Bill Manassero is proof that it’s never too late to invest in real estate. Bill made his first deal at the great age of 60! Based in Irvine, California, he has worked in offices, worked as a musician, and operated his own businesses all his life. His music led him to take part on a mission in Haiti, where he started his organization named ‘Child Hope International’ which helps the children of Haiti. After a few years on the mission, he and his family moved back to the states and hit the ground running in the world of real estate. 

In this episode, Bill talks about his life in Haiti, how he came up with the idea of helping orphaned and abandoned children. He also discusses why & how he jumped into real estate, about his first deals, his lessons learned from it, and how he made the transition into a 22 unit deal. 

Episode Highlights:

• Bill’s Mission in Haiti


• His Start In Real Estate


• Paralysis of Analysis


• Hiring Property Managers

Connect with Bill:

Website:  OldDawgsREINetwork.com

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TRANSCRIPTION

Intro: Hey guys, and welcome to the show. Today, I'm very excited to host Bill Manassero. And Bill's story is very inspiring, particularly because of the fact that he started investing in real estate when he was 60 years old. A lot of people say that they're afraid of jumping in because they feel like that ship has already sailed, or they're too young and many other excuses why not getting into real estate. But how about being 60 years old, not having enough money to retire or thinking about retirement and getting into real estate at that particular point? I think that's inspiring, and it doesn't matter the situation, I think it's something that we should learn from. So, without further ado, let's have Bill Manassero.

Lady: Welcome to the commercial real estate investing podcast with Don and Eden where we cover all aspects of real estate investing with special attention to off-market strategies.

Don: Hey, Bill, welcome to the show, and happy Thanksgiving.

Bill: Hey, it's great to join you here today. This is Happy Thanksgiving to you too.

Don: Thank you for much. I'm actually Israeli. I know Thanksgiving is an American holiday or like an American event and I have been in this country for eight years. And it's my favorite holiday here, I guess because it reminds me of home. As Israeli people, we assemble every Friday for a Friday dinner with our families. 

Bill: Shabbat

Don: Yes, Shabbat dinner. And that is the closest that we got here. So, I love it. I love this holiday and I love the atmosphere and I love the fact that Florida is getting a little bit colder. That's amazing.

Bill: How cold, down to 70 now or something?

Don: Oh it's 75.

Bill: Oh, man, you must have big down coats on.

Don: Yeah I'm wearing a jacket, don't ask. How's the situation in California, right, you're based off California?

Bill: Yeah, I'm in Southern California. It's called South Orange County which borders San Diego County. A very nice area here. Just love it. The beautiful and yeah, I think we're down in the 60s and 50s here lately, so we're getting really cold. And the people, of course, listening and Michigan and places like that are just saying. Yeah, right. What are you guys talking about?

Don: That's right. Yeah. Okay. So, Bill, how about you tell us a little bit about yourself in your real estate career? I know you're a very accomplished man, and you've done a lot in your career. So, tell us about yourself, what you're doing right now, what you've done in the past. Let's hear all about it.

Bill: Oh, you bet. Sure. Well, I don't know how far back you want me to go. It'd be a long show here but I'll just try to give you an overview. Mainly grew up in Southern California, started off early in the banking industry, or at that time, what they called savings and loans, and learned a lot about just the financial transactions that occur and how funds are taken in and dispersed in the way of mortgage loans and so forth and did that for a number of years. And then I opened my own consulting firm, mainly in marketing and public relations. Did that for a long time. Work with the automotive industry. Moved into the technology area. Eventually got involved with a new tech startup, an internet company that was started by a group of Harvard MBAs, one of the persons who was who started eBay and Meg Whitman. Everything is going great, exciting, we're just kind of watching our stock options grow and then boom, the internet bubble burst. And so, I kind of got my first...

Don: Talking about '99 right?

Bill: Yeah, exactly. And then I went into a sort of a totally different direction. I felt like I was called into the ministry and actually started, I've been a musician. I earned my way through college, playing in clubs and doing all that kind of stuff. 

Don: It sounds like a very Californian life. you're a musician, you stumble upon the founder of eBay, like across the street.

Bill: Kind of like that. Yeah, a little bit more complicated, how it all came together, trying to rush through here so I won't give you a four-hour version. But that was it. I have been playing guitar since I was a kid. So yeah. And then we started a little rock band for kids and it was wild and we just traveled around the US and played at festivals and churches.

Don: What about real estate??

Bill: Okay, I'm getting there. Okay. So, anyway, so this kind of brought me into old-time mission opportunity in Haiti, specifically, it's in the Caribbean. And Haiti is one of the poorest, if not the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. 

Don: I know much about it actually. It was just a matter of who occupied the country. The Dominican Republic was occupied by I think it was France?

Bill: That was Spain.

Don: Spain and France occupied the Haitian people. And so what happened was that the French people and excuse me if your French guy listening or friends you're listening, sorry about that but they were known to exploit the land so much that the land is just, it doesn't have any vegetation that grows. There was no advantage in raising crops when you compare it with the Dominican Republic and up until this day, If you ever look on this island, which is the exact same terrain both these nations have, if you look at this island from an aerial perspective, then you will see that Haiti is like barren and kind of brown from satellite pictures, whereas the Dominican Republic is all green and forest.

Bill: That's true. It looks exactly like that. Of course, there are different versions of the story. The island initially was founded by Christopher Columbus and it right before he came to America, and it was called Hispaniola so it was all owned by Spain. And, of course, Napoleon and the Spanish were fighting and negotiated basically this island and they split off into smaller third was Haiti which became the French-owned part of it. And that's where the majority, in fact, all of the coffee and I believe the sugar at that time was supplied to Europe through Haiti. It was extremely productive. Also, all the slaves rose up.

Don: Yeah. The people stayed poor. What were you doing there though, I mean, how does it do it real estate?

Bill: Well, it's part of the story. I had been 20 years in business and corporate had been an entrepreneurial side, just a full run a business. So, when I got over to Haiti, I think was coming into my 50s. And we set up a mission over there. And we worked primarily with the street kids in Haiti. We set up vocational training programs and micro businesses for them. They had orphanage for girls and four boys and a guest house and a medical clinic and a school and all these different things primarily because there are 300,000 orphans on the street. So, it's a big problem over there. We spent about 12 years there. It was kind of getting near the end of our mission time and getting older and it's just a tough place to survive and live. 

We were prepared to stay, for the duration, but at the same time, my kids are growing up and going back to the States. I have seven kids, a lot of activities going on. And so, we prayed about it. We said this thinks what we want to do is prepare for retirement in the states and so my going to try to get a job with somebody. I thought 60 who's going to hire you, realistically. And then I'd run businesses, I thought that's probably more likely, it makes more sense to me, maybe starting my own business. I'm looking at all kinds of things. I started venturing while I was in Haiti into online businesses and started, generate some income with that. And I thought, wow, this is too much work and I want something that would be passive. And so, I got an unexpected inheritance check in the mail. And I was heavily invested in the stock market and thought I just don't want to take this and put it into the market because that one, it was pretty volatile at that time. And so, I'm looking at what options, maybe as an alternative. 

Don: Okay, tell us what you got.

Bill: Okay. I have a board of directors, a nonprofit organization called Child Hope International. That's the organization that funds Haiti and so forth. A couple of guys on my board were heavily into real estate. We had a developer, we had a