From Futures and Commodities to Building Long Term Wealth Through Real Estate

My guest today is Samson Jagoras. Over Samson’s 13+ year career in business, he has served as a Futures and Commodities broker, a commercial real estate broker, actively invested in real estate. He also served as the VP of Strategic Investments for RE/MAX Commercial Alliance, built several businesses, and acted as the Chief Strategy Officer for an INC 500 company. After 9 years of helping to scale that company, he walked away from his high-income position to go all-in on helping everyday investors put their money to work in large commercial apartment investments. Today, as the founder and president of Growth Vue Properties and the founder of the Passive Power Group, Samson helps give others access to investments that they thought were unattainable and acts as a liaison, educator, and curator that gives them supreme confidence in their passive multifamily investments.

We begin today’s episode with Samson’s background story. He was raised in a blue-collar house where money was pretty hard to come by. But what they lacked in money, they made up in sports. It all started with soccer when Samson was only 5 years old. Later, he got into baseball and skateboarding. Then, when he was a freshman in high school, he started playing football. He was a great player, and all he wanted to do was play football at a collegiate level. But, when the senior year came, he didn’t have any scholarship offers because his school didn’t have a good recruiting program. With a help of his mentor and high school alumni, he was able to get a football scholarship to Western New Mexico University and that was his ticket to a college education. Later, he transferred to Colorado and got his degree in Human Psychology. He got his degree on a Friday and on the following Monday he started working with his father-in-law at futures and commodities brokerage.

Our next topic of conversation is how the market crash in 2008 affected the futures and commodities brokerage. In 2008, Samson was just starting his career in futures and commodities, he had nothing to lose except debt and student loans. So, the crash didn’t affect him personally, but it did help him realize that speculating was not the way to make money and that owning hard assets is the key. This is when he got interested in the real estate world. After spending four years in commodities, he decided to jump into real estate.

We then discuss how Samson got started in real estate and why multifamily is his real estate of choice. He explains that the first real estate he bought was a single-family home that he converted into an uptown duplex. He also did some fix-and-flips as well as some wholesale deals. But he soon realized that it is all about scale. This was the main reason why he decided to focus on multifamily homes.

We then dive into Samson’s predictions for the real estate market in the next 12-24 months. He believes that our biggest problem will be affordability. Even now, we see people moving from California to Colorado and from Colorado to the Midwest. But soon, those markets will also go up. He also believes that there will have to be some tax incentives from the government to try to accelerate affordable housing as well as the conversion of properties from one type to another: office space to condos or residential hotels to multifamily, etc.

Next, Samson explains what constitutes a good deal for him and how he funded his deals in the very beginning. The most important thing for Samson, when it comes to investing in new deals, is the cap rate, risk aversion, and knowing why you want to be in that particular market.

Lastly, we talk about Samson’s company, Growth Vue Properties. Samson is a commercial real estate broker, one of his partners is a commercial loan originator, one is in private equity, and one is a professional investor. They are looking for people who are making a good amount of money and want to invest with other real estate professionals. Their focus is on building a legacy portfolio. Their strategy has always been about providing long-term legacy wealth for their families and their investors. On the back of that, they’re also building their endowment fund, where you can give to charity in perpetuity.

Don’t miss this episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast with Samson Jagoras, who brings several different perspectives to our conversation because of his background and knowledge!

Notable Quotes:

“I knew I never wanted to be on that side of the business, just swinging hammers.”

Samson Jagoras

“I was so focused on skateboarding, which I think is what gave me a lot of my just relentless mindset.”

Samson Jagoras

“I did everything right because all I wanted to do, once I found football, was play at the collegiate level.”

Samson Jagoras

“When you do something that you feel is on your heart and you're supposed to, that builds your confidence.”

Samson Jagoras

“Speculating is not the way to actually make money; owning hard assets is the key to do that.”

Samson Jagoras

“When you're sleeping with a laptop next to the bed because you're worried about everybody going sideways in the middle of the night, it just destroys your quality of life.”

Samson Jagoras

“Every mentor that I had in my life who was successful, owned real estate or their own business.”

Samson Jagoras

“We're in a capitalistic society, so the government relies on us to do two things: create jobs and create housing.”

Samson Jagoras

“Affordability is going to be our number one biggest challenge that we have in the next 10 years.”

Samson Jagoras

“Conversion of properties from one type to another. like office space to condos or residential hotels to multifamily, those are gonna have the most legs.”

Samson Jagoras

“There's a misconception in real estate that things just go up forever.”

Samson Jagoras

“There's a million ways to make a million bucks in real estate.”

Samson Jagoras

“If you can't tell me why you're in that market, then you have no business being in that market.”

Samson Jagoras

“Your fiduciary responsibility, when you're dealing with other people's money, is to be a steward of their capital and do an incredible job. ”

Samson Jagoras

“Success leaves clues. So, I found a mentor and said ‘teach me everything that you know, so that I can get from point A to point B much quicker.’”

Samson Jagoras

“If you're killing it as an entrepreneur, if you're killing it as a professional, and you're in a career that you love and you're passionate about, it’s all about taking that income and parlaying it into other sources of income, and investing with other people.”