such a cliche, but it's so accurate, too right, and I think about this in terms of one of the lessons I learned is the folks who impact the most folks lives usually make the most amount of money.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
And there's an exponential ratio to that In real estate. You can affect a lot of lives, to the good and the bad. So as you ask those questions who, how and why what do you often discover?
Speaker 2:
What do I discover? I discover that I discover that I do the seminar. I discover that I do reread all my notes again because I think that human mind only retains a small portion of the information. So I have to reread everything again. And then another thing that I discover is that I have to think actually, because you can have all that information in the world, but it's not going to make you a single penny if you don't apply.
Speaker 1:
Right, yeah, you're right. If you don't, you can have all that information. If you don't take action, you don't make a single penny. So that takes us to you taking action. So tell me about the first deal you did.
Speaker 2:
Man, the first deal I did it was a buying hold. It was in the Indianapolis, a solid B area. And let me tell you, man, I had so many names saying that I was crazy for investing in a state. People are going to take advantage of me because, first of all, you don't live there and, second of all, they see you with your disability. They're going to take advantage of you. Blah, blah, blah. It's in the fast forward. You know, I bought it for 80,000. I sold it for over 100,000.
Speaker 1:
So 25% return.
Speaker 2:
Over 25% return in less than two years. So I'm still waiting, david. I'm still waiting for somebody to take advantage of me.
Speaker 1:
I love that. Yeah, because we have agency over our decisions, right, we have agency over our knowledge, we have agency over our lives and I think, folks, that's how you break golden handcuffs, and this is what Jason I hear today sharing is that he has agency over his decision making. And so, after the first deal, what happened next?
Speaker 2:
I bought some more deals. Some dealers I made a profit. Some dealers I broke even. But I've never lost money in real estate and I will say that I have learned more from the dealers that I have broken even more than I have been money for. In 2020, I made a big decision. I said that no one can burn all the ships. According to the accounting job, that could not stand anymore. Of course, I will say investor. I told my mom that I am quitting. She was not happy with me. I remember it took me 3 years to get my first multi family deal and I was obsessed with it.
Speaker 2:
From Christmas of 2020 to the first week of September 2023. I did not take a single day off. I worked every day. I was talking about holidays, talking about birthdays, talking about when I had COVID, talking about when I experienced my foot in the gym. I could not walk. I was still working because I had to do strong work. You know what I would not lose? I always had a vision of myself. I had a vision of the man I want to be. I was so obsessed with that person that I did everything I could to become that person.
Speaker 1:
That is so powerful. Getting to agency over your life is not easy, and working every day for basically 3 years, it is 1000 days, more than 1000 days without a day off, that is commitment, so I applaud you, jason. I try to keep these sessions to about half an hour, so we are kind of running up on that window and I have a couple questions I love to hear the answers from you on. So knowing what you know now. If there is one thing that you wish you knew 10 years ago, that you know today, what would that be?
Speaker 2:
Nobody cares about your struggle until you become successful. Nobody is going to like you for you. People like you for the value that you bring to people.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, people like you for the value you bring to the table. I remember it was 2008 and I was flying home from New York City. I'd been at a corporate retreat and we were laying off about a third of our company that time and I was flying back on a late night flight and I had to cut my staff and I was watching an MSNBC thing on TV on the plane and the guy said the way to survive the 2008 downturn is to tattoo two words, one on the inside of each eyelid, and it was add value. And that's what you're preaching today, right? Add value.
Speaker 2:
Because, because I remember growing up, you know my mom. My mom would just tell me you know she was telling people who like you for you. But as an advanced specialty educator, I don't hurt. Unfortunately, that's not how the world works. People are not going to like you for you unless you add value to that somewhere or something.
Speaker 1:
That's a great piece of sage wisdom right there, and so, going on from there, if that's something that you know today, you wish you'd known 10 years ago, what's a piece of advice you followed that you wish you had ignored?
Speaker 2:
Advice I have followed that. I wish that I ignored.
Speaker 1:
Or a piece of advice. That was really bad.
Speaker 2:
Probably there's some, there's some, there's some, there's some in there going on. I guess the biggest one that I realized recently is I used to when I was, when I was first born, you know I just raised questions and then I would say about, about, like I'm a little spoiled so I just like drift away from it, because with like I had so many questions, I felt like I felt like I knew everything in the know, I felt like I could do everything because I've overcame so much. You know, it wasn't until I really hit rock bottom that I realized that we're only human. We're only human and and like I've learned a limitation to what we can do, and sometimes you have to have a belief in something greater than yourself to help, to help you get to where you want to be.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you're right, you can't do it all on your own. You got to have a belief, something you know. I call it a higher power, a karma, a universe, all those types of things. That's what you're talking about, right, you can't just do it all, no matter what, by yourself, and that's illustrated in your questions who, why and how. Who's going to help me?
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Right, so so that's great. So tell me, is there a maxim or some sort of motivational quote that gets you up and you'd like to share with our listeners today?
Speaker 2:
So many, so many I have, I've, uh, the very the most continuous, continuous, continuous, continuous every day. You, you, they are broken down every day and then eventually, when you look up, you realize that you have both a great big wall, something amazing by leaving a break down every day. Um, then I, growing up, I was a big curry, curry, bright, and his slogan was mumbum and tally. And I would watch him, you know, I'd watch his, his, his habit was like um, his work ethic was just insane. Like he would wake up at like four o'clock in the morning and like he'd practice the couple of days. He'd practice the same more thousands of times. And I thought it was the same thing. The business. You know, like um, when you're in business it's very boring. You know, like um, you do a lot of the same routine every single day. But by you doing those routines every single day you get so much practice and you perfect those skills in business.
Speaker 1:
I love that. That mumbo mentality that you have really shows through and the three years it took you every day, over a thousand consecutive days of work, to get the deal done. So that is the mumbo mentality. I applaud you for that. Tell, tell me, if the listeners want to learn more about Jason and about your business, how do they get in contact with you?
Speaker 2:
And so so, uh, we have a um mentorship course. Um, it's a same mentorship course that I do. That help me. That help me close the money 160, um, I'm asking Fani and all sorts of media, jason Malibu Day um internet. If you guys want to send me an email, my email is Jason at cashflowchampscom.
Speaker 1:
Jason at cashflowchampscom and we'll have more information on all of your socials and your connections in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on, Jason. You truly are an inspiration to me in many, many ways.
Speaker 2:
Yes, thank you, david, for having me on your platform.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, and you've been listening to another episode of Bricker Golden Handcuffs.
