Real Estate Underground

Mastering Short-Term Rentals and Affordable Housing with Denis Shapiro

• Ed Mathews • Season 3 • Episode 120

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What would it take to transform your career from a federal government employee to a successful real estate entrepreneur? Meet Dennis Shapiro, the managing partner of SIH Capital Group, who unveils his journey and the strategies that led to his remarkable success. Inspired by "Rich Dad Poor Dad," Dennis shares how he transitioned from stock picking to managing multifamily properties and ultimately, developing hospitality and affordable housing business lines. Learn about the crucial role of specialized teams and strategic partnerships that have been pivotal to Dennis's achievements.

Ever wondered how to manage short-term rentals under stringent local regulations? Dennis offers a behind-the-scenes look at managing hospitality properties on the Jersey Shore, including the innovative Surf Village project, which revitalized nine bungalows into a branded experience. He also provides a deep dive into affordable housing investments through Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), illustrating how his strategy maximizes returns on properties nearing the end of their compliance periods. Real-life examples from Pennsylvania and Virginia showcase the practical applications and potential market transitions.

Discover the keys to personal and professional growth as Dennis emphasizes the importance of networking, mentorship, and continuous learning. He shares how small daily habits can accumulate into significant achievements, his newfound passion for CrossFit, and insights from his book, "The Alternative Investment Almanac." The episode wraps up with a fascinating story behind Dennis's unique name, adding a personal touch to this information-packed conversation. Don't miss out on these valuable insights into real estate investment and personal development from an industry expert.

New outro for Season 4 (2024)

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Ed Mathews:

Greetings and salutations. Real Estate Undergrounders. It is Ed Matthews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us today. Just a quick reminder if you are enjoying the show and you have any comments, we certainly welcome those comments. You can even text us. That's a new feature to the show. But if you enjoy the show and get something out of it, I would encourage you to share and definitely follow and subscribe to the show. It helps us grow and so with that, I'd like to welcome Dennis Shapiro to the show. Dennis is the managing partner of SIH Capital Group in Freehold, new Jersey. Finally, a Northeast guy that I can talk to because I've been talking to so many people out on the West Coast and Southeast. But, dennis, welcome to the show and I'm looking forward to this conversation. Same here, thanks. Thanks so much for having me, absolutely, absolutely. So for those of us who don't know much about your business, why don't you tell us about who you are and what you do?

Denis Shapiro:

Sure, my name is Dennis Shapiro, managing partner of SIS Capital Group. We started off as limited partners about 10 to 12 years ago and we've transitioned from limited partners to joint ventures and now we mainly do locations. We have two business lines One is hospitality, focused on Jersey Shore properties, and then the other one is actually affordable housing focused. It's interesting because they're polar opposites and they just operate under the same umbrella, and then we also have an income fund. So those are the three kind of segments that we have at SIH Capital Group, but we'd be more than happy to go into any one of them or get into more of my background story, wherever you want to take this conversation.

Ed Mathews:

Let's start with you. Let's talk about your background and you've had an interesting career. You worked for the federal government. How do you go from the federal government to real estate? So, yeah, I definitely want to hear about the background story.

Denis Shapiro:

So the federal government is really great at incentivizing you to be an entrepreneur just because of the work-life balance that they tend to keep you at. So my background story is I actually started investing when I was 14. My oldest brother gave me a copy of Rich Dad. Poor Dad had a summer job, took that money and, even though I wasn't a believer of the concepts in the book at that time, I did realize, hey, I should probably buy an asset, right? So that was the most reasonable asset for me was, I think, mutual funds at that time, that's when you actually start to pay for trades. Back then, and I remember I bought it. I followed it along for a year I was like, wow, it's up $7 and the cost of the trade was $7. So it wasn't a great, great investment. So I was like I think I could do this better.

Denis Shapiro:

So I went down like this whole stock picking rabbit hole started following the Warren Buffett and the Peter Lynch's at that time period, and I went to business school for the whole. My only intention was to work with stocks, manage stock portfolios, and went in and fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to look at it ran right into the global financial crisis. Yeah, in New York City while being in school in New York City was not a great combination, like I remember sophomore year I was interviewing for internships and then by junior year some of those companies were out of business, right, so it was really dramatic, interesting. So I finished my bachelor's and I was like, what should I do? And I was like maybe I should go for more schooling, because that's always the answer.

Denis Shapiro:

And when I started my MBA program at that time I don't know why, like, I convinced the school to take me because I was coming in from the undergrad, probably had no place of business being there. But while at my MBA they had a career day, went there and there was a couple of souls for government jobs and literally just walked right up to them. Every other employer had lines like a mile long and I went there and had a conversation with them and then ended up having a 12 year career with social security. So that's a little bit of my personal life. And then when I got my first paycheck from the government job, I ended up realizing, hey, I need some tax write-offs.

Denis Shapiro:

And that's when I stumbled onto real estate I started off at I did probably one of the stupidest things you could do. I asked my older brother at the time, who had a small portfolio hey, is there anything you want to sell? And he gave me probably his biggest turd and I took it. I managed it myself, got into the weeds of it, learned a lot and I realized I didn't really want to do more of this the smaller rentals. So then I stumbled on securities and then it was a rabbit hole that kind of led me to where I am today Gotcha.

Ed Mathews:

Okay, and yeah, it's. The smaller multifamilies are a great place to start make your bones, but you heard cats for a living, right? Yeah, and so I'm going through a similar transition. Right now, we're selling off all of our small assets with the intention of buying much bigger ones, and, yeah, it's been an interesting transition. So, when you look at, you operate in two very different asset classes, but they operate very differently. First off, how does that affect your ability to focus on involved on the hospitality?

Denis Shapiro:

side strictly doing that, and then on the hospitality side we have in-plate management that oversees our hospitality division. They have nothing to do with affordable housing and they have nothing, it's just. The commonality is that I am an operator in both division. Yeah, I stay on the oversight and it actually allows me. One of the things when I was approaching my partnerships was I wanted to get very different skill sets than what I have, and I'm good at going on a podcast or going to a conference and everything like that, but I wanted to get partners that did not want to do that at all and then they really focused on the day-to-day operations and that's how it works. It allows me to keep things big picture but at the same time, like our projects are moving along because we have the right partners in place for that.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, it was an interesting thing, for my realization as well is that my company really didn't take off until I did the same thing right. I realized that I'm not a the old the Gina Wickman thing that EOS, there's integrators and there's creators or visionaries and you're obviously a creative. I'm a creative and I can be an integrator when I need to be, but I don't enjoy it and I probably don't do it as well as somebody that actually enjoys it.

Denis Shapiro:

And when I finally got that person in house, life was good. He gave like a roadmap to building a billion dollar company and what he said I thought was really interesting. He says the key to a billion dollar company is you start off with your 80-20. And then you go into your 80-20 of your 80-20. So you end up being at your 4R60, whatever it comes out, he goes, but then he goes. That stuff is all over the place.

Denis Shapiro:

But what people don't talk about is then taking your company and putting them into their 80-20. And then, when you do that's when you start seeing some real growth. And then the last piece of the billion dollar puzzle, he said, was when you put your employees into their 80-20. So that's how I look at. My partnership is that I want to make sure that A SI's Capital Group stays focused on only a few handful of items so we're staying in our 80-20, which is the affordable housing and hospitality. And then B I want to make sure my partners stay into their 80-20 focus. We don't really have employees, so that kind of everybody's an equity partner that I work with. So those are the things that I'm constantly thinking of, and you really can't do those things by yourself.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, pareto's principle is powerful's. So if you can focus on, if you can identify which is the heart, you can identify the 20 percent of activities that generate the majority of your results and then have the discipline to focus on them, you're setting yourself up to to be far more successful. But I want to drill into the 80-20 and 80-20 and 80-20 concept. So when you say, I understand, at the SIH capital group level, you that you're 80, you're 20%, is hospitality and affordable right. And then you have partners who are focused on just affordable and just hospitality right, that's their 20%, right. But when you talk about, so what's the 80% in their world? Right, is that? Where is that kind of your role? Where you fulfill the marketing and the branding and the overall vision and then they focus on making the trip.

Denis Shapiro:

Yeah, so I'll give you an example, like the 80% and the hospitality world, and I can give you the example in Fort Lauderdale. So with certain Jersey shore towns, they have very strict regulations when it comes to short-term, mid-term rentals. Their 80% would be dealing with the legal compliance of. So, basically, with one Jersey Shore town that we work with, we need a certificate of occupancy for every single guest that we have. We have that one property. We're doing about $400,000 worth of revenue average stays a week. So you could do the numbers on how many guests that we actually have. So their 80% would be to try to handle that.

Denis Shapiro:

I don't mind that stuff. And then we use virtual assistants as well to help with that stuff. But taking that stuff off their plate allows them to really focus on guest experience the real core drivers of what really moves the needle for hospitality. So it's stuff like that, it's unburdening stuff like compliance to them and structuring a deal and all of that stuff and then letting them focus on brand experience and all of that stuff which I don't really want to focus on. So that's the 80-20 in that situation.

Ed Mathews:

I understand Okay, so let me clarify. So, down on the Jersey shore, they make you get a C of O for every new guest you have.

Denis Shapiro:

It's town by town, but, yes, there are some towns. So there's some towns that just restrict it altogether. There are some towns, but what people don't understand is they think Airbnb is a new concept. It is a spin of a concept that's been around for hundreds of years. People have been going to the shore to vacation, or Long Island, or I'm sure you have the same name, whatever. There were certain towns that are summer towns, but the fact is there's certain older residents. They'll vilify airbnb because it's I don't. They have conceptions that it's these corporations that are coming, whatever it is. So these towns pass some ordinances that are archaic.

Denis Shapiro:

In our situation, we actually help draft some of the ordinances with the town to make it more balanced. But, yes, there are certain towns where every single guest you have you need a certificate of occupancy. Now, if you're a mom and pops and you have one short-term rental, it's not a big deal, right? Sometimes you could rent out the whole season to one family. It's one application, it's not. We have nine beach rentals in one property. It averages from a week to two months. So we're probably, I want to say, submitting 100 to 150 certificate of occupancy during the season. So those are the things that you want to take off the plate of people who are creative because that stuff will drain all their creative power. I get it, okay.

Ed Mathews:

Okay, so let's talk about the decision to go into affordable housing and then the decision to go into hospitality. What drove? Since we're on hospitality, let's start there. What drove? The desire to get into the hospitality. I know that's where you live, right Freehold, new Jersey is right on the edge of the Jersey shore. You're a decent five iron from the shore. Was that part of it? Is that where you started, or?

Denis Shapiro:

So number one, it was the partnerships that developed over time. It was just a very organic partnership, one of the partners that brought me a couple of these short projects. I knew him for a little while. I clearly saw that he had his mind worked very differently. He actually his company runs a lot of the farmer's market in the whole state and it was a very in real estate. You get a very cookie cutter approach to real estate. Sometimes. You take an apartment, you fix the kitchen, the bathroom, put luxury vinyl floorings these days and you rent it out for $300 more a month. Right, that's the business plan for 95% of projects in the country.

Denis Shapiro:

When I was talking to Brett over his vision, it was to take nine bungalows that were falling apart completely, rehab it, create a unified brand for them, create a unified experience. I wanted to work with him, so it was almost so. How I got into hospitality was the fact that I had a partner like Brent who I trusted I wanted to work with, and then when I saw it in action, I was like, yeah, I want to do more of that and I knew that there was a competitive advantage where the market is saturated with these one-off, short-term rentals but there's no cohesion, there's no brand, there's nothing. There's hey, you're going to wake up, there's going to be a Keurig machine there and that's basically it. There's no brand behind it. And that's where we saw opportunity. So when we had this project where we were like, wow, we get nine properties on one site, one main sky, one thing it's almost like I call it short-term rentals at scale and it just materialized.

Denis Shapiro:

And now, once we had this one project, we had a case study, a brand behind it. We call it the Surf Village, and even the naming became. There was so much thought into it because originally it was Bradley Surf Village, named after the town. And then we realized that if you just flip it and it's the Surf Village at then all of a sudden now you have a franchisable model, right, yeah, and now you could do this across the coast, across the country, whatever it is, and then you could actually apply that to like a winter model. And that's where we started getting excited.

Denis Shapiro:

So now we look at projects we're not looking for like a one-off short-term rental. We want where we want to be, a go into a town that's short-term rental friendly, or maybe something like a bed and breakfast, but now we have a buy box that we can check off and say, hey, I know the kind of deals that we were looking for. So that was the hospitality side. It was really a derivative from the partnership that I developed with Brett and it just it went lended well to him. Not everybody has a Brett in their partnership team, and then the other thing is it was 20 minutes away, so it almost became. The funny part is, when I moved to Prehold I didn't realize how close I was to the short, and when I started going to a couple meetups, a couple of the investors were all shore investors and then that also helped me get into the culture of over here and then now I'm hooked on it. It's such a great place, the.

Ed Mathews:

It's an incredible experience over here cool, all right, and then so affordable housing. So tell me more about that business.

Denis Shapiro:

Yeah, so like I have my Brett at Hospitality, I have Anthony in affordable housing. Anthony, I met about right at the start of COVID and what happened with that was a syndication that I was invested in was doing an open house in North Carolina and this was during COVID. So there's no, no flights out. So I contacted the syndicator and he was. I said, do you know anybody else from around here that's going? I don't want to drive eight hours by myself. So he connected me to Anthony and then it was funny.

Denis Shapiro:

My wife was like, are you crazy? It's like COVID and you get in the car with someone for eight hours. And I was like he's a real estate investor, I have plenty to talk to him about, and we get into this car and we hit it off and he's an LP investor like me, but he's done this general partnership on a few of these affordable housing projects. And the fun part is that first investment I ever made, that turd that I bought from my brother was section eight. So that's what I had, this conception of that's affordable housing, and I never wanted to do that again.

Denis Shapiro:

And that eight hour car ride Anthony basically he was like in the middle of a refinance for one of his properties and we went over the numbers and I'm like, wow, this is amazing, I don't see this in multifamily. And then he started telling me about the compliance issues and how there's these barriers of entries and by the end of that car ride I was hooked and six months later we purchased our first affordable housing project together. And two years later now I see the industry is saturated with so much value-add type of investments. But affordable housing. We have waiting lists. We don't need to over-renovate it's a different animal but we do have the bureaucracy of dealing with estate organizations, but you develop relationships with them and that gives you more of a bearing advantage. So it ended up being we're in. Sh Capital Group is known for affordable housing these days and the reason is because we merged with Anthony's company and his background was affordable housing Got it.

Ed Mathews:

Okay, all right, cool, and so when you so, what does your buy box look like in an affordable housing model?

Denis Shapiro:

So we want usually 50, 50 plus units, there's certain. So there's usually a compliance period. We would like to be at the tail end of the compliance period, so more about that, sure. So the easiest way I like to explain this is if you have a raw piece of land, right, the cost to build a brand new development on a raw piece of land is surprisingly similar if you're building a class A building and you're building affordable. Why? Because you have to run the utilities. You have to put a roof there, the window, all of that stuff you need to do would be the same. What's different is the finishing touches. Right, you would have a nicer layout, you would have granite countertops or quartz countertops. So there's little tweaks there you would do. But because the fact that the cost is somewhat similar, no developer in their right mind would ever build intentionally and say, hey, I'm going to build affordable just for the sake of building affordable, because there is a need for it.

Denis Shapiro:

So the government provides these LIHTC credits where it lowers the cost for the developers to build these affordable housing. Now, in exchange for receiving these credits, there's usually two 15-year periods that are restricted on the property, where they can only stay affordable for those time periods. Now, during the first 15-year period, usually the developers have a lot of incentive and credits to hold on to the property. That's second 15-year period. That's where we like to come in, because the credits and everything is phased out but the restrictions remain in place. So we would come in at that point we would buy, but now we have a very set exit that we could see light at the end of the tunnel.

Denis Shapiro:

For example, on one of the projects we bought in 2022, 2028 was the phase out period. So that means every year we hold it as it gets closer to market. That property actually inherently builds appreciation because it gets closer and closer to market. One property right now we're looking at that we have an accepted LOI on. Its compliance period is 2041. And because it's so far out, we're actually getting price for a door of $36,000 a door and it would be an issue if we plan to sell it in two to three years, but since we usually hold on for 10 plus years, it actually works perfectly. We're getting a discount because the compliance period is so far out in the distance, but we have no intentions of selling in the meantime. So it works out really well for projects like that.

Ed Mathews:

So affordable housing at $36,000 a door.

Denis Shapiro:

Yeah.

Ed Mathews:

Where are you finding this?

Denis Shapiro:

It took two years A like. One of our secret sources at SIH Capital Group is that we don't have a large team. So we know what we can handle and we know and we have a very specific vision we want to be. We want to get to eight affordable housing properties by 2028. This property will give us four. So we're in a situation where we don't need to buy. We usually have direct relationships with developers and then this deal is actually a broker deal.

Denis Shapiro:

Someone contacted us about one of our properties in Pennsylvania that we own. We clearly told him that we have no intentions of selling and then when he found out about our niche because that specific property was H55 and older when he found out about his niche, he said we have a listing coming up in Virginia. It's five hours away, which to us is not the end of the world. We're okay with anything from we have properties in Ohio to PA to Virginia Now it's in Virginia and then New Jersey, so we're within a five to seven hour drive from that area. So we were offered the it's a portfolio, 103 units age 55 and older and we went there and 36 a door because we're willing to hold it till 2041.

Ed Mathews:

And in 2041, what happens.

Denis Shapiro:

It's all going to be dependent on the situation. So the interesting part about affordable housing is sometimes you're getting a premium from what it would be if it was market. So I'll give you an example. In our situation affordable housing the pricing is largely dictated by HUD MSA pricing guidance. So what it's going to say is the government because some of these payments are coming from the government's not going to go and say, well, this city is out, 30 minutes from Philadelphia. We're going to find exactly what to pay that city. They're going to say, no, it's within a driving distance of Philadelphia, we're just going to pay it with what Philadelphia gets. So it's called the Philadelphia MSA in that situation.

Denis Shapiro:

So in one of our properties we're one hour away from Philadelphia but we're in a tertiary market, a very small town. It's landlocked. It's really interesting, has like a hallmark small town feel to it. We're one of the only like five apartment buildings there. But if we were to go market on that, we would actually be paid less than if we stayed affordable because we're getting the Philadelphia pricing for it Got it. So an example like 2041, what's going to happen is it's going to be all dependent on what is the market rate for that time, if the market rate's higher, we could just switch off. If it's not higher, we could actually then renew the credits and go for another round with affordable housing.

Ed Mathews:

And a round would be another 15 years.

Denis Shapiro:

Yes, so we would get tax credits at that point. So it would be just a business decision. Business decision Is it more financially lucrative to just sell the property at market rate and let whoever wants to do whatever their business plan is or renew it at that point get the credits which should increase the cash flow and hold on to it at that point? But it's a clear business decision at that point. But one of the factors is going to be what is the surrounding neighborhood looks like? One of the properties is located in a city called Petersburg, which is a suburb of Richmond. Richmond is really exploding, so in 10 years. But Petersburg is the rough part of Richmond. So it's a situation where, in 10 years, if Petersburg has continued to gentrify and improve, we might want to make it market. However, if Petersburg is still stuck in its own way, we might turn around and just keep it affordable.

Ed Mathews:

Got it Okay, all right. It's fascinating, and so the reason that you're able to buy them at such a low rate right here in Connecticut. Going right per unit is 85 to 100 grand a unit, but that's market rate. That's not affordable, yeah.

Denis Shapiro:

Wow. But we also looked on our last deal in Pennsylvania. We paid a door for affordable. It all depends on that deal. We were closer to the 1% rule on the Virginia deal. We're getting closer to 2% rule. A lot of that has to do with the debt involved as well. Again, closer to 2% rule. A lot of that has to do with the debt involved as well. So the thing is, when we're dealing with affordable housing, there's such a smaller buyer's pool for it.

Denis Shapiro:

One of the things about affordable housing usually the financing state authority always has final say on the actual transaction. So in this situation when we purchased in Pennsylvania on the actual transaction, so in this situation when we purchased in Pennsylvania, it's called Pennsylvania Housing Finance Authority Before we closed they have to give us a letter of approval. So basically they're saying that we understand that you're taking on the responsibility to manage these 50 affordable housing units. The state the last thing they want is for a transaction to go through to someone with no affordable housing experience and then put 50 families at risk. So the state actually has to certify it.

Denis Shapiro:

So when you're going through a broker to affordable housing, one of the things they're not just looking for highest price. They're looking for the buyer who's going to be actually go through the approval process, the easiest buyer who's going to be actually go through the approval process. The easiest Because we've had that first deal that we bought from the developer. When we went out to go eat and have drinks they said why would we go to you guys versus go to a broker? They said they've had five deals fall apart on them that have gone to brokers because they've gotten the best and highest offer. It doesn't matter if they can't close it Right.

Ed Mathews:

Gotcha All right. Right, gotcha All right. Hey, man, we have been chatting for about 28 minutes right now, so I'm going to move on to the final four because I want to hear, I want to get into what makes you tick. Sure, it's a fascinating business you have, and congratulations on all your success. So, finish this sentence for me.

Denis Shapiro:

My purpose is it's my kids at this point. I lived through them. That's that's it. That's the answer.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, it's interesting. My uncle and aunt decided not to have kids and he was, so he's the cool uncle, right, he's got to put in the cars and all that. And he once asked me he goes, what's your hobby? And I'm like you see those two little girls over there. That's it, that's it. That's my week all the time and, yeah, it's fun, it's the best thing you ever did. So I'm always curious about leaders like you and me, who have mentors and coaches over the years, and invariably we get advice and I'm curious who gave you the best advice and what was the best advice you ever got and who gave it to you?

Denis Shapiro:

So I forgot who gave it to me.

Denis Shapiro:

But the best piece of advice is because my whole business has been a exponential growth with the right people around me, and the best piece of advice when I got that in regards to building like a network and getting partners, is find three people that are directly ahead of you and find three people that are directly below you.

Denis Shapiro:

And what I mean by that is, if you're starting off and you have a one unit rental, don't try to go and become partners with someone who has 100 to 300 unit. You're just not going to have enough connection. So find someone who has five units that can get you from one to five. So find three people that can get you from one to five, and then find three people that are trying to go from zero to one, and then they will forever be thankful in your network when you get them to the one. And then you come up with the people who think so that's what I've learned, and sometimes I'll go to a room and there'll be someone that I really do want to talk to and then I'm like you know what we just thought the owner of the New York Jets is not going to have a good conversation with me, and that's where you just have to really make sure you have that kind of connection and you could bridge that gap with the person next to you and behind you.

Ed Mathews:

Right, I'm a firm believer in constantly reading. I'd love to tell you that I read a book a week. It's usually a book every two or three weeks, but I'm a voracious reader and my experience is that guys like you and me, we tend to be readers, right, and so I'm curious about how you sharpen the saw, so to speak, and do you read physical books, audio books, the saw, so to speak, and do you read physical books, audio books, podcasts, webinars. How do you take in information, and also, who are the authors and creators that you're paying attention to these days?

Denis Shapiro:

So most of the time I'm getting information from my network. I get on, I would say, between two to four calls a day with my network, so I got a good pulse of what's going on in different state, different asset classes, different thing. That's honestly the best source of information, especially for my investors. I get great bits and nuggets from my investors, so that's probably number one for me. The other habit that I tried to take away from GoBook, the miracle morning, was read 10 pages a day and it accumulates to a undoubtedly amount at the end of the year into the months. You've read a book. At least you read it. Yeah, you read a book, I think my last one. I forgot what was my I'm actually going to. I do try to take off sometimes and just try to read like novels that I don't have to think about and process. So I'm thinking I'm going through that stage right now In terms of, oh, the audio book which one I actually just recently read, listened to coming back from the Virginia trip was the new Tony Robbins book on the Holy Grail of investing.

Denis Shapiro:

Just, yeah, just. I found it fascinating how he 180'd from the first book. He wrote like when you read money mastery, it's all about like stock portfolios and stuff like that, and then to see tony talked about like private equity and exactly what we're doing, that was definitely pretty cool. So that was actually the last, I want to say say the last audio book. I listened to a podcast. I'm a big fan of MC Lobsher's Cashflow Ninja. I've been on his podcast a few times. I always find that he has some really interesting guests, like everything from investing in private jets to whiskey and all that stuff. I find that stuff fascinating. So those are my go-to sources for information.

Ed Mathews:

Interesting. All right, the last one of the final four finish this sentence. For me, success means control of your time.

Denis Shapiro:

12 years I worked for the government. I had no control of my time. It was just working with people I didn't want to work with in a situation where I didn't want to work with. These days, every one of my partners I absolutely respect, admire, literally will give up a kidney for and that's the number one thing just being able to take a phone call. When you went Before this podcast, I was able to go to the gym. I didn't have that before, so now I work just as hard. I sometimes could pull an all-nighter all of that stuff, but I do it for me.

Ed Mathews:

I do it for that flexibility of just being able to control my time, and it's amazing how much that, when you have time, freedom, how present you are. For first answer right, which is your kids. Yep, you're not chewing on. Okay, I've got to be at work tomorrow and I got to do these 18 things and you can actually enjoy being with those two little human beings when not talking about real estate.

Denis Shapiro:

what do you like to do? So a couple of months ago I started CrossFit. I was always athletic as a kid, and working for the government and building my real estate business didn't leave me much time, and the last four to five months, four or five days a week, I've been doing CrossFit and absolutely been loving it.

Ed Mathews:

Good for you getting jacked All right. Thanks, dennis. I've enjoyed this conversation and I'm really impressed with your business model and how you've put it together. It's been very thoughtful in terms of how you've assembled your team, which is something I think everybody can learn from If people want to get in touch with you or I know you have a new book out, which I wanted to mention as well If somebody wants to learn about your book or about you and your business, what's the best way to do that?

Denis Shapiro:

Yeah, first of all, thank you so much for having me on, really enjoyed our conversation. My book can be found on Amazon the Alternative Investment Omnic Expert Insights on Building Personal Wealth in Non-Titional ways. I wanted to walk an investor through a 20, 30 page synapse of an asset class where you didn't have to read 300 pages about mobile home parks. So it was 20 to 30 pages per each asset class. It's exactly the same format, so it's really easy to follow along. And then the best part is I have two question answers with people from my network that were in the space, so you could see how investors in mobile home park answered certain questions, and it's the same questions for people in apartment buildings. I have mortgages, private lending, a whole bunch of different assets that I think we come across with decent amount of frequency. So that's my book, the Alternative Investment Almanac.

Denis Shapiro:

In terms of the easiest place to find me is if you just go on sihcapitalgroupcom capital with an A. You just go and click learn more, and then there's plenty of places you could just reach out. My email address is dennis D-N-I-S one N There'sa funny story about that, but my name's actually not Dennis I realized later on in my life. But at sihcapitalgroupcom and reach out. I definitely love connecting. I definitely love connecting with anybody that reaches out. All right.

Ed Mathews:

Fantastic. So what's the story about your, your, your, not Dennis?

Denis Shapiro:

Yeah, so my name is spelled with one N and if you think about it, it's just D, nice. And then what happens is I came to this country when I was three and my mom went to the social security office and the lady my. So my European name is Denise. Denise is a male name in in Europe, so my mom was just going to do Denise on all our records and the lady's all. No, that's a, that's a girl's name here. So we're just going to remove the E and she never added the N. So I went my whole life and it was just that is so. Then it was one time, I don't know, I was like 27, 28. I was like, if you say my name literally, I was like that's not a dentist. So that's the story behind that.

Ed Mathews:

Isn't that funny? All right, hey, dennis or Denise, thank you so much for your, thank you so much for your time and your insights. I really enjoyed the conversation and, you know, continued good fortune. Keep killing it. Thank you so much.

Denis Shapiro:

It's been a blast, all right.

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Ed Mathews - Clark St Capital

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