Podcast appearances and mentions of ben lapidus

On this episode of Next Level CRE, Matt Faircloth interviews Ben Lapidus, a seasoned real estate investor and innovator behind a unique new concept called Playground. They dive into Ben's journey from self-storage investments to pioneering the emerging asset class of garage condos—flexible, purpose-built spaces that can serve as luxury storage, personal gyms, hobby studios, or workspaces. Ben explains how Playground caters to affluent buyers looking to own, not rent, and discusses why selling individual units instead of leasing offers better returns and faster capital recycling. They also unpack zoning challenges, community-building strategies, and the massive untapped market potential across the U.S. Ben Lapidus CEO/Partner Based in: Littleton, CO Say hi to them at playground.properties besteverconference.com playground.investnext.com linkedin.com/blapidus benlapidus.com Capital Gains Tax Solutions vikingcapllc.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Chang and Ben Lapidus delve into the world of niche real estate investments, focusing on unique concepts like flex space and data centers. They discuss the challenges of selling these unconventional properties, the potential for growth in niche asset classes, and the opportunities available for small to mid-size investors. The conversation highlights the evolving landscape of commercial real estate and the importance of understanding market demands. Sponsors: Altra Running Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Chang and Ben Lapidus explore the current state of the real estate market in John's debut episode of "The Horizon with John Chang". They focus on the impact of interest rates, differing regional perspectives, and the long-term outlook for real estate investments. They discuss the importance of understanding market dynamics, the potential for investment opportunities, and the need for investors to keep a forward-looking perspective. The dialogue emphasizes the value of real estate as a consistent and reliable investment vehicle, even amidst fluctuating economic conditions. Sponsors: Altra Running Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York City has long been a major incubator for Latin music with its large populations of Puerto Rican, Dominican, Panamanian, Cuban, and Colombian musicians and music fans. We celebrate some of the giants of New York's Latin music scene—Ray Barretto, Larry Harlow, Jerry Gonzalez—as well as less well known artists. Topics include the cross-pollination between Latin music and jazz, the Panama connection featuring Rubén Blades among others, the Latin-Jewish connection and much more. Produced and co-hosted by author and Afropop producer veteran Ned Sublette with special guest Dr. Ben Lapidus, musician and author of New York and the International Sound of Latin Music, 1940 to 1990. Produced by Ned Sublette APWW #845

Today's guest is Ben Lapidus.   Ben Lapidus is the Chief Financial Officer for Spartan Investment Group LLC, where he has applied his finance and business development skills to construct from scratch a portfolio of over $500M assets under management, build the corporate finance backbone for the organization, and organize over $200M of debt capital from the firm. In addition to completing over 50 real estate transactions at and prior to Spartan, Ben is also the founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships LLC.   Best Ever Conference Code Use code “INVEST” for $300 off any ticket type at https://www.besteverconference.com/   Show summary:  In this episode, Ben Lapidus joins Sam to discuss the nuances of the commercial real estate market, with a focus on self-storage and investment strategies. Lapidus shares his expertise on navigating the current market, the importance of robust business plans, and the challenges of finding attractive yields. They also talk about the Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference, detailing how it adds value for passive investors and the innovative strategies used to attract them.    -------------------------------------------------------------- Self-Storage Market Insights (00:00:00)   Introduction and Background (00:00:37)   Current State of Self-Storage Market (00:02:03)   Investment Strategies and Passive Investors (00:03:34)   Conversion Deals and Opportunities (00:05:18)   Shift from Office to Self-Storage (00:06:00)   Interest Rates and Debt in Self-Storage (00:07:14)   Pricing Mechanism and Market Response (00:08:36)   Commercial Real Estate Market Overview (00:10:33)   Alternative Investments and Portfolio Allocation (00:11:57)   Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference (00:13:46)   Strategies for Attracting Passive Investors (00:15:41)   Conference Organization and Team Management (00:18:28)   Closing Remarks and Special Discount (00:20:16)   Best Ever Conference (00:20:30)   Contact Information (00:20:50) -------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Ben: Web: https://www.benlapidus.com/   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Ben Lapidus (00:00:00) - If your business plan can survive 2 or 3 years of negative leverage, because you can take a low enough IRR that you can store enough cash on the side, then it is a great time. If your business plan is overly aggressive or you're trying to seek a very high IRR at a at a velocity of capital deployment, that's unachievable, then now is a bad time to make an investment. You might want to wait 12 or 18 months to do so. Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson (00:00:37) - For those of you that don't know Ben Lepidus, you need to know him. I've known Ben. Now. What? Man? What's been seven, eight years at this point? Yeah. About to go about that. I met you normally, Ben. I love to do a long winded introduction about how great the guest is. You are a great guest. I'm. It's my honor to have you on the show today, but before I give you my own introduction, I'd love for you maybe just to come on the show today and tell us a little bit about who you are, and then we'll get into it from there.   Ben Lapidus (00:01:03) - Yeah. I'm the founder and host of the best ever Real estate investing conference., not the brand, just the conference. And,, was a founding team member of Spartan Investment Group, which bought a half a billion assets under management in self-storage, recently retired, but have a long history of buying single family multifamily self-storage assets over the last 12 years., recently or prior to that,, was in the adtech space, learned a lot about big data, started a study abroad company Costa Rica., and have tried several other startups that failed. So I'm an entrepreneur at heart and can't wait to talk about whatever you want to talk about.   Sam Wilson (00:01:36) - Dude, that's that's a whole lot. I mean, my gosh, that's a lot of moving pieces there. Most recently you were like you mentioned a,, a partner there at Spartan Investment Group where you guys bought an absolute ton of self-storage. Why don't you just give us maybe a high level view recording this? What? Its end of February 2024, high level view of where self-storage is now and then maybe is what you see across the commercial real estate space as a whole.   Ben Lapidus (00:02:03) - Yeah. So self storage still has incredible fundamentals. When you look at the supply demand of self-storage, it's gone from 1 in 11 households to one in less than nine households are leveraging self-storage or consuming self-storage just over the last 5 or 6 years. That's an incredible shift in demand in a 5 or 6 year period simultaneously, construction costs,, going up, interest rates going up have made new supply difficult. So the fundamentals that drive storage is still in a very attractive asset class. That's on the consumption side on the on the,, the consumer side, on the investor side, investors have wised up to it. So it's become incredibly competitive. And the the spread between what you can get on the equity side versus what you can borrow on the debt side, has been radically compressed., and it now mirrors one of the major five food groups. You've got all of this office money, which was the largest component of commercial real estate coming out of office. And it's number one place to place it is self storage.   Ben Lapidus (00:02:59) - And that's just a lot of moving money. So from an investment perspective, the supply and demand,, isn't as attractive as it used to be. So I think what we're going to see over the next two years is do rates compress faster than cap rates?, and do the supply and demand economics on the consumer side kind of create a skyrocket effect of occupancy and rental rates such that it's attractive enough despite the competitiveness on the investment side?   Sam Wilson (00:03:23) - Wow. That's a that that that's an impressive,, impressive insight there. So yeah, I guess, you know, in short, is now a good time to to be investing in self-storage.   Ben Lapidus (00:03:34) - Now, there is never a bad time to be investing in self-storage. To be clear, it's recession resistant. It's always going to go up because of those supply demand economics. It's just is this the best time to generate the cash flow that you need to kind of cross the chasm if you're buying in a negative leverage environment. And so it's really about your business plan.   Ben Lapidus (00:03:54) - If your business plan can survive 2 or 3 years of negative leverage because you,, can take a low enough IRR that you can store enough cash on the side, then it is a great time. If your business plan is overly aggressive or you're trying to seek a very high IRR at a, at a velocity of capital deployment, that's unachievable, then now is a bad time to make an investment. You might want to wait 12 or 18 months to do so, right?   Sam Wilson (00:04:18) - Right. What about what about that conversation with investors like as in passive investors? How does that work when you're looking at deals that may be negative leverage? I mean, is that even a conversation that's being had?   Ben Lapidus (00:04:30) - It is. And that's because you just kind of find a different investor profile as the yield moves from kind of value add to more opportunistic, you have to find the investors who are willing to take the risk return ride with you at the end of the spectrum where those yields are achievable and attractive. If you're trying to get, you know, a 6% cash flow with a 14% IRR on an asset, that's 70% stabilized, that's been in existence for ten years with no expansion potential, that's going to be really tough.   Ben Lapidus (00:04:59) - But if you can find a conversion opportunity or the doughnut hole in a state that is booming with those supply demand,, economics working in your favor on the consumer side, then you can achieve those 20, 25, 30% IRR on a ground up development or conversion deal or an expansion.   Sam Wilson (00:05:15) - What do you say when you say conversion deal? What comes to mind?   Ben Lapidus (00:05:18) - Yeah, conversion is just taking,, a space that is not used for storage today and converting it for,, storage purposes. If you if you like, like a Macy's, a Kmart, a Shopko and just converting it into kind of like how urban air. I don't know if you've got urban air where you are, but I. Here in Colorado, there's an urban air chain, which is like an indoor like,, pre-teen park for trampolines and stuff. And they've just been converting, you know, grocery stores basically into,, urban air adventure parks. It's the same thing with storage.   Sam Wilson (00:05:51) - Same thing with storage. Be it office.   Sam Wilson (00:05:53) - , I know I'm a passive investor in an office to storage conversion project right now.   Ben Lapidus (00:05:58) - Hotel to storage? Yeah, all sorts of things.   Sam Wilson (00:06:00) - Which is wild because you're looking at this. They've they've converted it from,, office to storage and, and just like you're saying, the opportunity in this particular area was unbelievable. I mean, it's leasing up at like 30 or 40 units a month. I mean, it's just flying off the shelves as soon as they got their Co, which was,, kind of kind of crazy to see. So that opportunity exists. You mentioned the money that's coming out of office and going into storage. How are people even getting their money out of office? I mean, talk about something with negative leverage. What's that look like?   Ben Lapidus (00:06:31) - I mean, we're seeing,,, gosh, I'm gonna I'm gonna fail to come up with specific examples, but we're talking like, institutional level, like CRO holdings,, tremble., you know, bam capital, like those, those size of organizations,, dumping their office assets or dumping their office up co partners and selling them off, whether it's at pennies on the dollar or not.   Ben Lapidus (00:06:55) - And they are recalibrate or,,, rebalancing their portfolio to not reinvest that into office but say let's let's find alternative assets. Self-storage being the darling of the alternative asset space inside of commercial real estate.   Sam Wilson (00:07:08) - Got it. Very, very interesting. What's that look like on self-storage right now?   Ben Lapidus (00:07:14) - That is just as attractive in self-storage as it was anywhere else. And now that's a misnomer because nothing is attractive in debt., I just I use that to say it is just as attractive as any other lending rate outside of the agency world. So you're not going to ever beat, you know, government backed loans like you would get in housing. But outside of that,, you can get self-storage. Lending rates are akin, if not better than than office lending rates today, if not better than retail rates today., you can still find like, kind of the needle in a haystack. Sub six low 6%,, interest rate. Although the majority of what you are seeing on average, when you make those phone calls or high sevens, low eights, and then you're kind of getting to the riskier stuff of nine, ten and even double digits, you know, interest rates.   Sam Wilson (00:07:59) - Anybody doing long term fixed rate on that or is it all floating debt.   Ben Lapidus (00:08:03) - Oh, sure. Yeah. You can find long term fixed rate either, either by way of, you know, like doing shorter term or by doing a swap,, or some other derivative that, that, that creates that, that fixed rate despite starting with the floating rate product.   Sam Wilson (00:08:17) - Okay. Very very cool. Have we seen maybe you've answered this already and forgive me. I'm I'm,, I'm riding the short bus here today, but have you seen seller prices come up as interest rates have also climbed or not? Solid prices go down. Rather like have we seen that that sellers become more realistic or is it still.   Ben Lapidus (00:08:36) - Yeah. So? So I drove the acquisitions team and was very familiar with that up until about 7 or 8 months ago. So I've started to fall off of my, you know, a thumb on the, on the pulse of things. But we haven't seen the correction that you would assume,, with, with,, interest rates climbing.   Ben Lapidus (00:08:54) - So number one, we've only seen rental rates correct by 3% with all this inflation maneuver. And that is incremental street rates not in place rates. So revenue is still going up at self-storage consistently in the industry. And you look at the rate level reporting revenue still climbs quarter after quarter after quarter. The incremental customer rates might be decreasing. But you've got one month leases. You can you can do existing customer rate increases after providing that discounted rate almost immediately if you choose to. So we're still seeing rates increase. So it's an inflation hedge. So we haven't seen the pricing correction in response to the interest rates that you might assume. Because you've got investors coming out of longer term lease product like office like retail like industrial, for the purposes of hedging their inflation and going into short term lease product like self-storage, because they see the future potential of that inflation benefit. So yes, we we have seen pricing come down a little bit. But now instead of, you know, pricing to,, a 4.75% cap rate on a T3 or maybe pricing to a 6% cap rate on a year two pro forma.   Ben Lapidus (00:10:03) - So we're just we're seeing a different heuristic to kind of come to the same pricing or margin of error pricing as we were just a couple of years ago.   Sam Wilson (00:10:10) - Right? No, that's very, very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to give us kind of a brief snapshot on where the self-storage industry is today and kind of what's driving the pricing mechanism behind that. Certainly appreciate that. Let's hear what your thoughts are on the commercial real estate market as a whole. Like where is opportunity if that's still one that people are, you know, fighting tooth and nail over to get involved in? Where do you see opportunity today?   Ben Lapidus (00:10:33) - Yeah, I think commercial real estate just doesn't have the spreads that it did for the last decade. I mean, it was if you're listening to this podcast, you probably have a sentiment that there was a time where raising capital was on the easier side of the spectrum if you wouldn't just blatantly say easy. And that's because you could achieve like a yields an IRR just by consequence of of appreciation that was happening in commercial real estate in general.   Ben Lapidus (00:11:01) - , that appreciation has evaporated as a result of interest rates climbing., and maybe that appreciation will return if and when interest rates decrease. But for right now, you do not get the cash flow that you're you're used to getting after the last decade and a half, you do not get the appreciation that you're used to getting after the last decade and a half. So kind of commercial real estate wide, it's just not a very attractive time to be in commercial real estate relative to yields that you can get in other places. And, you know, modern portfolio theory suggests that up to 30, 35% of somebody's portfolio should be an alternative assets, with real estate being the largest segment of it. About 9 or 10% of the average portfolio contains real estate. So there's a long way to go for alternative assets to kind of climb to 35% to get to that modern portfolio theory number. But there's a lot of other segments of alternative assets like precious metals, operating businesses, secondaries,, private equities that have not been tapped into nearly as much.   Ben Lapidus (00:11:57) - And I think that those yields are more attractive today than what commercial real estate offers. And that's and that's probably going to be for the next 18 months at least.   Sam Wilson (00:12:05) - Well, yeah, absolutely. And I'm I'm testament to that. I mean that's what we're investing in right now is operating business simply because it is inflation resistant. It's recession resistant, like it's it's stuff that spins off cash flow at rates that commercial real estate just simply can't. And that's like.   Ben Lapidus (00:12:22) - I'm more interested in the activity of how the space is being used right, right now than the than the value of the space itself. Right. As an investor mindset. Right?   Sam Wilson (00:12:33) - Right. Yeah, absolutely. That makes a heck of a lot of sense. So you've got you've been through,, you know, all of this here with with Spartan here up until, you know, seven, eight months ago. And what do you do with your time now, like when you talk about these things and you think about, okay, alternative investments, operating businesses, what what are people doing with the space? Like what piqued your interest today?   Ben Lapidus (00:12:51) - Yeah.   Ben Lapidus (00:12:51) - And the way that I found my way to,, the partnership at Spartan was through the Best Ever conference, which I founded with Joe Fairless the year before, joining up with with the guys at Spartan Investment Group. And,, that that conference has been a North Star for me because I've been building it to service me as an avatar consumer of the conference. Who do I want to learn from? Who do I want to meet? Who do I want to be surrounded by? And let's just kind of create all of the details of this conference to attract those people, those speakers, those sponsors, those attendees. And, and I don't I don't know if you've seen that consistently year over year, Sam, but you were there at the first year. Every single speaker that I picked was somebody that I wanted to hear what they had to say personally, like myself. And that's still the case today. We don't have anything to sell at the. Conference. We just want to create a community of like minded people who are intelligent, are having a good time, and want to collaborate with each other to get more out of their businesses and out of their lives.   Ben Lapidus (00:13:46) - , and so that's that's the premise of the conference today. And,, I'm just kind of using the small amount of free time that I have,, after prioritizing my family and my kids, which is the major shift that I made this year into growing and improving the quality of that conference., and so a lot of our effort this year, with the conference coming up in April, April 9th, ten, 11 and 12, in Salt Lake City, is to focus more on the needs of the the passive investor. So as our conference has grown, we've attracted a lot of participants on the syndication side of the house, the operator side of the house, the people who have their their fingernails dirty with the real estate. But the passive investor hasn't had as much,,, emphasis at the best ever conference. So we've built a deal list site that we're going to be launching next week that allows all of the passive investors who are going to be in attendance to review all of our pitch slam competitors and all of our syndication sponsors deals in advance.   Ben Lapidus (00:14:45) - We're going to have a scheduling feature where you can, without walking around the conference and being cultured upon. You can establish one on one sessions with the syndicators that you want to get to know, like, and trust before putting your money in. It is the number one place to show up and look in the eyes. Hundreds of potential,, companies to invest your money into, and not just in commercial real estate, but into a growing number of private placement,, opportunities. And so that's that's really our focus for growth this year is just making the conference useful and desirable for the passive investor, which then, of course, makes it more useful and desirable for the syndicator, who's looking to join forces with those passive investors in growing their portfolio.   Sam Wilson (00:15:27) - That's really cool, I like that. What what have been some strategies that you've implemented to bring in that more passive investor? The people like how how do you draw in that ideal clients? The wrong word attendee how do you do that?   Ben Lapidus (00:15:41) - Yeah. So I think the experiments that we've done in the last couple of years are, number one, you know, three years ago we tried out this pitch slam.   Ben Lapidus (00:15:48) - It's kind of like a TechCrunch disrupt where,, a panel of judges decides on who has the best deal of the year. And the first two years was,, kind of pay to play, and it wasn't a very good situation. But last year was the participation by merit. And you were actually a brick and was one of 12 finalists,, put up on stage. And that got to compete for prize money of $600,000 by actual investors who are on stage. And so we're going to be repeating that this year. We had over 80 applicants this year,, and we have 12 finalists selected for the stage. So that's number one. Number two, we've been trying to partner with investor communities like IDC, intelligent investors, real estate community last year, left field investors this year,, long Angle is another great investor community that we're going to be highlighting on our stage this year., 506 group is,, you know, Mark Robertson, somebody that we've highlighted on our stage before. So trying to partner with investor communities, number three is building that directory so that you can in the comfort of your home, review and plan for your time so that you're not just kind of showing up and hoping that something good happens, but rather you're reviewing materials and saying, I actually have an interest in this.   Ben Lapidus (00:16:50) - I have an interest in a laundromat fund or a Texas vineyard fund. Let me,, or neighborhood retail fund that only buys nine caps or a hotel conversion,, into a bed and breakfast fund or something like that. Right. We've got all of these disparate, kind of nuanced data center style, as well as the traditional multifamily retail office opportunities that you could review. But looking at them in advance and determining, I want to interact with these people,, from the site, that's a new feature, as well as the scheduling one on one feature where you can kind of come up with your agenda as a passive investor in advance. And we've got a speed networking session that we've never had before that only qualified, excuse me, accredited investors are allowed to participate in with prevented sponsors who are,, either on our pitch slam stage or,, sponsoring the event so that you can have kind of five minute curated,, one on one rapid fire conversations. So those are some of the features that we're adding to the experience this year.   Sam Wilson (00:17:45) - Dude, that's really cool I love that. And yeah, I've been,, coming to the conference since 2017. And it's been it's always proved incredibly valuable. So if you're listening to this and you've not been to the Best Ever conference, go check it out. It,, is definitely worth your time. You'll get way more out of it than you put in., so yeah, that's,, that's my plug. My shameless plug as well, for the best ever conference I have. I have benefited from that, Sam. Absolutely, man. It's been a blast, dog. Well, you know, it's fun, man. It's kind of like homecoming. Like you go back and see all your friends. You're like, hey, man, what's up? I missed everybody, it's been an entire year. I can't believe it. But you also have, you know, have created an environment where meaningful relationships, relationships. So if I could speak today are formed. So that's,, that's very, very cool.   Sam Wilson (00:18:28) - On the technical side of that, I look at that conference, Ben and I just kind of go, my gosh, like, this is a ton of. Work. How? How have you organized your team, your people, and your time to pull off something of that magnitude? Because honestly, I look at it from the outside and it seems like you've done it pretty effortlessly.   Ben Lapidus (00:18:49) - But I appreciate that. I, you know, the first 4 or 5 years did all myself on top of growing Spartan at the same time., and, you know, we were just starting to have kids then, so it was a little bit easier to do the multitasking, right?, but around your 4 or 5, I got, I got burnt out, you know, we were we had scaled it from, I think the first year we had 170 people. By year 4 or 5, we were at like 800 people. Now we're this year, it's probably not going to grow just because of the challenging macro environment and people having surplus budgets for marketing and travel, what have you.   Ben Lapidus (00:19:19) - But we'll have over a thousand still., and around that year I said, you know what? I, we just gotta have to hire some people. And so we've built a team, and now they're in their third year of doing this conference together. And so they've, they've just got a great rapport with each other and are capable of seeing the bigger picture that's being put in front of them, the strategic plan that's being put in front of them and executing on that. So I'm I'm very fortunate to be in a position where I only spend about an hour or two a week on that conference up until maybe a week beforehand. And I can I can use all of my extra mental load to be creative with. How can we improve the experience and offer more value to everybody participating?   Sam Wilson (00:20:00) - That's really cool, Ben. I've enjoyed our conversation today. As always, it's a pleasure to get to chat with you. I always feel smarter,, after those engagements, so appreciate you taking the time to come on the show today.   Sam Wilson (00:20:11) - Is there anything else you want to cover here on the show? Before we wrap this up? It's just burning a hole in your mind.   Ben Lapidus (00:20:16) - Yeah, I think we're going to have a special discount,, for your audience, so I don't know what it is, but I don't know if you know what it is, but we're gonna have a special discount for your audience that you can put in the show notes, and you can check us out at Best Ever conference.com, and I hope to see everyone there.   Sam Wilson (00:20:30) - Best ever ecommerce.com. Yeah, check that out. I will get that special discount for our listeners to the how to scale commercial real estate podcast. Put there in the show notes. You'll have to find the episode on our website in order to find that discount, but it'll be there and I hope to see you all at the Best Ever conference as well. So, Ben, thank you again. If our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what's the best way to do that?   Ben Lapidus (00:20:50) - Yeah, you can reach me at Ben at Best Ever Conference.   Sam Wilson (00:20:55) - Fantastic. Thanks again, Ben. Great to see you. Have a great rest. Your day.   Ben Lapidus (00:20:58) - All right. Thanks, Sam.   Sam Wilson (00:20:59) - Hey, thanks for listening to the how to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.

Have you been wanting to get into commercial real estate? Are you thinking that NOW may be the time to take advantage of the distress we're seeing in the commercial real estate market? Well, you may have hit the jackpot with this episode!   Our guest is commercial real estate expert, Ben Lapidus. Ben was recently a partner and chief financial officer for the Spartan Investment Group, where he applied his skills in acquisitions, capital markets, corporate finance, accounting, and data engineering to construct, from scratch, a self-storage portfolio worth more than $500 million in assets under management. Ben is also the founder and host of the Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference, now in its eighth year in April. And he's with us in this episode to talk about what he sees on the horizon for commercial real estate.    You can get tickets for the Best Ever Conference 2024 at besteverconference.com. Use the discount code INVEST for a $300 discount off any ticket type. And for help in building a portfolio of single-family rentals, please be sure to join RealWealth at realwealthshow.com. You'll find comprehensive information on various rental markets across the US along with hundreds of webinars and articles on how to get started or expand what you already have.   And, please be sure to subscribe to this podcast.   Thanks for listening!    Kathy  

Changüí is a little understood, loose and lively, community-based music of eastern Cuba. In this program we sample recordings from the 2021 box set Changüí: The Sound of Guantánamo, and hear from Gianluca Tramontana, the man who made the recordings. Rooted in Afro-Haitian music, pan-Caribbean styles, Spanish poetic traditions and more, Changüí emerged in the mid 19th century in plantations, not unlike the blues. We also hear from musician and scholar Ben Lapidus, author of the only English language book on Changüí, and we update the story with Changüí fusions into jazz, salsa and hip-hop. Prepare to dance! Produced by Banning Eyre. APWW # 840

Rides over, but thank for coming to the park. Gnari plays. Drulog roars. Blarf marks her choice.  Special thanks to Jon Barr, Ben Lapidus and Bill Conway.  Join our Discord For Dice Heads for updates on the next campaign! You can join by following the show on TikTok or Instagram and messaging us.  This episode is sponsored by Newsly, the all in one audio app that reads the web to you. Download and use Newsly for free now from here and use promo code Diceland to receive a 1-month free premium subscription. 

Alyson Stoner — artist, author and entrepreneur — joins Devon in this week's raw episode about finding hope in adult life. They have a super candid conversation about Alyson's departure from acting, their shared experiences while searching for meaning, how to get through the deconstruction of one's identity, the mind-body connection, and SO much more. This conversation will leave you feeling seen and equipped with the tools to take pause in your own life and regain that sense of connection to yourself and the world.This episode is sponsored by Framebridge. Framebridge makes custom framing ridiculously easy, fast, and affordable. You can Framebridge just about anything, not just art and photos. Place your order today! Follow the pod: instagram.com/growingupwithdevontiktok.com/@growingupwithdevonpod Follow Devon: instagram.com/devonwerkhardertiktok.com/@devonwerkheiser Follow Alyson & Movement Genius: instagram.com/alysonstonerinstagram.com/movementgenius Intro song: Goliath by TriOrcaIntro mix by Ben Lapidus. Brought to you by onomyFollow onomy: InstagramTikTok

This week's episode is the second and final part of the economic panel with Bob Fraser and data-driven economist known as the "Mad Scientist of Multifamily, Neil Bawa. at a virtual event for passive investors hosted by the Best Ever Conference. This panel was moderated by Ben Lapidus, co-founder of the Best Ever Conference and CFO of Spartan Investment Group. Tune in as Bob and Neil provide insight into industrial real estate as well as its relationship with current market trends in residential investment. They also share their thoughts on the continued use of bridge financing, and the cost of interest rate caps, and discuss whether capitalism can survive as a primary structure if we do not have global population growth. Read the full transcription https://aspenfunds.us/podcast/economic-panel-w-neal-bawa-best-ever-conference---part-2/ Best Ever Conference is the conference where serious commercial real estate investors gather to learn, network, and invest. It will be hosted at the Hyatt Regency in Salt Lake City from March 8-10, 2023. Register by November 30 to get the best rate by using our exclusive 15% coupon! Coupon valid until November 30 - $INVEST$ Register - https://www.besteverconference.com/ Neal Bawa is a technologist who is universally known in real estate circles as the Mad Scientist of Multifamily. Besides being one of the most in-demand speakers in commercial real estate, Neal is a data guru, a process freak, and an outsourcing expert. Neal treats his $1 billion-dollar multifamily portfolio as an ongoing experiment in efficiency and optimization. The Mad Scientist lives by two mantras. His first mantra is that, “We can only manage what we can measure”. His second mantra is that, “Data beats gut feel by a million miles“. These mantras and a dozen other disruptive beliefs drive profit for his 800+ investors. Connect with Neal on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neal-bawa/ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors. Learn More about Aspen Funds. https://www.aspenfunds.us Join the Investor Club to get early access to exclusive deals. https://www.aspenfunds.us/investorclub Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/follow Rate us! We really appreciate your feedback and support. https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/reviews/new/ Ask Anything! We'd love to hear what's Top of Mind. https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/contact

Bob Fraser spoke at a virtual event for passive investors hosted by the Best Ever Conference as part of the economic panel with Neal Bawa. Neal is a data-driven economist and has claimed the title "Mad Scientist of Multifamily." This panel was moderated by Ben Lapidus, co-founder of the Best Ever Conference and CFO of Spartan Investment Group. Listen in to this week's episode to hear part 1 of Bob and Neal discuss where the economy is headed, how interest rates impact real estate, where cap rates are going and what to expect as we enter 2023. Read the full transcription https://aspenfunds.us/podcast/economic-panel-w-neal-bawa-best-ever-conference---part-1/ Best Ever Conference is the conference where serious commercial real estate investors gather to learn, network, and invest. It will be hosted at the Hyatt Regency in Salt Lake City from March 8-10, 2023. Register by November 30 to get the best rate by using our exclusive 15% coupon! Coupon valid until November 30 - $INVEST$ Register - https://www.besteverconference.com/ Neal Bawa is a technologist who is universally known in real estate circles as the Mad Scientist of Multifamily. Besides being one of the most in-demand speakers in commercial real estate, Neal is a data guru, a process freak, and an outsourcing expert. Neal treats his $1 billion-dollar multifamily portfolio as an ongoing experiment in efficiency and optimization. The Mad Scientist lives by two mantras. His first mantra is that, “We can only manage what we can measure”. His second mantra is that, “Data beats gut feel by a million miles“. These mantras and a dozen other disruptive beliefs drive profit for his 800+ investors. Connect with Neal on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neal-bawa/ Invest Like a Billionaire podcast is sponsored by Aspen Funds which focuses on macro-driven alternative investments for accredited investors. Learn More about Aspen Funds. https://www.aspenfunds.us Join the Investor Club to get early access to exclusive deals. https://www.aspenfunds.us/investorclub Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/follow Rate us! We really appreciate your feedback and support. https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/reviews/new/ Ask Anything! We'd love to hear what's Top of Mind. https://www.thebillionairepodcast.com/contact

The Investor Relations Real Estate Podcast Episode 123 - What Do You Want Your Next Adventure To Be? Host: Jonny Cattani Guest: Ben LapidusProducer: April MunsonJonny Cattani is joined by Ben Lapidus to discuss: People developmentStrategic planningConsuming renaissance content to expand our economic theoriesChase fun! Ben Lapidus is a partner and the Chief Financial Officer for Spartan Investment Group LLC, where he has applied his finance and business development skills to acquirethe company's current portfolio, build the corporate finance backbone for the firm, and organize hundreds of millions of debt capital. Ben is also the founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of IndigoOwnerships. Before Spartan, Ben founded and sold a multi-million dollar study abroad company and worked with several start-ups through IPO or acquisition. He graduated from Rutgers University with dual degrees in Finance and Economics where he founded the Rutgers Entrepreneurial Society. Linked material referenced during the show: Book: Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Yuval-Noah-Harari-audiobook/dp/B0741F3M7C/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1UZVSC2YGJ88L&keywords=homo+sapiens+by+yuval+noah+harari&qid=1663553953&s=audible&sprefix=homosapiens+%2Caudible%2C92&sr=1-1Connect with Ben! Website: benlapidus.comConnect with Jonny!Cattani Capital Group: https://cattanicapitalgroup.com/Invest with us: invest@cattanicapitalgroup.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cattani-53159b179/Jonny's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonnycattani/IRR Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theirrpodcast/TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@jonnycattani?lang=enYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCljEz4pq_paQ9keABhJzt0AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.cattani.1

Changüí is a little understood, loose and lively, community-based music of eastern Cuba. In this program we sample recordings from the 2021 box set Changüí: The Sound of Guantánamo, and hear from Gianluca Tramontana, the man who made the recordings. Rooted in Afro-Haitian music, pan-Caribbean styles, Spanish poetic traditions and more, Changüí emerged in the mid 19th century in plantations, not unlike the blues. We also hear from musician and scholar Ben Lapidus, author of the only English language book on Changüí, and we update the story with Changüí fusions into jazz, salsa and hip-hop. Prepare to dance! Produced by Banning Eyre in 2021 APWW #840

Ben Lapidus is the Chief Financial Officer for Spartan Investment Group LLC. He has applied his finance and business development skills to construct a portfolio of over $100M assets under management and $200M of debt capital. In addition to completing over 50 real estate transactions, Ben is the founder and host of the Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships LLC. We talked to Ben about how you can attract unicorn investors, what self-storage looks like today, and the “Best Ever Conference”. Announcement: Download Our Sample Deal and Join Our Mailing List  [00:01 – 04:57] Opening Segment  Ben talks about his background. How partnering with people helped him grow; How he started The Best Ever Conference; [04:57 – 17:31] Attracting Unicorn Investors The things Ben did to attract unicorn investors; How can you build relationships with people; Some of the lessons he learned transitioning from single family to multifamily The importance of doing what you love; How the Best Ever Conference was born; How Ben got involved with the Spartan Investment Group; [17:31 – 35:18] Self Storage and The Best Ever Conference What made him focus on self-storage; The upsides of self-storage; What self-storage looks like today; Ben's self-storage buying criteria; He talks about the Best Ever Conference  [35:18 – 41:05] Round of Insights Apparent Failure: Losing all his money when doing flips   Digital Resource: Salesforce   Most Recommended Book: The Big Picture   Daily Habit: Meditation   #1 Insight for Investing: Bet on the team before you bet on the thesis or on the asset.   Best Place to Grab a Bite in Denver:  Lingor   Contact Ben: To learn more go to spartan-investors.com. You can register to the “Best Ever Conference” here.   Tweetable Quotes: “As long as it's a complementary audience quality, it's only going to continue to blossom.” - Ben Lapidus "There are more self-storage facilities than McDonald's, Starbucks, and Burger Kings in the US combined." - Ben Lapidus   Thank you for joining us for another great episode! If you're enjoying the show, please LEAVE A RATING OR REVIEW,  and be sure to hit that subscribe button so you do not miss an episode.

Wealth and happiness do not always go hand in hand, but Ben Lapidus has found a way to achieve both. Listen to Ben's philosophies in life and learn how you can build success without sacrificing your happiness. Ben is the Chief Financial Officer for Spartan Investment Group, LLC and a co-founder and host of Best Ever Conferences. His extensive finance and business development skills helped him construct a portfolio from $0 to over $500 million in assets under management. Ben has been through lots of ups and downs. He created startups that didn't work out, lost more than $200,000 of investor money, and had to build a business from scratch. Today, his portfolio is worth over half a billion dollars, and he helps other investors achieve financial freedom. Tune in to this episode to learn more about Ben, his business, and how to build the life that you want without sacrificing your happiness. KEY TAKEAWAYS 1. Spend your time on something at the intersection of three things (something you're passionate about, great at, and economically viable). 2. When you have lower expectations, it is easier to generate happiness. 3. Vanity metrics are a sign of youth, but we grow out of it as we grow older. 4. Don't be obsessed with exit options. LINKS https://www.benlapidus.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/blapidus/ https://www.bestevercre.com/blog/meet-best-ever-conference-co-founder-ben-lapidus https://www.bestevercre.com/podcast INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES Want to invest alongside Reed? All investments are 100% PASSIVE. Historical returns to accredited investors have ranged 18-31% annualized! To find out more, head on over to… www.reedgoossens.com

Hello and welcome to the 107th Episode of the Real Estate Asset Management Podcast! Building a Financial Backbone with Ben Lapidus.Ben is the Chief Financial Officer for Spartan Investment Group LLC, where he has applied his finance and business development skills to construct from scratch a portfolio of over $500M assets under management, build the corporate finance backbone for the organization, and organize over $200M of debt capital from the firm. Key Takeaways : Let's take a deep dive into the entrepreneurial journey with Ben LapidusHow did Ben get into data?What was it like to build a system like this?Discussion on Netsuite and Hedgehog PrincipleThe custom-built real estate accounting toolHow Data Integrity allows us to go faster and be more transparent with investors and stakeholdersAcquisitions, capital markets, accounting, and finance experiencesTweetables:” Jim Collins hedgehog principle is to find something that overlaps with three components of your life.Something that you're the best at, something that you be a category of one at, something that you really enjoy doing.You're passionate about, which isn't always the same as being, the best at and three something that's economically viable, something that you can make money with” Follow us:✅ Join our group for the latest updates – https://tinyurl.com/mhp5t6 ⠀✅ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/break-of-day-capital/                           https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-lipsky/ ✅ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/BreakofDayCapital✅ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/breakofdaycapital/Today's Show Sponsor :Garzella/Multifamily Risk Advisors https://garzellagroup.com/

Ben Lapidus is a partner and Chief Financial Officer for Spartan Investment Group LLC, where he has applied his finance and business development skills to construct a portfolio of over $300M assets under management from scratch, build the corporate finance backbone for the organization, and organized over $100M of debt capital from the firm. Ben is also a co-founder and host of the Best Ever Conference and the managing partner of Indigo Ownerships LLC, where he sponsored 40+ single family and multifamily Real estate transactions. In this episode we talked about: * Ben's  Bio & Background * Spartan Investment Group  * First Steps in Real Estate Space * Transition from Single Family Houses to Real Big Deals * Best Ever Conference Evolution and Partnership * First Deal Details * Money or Wisdom? * Building a Team * Risk Navigation * Real Estate Market Outlook * Mentorship, Resources and Lessons Learned Useful links: Carlo Rovelli books Ben@spartan-investors.com Transcriptions: Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to working capital the real estate podcast. My guest today is Ben Lapidus. Ben is a partner and chief financial officer for Spartan investment group, LLC, where he has applied his finance and business development skills to acquire the company's current portfolio, build the corporate finance backbone for the firm and organize hundreds of million dollars of debt capital.   Ben is also the founder and host of the nation, the national best ever real estate investing conference and managing partner of indigo ownerships, LLC, where he sponsored 40 plus single family and multifamily real estate transactions. Ben, how you doing today?   Ben (56s): Doing awesome. Thanks for having Jesse.   Jesse (58s): Well, thanks for coming on. And before we jump into kind of the background and where you're working right now, for those that don't know, I think a lot of our listeners do know, but the best ever real estate investing conference, can you just let listeners know what you did the best ever? I guess it's now not just a conference, it's kind of a whole company in general, but if you could just let listeners that don't know what that is. Just kind of give a little bit of a bio there.   Ben (1m 20s): Yeah. The best ever conference it's turned into a world and an experience, a Disneyland, all of its own for real estate investors. It brings together over 1500 real estate investors, syndicators and operators. Every year. It matches over half a billion of unplaced capital and over 50 billion of assets under management from active operators, 96% of attendees have done at least one commercial deal in the last six months. So it's a really frothy, active community. If people come together at the beginning of every year to learn about what's ahead in the economic conditions to network with each other, learn from each other, get deals done and party with each other.   It's an awesome time.   Jesse (1m 53s): That's awesome. So the, the last one that you had, when was that and where was it?   Ben (1m 58s): Yeah, it was in February this year, 2022 in Denver, Colorado, as it's been for the last six years, we are picking up our roots and next year it's gonna be March 8th through 10th in salt lake city, first time outside of Denver.   Jesse (2m 11s): Awesome. That's great. Well, thanks for coming on. Like I said, at the outset, so you, in your current role right now, our CFO of Spartan investment group and what are you guys typically doing there? I think we talked a little bit before the show and I've listened to you on other podcasts, but a lot of it correct me if I'm wrong is self storage syndication. Is there a multi-family as well in that what's that company all about?   Ben (2m 34s): Yeah. So we started off as an opportunity to stick commercial real estate investor, meaning that we were more into the business of real estate. Then we will set class. However, we found ourselves through a very intentional decision making process, being proactive as opposed to reactive with self storage assets. So along the way, we did pick up some workforce housing in RV camps. Specifically, we have some retail, we have some industrial, but that's all minor compared to our growing self storage portfolio. At this stage, with that half a billion assets under management self storage is our main focus.   It just so happens that where we buy what we buy typically conveys with other types of asset classes, we've owned a carwash before as an example. So yeah,   Jesse (3m 15s): I was just watching the last season of breaking bad. So the carwash, the carwash aspect of it, it's funny because I'll, I'll look out on like different cash businesses that are tangentially related to real estate and car washes and laundromats seem to come up time and time again.   Ben (3m 30s): Yeah.   Jesse (3m 31s): So you, you did when you're in school, you're at Rutgers finance and economics. Take us back for, from that time in your life and going into what you're doing right now. Was it a fairly logical step to go into real estate? How did you move into the space?   Ben (3m 47s): Yeah, no, not at all. Do you want you all to short the 32nd answer Jesse or the three minute answer   Jesse (3m 51s): You can give the three minute answer. All   Ben (3m 53s): Right. All right. Cool. So yeah, Rutgers, I went into finance thinking that I was going to be an investment banker or some other type of front office wall street, Jackie, you know, I grew up in north Jersey. So I thought that was the only path laid out for me that came to a head in 2009. I had offers from Goldman Sachs and Citibank and crap. I can't even roll UBS. And then 2009 happened and they all disappeared. And the only thing that was left was Barclays capital just bought Lehman brothers. So I went to go work for their fixed income business, doing credit, exotic credit derivatives as an intern.   I still hadn't finished school yet and found out that that life was not for me. It was not fun. And I tried every which way to try to make it fun. I shadowed wealth management, I'd shadowed FX and commodities and equities and research, both debt and equity, investment banking. I shadowed every type of front office investment banking job I could find. And I could not find any place that I enjoyed outside of the quantitative aspects. I didn't enjoy the culture. I didn't love the significance of the work.   So I quit. And I went and started the study abroad company in Costa Rica, which has a huge about face. I'll just kind of gloss. Over that three years later, we were doing $2 million a year in revenue, bringing environmental engineering, renewable energy engineering students from 10 different countries, 80 different universities to Costa Rica to learn about sustainability, renewable energy engineering. We were doing about $2 million a year in revenue until hormones and ego got in the way things fell apart. And I had to move on. So I took my winnings, my small winnings from that business, got myself a job in ad tech where I learned about big data.   And along the way, started investing in single family houses. The company that I worked for was one of the very first unicorns a decade ago, and it made a lot of VPs close to me millionaires overnight when it IPO at six months after I started. And so they heard about what I was doing. He started throwing cash at me. I started accidentally syndicating when I was 23, 24 years old, and I acquired several million dollars, a single family multifamily real estate. I took my net worth from 800 bucks to half a million dollars using other people's money in about two years, which was an accident, but it was hugely meaningful because I was able to take that net worth balance sheet and start doing significant things with it.   So when I realized that I was talented at real estate components of it, not all things real estate, certainly just components of it. And I met my wife and I wanted to leave the city to move out to Denver. I knew that the work that I had built up in ad tech was not going to last in this city. And so I wanted to commit myself to what I was good at, which was this real estate investing world. So in 2016, I started the best ever conference to make a name for myself by way of that, I found my current business partners and the three of us have built a awesome self storage syndication and development engine.   That is smart enough, I believe to navigate the world to have   Jesse (6m 37s): So not dissimilar from a lot of people that get into real estate. Usually typically not a straightforward path as sounds like some somewhat similar here. How was that transition from going and being into the world of single family housing to actually doing larger deals? Was there one thing that led to another in terms of it was one big deal, one opportunity, or was that a process that kind of developed over time?   Ben (6m 59s): Yeah, I would say it was a light switch, which is, there is no path to commercial real estate. There is no barrier to entry, artificial or preexisting barrier to entry. The barrier to entry is artificial and it's in your mindset. So I, I had acquired for single families when I had a buddy at my work when I was 22, 23 years old, it was like, Hey, I have a friend that's doing a skill share class here in New York city about how to buy a $7 million building for $15,000. I was like, that's a catchy title. I'm going to check that out. This is back in the day when Skillshare was in person, like it wasn't digital is like their early business model.   So I went and I was one of like five other people. And the guy giving that class was Joe Fairless in 2012. If you're familiar with Joe Fairless has got one of the top three podcasts in commercial real estate investing due to acquired a 2 billion multifamily portfolio in the last five, five or six years, he's got an awesome business. And so I took that class and the one thing that I walked away from it was, oh, I can go do this right now. I don't have to build up to this. There's no difference in figuring this out versus what I've already done other than scale. That's the only thing. And I can scale. I have that. I have that, you know, confidence that's typically associated with white men who haven't had any adversity presented to them.   I, I can figure this out. So that's, that's what I took away from that interaction. And Joe and I have become good friends. We started the best ever conference together in, in 2016. So that, that was the biggest thing was just that mindset switch.   Jesse (8m 21s): So for, I mean, there'll be a number of listeners that know what the best ever is or best ever conference. How did that partnership? You said there was two other partners. So yourself with Joe, you know, I remember seeing the YouTube videos years ago. So I was curious what started first? Was it the conference that started first? Was it the, the content that was uploaded to social media? How did that kind of become what it is today? Cause it's, it's massive today.   Ben (8m 47s): Yeah. So let me clarify. I've got two partners in Spartan investment group that have nothing to do with best ever conference. The three of us run smart investment group best ever as a is a hundred percent owned by Joe Fairless. We, he started that in 2013. The very first thing was the podcast and the podcast was the nucleus of his entire economic engine in all of the values. He supplies that the community and, and other investors from that, we had been friends since 2012. When I moved to Denver, I said, Hey, Joe, you've got this podcast, you've got this blossoming syndication business.   I'm trying to make a splash for myself. I've got this experience running study abroad companies. I can, I can build good event experiences. So we decided to marry it together. It's his brand, but specifically on the conference, we, we run that together. So the, the podcast for Joe came first for me, the conference came first for both of us. The thought leadership platforms came before the successful syndication company. Joe found his partner at Ashcroft capital because of a direct result of all the work he had been doing prior to meeting his partner and same for myself.   Jesse (9m 51s): So for yourself and your two other partners in your current business, what, I'm the first deal that you did, where you had to, it wasn't bootstrapped and you had to raise outside capital or syndicate the deal. What did that deal look like? And you know, w what was the, you know, high-level details of that, that first deal?   Ben (10m 7s): It was awful. I was 24 years old. It was 2000 late, late 2013, close early 2014. I pursued a 34 unit 38 unit $1.3 million building in Richmond, Virginia, not even a building. It was five buildings on five separate parcels, not all contiguous, which made the lending environment very gnarly. As for my first deal. I had a lot of expectations that did not turn out to be reality. And I was definitely one of those frustrated, entitled young millennials, trying to try to get my cash.   The syndication process was interesting. I learned that when you ask for wisdom, you get money. When you ask for money, you get wisdom. That was pretty cool to learn about that, but I successfully raised all of the cash for that first, for that first deal. And I learned that I'm really good at real estate transactions, capital markets, underwriting, feasibility, due diligence. And I turned what was a decent deal, not an extraordinary deal, but a decent deal into a bad outcome because I'm not a great operator. At least I wasn't a great operator. I don't really like kind of using these identity claims that last forever at the time, I wasn't a good operator.   I wasn't great at construction management. I wasn't great at property management and I didn't put enough energy into asset management to kind of cover over those deficiencies. I didn't have a team. I didn't have a business. I was just doing a hustle on the side of a full-time job with another side hustle business along the way. So I made lots of mistakes and I was lucky, frankly, not skilled at getting out of that investment three years later, where my investors got an annualized return, just shy of 7%. And I made nothing over the course of three years, all that work. And I made nothing, which was a great learning lesson, not as much of a learning lesson is when I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of my investor money, which is a much better story, but that was a great lesson as to like, don't get yourself into something, unless you plan making money.   It was a great learning opportunity, but it didn't do much else other than send me to school.   Jesse (11m 58s): So I want to go into that second quotations, better story. But before you do, can you unpack a little bit of the ask for wisdom, get money, ask for money, get wisdom piece.   Ben (12m 7s): Yeah. Yeah. I think when you're, when you're young, especially, and you don't have a track record, right? A lot of people like to tell you how it is or how it's going to be. And so I think the best way to play into that when you are looking for something substantial, when you're trying to sell something, you're trying to, you're selling a security in exchange for cash, right? And that's the same thing as selling a widget in exchange for cash. You're trying to sell something when you are learning, you want to show that I've learned, you can play that youth card very, very well.   People like to invest in young people because they know that they're going to last a very long time. A, it makes people feel good that they can, they can drive the direction of somebody so young and somebody so impressionable. It it's, it's kinda like that fulfilling mentorship quality. So when you get an investor, I did not shy away from them. You know, wanting to feel like my mentors, even though I might have taken a lot of their wisdom with a grain of salt and, and not as substantially as they would've liked, but also they just like to share their wisdom and feel like they know what they're doing.   Even as the world is rapidly changing. What I've seen is that if you're out of something or not in something at all for the last five years, you're irrelevant. It doesn't matter how much experience you have. If you have 30 years experience and you retired five years ago, you have less experience than the person who's been doing it for the last two years, as far as I'm concerned, that being said, when you're young play that youth card. So people want to tell you where you're wrong and how you could do better. And there's a bit of an Oliver twist component to that. Like, thank you, sir. Can I have some more, can I have some more of your input, even if I'm not going to take it, can I just hear you out?   I want to know more about what you have to say, and when somebody shares a part of their wisdom, they're sharing a part of themselves, and now they're invested into what you're doing. So when you ask for wisdom, you are already getting an investment from that person. You're getting an investment of their time, their knowledge, their wisdom, their energy. And so you've already started that process of them saying yes, because they're already making that investment to you. When you come out of the gate saying here's a terrible deck that nobody has audited, and that has not gone through the, the, the, the cadence of 50 iterations of past failures.   You know, here's my first try. They're going to give you that wisdom, whether or not you like it. So you might as well ask for the wisdom as opposed to asking for the cash.   Jesse (14m 20s): No, that makes a lot of sense. And if you go back, so this story where you've lost hundreds of thousands, I'm always curious about this. Cause, you know, I'm not sure one of my favorite books in the last five years of me reading in the last five years, I think it came out probably 10 or 12 years ago was thinking fast and slow. Danny Kahneman and Tversky, where it was this idea of loss, aversion, you know, gaining 20 bucks versus losing five. The loss always is more amplified. So can you talk a little bit about that, that story of, you know, you, you lost hundreds, hundreds of thousands.   This was one deal.   Ben (14m 54s): It was a few, but it was one play that I was making. So I had gotten 40 50 cashflowing units under my belt. Let's say two thirds of the multi-family a third of them, single family, small, multi kin. And all of them were going well on average, I was cashflowing over 20% with 15 year mortgages, which is like impossible today. But back in 13, 14, 15, 16 was feasible if you bought, right. In fact, I should have just bought wrong and bought a lot more stuff back then. Cause it'd be worth so much more than what it is today, but the hubris set in, right.   You know, when you're in your mid twenties and you've done this well, 20, 30 times, you start to think you can do kind of anything and it must be you again. So I, I made a decision to invest in flips instead of cash flowing assets, which is the only thing that I'd been doing at the time. But it was just too slow. I was making a hundred, 200, $300 per month per unit. And it just felt like a very slow aggregation of wealth from a cash standpoint, I was doing great on my balance sheet, but my pocket book wasn't really fattening up too much. So I wanted to, I wanted to get into flipping cause I was getting jealous of people making 2050, a hundred thousand dollars margins on one house.   So I tried a couple out and I made 20, $30,000 margins on those couple, but I had done so in a way where I had identified a turnkey model where I outsourced basically everything acquisitions, con construction, leasing design, like everything, I'd outsource everything. And so I was like, all right, well, cool. Let me go raise a fund. Now that I've tried this out with my own money and go buy three, five of these at the same time, which I did. And I made acquisition mistakes. I just, I, I, I was in Chicago land in cook county specifically, which is one of the most corrupt places.   I had one house that they had me go through 13 certificate of occupancy inspections, all of which failed every time they came up with new something new that I had to do, even though it wasn't on the original list that they had presented. When I purchased the asset, I just, I didn't know how to navigate cook county. One of the most difficult bureaucracies in America, I, I ended up selling it without the certificate of occupancy for a hundred thousand dollars, less than I planned on a hun $250,000 estimated value. So it's like a significant percentage and I had put $30,000 more into it than I had anticipated.   So I lost 120, $130,000 on that one flip. I had another flip in the same area that I lost 15 grand on. I had another flip at the same time in Richmond, Virginia, that I lost 30 grand on all at the same time. So when you tally that up, it was over 150 grand. I had lost not only a hundred percent of the capital that I had raised from an equity position for that flip fund, which I was trying to scale up to five at a time until I realized very quickly I was terrible at this, but I had also had to throw my own money, another 60 grand into it that I lost. So I lost everybody else's money and my money along the way.   I think the, the thing that was formative for me in that experience was the decision that I was going to take one of the houses that I've worked so hard to pay down to zero and get a hilar on it. Fortunately, I had done that and not only pay off a hundred percent of the capital that I lost to my investors, which I didn't have to do because it was an equity position, not a deposition, but also an annualized eight and a half percent. So all of the investors at least got their money back and beat the S and P so that the taste in their mouth was left.   Very good, better than if I had just done well from the get go, because now I've proven, even when I don't have to, I'm going to find a way to do the right thing and what matters with a good operator, a good sponsor of a deal is how do they behave? How do they act in the trying times and the difficult times when the gamma risk, the environmental risk, which has nothing to do with the operator in this case? That was me. It was, I was, I was the problem, but when the environmental risk is it, it is making it so difficult to make the ask perform. How does the sponsor perform in those trying times, not what are they doing in the good times, or the easy times when they're riding the wave, but how are they behaving in those trying times?   That's what I learned through that experience.   Jesse (18m 52s): Yeah. I think it's part of the reason that there are investors right or wrong out there. There are investors that will only invest with people that have been through some sort of downturn, whether it's, you know, now that in 2022, whether it was a pandemic, oh 7 0 8, 2001, early nineties in commercial real estate. And, you know, the list goes on where they want to have some trial and tribulation. But I really like what you said earlier about the fact that somebody that has doing or is immersed in an environment could be legal, real estate accounting for the last two, three years is going to have more subject matter expertise than somebody that has been doing it for 30 years has been out of the game for 5, 6, 7 years.   It's not to discount the fact that that person has built up a great amount of knowledge over that time. But as you know, our businesses a month to month, quarter to quarter, sometimes obviously it's a longterm business, but you need to really be into the thick of the details of, of what's going on in the market and what, you know, what's happening and what's relevant as of today.   Ben (19m 47s): So   Jesse (19m 48s): In terms of that risk, that piece there, so that environmental risks, the, the aspect of controlling the controllables, just kind of leading into how you built your team up today, so that you can kind of not only ameliorate some of the external risks, but the risks as associated with the fact that you said you were certain aspects of the deal that you were very good at others, that you're not, you were not so good at what was the plate of there to learn to shore yourself up in other areas or to hire expertise in those areas.   Ben (20m 17s): Yeah. So, so for the sake of answering this question, let's get your listeners on the same page. When, when, when you study institutional commercial real estate investing, there's three types of risks that you learn about alpha beta and gamma. I always forget which one's, which, but one of them is, has, has to do with the deal itself conditions of the specific deal. The second is the conditions of those that control the investment, the team, the operator, the sponsor, and the third is, is those risks that you can't really control as in, in the environment, the economic conditions or whatever, like jurisdiction, legal bureaucracies, whatever it might be.   So we go through a lot of different risk mitigation strategies. One of them is called a pre-mortem, which is like a post-mortem, but you pretend like you've already failed. And you come up with all of the reasons why you failed and you kind of work backwards as to what caused those things. And then we look at what are the ways to mitigate each of those failures, each of those things that cause those failures, and sometimes you can't, sometimes you have to accept them. And there's different things that you can do with risk. You can mitigate the risk by doing something active, to make that risk lessened or gone away all altogether.   And if it's gone away altogether, that's called eliminating the risk. You can also transfer the risk. You can hire somebody that can take on that risk for you. That's like hiring a securities attorney to put, put your PPM together so that you don't have securities risk. Your attorney has securities risk. We've transferred the risk in exchange for feet. The last thing you can do is you can accept that risk mitigate, eliminate transfer accept, and you can accept that risk. That's the whole point of doing your due diligence and having an underwriting file. And underwriting file is your best guest estimation of what risks might be costly to you that could cause volatility to your target returns.   When you accept those risks, it's fine to accept the risk. Just what is the, the, the, the, the spectrum of costs associated with that risk that could affect your returns. If you are aware of those risks, you package them into your underwriting and you make them transparent to your investor community. Then what's the harm in the risk being there altogether. In fact, the risk is really what brings opportunity. We shouldn't be afraid of the risk, right? We should be looking for that risk. As long as we have the rains to tame that bull, we should be looking for that risk as much as possible.   Jesse (22m 30s): So if you'd give a couple examples or say there's a couple items, so CapEx reserve, for instance, the idea of actually keeping a certain amount of capital for longer term expenses, as one say, risk mitigation tool. And then another being, let's just say, going with fixed rate, a fixed rate debt for one of your investments. So you would categorize those and you would figure out which type, which type of risk that is first of all, trying to mitigate, and what is it actually doing? So for instance, if we take fixed, you know, if we take fixed debt, you're basically saying at that point, we have the ability to have less volatility into, into our debt payments at a price, usually a higher rate.   And that would be in this case, you wouldn't be, well, I guess you would be eliminating the risk for a period of time. Is that how the kind of the framework that you would look at?   Ben (23m 22s): We, we would, we would work. We would work it a little bit more downstream from there and go backwards. So we would start with the failure. The failure would be, we are not able to hit our target returns, why debt service was higher than we expected. Why? Because interest rates went up and we got a floating rate loan. Okay. How do we either mitigate, eliminate or transfer that risk if we don't want to accept it? Well, we mitigate it by not getting a floating rate loan. We get a fixed rate loan that would be eliminating the risk altogether. We call that interest rate risk.   The other thing that we could do is we could purchase an interest rate cap. So three months ago, interest rate caps were affordable for two or three years. Now they're not. So interest rate caps are just not really a economically feasible thing to do. So that's not an option anymore. The, so here's an example. We just locked in a two 60 Sofer spread on, on a, on a loan, which with a 40 basis point floor. So it's at 3% basically today. And it will be at 3% probably until we get like more than an eighth of a point hike going on, but it's definitely gonna go up.   However, we're looking at alternatives that put our fixed rates anywhere from 4.75 to 5.5, which is much higher than it was a year or two ago. So the fact that we get to start with 3% with interest only into perpetuity, with limited recourse, with all of these other benefits, there's no interest rate cap requirements. There's no lock box. There's all these other things that are soft costs that investors just don't care about, but make it easier to operate the actual deal, because you're not focused on the administration of the nonsense that these institutional banks require.   Even though we've got floating rate interest rate risks, we're starting at 3%, which is two and a half percent of our, of our fixed rate alternative. And even if the interest rate goes above what we anticipated it to be, we've got two, three, I don't know, 12 months, 18 months, pick your, pick your prediction of having a benefit of however much cashflow along the way. So we're okay with our floating interest rate going above our fixed rate in month, 18 or month 36, or month 40, whatever it might be, however long it takes to get there because our best economic predictions and our model suggests that rates will come back down.   Eventually just will take three years, five years, six years. We're not sure, but we can go up as high as four more points. And we are satisfied with how bad things can get. Now, if we go up more than four points, we might be in a little bit of trouble, but I think a lot of folks would be in a lot of trouble, which is not a good way to, to, to, to say like, that's okay. A lot of folks are going to be in trouble, but we also have a very low debt ratio. So we're, we're comfortable that we can pay off a significant percentage of the debt to make it more, make it more palatable. If it does go up four points, it just wouldn't be ideal, but it's manageable.   Jesse (25m 60s): Yeah. No, that makes sense. So if we move over to the investor relations side of your business, what you have created today, is this more of an asset specific type of syndication that you, that you typically do? Or is this a fund model where you're having people come in and come out on a regular basis?   Ben (26m 17s): Yeah. So up until last month, it was, you get to pick your, the placement of your, of your capital. Here's one deal. You can invest into it. Here's another offering. It's a separate deal. You can invest into it. It would be based off of our acquisitions pipeline. So if we were buying a four property portfolio, we were selling securities for that for property portfolio. If we were buying one one-off investment location address, you'd be, we'd be selling a security to invest in that one deal. Today, we have produced the amount of demand for the investment vehicle and have a enough verifiable deal flow that we are comfortable with the fund.   And so we now offer a fund.   Jesse (26m 55s): Hmm. Yeah. And it seems like a logical transition for most individuals. But I find that there are, you know, you talk to investors, even listeners on the, the podcast where they were, that person that had that full-time job and kind of side hustling, even on the syndication side where you're trying to figure out where's that inflection point where you move, you leave the current job you're having, and you can do this. Full-time because it's usually from my experience, it's not like one perfect. Oh, here's the deal. That's big enough for me to leave everything. It's always a, it's always a question mark. And it's a uncomfortable decision that people do make if they do make it at that point.   Ben (27m 30s): Yeah. So it was the question like, when is it the right time to   Jesse (27m 33s): When I mean, I, my, my gut always says, it's never really the right time. It's you make a decision with the best facts that you have, but what would you answer if, you know, if somebody is out there asking, saying I have what you had back a few years back where they're trying to figure out, I want to go this way with my life. I want to actually go into the investment side of it and leave the day job, but trying to figure out what, when the right time is.   Ben (27m 57s): Yeah. I, I think to your, to your point, I think everybody's position is different. Circumstances are different. And I don't want to dictate, you know, if you have three kids versus zero kids, you're in a completely different life situation, right? So your calculus, your cost benefit analysis is going to be different, but high level, I've got two different answers. Number one, I don't believe in the burn, your boat mentality, where, you know, you burn your boat, you put your back up against the wall and you'll figure a way to fight it out. In fact, I think it's different. I think Hungary's make bad decisions. So there's a little sound for you. It don't burn your boat. Hungary's make bad decisions.   When you get hungry, you start to flail and you start to get a little bit erratic. And at least for me, when somebody said that, I was like, heck yeah, that's what I've had. That's, that's how I've behaved. When I've gotten hungry. You know, I like bought into this burn, your boat mentality. I started to make bad decisions. I started to think in the short term, not in the longterm and I wasn't playing a chess. I was playing checkers. You know, I was like trying to win today, not tomorrow. On the other hand, if you've created something comfortable enough, the idea that managing both is, is supplementing yours or your family's income.   I think it could be faulty. So if you're able to produce enough that you're not going to be hungry when you burn your boat, your W2, I think that the mental load of the distraction in and of itself is enough to limit your creativity, to limit your capacity, your bandwidth, to be more and to do more. So, but all three of us, when we got started, you know, I had a New York city gig that I had gotten to be pretty well-refined. I was only putting in like 10 hours a week into it out here in Denver, Colorado, another partner, you know, flies for an airline.   And so he's able to just like request leave. I mean, he's still like on payroll, you know, he hasn't, he like flies once a quarter, you know what I mean? And then the third guy worked for the government and the government is pretty inefficient. He was able to fly under the radar two hours a week. But for two out of the three of us, we realized that the mental load alone, not the hours committed, but the mental load alone, the distraction, the requirement of having to give yourself to somebody else at a moment's notice in exchange for paying, spending time with the people that you're collaborating with to build this thing is not worth the income.   Yes, you will be taking a step back today, but the potential of where you'll be three years from now is so much more valuable.   Jesse (30m 16s): Yeah. I couldn't agree with that more. It is interesting. And, and kind of eyeopening that when you're talking, especially when you're raising outside capital, that when something happens, you literally drop everything mentally and, and usually physically as well. But it is definitely a tool that even in my business, you know, we have clients that are pretty active and demanding, but brokerage, same thing. That's I don't think that it's the same amount of kind of mental, the mental workout you get when something really crazy happens with the investing side and you have to attend to it. So I couldn't agree with that more.   I want to be mindful of the time Ben, we have four questions. We ask every guest that comes on the kind of rapid fire. But before we get there, I ask every guest, when we come to the end here is just kind of your general outlook right now at the market. We're coming into a new year. Hopefully we're past fingers, crossed some, some pretty tumultuous times that we've had in the last 24 months. What's your general philosophy or outlook for the short to midterm? You know, whether that's opportunities you're seeing, or just generally what your thoughts are on where we're headed.   Ben (31m 15s): Yeah. It's a complicated question because it depends on where you're what asset class you're in, what your, your investment thesis is. But, you know, I like, we just had Spencer levy, who's the, it's got another title, but I'm gonna call them the global chief economist of, of CVRE, just present at, at both best ever conference. And to my company's part, investment group to the whole team. And, you know, he's all over the place. When you ask him economics based questions, he's got answers for everything, but they, they they're all over the place. So in storage, I'm just gonna speak to storage. If that's all right and storage, there's still lots of opportunity.   And, and I will explain why the first is, is everybody's scared of two things, inflation and interest rate risk inflation has more of an impact on pre negotiated contracts that lasts a lot longer. So if you've got a retail lease, that's five years with 3% packaged increases, but rate of inflation is 10%. You're going backwards by 7%, every year locked in for five years, right? You've got a multifamily contract that lasts 12 months for a lease, but inflation is going up by 1% every month.   The value of that contract is being diluted by 1%. Every month, self storage is a month to month situation. So we can change our rents whenever we want, even if we just changed them last month might not be beneficial from a business operation standpoint, but from a, a pricing elasticity standpoint, it's one of the most beneficial asset classes to be in to hedge inflation. All asset classes typically end up catching up with interest rates eventually because inflation is, is, is linked to interest rates and inflation pushes rents up, right? Like in theory, w there's more wages as a result of inflation, people have more money.   The price of goods goes up. The price of services goes up. The price of rent goes up. So it's just a matter of how fast prices adjust relative to interest. We see self storage adjusting much faster than industrial office retail and even multifamily. So that's our, that's my, my soapbox on inflation on the interest rate side, I think as long as your spreads between interest rate and cap rates still make sense, there's a play. So in retail, retail is not down for the count. Retail has a lot of opportunity and they're trading at 7%. Now there's a lot of lenders that won't lend on retail, but if you can find the debt at five, five and a half percent, there's a spread there.   So in self storage, when we've, when we got started, we were in the six, six and a quarter six and a half percent cap rate, which is, sounds really juicy today. Now we're looking at cap rates in the four, four and a half, sometimes 5% range. And when interest rates were at three and a half, 4%, there was spread. Now that the interest rates are at five, five and a quarter five and a half, sometimes under five, there's no spread. So how do you make that work? And we're starting to answer that question. Well, we're getting more aggressive with our rent growth assumptions because of inflation. We're looking at cap rate compression, but there's only so much risk you want to take on in the aggression aggressiveness of your underwriting model.   So we're, we're starting to look for other strategies. We have not paid as much attention to raw land development. Even though we have that capacity, we've done it a few times. We've never done a conversion at Spartan investment group, but there's more margin in those things. And the short term interest rates are still attractive enough in this very, very small window of time that we can make that work until we start to see things plateau. And we can figure out where, how, if, how cap rates are going to adjust relative to interest rates to see if that spread comes back. I don't   Jesse (34m 32s): Know. Yeah, no, that's a long   Ben (34m 34s): Winded answer.   Jesse (34m 35s): Yeah, that's pretty tight. Okay. So four questions. I'll kick it off right now. What is one book or resource that you could recommend for listeners that, that you've been recommending recently?   Ben (34m 46s): Everybody's talks about real estate economics business books. So I'm going to throw something else out there because I think the best investors have like a very, very they're Renaissance, men and women. So I'm going to go with the order of time by Carlo Rovelli. He is a gravitational loop theorist, and he makes physics accessible to the layman, the boundaries of physics. And I think that studying physics helps widen the creativity and the capability of an investor's mindset.   Jesse (35m 10s): That's great. I haven't heard about that. One. Love the topic though. Big Brian Green fan. Okay. So what would you tell a younger individual that's trying to get into the industry, whether it's specifically on the investment side or just real estate in general, what would be some advice you'd give them from just a mentorship perspective?   Ben (35m 32s): It depends. It depends on who they are, what they've asked me, where they're, where they're at in their life, but collaboration, beats competition. Don't try to be a hero. Don't try to be something that you're not embellish yourself, put yourself out there, have hubris, but don't let others tell you how it is either. You can recreate everything. Don't assume that just because people have doctorates or pilot certifications that they know what the heck they're doing, everybody has an adult has imposter syndrome. Everybody's figuring out their lives because if they weren't, they would get bored and they would quit.   So if they're engaged in what they do, it means that they're also figuring out what they do. So don't be intimidated, but also have a humility and learn. I don't know, here we go.   Jesse (36m 18s): There's usually a couple answers for this, but if one sticks out in your head, something that you didn't know when you first got into our industry, that you know now, and you know, you'd like to share with your younger self or again, people that are, that are breaking into the investment side of our business,   Ben (36m 34s): The investment side of our business, be intentional about your investment thesis experiment with it upfront. And then once you find something that works, eliminate all the distractions and go all in.   Jesse (36m 46s): All right, last question. This might be a, a wasted one if you're in New York for a long period of time, but a first car make and model   Ben (36m 53s): First car, man, I don't know. My car is a Ford Taurus. Is that a thing?   Jesse (37m 0s): That is a thing that, that was my family car growing up. That was our drive to Florida car for 20 hours trip. Awesome. Well, Ben, for those that would kind of want to reach out or connect with you aside from a Google search, where would you point them to?   Ben (37m 16s): Yeah, you can reach me at Ben at Spartan, hyphen investors.com.   Jesse (37m 21s): My guest today has been Ben Lapidus. Ben, thanks for being part of working capital.   Ben (37m 25s): Awesome. Thanks Jesse.   Jesse (37m 34s): Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse for galley. If you liked the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one. Take care.  

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Derek and Tib set out for the skatepark, looking to put together Derek's band and avoid Skeet's wrath. Meanwhile, Tom DeLonge makes an unsavory exchange.  WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? is produced by Super Normal Media. Episodes released weekly! Created by Ben Lapidus and Anderson Cook Directed by Duncan Gregory Written by Anderson Cook Find us on IG @whokilledavrillavigne #whokilledavrillavigne check out our other projects at supernormal.fm

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Arrived back at Warped Tour 2005, Derek starts his mission to the mainstage – which requires him to find Tom DeLonge, who's been acting reaaaal suspicious. WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? is produced by Super Normal Media. Episodes released weekly! Created by Ben Lapidus and Anderson Cook Directed by Duncan Gregory Written by Anderson Cook Find us on IG @whokilledavrillavigne check out our other projects at supernormal.fm

In this series premiere, Derek Walker is sure he was born at the wrong time – but he gets a chance to make all his dreams come true when his mysterious substitute teacher, Mr. Telonge, reveals a terrible secret, sending Derek on a wild journey through space and time. WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? is produced by Super Normal Media. Episodes released weekly on Tuesdays! Created by Ben Lapidus and Anderson Cook Directed by Duncan Gregory Written by Anderson Cook Find us on IG @whokilledavrillavigne check out our other projects at supernormal.fm

In this series premiere, Derek Walker is sure he was born at the wrong time – but he gets a chance to make all his dreams come true when his mysterious substitute teacher, Mr. Telonge, reveals a terrible secret, sending Derek on a wild journey through space and time. WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? is produced by Super Normal Media. Episodes released weekly on Tuesdays! Go follow and subscribe to their show!  Created by Ben Lapidus and Anderson Cook Directed by Duncan Gregory Written by Anderson Cook Find us on IG @whokilledavrillavigne check out our other projects at supernormal.fm

From the producers of GAY FUTURE comes WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? A time-traveling pop punk podcast Episodes 1 and 2 out February 22nd everywhere you get your podcasts! In 2022, angsty teen Derek Walker is a pop punk poser living in the past; but when his mysterious substitute teacher Dom Telonge sends him back to Warped Tour 2005 to stop the abduction and replacement of the pop punk princess, Avril Lavigne, his dreams of fulfilling his pop punk destiny become a reality. WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? is a sci-fi comedy podcast, a send-up and celebration of the aughts with an original pop-punk score. WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? is produced by Super Normal Media. Episodes released weekly starting Feb 22 on the Who Killed Avril Lavigne? podcast feed! Created by Ben Lapidus and Anderson Cook Directed by Duncan Gregory Written by Anderson Cook Find us on IG @whokilledavrillavigne Check out our other projects at supernormal.fm

Episodes 1 and 2 out February 22nd everywhere you get your podcasts! In 2022, angsty teen Derek Walker is a pop punk poser living in the past; but when his mysterious substitute teacher Dom Telonge sends him back to Warped Tour 2005 to stop the abduction and replacement of the pop punk princess, Avril Lavigne, his dreams of fulfilling his pop punk destiny become a reality. WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? is a sci-fi comedy podcast, a send-up and celebration of the aughts with an original pop-punk score. WHO KILLED AVRIL LAVIGNE? is produced by Super Normal Media. Episodes released weekly starting Feb 22 on this feed! Created by Ben Lapidus and Anderson Cook Directed by Duncan Gregory Written by Anderson Cook Find us on IG https://www.instagram.com/whokilledavrillavigne/ (@whokilledavrillavigne) check out our other projects at supernormal.fm

Given that there are several real estate conferences coming up (including the Intelligent Investors Real Estate Conference (IIREC)!), I thought it would be good to discuss this very topic with the host of one of the most popular real estate conferences in the US… Today, I'm joined by Ben Lapidus, CFO of Spartan Investment Group and the Host of the Best Ever Real Estate Conference ("Best Ever").  For those of you that don't know Best Ever is one of the few real estate conferences I try to attend each year. Both Ben and I know a thing or two about not only throwing a kick-butt event, but also what it takes to get the most out of in-person events as an attendee. Click Here to Listen Now If you are planning on attending IIREC 2022 or Best Ever Real Estate Conference this year, make sure to check this out! What are some of the key mistakes even producers make when setting their expectations for the event? What can attendees do to supercharge their experience, both from a networking standpoint, as well as their ability to get the most out of the How should event attendees and producers be contemplating the risks and uncertainty surrounding Covid-19? Whether you are attending an in-person event this year, or have an interest in throwing one, I'm sure you'll get a lot out of this episode. Click Here to Listen Now Resources mentioned in this podcast: 1. The Best Ever Conference 2. Spartan Investment Group Interested in investing in ATMs? Check out our webinar.   Please note that investing in private placement securities entails a high degree of risk, including illiquidity of the investment and loss of principal. Please refer to the subscription agreement for a discussion of risk factors. Tired of scrambling for capital?  Check out our new FREE webinar -  How to Ensure You Never Scramble for Capital Again (The 3 Capital-Raising Secrets). Click Here to register. CFC Podcast Facebook Group

Ben Lapidus is the host and founder of the Best Ever Conference and has extensive experience in creating and overseeing networking events. In this episode, Ben shares how to maximize your experience at these events to help build new relationships, educate yourself, and ultimately grow your business. Join us for this year's Best Ever Conference in Aurora, Colorado from February 24th-26th: www.besteverconference.com Ben Lapidus Real Estate Background Chief Financial Officer for Spartan Investment Group LLC, Portfolio: 51 operation, $100M AUM  Founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships LLC Say hi to him at www.spartan-investors.com Click here to know more about our sponsors: Deal Maker Mentoring | PassiveInvesting.com | FollowUp Boss  

Ben Lapidus is a Partner and CFO at Spartan Investment Group. Creating something out of nothing is the ultimate human capital skill that Ben possesses. By the time he exited at 22 years old, his business was doing $2 million a year in revenue. In this episode, Ben points out the importance of chasing fun and articulating value. Ben is an incredible salesperson who stresses the importance of understanding the human being behind the control of the capital. He teaches the differences between high net worth accredited investors versus institutional investors and why you need to understand the psychology, motivators, and incentives behind each of your different capital avatars. Reference Links Accountable Equity Spartan Investment Group The Lean Startup by Eric Ries The Greatest Salesman in the World The Richest Man in Babylon

In the past year, Ben Lapidus' company grew from 13 operations to 51, with a portfolio of $100M AUM. Working through COVID-19, and looking to the future, Ben Lapidus provides his insight on the self-storage industry and what his strategy is for tackling the new year. Ben Lapidus Real Estate Background Chief Financial Officer for Spartan Investment Group LLC Portfolio: 51 operation, $100M AUM  Founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships LLC Say hi to him at www.spartan-investors.com Best Ever Book: Covariant Loop Quantum Gravity: An Elementary Introduction to Quantum Gravity and Spinfoam Theory by Carlo Rovelli Click here to know more about our sponsors: Deal Maker Mentoring | PassiveInvesting.com | FollowUp Boss

THE SOUND OF NEW YORK LATIN MUSIC takes a deep sonic dive into the great New York Latin discography, with host Georges Collinet and guest host Ned Sublette, who produced and megamixed. Special guest Dr. Ben Lapidus, author of New York and the International Sound of Latin Music 1940-1990, tells us stories of the musicians and the conditions that made the city's music unique. With nonstop music by Ray Barretto, Jerry González and the Fort Apache Band, Markolino Diamond, a snippet of Joe Quijano's bugalú version of "Fiddler on the Roof," and about a thousand more.

Grammy-nominated musician Benjamin Lapidus joins Shannon Fisher to discuss his new book, NEW YORK AND THE INTERNATIONAL SOUND OF LATIN MUSIC, 1940-1990. Lapidus, a music scholar widely published on the topic of Latin music, examines how interethnic collaboration among musicians, composers, dancers, instrument makers, and music teachers shaped the development of Spanish Caribbean music in New York, cultivating a sound steeped in classical, jazz, and folkloric music. Lapidus is among the authors participating in the Miami Book Fair 2021, the nation's largest gathering of writers and readers of all ages from around the globe. Visit Miami Book Fair online for more information on live and virtual events. You can also follow MBF on social media: @miamibookfair. Our Lives with Shannon Fisher explores personal, political, and societal perspectives of the American experience. The show delves deeply into the worlds of writers, artists, celebrities, and community leaders and offers listeners food for thought about the world in which they live. Follow Shannon on Twitter: @MsShannonFisher. Copyrighted podcast solely owned by the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network, LLC.

Grammy-nominated musician Benjamin Lapidus joins Shannon Fisher to discuss his new book, NEW YORK AND THE INTERNATIONAL SOUND OF LATIN MUSIC, 1940-1990. Lapidus, a music scholar widely published on the topic of Latin music, examines how interethnic collaboration among musicians, composers, dancers, instrument makers, and music teachers shaped the development of Spanish Caribbean music in New York, cultivating a sound steeped in classical, jazz, and folkloric music. Lapidus is among the authors participating in the Miami Book Fair 2021, the nation's largest gathering of writers and readers of all ages from around the globe. Visit Miami Book Fair online for more information on live and virtual events. You can also follow MBF on social media: @miamibookfair. Our Lives with Shannon Fisher explores personal, political, and societal perspectives of the American experience. The show delves deeply into the worlds of writers, artists, celebrities, and community leaders and offers listeners food for thought about the world in which they live. Follow Shannon on Twitter: @MsShannonFisher. Copyrighted podcast solely owned by the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network, LLC.

Changüí is a little understood, loose and lively, community-based music of eastern Cuba. In this program we sample recordings from the 2021 box set Changüí: The Sound of Guantánamo, and hear from Gianluca Tramontana, the man who made the recordings. Rooted in Afro-Haitian music, pan-Caribbean styles, Spanish poetic traditions and more, Changüí emerged in the mid 19th century in plantations, not unlike the blues. We also hear from musician and scholar Ben Lapidus, author of the only English language book on Changüí, and we update the story with Changüí fusions into jazz, salsa and hip-hop. Prepare to dance! Produced by Banning Eyre. APWW #840

Grammy-nominated musician Benjamin Lapidus joins Shannon Fisher to discuss his new book, NEW YORK AND THE INTERNATIONAL SOUND OF LATIN MUSIC, 1940-1990. Lapidus, a music scholar widely published on the topic of Latin music, examines how interethnic collaboration among musicians, composers, dancers, instrument makers, and music teachers shaped the development of Spanish Caribbean music in New York, cultivating a sound steeped in classical, jazz, and folkloric music. Lapidus is among the authors participating in the Miami Book Fair 2021, the nation's largest gathering of writers and readers of all ages from around the globe. Visit Miami Book Fair online for more information on live and virtual events. You can also follow MBF on social media: @miamibookfair. Our Lives with Shannon Fisher explores personal, political, and societal perspectives of the American experience. The show delves deeply into the worlds of writers, artists, celebrities, and community leaders and offers listeners food for thought about the world in which they live. Follow Shannon on Twitter: @MsShannonFisher. Copyrighted podcast solely owned by the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network, LLC. #BenLapidus #BenjaminLapidus #LatinMusic #CaribbeanMusic #MusicHistory #NewYorkMusic #AuthorInterviews #Authors #Writers #Writing #Books #AuthorsOnTheAir #Radio #Podcast #ShannonFisher #MsShannonFisher

Ben Lapidus, scholar and Grammy-nominated musician, explains New York's central role in developing Latin music across the U.S. and Latin America.

Have you ever been curious about self-storage units? Is it a good asset class to invest in? What do you need, and how can you start investing in them? Then, tune in as we bring in Ben Lapidus, the Chief Financial Officer of Spartan Investment Group, to answer all your questions about self-storage facilities.Spartan Investment Group was founded with the goal to improve lives with the help of real estate. Their portfolio mainly consists of self-storage facilities. [00:01 – 07:43] Opening SegmentI introduce and welcome our guest, Ben LapidusWe talk about the Best Ever Conference[07:44 – 12:58] Spartan Investment Group Ben shares the story behind their companyBen gives an update on how Spartan Investment Group has faired these past few months[12:59 – 17:00] The Best Story EverBen talks about the "Best Ever Deal" they have done [17:01 – 23:45] Self-Storage FacilitiesWhy are self-storage facilities your bread and butter?Ben talks about the perks of investing in self-storage facilitiesWhy aren't a lot of people chasing over this asset class?[23:46 – 30:07] THE FINAL FOURWhat's the worst job that you ever had?I crashed into a store complex and had to work there to pay off the damagesWhat's a book you've read that has given you a paradigm shift?The Order of Time by Carlo RovelliWhat is a skill or talent that you'd like to learn?WindsurfingWhat does success mean to you?Acquire massive resources so I can deploy them to shape the world in my own visionGet in touch with Ben. See the links below.Final thoughtsTweetable Quotes:"[Self-Storages are] easy to manage, easy to maintain, easy to monetize." – Ben Lapidus"I'd like to acquire enough resources that I can deploy them to shape the world around me in a way that I think is better." – Ben Lapidus Resources Mentioned:www.besteverconference.comThe Science of God by Gerald L. Schroeder Ph.D Get in touch with Ben through https://spartan-investors.com/ LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW by clicking this link.WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE?Be sure to follow me on the below platforms:Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or Stitcher.LinkedInYoutubeExclusive Facebook Groupwww.yonahweiss.comNone of this could be possible without the awesome team at Buzzsprout. They make it easy to get your show listed on every major podcast platform.Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weissadvice)

Ben Lapidus, CFO of Spartan Investment Group, joins us to discuss ditching Wall Street, starting a business in Costa Rica, getting into Real Estate, and the current values and vision of Spartan Investment Group. Connect with Ben: https://bec2021.com/ https://spartan-investors.com/

Meet Cute Presents: The Hospital – Part 3, an audio rom-com where stern nurse Claudia receives little packages of love from new mail clerk Emi, and from a life she tried to leave behind.Follow @MeetCute on Instagram and @ListenMeetCute on Twitter.Story by Luke Sand. Directed and Produced by Luke Sand. Sound Design by Ben Lapidus. Starring: Paulina Galvez, Nacia Walsh, Kevin Tomlinson, Kelly Krauter.Please subscribe and rate us 5 stars!Spread the rom-com love! Share this referral link with 15 friends and earn a custom Meet Cute coffee thermos: https://refer.glow.fm/meet-cute

Meet Cute Presents: The Hospital – Part 2, an audio rom-com where nurse Devon sings in harmony with his lone wolf patient Samantha.Follow @MeetCute on Instagram and @ListenMeetCute on Twitter.Story by Luke Sand. Directed and Produced by Luke Sand. Sound Design by Ben Lapidus. Starring: Kevin Tomlinson, Elizabeth Saydah, Kelly Krauter, gMichael Nicolosi, Kelsey Murphy.Please subscribe and rate us 5 stars!

Meet Cute Presents: The Hospital – Part 1, an audio rom-com where surgeons Kathryn and Sean go scalpel-to-scalpel and open themselves up.Follow @MeetCute on Instagram and @ListenMeetCute on Twitter.Story by Luke Sand. Directed and Produced by Luke Sand. Sound Design by Ben Lapidus. Starring: Kelly Krauter, Shawn Jain, Kevin Tomlinson, Elizabeth Saydah.Please subscribe and rate us 5 stars!

Ben Lapidus -- Director of Acquisitions for Spartan Investment Group, brings his skills in asset management and financial analysis to launch and grow Spartan’s portfolio business line. With over 2 dozen successful deals under his belt prior to Spartan, Ben is also the founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships LLC. Before Spartan, Ben started a multi-million dollar study abroad company and worked with several start-ups through IPO or acquisition. He graduated Rutgers University with dual degrees in Finance and Economics where he was the founder of the Rutgers Entrepreneurial Society. Post-Interview Analysis  Key Lessons Learned: Self-Storage is a supply and demand business. There are many things you can fix about a self-storage facility but if the demand is not there, you will not be successful. It’s also hyper-localized and that demand depends very much on the lifestyles and demographics of the population in the market.  How did they acquire their knowledge or what knowledge did they need to acquire? Learning to invest with other people’s money by starting small with friends and family.  How much money did it take to get started? He started with about $100,000 from the sale of his education company. How much time does it take now? This is a full-time job. Could they do this strategy from anywhere in the world? At this time, given his role at Spartan Investment Group, probably not. Episode Highlights:  Schedule a video chat with Neil Henderson at roadtofamilyfreedom.com/selfstoragecall (https://www.roadtofamilyfreedom.com/selfstoragecall/) How his parent’s first real estate investment led him to become a real estate investor himself. How he initially went about raising capital from friends and family What is the primary investment focus of Spartan Investment Group? How and Why Spartan Investment decided to target self-storage as their primary investment asset And much more… Books and Resources Mentioned The Road to Family Freedom: roadtofamilyfreedom.com (https://www.roadtofamilyfreedom.com/) Best Ever Real Estate Conference 2021 (https://bec2021.com/)(will be virtual) Spartan Investment Group (https://spartan-investors.com/) Contact Ben (mailto:ben@spartan-investors.com) Follow Us: facebook.com/roadtofamilyfreedom/ (https://www.facebook.com/roadtofamilyfreedom/) instagram.com/roadtofamilyfreedom/ (https://www.instagram.com/roadtofamilyfreedom/?hl=en) twitter.com/r2familyfreedom (https://twitter.com/r2familyfreedom) Other Stuff: If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit roadtofamilyfreedom.com/episodes/ (https://www.roadtofamilyfreedom.com/episodes/) Discover the tools and services we use, visit roadtofamilyfreedom.com/resources/ (https://www.roadtofamilyfreedom.com/)

In the last episode of the season, it's just Ayo and Olivia as they discuss all of their favorite icons! From Judy Greer, to Tim Meadows, even to friend of the pod, Ziwe! All that and more, listen now!!----THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY BETTERHELP!Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/myicon----THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY FEALSBecome a member today by going to Feals.com/myicon and get 50% off your first order plus free shipping!----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

In a mini-sode presented by Betterhelp, Ayo and Olivia check in with each other about how they're doing and their mental health during this unusual summer. And of course, if you're looking for help during this time, feel free check out Betterhelp. You can get get 10% off your first month through betterhelp.com/myicon.----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

Janelle joins us in conversation about her icon, Grace Jones! Janelle reveals the moment she realize Grace was an icon, why there couldn't be a Grace Jones today, and ultimately, which man could sleep with Halle Berry on a bed of diamonds. Plus, Ayo discusses Jim Carrey and Olivia talks Kenan Thompson. Enjoy!----THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY BETTERHELP!Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/myicon----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

LeBron James! Hayes Davenport joins us in conversation about his icon, LeBron James! In our longest episode yet, Hayes discusses exclusive information concerning the "Space Jam" sequel, the Vine kid who said LeBron's name, and LeBron's obsession with high school. Plus, Ayo and Olivia discuss "Tootsie," Teri Garr, and which characters they would be in "Rachel Getting Married!"----THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY BETTERHELP!Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/myicon!----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

In a mini-sode presented by Betterhelp, Ayo and Olivia check in with each other about how they're doing and their mental health during this unusual summer. And of course, if you're looking for help during this time, feel free check out Betterhelp. You can get get 10% off your first month through betterhelp.com/myicon.----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

Reviewers: Scooter Mann, Maggie Allen, Michelle Morrison, Diana Raynes, and Max Baskin Editing: David Allen Show Information * Who's the show-runner(s) and what is their title? Connor Wright (co-creator/writer/Mikey), Christina Friel (co-creator/writer/President Clay), Ben Lapidus (sound designer/composer) What is the story of why you started your show? Connor and I (Christina) met in our sketch comedy group in college in New York. We both studied TV writing, and once we graduated we realized that that dream was pretty far fetched as young twenty-somethings with no prior credits. At that time, podcasts were becoming more mainstream and we decided that this idea would be a lot cooler (and a lot more feasible) if it was something you could listen to. We starting writing this in late 2016 (!!!) inspired by gayness and our general fear of Mike Pence/Clay Aiken. Enter Ben, a longtime friend and sound design wonderkid into the mix. Once he created and showed us the theme song, we knew we were in it for the long haul. Over the next two years, we wrote and rewrote, and then recorded and mixed everything out of Ben's bedroom (sorry Ben.) What genre(s) apply to your show (e.g. horror, post apocalypse, comedy...): Comedy, Narrative, Young Adult, Satire Episode Information * Name: Gay Academy * Episode Number: 1 * Publish Date: 1/3/2019 Background: No prior knowledge needed since it's the pilot! :D Special Guests: David Allen, Diane Raynes, Maggie Allen, Max Baskin, and Michelle Morrison.

Joel Kim Booster joins us this week to talk Miss Congeniality herself, Sandra Bullock! Joel talks the impact "The Blind Side" had, what her role would be in "Big Little Lies," and what roles she played that Julia Roberts could never. Plus, Ayo talks Walter Matthau and Olivia's icon is vegetables. Enjoy!----THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY BETTERHELP!Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/myicon!----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

Alex English joins us this week to talk about thee legend himself, John Legend! Alex talks John's marriage to Chrissy Teigen, his relationship with Kanye, and we go through his seduction playlist. Plus, Olivia talks Soul Cycle and Ayo talks Robert Redford.----THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY KPCCListen to “Hollywood, The Sequel” for free at laist.com/hollywoodthesequel or wherever you listen to podcasts!----THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY BETTERHELP!Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/myicon!----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

Griffin Newman joins us in the studio this week to talk all things Vin Diesel! Griffin recaps Vin’s entire career, talks about his performance in “The Iron Giant,” and where he sees his career going. Plus, Ayo and Olivia talk books and get into a fight. Enjoy!----THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY KPCCListen to “Hollywood, The Sequel” for free at laist.com/hollywoodthesequel or wherever you listen to podcasts!----THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY FEALSBecome a member today by going to Feals.com/myicon and get 50% off your first order plus free shipping!FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

Film critic of The Atlantic, David Sims, joins us in the studio this week to talk all things Colin Farrell! David talks his famous sex tape, he talks his role in "Minority Report," and we all discover there's a movie where he was in a phone booth for the entire film.----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

For the first time in Iconography history, our guest is their own icon! Ziwe talks the origin of her name, who inspires her, and her love for the Housewives. Plus, Ayo describes the perfect pasta and Olivia talks Halsey. Enjoy!----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

"Hi, we’ll be back next week with new episodes! But for now it’s Ayo and Olivia (actually! we wrote this!) and we wanted to let you know we’re re-releasing Dewayne’s episode today. We talk up top about everything that’s going on and what you can do. We also suggest using this toolkit to find mutual aid funds, bail funds, and black-owned businesses you can donate to https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/. Be safe."---We're talking everything from "Key & Peele" to "Get Out" this week with Jordan Peele's biggest fan, Dewayne Perkins! Plus, Ayo and Olivia dish on Lana Del Rey, how many blimps there are in the world, and the new Dora the Explorer movie.----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

What happens with a commercial real estate syndication sponsor puts his investors first? Today's guest does just that and is having incredible success. We talk about everything from how to vet a sponsor, to how you can protect yourself as a passive investor and more! If you're interested in passive investing, you're not going to want to miss this show. Today's guest is Ben Lapidus. As the Director of Acquisitions for Spartan Investment Group LLC, Ben Lapidus brings his skills in asset management and financial analysis to launch and grow Spartan's portfolio business line. With over 2 dozen successful deals under his belt prior to Spartan, Ben is also the founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships LLC. Spartan Investment Group: https://spartan-investors.com/ Catch up with Ben here: ben@spartan-investors.com - Check out the Fear Free Passive Investing YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/34ENWep

Zoe Lister-Jones joins Ayo & Olivia this week in discussing her icon, Fiona Apple! Zoe talks the effect of "Criminal," her thoughts on Fiona's most recent album, and how she discovered her music. Plus, Olivia talks Julia Roberts while Ayo gives her thoughts on Hugh Jackman.----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

Clare O'Kane is here to talk about her icon, Anthony Bourdain! Clare talks the legacy he left behind, his iconic leather jackets, and his undeniable BDE. Plus, Ayo and Olivia talk their favorite artists and set out to win Glenn Close an Oscar!----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

Everyone needs a reminder about just how good people can be. On Wondery’s new series The Daily Smile, host Nikki Boyer brings you stories that will make you feel good each weekday morning. With interviews, inspiring clips, and chats with special guests and passionate friends, The Daily Smile takes you on a journey into goodness, gives you all the feels, and will leave you with a smile on your face. Listen to the full episode: wondery.fm/iconographyDS----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

We're back this week with guest, George Civeris, who dishes on his icon, Courtney Love! George tells us about his runner-up icons, Love's acting career, and what he wants next of Courtney. Plus, Ayo talks Chris Kataan and Olivia discusses Amanda Seyfried's bathing suit in "Mamma Mia."----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

For the past year, Justin Long has gotten a peek inside the minds of actors, musicians and deep thinkers from all over. What makes them tick and how they find meaning in life. As Justin celebrates a full year of his podcast Life is Short, he’s joined by a very special guest: his friend Dax Shepard. Justin and Dax chat about life, in all its complexities. From managing relationships during quarantine to some of Dax’s biggest roles, to the legacy he hopes he doesn’t leave for his kids. Listen to the full episode: wondery.fm/myiconLIS----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

We're back and clearly have our priorities in order! For example, what is dune? And what is Dane DeHaan up to? And why is Bosch?----FOLLOW AYO:https://www.instagram.com/ayoedebirihttps://twitter.com/ayoedebiriFOLLOW OLIVIA:https://www.instagram.com/oliviacraigheadhttps://twitter.com/oliviacraigheadICONOGRAPHY IS A FOREVER DOG PODCASThttps://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/iconography/Cover Art by Carly Jean Andrews Theme Song by Ben Lapidus

As the Director of Acquisitions for Spartan Investment Group LLC, Ben Lapidus brings his skills in asset management and financial analysis to launch and grow Spartan’s portfolio business line. With over two dozen successful deals under his belt prior to Spartan, Ben is also the founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships LLC. Before Spartan, Ben started a multi-million dollar study abroad company and worked with several start-ups through IPO or acquisition.Tyler and Ben’s discussion focused on self-awareness and building the scaffolding to optimize your life. Ben shared his appreciation for self-awareness and acknowledging personal limitations, referencing the implications of Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field and how it contrasts with the egoless real estate investing environment. He also discussed how he’s building scaffolding for his life by letting everyone know where he’s at, creating routines, dedicating an hour for himself and surrounding himself with other self-aware people. Other topics included how his company is building a private equity business model, dealing with attention deficit disorder, problems with millennial mantras, complementary partnerships, The Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and more. Ben is a bright and resourceful entrepreneur with many words of wisdom for Elevate Nation! Music: Energetic Run (hooksounds.com)----more----You can connect with Ben via email or The Best Ever Conference’s website:ben@spartan-investors.combec21.comApply for coaching with Tyler! The world's top performers in any field have a coach to help them achieve drastically greater results and in less time. The most successful real estate investors are no different. To apply for a results coaching session with Tyler, visit coachwithtyler.comThis episode of Elevate is brought to you by CF Capital LLC, a national real estate investment firm that focuses on acquiring and operating multifamily assets that provide stable cash flow, capital appreciation, and a margin of safety. CF Capital leverages its expertise in acquisitions and management to provide investors with superior risk-adjusted returns while placing a premium on preserving capital. Learn more at cfcapllc.com.

Join us and our guest, Ben Lapidus, co-host of the world famous “Best Ever Conference” with Joe Fairless, as we navigate his expedition through self-storage investments. Ben takes us through his criteria for success in this specialized investing niche from finding self-storage deals to “evicting” renters and auctioning property. We even discuss misconceptions of the industry related to the hit TV show “Storage Wars”. Are you ready for a fast-paced lesson in self-storage investing with lots of tips and short-cuts for getting into and expanding within the industry both passively and actively? Tune in Now! THIS EPISODE’S GUEST: Ben Lupidas ben@spartan-investors.com

This week we present the master panel interview from Best Ever Conference 2020 featuring Travis Watts, Lauren Brychell, and Sara Lizarraga! In this interview we discuss: 1) Key takeaways from networking at #BEC20 2) What it's like working with Joe Fairless, Ben Lapidus and Hunter Thompson, and a few funny stories about each of them 3) Individuals we met at the conference that blew our minds away Subscribe to Dream Chasers on: iTunes: https://goo.gl/VMBZGa Spotify: https://goo.gl/6CkuqV Facebook: https://goo.gl/7JeMhn Check out Next Level Trax: https://goo.gl/ra5YJH --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dreamchasers/support

As the Director of Acquisitions for Spartan Investment Group LLC, Ben Lapidus brings his skills in investment and corporate finance to drive the growth of the firm's portfolio containing self-storage, RV park, & ground up development projects. With over 50 dozen successful deals under his belt, Ben is also the founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships, his personal holding company. Before Spartan, Ben started & sold a multi-million dollar study abroad company before working with several start-ups through IPO or acquisition. He graduated Rutgers University with dual degrees in Finance and Economics where he was the founder of the Rutgers Entrepreneurial Society. --- Visit https://aaloncapital.com/podcasts for all the links, and to subscribe. ]]>

As the Director of Acquisitions for Spartan Investment Group LLC, Ben Lapidus brings his skills in investment and corporate finance to drive the growth of the firm's portfolio containing self-storage, RV park, & ground up development projects. With over 50 dozen successful deals under his belt, Ben is also the founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships, his personal holding company. Before Spartan, Ben started & sold a multi-million dollar study abroad company before working with several start-ups through IPO or acquisition. He graduated Rutgers University with dual degrees in Finance and Economics where he was the founder of the Rutgers Entrepreneurial Society. --- Visit https://aaloncapital.com/podcasts for all the links, and to subscribe. ]]>

Welcome to Pillars of Wealth Creation, where we talk about building financial freedom with a special focus in business and Real Estate. Follow along as Todd Dexheimer interviews top entrepreneurs, investors, advisers and coaches. In this episode Todd talks with Ben Lapidus about self storage units and starting a business. You can connect with Ben at www.bec20.com and ben@spartan-investors.com Connect with Pillars Of Wealth Creation on Facebook: www.facebook.com/PillarsofWealthCreation/ Subscribe to our email list at www.pillarsofwealthcreation.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/c/PillarsOfWealthCreation

Self-storage with OPM! Today’s guest Ben Lapidus sits down and spills the beans on his strategies for buying self-storage units and running an investment fund with other people’s money. Ben has some really great advice for those who want to get started in self-storage, including how he got started getting 25% of other people’s deals, why he jumped from single family into commercial opportunities, and how he mitigates risk in the self storage space. You also won’t want to miss what he shares regarding how he picks a market, his criteria for buying a deal, and where he recommends brand new self storage investors get their start (hint-it’s all about size). If you want to have your mind blown, you CAN’T miss his technique for seller financing negotiating where he improves his terms by saving the seller’s money on their taxes-brilliant! This episode is completely full of high energy, content packed, practical advice for getting into commercial opportunities with other people’s money and we guarantee you will learn a TON. Download today and buckle your seat belt! Click here to listen on BiggerPockets.

Self-storage with OPM! Today’s guest Ben Lapidus sits down and spills the beans on his strategies for buying self-storage units and running an investment fund with other people’s money. Ben has some really great advice for those who want to get started in self-storage, including how he got started getting 25% of other people’s deals, why he jumped from single family into commercial opportunities, and how he mitigates risk in the self storage space. You also won’t want to miss what he shares regarding how he picks a market, his criteria for buying a deal, and where he recommends brand new self storage investors get their start (hint-it’s all about size). If you want to have your mind blown, you CAN’T miss his technique for seller financing negotiating where he improves his terms by saving the seller’s money on their taxes-brilliant! This episode is completely full of high energy, content packed, practical advice for getting into commercial opportunities with other people’s money and we guarantee you will learn a TON. Download today and buckle your seat belt! In This Episode We Cover: How Ben found real estate after finding success in other business ventures Starting off investing with partners and getting 25% of the deal with none of the risk or capital Why he jumped from SFR to apartments What he learned buying an awful property on his first deal How he put together his first syndication Why he invests in self storage How he found opportunities while looking for something else How he focuses on his strengths and finds partners to handle his weaknesses How he finds deals in today’s market His criteria for what he needs to see in a market How he mitigates risk when buying self storage Why he looks for “expansion potential” How he finances his deals, the strategy he recommends for newer self storage buyers to look into His BRILLIANT tax saving strategy he uses to save thousands of dollars on seller financing opportunities The one thing he think should be taught in school that isn’t How he recommends people improve their people skills and forming connections And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Webinar BiggerPockets Premium Best Ever Conference BiggerPockets Podcast 227: From Single Family Houses to $130,000,000 in Multifamily with Joe Fairless $13M in Equity from One Deal & Cash Flowing Despite Being Comatose with AJ Osborne

The full-length Gay Future Theme Song  Performed by Chris Renalds (@chrisrenalds) Written by Ben Lapidus (@benlapidusmusic) Twitter: @gayfuturepod Instagram: @gayfuturepod Website: gayfuturepodcast.com #gayfuturepod

The trailer for the upcoming narrative homo-saga, Gay Future. The year is 2062 and everyone is gay. A totalitarian government rules over what's left of North America to spread its insidious gay agenda. Humanity's only hope for a rebellion rests on the shoulders of a precocious teenage boy who harbors a dark secret: He's straight. A new podcast adaptation of a recently discovered, never released YA novel by Mike Pence. Created by Connor Wright, Christina Friel, and Ben Lapidus.   Twitter: @gayfuturepod Instagram: @gayfuturepod Website: gayfuturepodcast.com #gayfuturepod

In this episode, Whitney interviews Ben Lapidus, Partner, Spartan Investment Group, LLC. Ben reveals how a systemic acquisition process can help scout out and analyze great syndication deals with immense value add potential. What are the various precautions that you need to observe while underwriting a syndication deal? How should you tweak your acquisition process in a hot real estate market? We also discuss why storage development is an opportunity waiting to be tapped. Tune in now! 

Ben Lapidus has an incredible story of how he started building his real estate portfolio. Ben is currently the Director of Acquisitions at Spartan Investment Group and is also the founder and host of the national Best Ever Real Estate Investing Conference and managing partner of Indigo Ownerships LLC. Ben walks us through how he built up his single family home portfolio through creative partnerships and also shares his journey all the way through why he is investing in self storage today. Before investing in real estate, Ben started a multi-million dollar study abroad company and worked with several start-ups through IPO or acquisition. Ben's story is a great example of networking and how to create your own opportunities.

Listen in as Ben Lapidus, composer/lyricist/”Derek,” and Amanda Centeno, “Tib,” of Pop Punk High, discuss bonding over Sum 41, giving the audience permission to sing along if they’d like to, New Jersey basements, highly-reactive uncles, the overlapping Venn diagrams of “pop-punk … Continue reading →