In this episode of the BigMikeFund Podcast, Big Mike welcomes Jonathan Greene, real estate thought leader, luxury agent, coach, and host of the rapidly growing podcast Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing. Jonathan shares his unique journey from lawyer to lifelong investor, and how mindfulness and building have shaped his approach to real estate.
From flipping homes with his father to investing in multifamily syndications, boutique hotels, and short-term rentals, Jonathan reveals how he blends active and passive strategies to create long-term wealth—and why learning from both wins and setbacks is key. With insights on risk, generational wealth, and building a business that lasts, this episode is packed with wisdom for investors at every stage.
About the Guest:
Jonathan Greene is a real estate investor, luxury agent, certified life coach, and host of Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing. He leads a successful team in New Jersey, runs monthly investor meetups, and has built a reputation as a mindful, community-driven leader in the real estate space.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EPISODE
00:00 – Welcome to the BigMikeFund Podcast
00:32 – Jonathan’s background
01:41 – From law career to launching Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing
03:41 – Why building businesses excites him more than flipping today
05:12 – Investing in multifamily syndications and building “snowballs” of wealth
07:01 – Why passive investing still requires active learning
09:20 – Operator vs. asset: how Jonathan evaluates syndication deals
11:20 – Diversification into self-storage, mobile homes, and boutique hotels
13:15 – The power of personal residences in building wealth
16:21 – Semi-active investing: short-term rentals, hospitality, and senior living
19:03 – What makes a “great deal”
23:37 – Zen lessons on risk, reward, and learning through doing
26:05 – Striking the right balance between passive and active investing
28:15 – Book recommendations
31:11 – Connect with Jonathan
If you found this episode substantial and want to dig deeper into real estate, or maybe you want to discover better investment opportunities, be sure to check out www.tempofunding.com.
CONNECT WITH US:
Website: www.tempofunding.com
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnJkdVoOsUy85ydkmot9iVA
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mzlotnik/
Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/TFmanagementgroup/?_rdc=1&_rdr
X: https://twitter.com/management_tf
CONNECT WITH THE GUEST
Website: https://www.trustgreene.com/
Podcast: https://zenandtheartofrealestateinvesting.com/podcast/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-greene-re/
Instagram: @trustgreene
Full Transcript:
Mike Zlotnik: Welcome to the BigMikeFund Podcast. I’m the Big Mike, Mike Zlotnik, and today it is my pleasure and a privilege to welcome Jonathan Greene. Hi Jonathan.
Jonathan Greene: Hey Mike, thanks for having me on the show. Glad to be here.
Mike Zlotnik: Thank you for coming on the show. I was just a guest on your wonderful podcast, Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing, and we had a wonderful conversation, so it was a blessed and I’m sure we’re gonna have a great discussion now.
Jonathan is a thought leader in the real estate investing space, his podcast Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing. He’s one of the fastest growing real estate podcasts in the world. He’s a lifelong real estate investor, one market team leader and luxury agent, as well as, a certified life coach and a real estate coach.
He calls in person online real estate, investor meetings. Monthly and he is in New Jersey not far from New York City and originally he’s from Brooklyn Heights and Brooklyn. Yeah. So welcome.
Jonathan Greene: Yeah, thanks. I’m really excited to be here. Thanks for the intro. And yeah, we did have a great time on my podcast, so I always like it when we switch the sides of the mic so I can be the guest as well.
So looking forward to.
Mike Zlotnik: That’s wonderful. So a little bit about you, you, your background, you are a lawyer by training and how did you wind up, running a podcast with such a inspirational, almost, tranquility name Zen
Jonathan Greene: and
Mike Zlotnik: they are,
Jonathan Greene: well, the real estate part all starts with my dad. I mean, I grew up, my parents got divorced when I was two, so I only saw my dad on the weekends.
And my dad was an attorney like I was. But all we did was look at real estate. And play sports and, you know, do other things for me. He wasn’t like strictly about that, but he was somebody who made the majority of his money in real estate, not as an attorney. so we were picking up checks from rental properties, meeting tenants, going to courthouse steps, foreclosures if I was there on a holiday or a weekday.
and then we went to a lot of yard sales on weekends and I always thought it was just so I could get like another. Box of baseball cards, which I was all in for, but he was making an offer on every home that we were at a, at a yard sale. He was building a relationship, having conversation. So, you know, I really watched that and then started landlording while I was in my teens, in summer.
So that’s where it started. And then the zen part came from me. much, much later in life about 10 years ago, just kind of being overwhelmed with my full real estate business, which is on market and off, and taking a year off and kind of doing the work on myself and then figuring out what I wanted to get out of it.
And that led back to kind of taking my lifelong resources in my brain on real estate, bring it to the podcast, and mixing it with a little bit of mindfulness.
Mike Zlotnik: That’s wonderful. you’re producing, phenomenal content and episodes, so it’s almost a little bit of giving back. I don’t know how it is for you, but for me, the podcast is just, is just a service for the community.
It’s, it’s a way to help folks learn and get better. so what do you like most? Do you like to invest? Do you like to teach? you have a, I like such a wealth of knowledge and experiences. And, w what is most fun for you?
Jonathan Greene: building. if I’m not building something, I get bored. That’s why I’ve changed careers.
You know, I did a long 10 years as a practicing trial attorney, six years in the art world, three years teaching, and then, you know, on market real estate, you know, your traditional real estate teams and brokerages for like 12 years now. But I just like building things. It could be a team. You know, it could be a new company, could be a new business.
you know, I, I like negotiating obviously with my background as a lawyer. Negotiating is fun for me. I like the opportunities that present itself in any kind of investment, but that’s changed as I’ve aged. You know, I used to be. It was fun to be more active. You know, I liked flipping. Now, I couldn’t be bothered, you know, because I, as I get older, I don’t wanna be as active.
I, I’m more interested in trusting experts to help me place my money and keep it away from myself so I don’t go and try and do another flip that I is gonna drive me crazy until the end than I love it. But, yeah, I mean, building, building parts of the business are really exciting to me. And obviously a lot of that is based on, you know, what I want to do for my kids and what my dad did for me.
So a lot of it’s like long-term generational wealth building and what will translate good for them in the future.
Mike Zlotnik: So what are you building now for your kids or for yourself that’s you are really enjoying? And if you’re investing, as part of that process, what are you investing into?
Jonathan Greene: Yeah. So the last, last year I, and again, as part of my podcast, I started learning about syndications.
It wasn’t something that existed or that I knew about when I was younger, and I was always more active investor, landlord, commercial properties, industrial and kind of land deals. so the last year or so I’ve invested in four multifamily syndications, which really kind of balances it out for me. I get access to multifamily, which I have no interest in running on my own or being a landlord.
I get access to markets that I’m interested in, that I wouldn’t necessarily just buy a one-off property in. So now I’m actively involved, but I’m also learning from the general partners as I go, in case I want to do that at one point, use my skills to turn into syndications for larger deals. So on the investing side, that’s really.
It’s more, building a passive creative playbook for myself that I can keep building snowballs in each one. You know, for each, one of the four investments. They just seem like snowballs to me. It’s how big I can get the snowballs, see when they’re done, and then see what I can just reinvest the money in.
I, I don’t, I didn’t invest in syndications in order to get the money back. I just wanna keep building a bigger snowball with, with that separate money, kind of similar to how I invest in index funds. I know I don’t need the money. So I just let it build as a come, and then I, you know, I have risk money and risk money comes with building businesses or doing a flip here and there.
There’s just no good deals, you know, in New Jersey. So taking a break on that for now.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, I’ll just add a couple of comments. First of all, you’ve entered the market at the right time, right? If you’ve entered into real estate syndications. Yeah. the market obviously has gone through a reset. So if you, if you’ve entered in the last year, you probably got into a whole bunch of really.
Solid deals after the reset. Yeah. Yeah. And then, then the other thing is, I really like what you said. I’m a big proponent of, learning from your, from your own investments. So as we all learn how to invest better, we also should be learning from the investments. And that’s, that’s the ultimate wisdom the whole life.
You, you should be learning even if things don’t necessarily work well. It’s kind of like this, right? If you. Invest and you get great return. Everything is wonderful. You learn less from versus, typically when you run into some bumps in the road. So any thoughts on this? yeah,
Jonathan Greene: I feel like, you know, passive investing gets a very unusual kind of reputation because people think it’s gonna be easy and you don’t have to do anything.
But as you were saying, I don’t think that you learn a lot if you’re so passive that you’re just not paying attention. And then money just goes into your bank account, you know, for index funds, like I said, that’s fine. That’s the intent. I’m not gonna pour over each stock in the index fund, but then I have a fund fund where I invest in stocks myself.
But yeah, for me, I look at it as. You know, this is a learning experience for me. I wanna, like I said, have exposure to asset classes that I don’t wanna have a one-off interested, and I’m a lifelong learner. I just learn stuff every day. Something new, you know, I’ll do, I’ve done like 50 of those master classes just because I like learning stuff.
And people ask me like, why would you. A masterclass on, you know, from an astronaut. I’m like, I mean, why not? It’s awesome. I just, I just, I, I, you know, I read a lot of books. I think it’s the middle of the year. We’re recording on August 11th. I’m at 46 books, so I just, I have a thirst for knowledge, like you said, and that’s why I think it’s kind of crazy when people talk about the fire movement.
I have no intention of retiring. I think what they mean is time freedom. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want, but I’ve been doing that. You know, for 15 or 20 years now. So for me, I’m not trying to get re to retirement. That just means I’m like closer to dying. So, I feel like I’m gonna be active no matter how old I am, whether that be.
Investing in, in smaller parts of business where I’m a passive, you know, participator, but I’m still watching the updates every month so I can learn what’s going on in the market. And, one thing I wanted to mention, as you were saying, you know, I got in at a time into syndications where some people made mistakes.
I didn’t, because I didn so much research and talked to so many people about syndications before that I was, that I knew to, to bet on the operator. The deal was important. The debt is super important to me, but the operator was the most important thing, and that three of my four are with the same operator, so I just keep, keep putting the same, you know, putting it into the same kind of flow that I’ve already been working with.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, let, let’s, they set this a little more, you, you’ve just been backing the same jockey, right? They say, jockey, be ahead of the horse, exactly what you said, and I strongly believe in it at the same time. I think the, the, some prudence in, in diversification.
Jonathan Greene: Yeah.
Mike Zlotnik: So how do you plan to approach this, continue to do, investments with the same operator or keep looking for, additional strategies, maybe less correlated to a specific, operator market?
if this is multifamily, are you looking to do anything in industrial shopping? Yeah. Or debt versus equity. Just curious. What are you thinking? And I do concur. If you find a great, great jockey and they’re doing well, well. Kind of don’t, don’t, don’t change things that are, that aren’t broken per se.
Jonathan Greene: Yeah, I mean I think I look at when those go full cycle, I’m probably thinking I move one into a different asset class, same type of structure, you know, that, operator does multi, I’m pretty full with multi, I definitely don’t need a more exposure to multi, I’m, I’m much more interested in self storage or mobile home parks.
again, not as an active investor, although I would be active for self storage. I’ve tried to purchase those myself. So, yeah, I, the, the thing about it that’s interesting is they’re not, those are in, in different markets. well, two, two are in Chicago, one’s in Madison, Wisconsin, and then the one with a separate indicator is in Dallas.
So my exposure can still be with an operator in different markets, you know, and that’s what’s interesting to me because I like the geographical diversification as well. But yeah, I’m interested in different asset classes because I participated in different asset classes as an active investor over my, my life.
I’m really interested in kind of the way that boutique hotels are going. I’ve had a lot of guests on that. That’s, interesting to me. And personally, I’m probably gonna get back into the short term rental space on the more active side. I’ve been aggressively looking up, you know, we’re both in the northeast, so I’ve been looking in the Catskills in Green County, ’cause I’m licensed up there as well.
So that’s kind of my next investment. I just bought my daughter a house. That was an investment as well. And you know, these are all things that I’m interested in. there’s not that much that I would stay away from. It’s really more operator based. But, you know, having the podcast as you know, you get access to so many people.
So I think I kind of got excited about syndications. and I’m pretty full. I don’t know that I need to like invest in another one right now, but when one of those goes full cycle, I don’t anticipate like. Pulling it out to do something active. But as you were saying, I do think I’d probably diversify a little bit more different asset class, more likely self storage.
’cause I feel it’s pretty recession resilient. Sue,
Mike Zlotnik: congratulations for on your daughter’s. yeah, it’s exciting. Is it
Jonathan Greene: an investment property or, or a house that she’s gonna live in? She’s living in it, you know, I bought it as an investment property just to, in the way that they want it to close on it. but yeah, I’m like renting it to her, but I bought it for her and it’s eventually gonna be hers or, or we’ll sell it out and then she’ll get the proceeds to get a bigger house later.
But we’re, you know, she’ll be good in this one for five to 10 years if she wants to be.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah. Well that’s, congratulations. They say the first property you should buy is always primary residence. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but at least, there’s something to to to that wisdom.
Jonathan Greene: Yeah. I mean, so that’s a really interesting concept.
I, I would just post it on something that, so I. I’ve made a lot of money on my personal residences in my life. I learned it from my dad. My dad was a flipper and also just an opportunist. So I’ve doubled my money on several houses in very short timeframes. You know what I consider short, like four or five years, and then I would just move.
And, and, I, I don’t think that the traditional investment world looks at single family home buying. You have people who say, you know, never buy a, never buy a house, you know, with a mortgage or pay all cash, or all of these different things. But I mean, look where we live. I just sent something out this morning.
Somebody bought two years ago at 1.1. It’s worth 1.5 now. Where else are you getting 400 grand in two years? Just by living there, did nothing. They’ve done nothing to the house and they’re up 400 grand. So for me, personal residences are important. I’ve never lived in like, you know, like big mansions. I, I live in nice houses, but.
My kids are adults. I don’t need a ton of space. And you know, same for the house I bought for my daughter. It’s small. It’s actually a one bed, one bath, single family home. A real oddity, but also perfect to keep as a, as a rental later maybe short term rental, maybe midterm rental. so there’s a lot of opportunity there.
But yeah, I’m a big advocate for, again, rates are high now, so it’s a little bit different, you know, I don’t think people can afford the house that they wanted before, but you know, maybe that’s all, something to figure out. I still think getting into the market and buying houses is where we are at least.
You literally can’t miss. Every client I’ve had in the last 10 years is up between like 200 and like $800,000 and that, that’s crazy.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, that’s been a nonstop, bull run, kind of in Northeast, yeah. after the great financial crisis. So anything you bought since that time has continued to do relatively well.
And you’re right, you, you could actually get a significant appreciation on the, on, on, on your, your home. But let’s continue. Talk a little bit about, kind of your journey, in. You, you like businesses, you like, you like adventure, you like, it sounds like you, you are looking into a little more passive, but then active again.
if you do, short term rentals, that’s considered to be, I guess it’s short term rentals. And then you set boutique hotels. Yeah. Also a little bit more operating businesses there, real estate, but. Half of it is also operating. Yeah. So, I’m just curious, what do you think we prefer to buy for long term?
The other thing that I’ll make, one quick comment is real estate moves very slow. Right? You make an investment today. Yeah. Sometimes you’re up in a year or two, but in general it’s a five year cycle plus minus. Yeah. So any, any thoughts on, Is it better to consider semi-active real estate, like short term rentals?
Hotels, there’s also senior living facilities, et cetera. Self storage is also, yeah, I love semi operating business too.
Jonathan Greene: Yeah, I, I mean, I like businesses. I mean, I just opened my own real estate brokerage in the on market thing, so that’s kind of what I’ve been building for years and trying to figure out, so that was kind of a big step.
It’s gonna be interesting to see how to make money in that business versus the big conglomerates out there, but that’s kind of. That’s what I like. I usually do okay like that. but yeah, I mean, in terms of short-term rentals, I see it as a real hospitality play. I think when I’ve done short-term rentals before, my sister and I had a bunch of them, before Airbnb existed, and did really well.
But the way that I look at it now is that’s the only way I like to stay. I don’t, I don’t stay in hotels if I’m gonna be there more than a weekend or it’s not for a conference. ’cause I just don’t want people knocking on my door. I, I don’t like it. I don’t wanna be next door to someone. so just for the way that I like to stay, most of my friends like to stay like that too.
And I do think that I have the kind of curatorial ability for my background in the art world and my flipping expertise to be able to create an experience that can kind of. Beat everything in the market or at least be at the top. So it looks like a pretty safe business, for me to get into. I will have help.
I’ll either have a co-host or something. I, I don’t wanna be fielding every single call, but I’m like, I, I, I use a lot of AI for my own personal self, but in business I’m like, really? I wouldn’t say I’m against it. I just don’t use it. To communicate with clients or to do the personal relationship building, which is where I think people are, are messing up.
So when it comes to, you know, building a short-term rental business, sure there’ll be some backend automation, but generally they’re gonna get to me if they need to get to me to make sure that the reviews go up and the algorithm, you know, works for that.
Mike Zlotnik: Okay. I mean, that’s, that’s a wonderful view of this.
And, I, I wish you all the success with short term rentals. We’ll see what happens. You, you, you don’t get, people reaching out to you in the middle of the night, Hey, I got a clogged toilet. But if you are self managing, there’s a little bit of risk of that.
Jonathan Greene: But yeah. Always have an, we, so when I was doing them before, we basically bought in areas, where my sister’s friends lived, and then they would just be there for, we always have onsite management close by.
That’s not me. So it’s pretty easy, especially with my background. But yeah, I mean, it, it’s one of those things where I’ll, I’ll get one, see if I like it again. and if it works, I’ll be able to kind of scale out the way that I do it. probably using less technology than other people. But,
Mike Zlotnik: so I have a couple of quick comments and we’ll go back to kind of what you, I really wanna ask a question.
What do you think makes a great deal when you make an investment decision? How do you think about it? And it’s different for different asset classes. yeah. So this, that question applies to multifamily. How do you know you, you got a great deal. And then how do you know you? You get a great deal when you invest into something a little bit more active.
I’m just curious your thought process.
Jonathan Greene: Yeah, I mean, for syndications, any type of syndication, like I’m looking at the debt, I’m looking to have at least five year fixed debt if I have that. I know at least the debt’s pretty safe on that as opposed to all of the problems that happen with Bridge or, you know, people have to come in with mezzanine debt.
So the debt is really like my focus, but I, I’ve described myself my whole life. Again, going back to going to yard sales, I, I’ve looked at thousands of homes. You know, I’d walked hundreds of homes as a child. You know, my dad used to push me through the window of foreclosures. ’cause we’d have the list. No one was there, it was a different time.
I would open the door, we’d look around, you know, buy for cash at auction. so I’ve always called myself an asset hunter. And when I, what I mean by that is I’m actually really focused on the asset more than the numbers. Of course in large scale syndications as an lp. the numbers are important to me, but I’m looking at the debt versus the projections.
’cause that’s all they are projections at the time when it comes to something more active. The asset hunter thing is so much more important. you know, I don’t think people are kicking the tires enough. They’re just, you know, looking on Google Maps and saying, oh, this looks good. You know, it’s not that good.
You could show up and that could be two years out of date, you know? I know what. It’s going on a basement. I know it’s going on on roofs. So to me, the best deal is the one that I can see something that other people can’t. so like when I’m flipping, I’ll buy a lot of homes that either have a structural anomaly or maybe like the last one I did has septic.
I know how much it costs to fix. It’s gonna scare off all the other buyers because where, where I am now in New Jersey, even on your. Dumps, biggest dumps out there. You’re bidding against regular home buyers because they’re so desperate. There’s no inventory. So it’s like, I, I can’t, I’m not paying what they pay, so I have to be a little bit more strategical.
you know, that can be off market marketing on my own, but I, I like HI don’t like cookie hutter houses. So if I’m gonna flip a house, I want it to be weird, which means when I go to sell it, I’ll have less people. Interested as opposed to just your standard colonial that looks like everything else, but I have more people who are obsessed because it looks different, and that’s how you make the most money.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, it’s interesting. You, you wanna stand out and it could be a beauty and a curse. Hopefully you, you find enough of
Jonathan Greene: the
Mike Zlotnik: odd is to be
Jonathan Greene: a beauty. It’s a little bit of a risk, but I mean, again, like you were saying before, like, I like a little risk, but it’s educated risk. To me, and I always have a backup plan.
So, you know, the oddities, you always have the backup plan of turning into, you know, some type of short-term and midterm rental long-term rentals, your last, you know, last case option. But I’ve run all those scenarios. But yeah, you, you could miss, you know, I’ve, I’ve missed projections on what I thought was gonna happen with some, but I, I don’t lose money on those.
I probably, you know, worst case scenario is I break even if the hold’s very long. But yeah, that, that’s kind of the fun of it. Same with build building businesses. I mean, I. I can’t predict if I’m gonna succeed when I’m building a business, but that’s kind of the fun of it, you know? Can I do it? I don’t know.
I think I can, but we’ll see.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah, I mean, what you just said is pretty consistent with, I, I follow Howard Marks and, and he, he’s a, he’s a, he is got some great pieces on risk. Yeah. And what’s, what’s really fascinating is, sometimes you don’t understand. The risk, you don’t understand the risk before. Sometimes you don’t understand the risk even after, and somehow having your in internal guide, assessing the risk of a given investment versus reward is the ultimate skill because, you, you, you can make an investment and it does well, and you could also make an investment and does poorly, was it a good investment or not?
And if you only judge by, by the results, then. it, it’s, it’s a, it’s a one-sided story, but the reality is we just don’t know. We don’t know the future. Something looks great initially and it winds up being, you know, strikeout and something looks poor or so, so somehow you see a head hidden jam, it works out.
Yeah. So any kind of zen lessons learned from, from this on, you know, as part of the investing and kind of thinking about risk versus reward, how should folks really think about it?
Jonathan Greene: Well, I mean, I think you have to assess your own kind of risk tolerance. Mine’s high, but mine’s high because I have a lot of experience.
If I didn’t have experience, I wouldn’t wanna have a high risk tolerance. I would wanna be a little bit more careful. But if you’re too careful, you’re never gonna do anything. You know, you’re gonna have be an analysis paralysis forever, which generally is not real. It’s just a lack of confidence because you haven’t built it up or you don’t know enough other real estate investors to feel comfortable.
But I think a lot of it goes to perspective, as you were saying, if I do a deal. And I do a flip. It doesn’t do as well as I thought, but I love the product and I bought it at a good price and something happened. Could be a market anomaly, could be the town giving me a red card, you know, whatever. Doesn’t really phase me that much because my perspective changed when I went through that 10 years ago to kind of figure out how to be more mindful.
And I think if people looked at everything as educational, you know, you don’t wanna lose money, but if you do, what are you gonna do? Sit and cry about it, you know, for the next year or. Figure out where you made the errors and don’t make them. Again, it’s like you could go to business school or you can learn by doing business.
That’s like what you know. Cody Sanchez, the best business school is being in business. So I’m someone who, I’ve done the schooling, but I’m just gonna go and do it. And I’m gonna see what happens, and I’m gonna tinker with it along the way. It’s not like I start something and then I give up. I think that’s what a lot of people do.
Maybe they outlay too much cash initially. They’re not good with budget, they don’t have a good plan. I always have a good plan, but I’m like, every week I’ll iterate on something different. Ooh, I don’t think that’s working. You know, let me play it around a little bit. But, but again, as you were saying, I, I do stick to my core idea.
I’m very confident in what I’m doing. I, I feel like, yes, I’m going to succeed, but if I don’t. It doesn’t like ruin my ego. I just look at what factors led to it so I can build something different next time.
Mike Zlotnik: I love your conviction that you just gotta do, and, and through doing, you learn. It reminds me a phrase, we, we all learn this, but we all got it the wrong way, right Already.
Fire, but it’s not how it’s supposed to work. It’s already fire, aim, and refi. You have to adjust your aim again until you figure out what works. And the, the best lesson is often is not the PhD in university, but just doing it. So that’s a great wisdom. Yeah. So just, one more quick question and then we’ll maybe jump to, any book recommendations.
Yeah, yeah, sure. You, you, you’ll listen to or you’ve read or listened to so many books, so, but quick question.
Jonathan Greene: Yeah.
Mike Zlotnik: At this phase of your life, do you prefer a passive investment or an active investment? for, I guess mental happiness, state and, you know, maybe buying some time back, but also having enough control where you feel happy about the, in.
Jonathan Greene: Yeah, I mean I think I got into passive to give me that and now I realize that part of my building nature is I need a little bit of active, you know, maybe it’s not flipping now this year because the deals don’t look good. Maybe it is short-term rentals, but I think for me, moving forward, it’s gonna be a healthy dose of both.
But everything that I do, that act is active, will come with assistance. You know, either co-host. Partners, which I’m not a big fan of, but someone there assisting me along the way, so I don’t get the overwhelm. And also I’m not looking to right now, like I’m not going out and saying, Hey, I’m gonna buy seven short-term rentals.
I’m gonna buy one. See if I enjoy it again. If it’s going well right away, I’ll get another one. And move from that. But I think, I think being all passive again, I’d be stuck in boredom. So I gotta be building something. I might as well be doing that in the field that I know the most about. So if I’m building this brokerage, that’s great.
That’s the on market end and the off market investment end. I still want to be building something again, and I, I look for things that I think my kids will think are interesting. That’s why like everybody likes flipping. When you have a. Dump and then you turn it into something great. no one likes it while they’re doing it, you know, because it’s terrible.
But when it’s over, it’s good. So I think for me, you know, now I’m 54. I’m looking for a healthy mix of both, but I’ve put enough passive in place, you know, added to the index funds where stuff’s making money on its own. So I have the, like ability to just go. Play the other game and be active where I wanna be because I had, I had already made those time freedom commitments a long time ago when I really left being a lawyer.
Mike Zlotnik: Well, enjoy
Jonathan Greene: doing my best. There’s an
Mike Zlotnik: expression, life is a journey. Enjoy the right investment, journey, also needs a little bit of enjoyment too. Yeah. And it sounds like you’re mixing it up. Yeah. great books. What, what, what comes to mind? You’ve read a lot. I listen to a lot of books. I’m like, you.
Yeah. we’re almost same age. And I, I, I too, like nobody wants to be bored. you want engagement and actually books. And lately I’ve also listened to a bunch of podcasts. They’re very engaging. You’re listening to people who are way smart, smarter than you are. And if anything, I think we learn much more that way than talking to people.
It’s kind of funny how. What do they say? wise men, they’re old and they, they, they, listen a lot more than they speak. So books and listening podcasts seems to do that anyway. Yeah. What are your thoughts?
Jonathan Greene: Yeah, I mean, well, one, the best use of time. I mean, if you’re in the car, which I’m in the car all the time, or if you’re working out, which I like working out or I’m walking, which I walk a lot, like why wouldn’t I also learn?
It doesn’t take away from my experience, it actually enhances it. So I listen to a lot of fiction, but. The best book that I enjoyed on investing that I don’t think enough people know about, it’s called, the Wealthy Gardener by John Sephora. It’s just phenomenal. It’s like a half mindfulness, half investing.
It actually does have stuff about gardening in it, but it’s, it’s more, it’s kind of like a, a mindful rich dad, poor dad. That’s not so straightforward. but, my friend recommended it to me and not enough people have read it. You know, in the last couple years, I, I, again, I listened a lot of fiction. I read, I really enjoyed Cody Sanchez’s book, main Street Millionaire.
I think people see her as kind of like a social media person, but if you read Main Street Millionaire, you’re gonna be out there buying businesses and that’s something that I’m also interested in as well. because that Main Street Millionaire is what’s capitalizing on, Hey, what are the businesses that aren’t gonna be replaced by ai?
Great. Buy those. You know, trades are unbelievable. If you can get into those businesses, it’s just smart. And then you can create a legacy. NPS, there’s just tons and tons of businesses, not just in this country and several other countries where the kids don’t want to take over the business. These are businesses producing a million dollars a year, and the kids are like, well, I wanna do something else.
You know, I wanna be an English teacher. ’cause they don’t realize the power of business and the compound interest that it’s had over, you know. 25 years. So they have to, they wanna sell those businesses to someone who actually wants to take care of ’em. So I think that’s gonna be a real big opportunity when other things aren’t going well.
Mike Zlotnik: Yeah. Appreciate you sharing great two books, recommendations and, the Wisdom of the day. Don’t go to college to get a degree in, jurisdiction. Right. Lawyer’s gonna get replaced. Yeah. Become a plumber. How about that? That’s, that’s a likely, have, have your own plumbing business. That’s, you’d make more
Jonathan Greene: money for.
I mean, half of my friends from law school aren’t in law. We all use our skills, you know, that we learn. So it wasn’t a loss, but half of them are, are doing something else.
Mike Zlotnik: That’s fascinating. What’s the best way for folks to reach out to you?
Jonathan Greene: Yeah, you can find me at social. It’s Trust Green with an e at the end, and the podcast.
Then in the art of real estate investing, LinkedIn’s a great way to find me where the business people are. I never answer my phone ’cause it’s just a terrible use of time. So a lot of people give out their phone and I’m like, you’ll never, you can get my phone number. It won’t make any difference.
But yeah, no, I just appreciate having conversations. Great to be on the other side of the mic with you and, yeah, I really appreciate, spend the time here.
Mike Zlotnik: Thank you, Jonathan. Was wonderful to have you. Looking forward to chat with you soon again.
Jonathan Greene: Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much.
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