From Navy SEAL to Real Estate Success: James Lascara's Journey of Discipline and Strategic Thinking

James Lascara, former Navy SEAL and now a thriving real estate investor, shares his remarkable journey from the intense world of military operations to the dynamic landscape of real estate. James opens up about how the discipline and mindset developed through his 15-year military career, including the challenging BUDS training, have shaped his successful transition into real estate investing. He discusses the importance of leadership, maintaining composure under pressure, and how these skills translate into the business world, emphasizing strategic thinking and decisive action.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Navy SEAL to Real Estate Investor
• 8:48 From BUDS to SEAL Deployment
• 14:43 Lessons in Leadership and Real Estate
• 23:00 Real Estate Expansion
• 27:29 Real Estate Investment Diversification Strategy
• 34:35 Diversification in Real Estate Investment
• 46:18 Navigating Childhood Conditioning for Success
• 52:44 Taking Initiative for Success

Transcript

00:00 - Hope (Announcement)
What happens when a Navy SEAL turns real estate investor. Host Preston Zeller sits down with James Lascara, founder of Elite Investor, to unpack how military discipline, mindset and adaptability shaped his journey into real estate success. From house hacking to building a Tampa-based mastermind and managing development deals, James shares how leadership and collaboration fuel his growing empire, from hidden gems to billion-dollar deals. This is the Property Perspective where seasoned real estate pros reveal how they spot value, others miss and industry disruptors share the unconventional strategies reshaping real estate. Now here are your hosts. 

00:40 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Hello everyone. My name is Preston Zeller, chief Growth Officer of BatchService, and I have James Lascara on the property perspective today. Founder of Elite Investor James, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing, sir? 

00:54 - James Lascara (Guest)
We're doing awesome today. Preston, Thanks for having me. 

01:00 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Great, great and you're out of Tampa right Indeed yep. 

01:45
Excellent, James. I'm really looking forward to hearing about your backstory in the military 

01:47 - James Lascara (Guest)
Indeed Yep. So I'm really looking forward to just learning from you and the nuggets of insight and that cued me into the value of you know having others pay your bills for you and those. Those folks were tenants, had a great time with that. And then in 2019, moved through the military, was in the military for 15 years I'm actually on terminal now and in the process of separating this year but moved through the military to Tampa from Virginia Beach in 2019 and really hit the ground running here in Tampa. So started several real estate businesses, was buying up a bunch of rentals from 2019 to 2022, and then pivoted to doing more ground up development here in Tampa. So we do several projects a year. Right now we have six going on. We'll probably hit at least 10 projects this year and then we also have a mastermind group here that's specifically focused on geographically aligned investors that are doing a lot of big projects in Tampa. 

02:39 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Cool, yeah, I'm looking forward to digging into more of that. Let's go back as we do on the show. I want to learn about your background history, how you've navigated all the forks in the road that everyone's got to do. I don't know if you want to start your military background, or, even before that, did you come from a military family? 

02:58 - James Lascara (Guest)
No, no, not really so. My great uncle. I actually had never met him in person. He was a pretty high-ranking officer in the Navy, but I don't know. I mean, I didn't really know him, so that didn't influence my decision, 

03:10 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Were there stories of him? 

03:13
I'm curious. 

03:14 - James Lascara (Guest)
No, not really, Not really. 

03:18
I mean, he was a great guy but we didn't have a relationship. So I don't know what happened in high school. I just got super driven and disciplined and like didn't really, I was focused. I was just focused. To put it simply, I wasn't really hung up on like partying or going out or wasting my time. I was focused on doing well in school and doing well in swimming. At the time I grew up swimming and so, uh, yeah, I remember being in high school waking up at four, 30 in the morning to go to go catch morning practice and thinking like that was that's what I wanted to do. I was just really, really driven. And when I became a junior, my mom was like you should look into the Naval Academy. You know, you like you, you like to be disciplined with yourself. It's a good, uh, it's a good trajectory for your career, it's good education. And being kind of a stubborn teenager, I was like, nah, I'm going to do it my way. 

04:08
And then I actually remember we compromised. I was really into triathlons at the time, and so they're like go to this Naval Academy swim camp, we'll pay for it and everything. And I wanted to go to this triathlon camp. And so we compromised and we did both and once I got there for the swim camp I was like, man, this is great, like I'm into all this stuff, right, I feel like, like what specifically? 

04:32 - Preston Zeller (Host)
What specifically? 

04:35 - James Lascara (Guest)
Like committing to something and then having people hold you accountable to that commitment. I felt like in life a lot of people I was around in high school I was in high school at the time Like people are soft, people are flaky, people make excuses, like dude, I want results, I'm driven, I'm going to get it. And so I felt like in that environment people understood me and I could relate to other people. So that was a really big catalyst. Uh ended up going back for a recruiting trip the next year and I was sold and I ended up going to the Naval Academy. That was a big driver for my mindset. 

05:08
I think it started in high school, permeated through college, and I've kind of been that way since. I'm big on discipline, I'm big on mindset, accountability, I have high expectations. I tell a lot of people that know me this like I have high expectations of myself and those around me. That's just always the way I've been. So after the Naval Academy went right into special operations. So I spent my whole, my whole military career in Navy special operations really privileged to get to do that, get to work with heroes every day. And that same ideology that I took as a leader from being a Navy SEAL. I applied directly to my business and that is, I think, a reason that I succeed to be really candid. 

05:52 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, so you were, you trained on Coronado then. 

05:56 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah, I was there in 20, from 2010 to 2012. 

05:59 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Well, thanks for your service, First off. 

06:01 - James Lascara (Guest)
My pleasure. 

06:03 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, so you were, you were full on seal, then you went through buds and all that yep yeah, awesome. 

06:10
What was that experience like? I mean, I, I know, I for me I've read, you know you see tv stuff, blah, blah, blah. I've actually read the. Obviously people give them a much clearer picture, when they write it, of what that's like and like the initiation rituals and like you know the mental toughness that it takes to get through that Um, obviously you're going to have to be really top of the top to make it through something um and be that mentally tough. What was that like for you? 

06:46 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah, I'll share with you a few perspectives. Their goal is to get people who don't truly, deep down, want to be there for the right reasons, and I would say they're pretty effective at achieving their goal. If you're there because you thought it was glamorous, if you're there for clout, if you showed up, you know, trying to get credit from someone else and you don't want it deep down, you'll be exposed. And I found it challenging. I found it challenging. 

07:20
I went through hell week in class 285 and I broke my femur. It was a stress fracture, so it wasn't like an acute catastrophic fracture right there, but I ended Hell Week with a stress fracture and I guess, to put it in one word, it was miserable. It was miserable, but I remember there being a time, especially during Hell Week, you pretty much get to the point where you'd rather die than quit and I think that's needed and I think that's needed. I think that's needed. It's. Probably a lot of people may not resonate with that, but for doing that job, I think it's. You want guys around you who are at that same level and you know, uh, you can rely on when, when shit gets tough, because it, because it will it was? 

08:03 - Preston Zeller (Host)
was it a stress fracture just from, like all the stuff you had been doing? Lack of sleep, all that. It was like that kind of it. 

08:09 - James Lascara (Guest)
Oh, just running, like leading up, uh, all the running, I mean you run. Sorry, I think we're have like a delay here. I'm not sure if it's my connection to yours, but, um, it's okay. Uh, you do a ton of running. I mean, just to eat in one day it's like one mile one way to the chow hall, so that's two miles round trip, and you do it three times a day. So just to eat you're running six miles a day and it's not like it's not like an all out sprint, like it's a shuffle. You're running like pretty slow but it adds up and so, like you, you for sure run over a hundred miles during hell week. 

08:48 - Preston Zeller (Host)
And are you running? Do you have to run the sand, or is it like you got your shoes on and you're running over the chow? 

08:54 - James Lascara (Guest)
hall. Um, so both you run, you're always in boots, but um, some of it's like soft sand run, some of it's hard sand run, some of it's on pavement. 

09:11 - Preston Zeller (Host)
So, yeah, soft sand sucks to run in, especially in shoes. I feel like it's probably it's easier. Yeah, I, I grew up in socal and used to run on the beach, uh, quite often. And, yeah, it's, it's definitely. Um, we'll wear your calves out quicker. So you, you finish buds and you go and you get I mean, I'm not totally sure of the process from BUDS to like you are an official Navy SEAL but you still have like earning your initial keep, to like go do missions, right, or don't you? Do they just deploy you like pretty quickly. 

09:41 - James Lascara (Guest)
So there's additional advanced training. So BUDS is almost like a selection and slight uh, you know technical skills, you'll learn some diving, you'll learn some maneuver warfare, you'll learn some shooting, but it's not, it's not highly advanced. And then you go into a more advanced uh training called seal qualification training and at conclusion of that you do uh, you're awarded with the Trident and you are officially a Navy SEAL. And then at the time they were sending everybody to I think it was like a three to five month language school. So I did that. And then you go to your team. So I did that because of my injury actually. So I was rolled as a brown shirt, which means you finished hell week. So I was rolled and I did language once. So I did Farsi and then I did language again. So I did, like Farsi, two after training, and so then I moved to Virginia beach this was in November of 2022, moved to Virginia beach and then I deployed in like late December, January, to meet the team that was already forward. 

10:39 - Preston Zeller (Host)
What, what? So what year is this that you, you're kind of, yeah, you're going through training and then, yeah, what is that time span? 

10:47 - James Lascara (Guest)
Oh sorry, did I say 2022? I meant 2012. So 2010,. I started BUDS. I went through Hell Week around. I think we crossed months during Hell Week. It was like September to October 2010. And then the whole training pipeline if you don't have any rollbacks and don't get injured is a little less than two years. But because I got injured it took me about two and a half years. Then did the language school. By that point it's November 2012. And I moved to Virginia Beach in like November, December 2012, and then immediately deployed with the team I was at. 

11:21 - Preston Zeller (Host)
And like what's the success rate of? You know, say, a hundred guys going to seal training, how many come out Like what's just? What's the percentage? 

11:30 - James Lascara (Guest)
I don't remember like our class specifically, I think it's like 30% or less, okay, I mean to even get selected is pretty gnarly, isn't it? 

11:42
Yeah, I got selected. I had the. I had the fortunate opportunity of getting selected out of the Naval Academy and I do remember this number, I think out of my class of 2010,. I think there were 27 guys that got selected and I think there were like 90 that applied. So that's just to get a slot. But then not every guy that gets a slot to go, not every single one makes it through. And there are also guys who maybe they go and they're a service warfare officer or SWO, on a ship and they lateral transfer later to make it into the program. So it's not always like a one for one type thing. 

12:16 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Okay, Gotcha. And so you, you go to Virginia, you start your deployment. So how long? How long were you in as a SEAL then? 

12:28 - James Lascara (Guest)
My. So once I got my trident, my whole time. So I'll be out this year in 2025. So you know 13 years, but I spent my whole 15 year career in the in the pipeline. 

12:40 - Preston Zeller (Host)
So yeah, and is it? Is it the kind of thing where I mean, I know a lot of people who go into, like you know they're, they're not spec ops, but they go whether you're enlisted or officer. You, you have your time and then you have to reserve a certain amount of time. Is that kind of where you're in right now, or is it just is? Are you still in that zone of just like you get called up for a mission at any time? 

13:03 - James Lascara (Guest)
No, so I'm not assigned to a team. I'm at like a headquarters command. So I work a staff role which is not really very rigorous hours, and so the last two years, as you get out, you're afforded a little bit more latitude to like do your get out process. And so I'm on my final time now. So my time requirement at work is mostly spent doing a lot of medical checking out, a lot of medical checking out, because what I myself included, what a lot of guys do, is they have all these eggs and bumps and issues they've taken throughout their career head injuries, some sleep issues, some sleep issues. 

13:41
I could go on and on and they kind of like put it off till later, and so you need quite a lot of time to dig into that. Like here's one example I have like pretty bad tinnitus, but I just thought that was normal. Like I just have ringing in my ears from blasts and loud sounds and stuff, and so getting checked out across the whole spectrum of everything that is going on with you. You know it takes a while to like go to the appointments, follow up as you want to get all these things documented before you're fully out. So I'm in kind of that stage now. But no reserves, I won't. I'll go straight from active duty to being separated. 

14:15 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, well, that's yeah, that's a long, long time, to 15 years. So you know, I know the the nature of your work is, of course, you know, sensitive. Know the nature of your work is, of course you know, sensitive. What can you share, if anything, story wise, from that time period? You know, going back to you know the earliest, if possible, that was just like what you, you know what you learned from it. You know that kind of thing. Anything would be helpful there. 

14:43 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah for sure I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about leadership. The thing that I learned the most about leadership is obviously lead from the front, lead by example. People are going to be looking to you as a leader for the values and the behavior with which to emulate. But I'll tell you, one senior officer told me this a while back and it really stuck with me. 

15:08
I don't know why this stuck with me in particular, but it was about like what you allow. What you allow, and he said, the standard you accept in your presence becomes your own. And so it's like you as a leader, you may not be the one doing anything wrong or bad or anything, but if you see something that's definitely wrong, it goes against the mission, it goes against the organization's core values. Like you have an obligation as a leader to step in and correct that. And if you don't, what you're basically saying is this is okay and that just really stuck with me. This is okay and that, just that just really stuck with me. So there were times in my career where, uh, you know that weighed on me heavier than others, but I don't have like a specific thing in terms of a specific example, in terms of details, but that was just one example, that of something that stuck with me. 

16:03 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, and I'm sure I mean I know the, the, the, the entirety of your, your, I think, just military training in general, certainly, um, going through what you did, it's a lot of like, how do you maintain calm under pressure, that kind of thing. Um, you know, I'm curious, once you got into the field, how much different was it, you know, from that standpoint of, okay, you've done all this training, now you're actually on a mission, was it? Was it kind of what you expected or like, how different was it, um, from that standpoint, just like the mental pressure? 

16:41 - James Lascara (Guest)
I think I think there's this uh fallacy. I think there's this fallacy that like, oh, those guys are just going on missions like constantly, and that's, when you compare it to the ratio of the amount of time you spend training, it's like not even close. It's like 90% to 10 or 95 to five, it's not even close. And so, like you've drilled things so much that the processes just feel natural and like I'm not I'm not going to say I was some hero or anything. I didn't really go. I never had like any crazy stuff happen. My career was like pretty straightforward. You know there have been guys that have had that, but that's why we train so hard. Guys that have had that, but that's why we train so hard. So you train so much. You just you know everyone's role within your team. You know your own role, you know what every guy should be doing at that time, and then you just do it, and then all that you really have to do is respond to any contingencies that come up. 

17:41 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Well, those are. Those are probably the more jarring things. In a way, I imagine it's like yeah, if there's something that's not what you plan for, how do you respond to that? I mean, how do they train you to respond to contingencies? 

17:59 - James Lascara (Guest)
You drill them. You drill the contingencies too. That's why you have things like a bump plan. That's why you have things like a go, no go. Criteria Like these are all things that you can plan as much in advance for so that you take the slack out of that. That Delta things that you need to focus on that were totally outside your control. That surprised the shit out of you. 

18:22 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, I mean, how often did it come up where you know something did arise that you're like this was totally not in the, the playbook of scenarios. 

18:33 - James Lascara (Guest)
Um, like yeah, uh like on deployments and stuff. 

18:39 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah Right, like just like truly unforeseen circumstances that, like you know, you didn't, you didn't see coming. 

18:45 - James Lascara (Guest)
I don't have like a metric for you. I would say I don't know, maybe like half the time I don't know I was in. We were deployed to Central America one time and and there's a lot of really strict rules when you go on deployment of like what you can and can't do, and so this was a surprise for me at one time. I'll share one thing. So we were training our partner force in Central America to interdict drugs. They're having like a big drug problem there and so we were training them to do maritime interdiction and interdiction in the littorals, like near the beach and stuff. And we did a little bit of training with them there our first four to six weeks there and then they go out on a mission. 

19:25
We're really encouraging them to get back out on a mission because it had been a while and their first uh, their first time going out like they kill a guy and we're like that's sorry, I shouldn't laugh because we have like a little mate like you get desensitized to it. 

19:38
So you can kind of you might have like a dark sense of humor, but the first time they go out it was totally righteous. He was in the wrong, he was moving drugs and he drew on them with his rifle and they just blasted him and I was like, wow, we didn't see that coming. We weren't with them. By the way, that was the rule I was kind of referring to, like we were not allowed to be with them at all. And so we're hearing this reporting as they come back. Right Dang, we didn't realize you guys were going to do that. Okay, so just having to deal with the aftermath of that, and it was totally justified, so lucky. It wasn't some I don't want to say too many words that get you censored on this podcast, but it wasn't like they're going out and just executing people. But it definitely surprised us because you know the first two months in country, we're like, oh all right. 

20:33 - Preston Zeller (Host)
So you're working with their local law enforcement on how to handle like the interception of illegal activity going on the beach. 

20:42 - Hope (Announcement)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

20:45 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Interesting, yeah, and you said you learned Farsi. Was that? I mean, were you going to Middle East more than or? 

20:55 - James Lascara (Guest)
No, they, they was really poorly. It was really poorly organized. They're like any many mighty Mo Like you're getting this language, you're getting Pashto, you're getting Spanish, you're getting Tagalog. Yeah, you're getting Farsi. James was like all right. 

21:15 - Preston Zeller (Host)
So just somebody knows one of the languages of the place you might go to. 

21:21 - James Lascara (Guest)
I don't know. I think it was poorly orchestrated, but yeah. 

21:27 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, because that's not a I mean, it's obviously not a Latin language, but, yeah, any language like just outside of I think what we're used to probably is kind of weird to know, outside of I think what we're used to probably be kind of weird to know. So at what point did you start getting involved in real estate? Cause I you know you've been in for 15 years. Yeah, what, what was that like? 

21:51 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah. So I bought my first house when I was let me see, it must've been 26 at the time and I bought it and went on deployment like four weeks or, sorry, four days later and I came back and had a note on my door from a neighbor. They're like hey, our friend had a flood at her house. She's looking for a room to rent. Would you rent a room? And I was like, hmm, I guess I'll talk to her and I'll just see. And she was an older lady, super nice, super respectful. I was like, hey, it's 600 bucks or whatever it was at the time, that I don't have to pay out of my mortgage. So she moved in, lived with me for like four months while her house got renovated and I was like, huh, this is like this worked out pretty good. She's quiet, she keeps to herself. She actually like she offered to mow the lawn a few times, like that's cool, I don't have to go out and do that um, and so then I was like, let me just get another roommate when she moves out. 

22:39
And ever since I mean I house hacked for like a decade and I like to tell people, house hacking got me to my first million and the reason why is because you're just arbitraging the difference as your equity goes up in the property over a long enough time and you're arbitraging the difference keeping that money in your pocket you otherwise would have spent on mortgage. You got to live somewhere and then you're investing that in the difference. So it's a big opportunity cost. I think by house hacking that you're able to gain, and so I did that. For five years was super busy with military stuff. I mean, in that line of work you're gone from home like 70% of the time. You're gone from home a lot and so I invested passively in a few deals on from home a lot. And so I invested passively in a few deals, some longer term type deals and then in 2019, what I did is I made my house in Virginia Beach a rental and then I moved to Tampa, bought another house and immediately started house hacking again, but the rental in Virginia Beach. 

23:34
I had a hell of a time with it and I realized it was because I kind of pivoted strategies. I went from house hacking which I knew that game pretty well but then I was like renting a house, geographically separated, and I just really hadn't prepared the right way, had a terrible time with it. It was vacant for three or four months, had a property manager that was pretty lackadaisical, pretty lackadaisical. And, um, I was like man, this is just, I'm just getting blown out by this, like what I thought it would rent for it isn't. And then I was like I just had this epiphany. I was like, dude, the reason you're this is going so poorly is because you were unprepared. You didn't do the training so that you knew what to look for not look for this strategy to be effective. So you can either. I feel like whenever something bad happens to me in life, I kind of like I really take a look at it. I'm like, okay, you can either stop right or you can just go super deep into the strategy, learn everything you can make this little situation better, but then also maybe do even more. 

24:39
And so, once I got on that, I was then in Tampa and interest rates started to come down. This was around like March, April around, when all the COVID stuff was going on. This is now 2020. And I just started buying rentals. So I, like, had this money I'd saved up and invested in, just like index funds from the stock market. It's probably about a half a million dollars, and I bought seven rentals in nine months in Tampa, and this was in 2020. 

25:06
So we know how that story went. And so I mean the equity. It was an explosion of equity growth, and so, as I realized years later, the time value of money return that I was seeing was in the return of equity was an unrepeatable result. And so what I did is I 1031 exchanged a bunch of those into commercial positions, like a tenant, and common positions into some of these multifamily deals. So, um, that's kind of a fast forward of what I did over the years with my rentals, but along the path, I started creating these other verticals within real estate that I thought were reasonable business strategies, and they have been. They've made it, they've been successful. 

25:51 - Preston Zeller (Host)
So yeah, so if you could like, let's dig a bit deeper into that Cause. I mean you, you basically went from, like you know a guy who was house hacking sort of out of like you fell into that. Because I mean you basically went from like you know a guy who was house hacking, sort of out of like you fell into that, right yeah, um, and then, and then move following owning a rental, which I that's, I've done that. 

26:09
I've done that too. Uh, I had a house I actually couldn't sell in 2019, I'm like I'll turn it into a rental, um. But and then, at some point though, it seems like you went, you know, kind of similar to your swim meet story, or like, ooh, I could get into this, and so how did you start getting like truly more like to your point? Right, you could have either abandoned it or just gotten very good at it and learn all the things. Where did you start at that, you know, to learn all the things? 

26:40 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah, so this was early 2020. And what I did was I was like, okay, I now know the math. I think I looked at some YouTube video at the time. But I was like, okay, I now know the math to accurately assess my returns on my Virginia beach property. Okay, so now I've kind of mitigated that risk learn more about property management, learn what questions to ask. So I kind of have that at least at an adequate level. I'm not crushing it, but I have it better than I was, which was subpar. 

27:08
And so I was like every property as a rental, every single property there is, works as a rental. It's just a function of what price. So if I know I can get dead at 4% at the time, that was a reasonable assumption and I know I can project for what my expenses are now or will be, then it just depends on what I buy the property for. So then I would sit down and I would like analyze 10 rentals every single day, or just like get on Zillow and be like, okay, how do I analyze this rental? And then I had a few friends who were in real estate so I'd send them back. Does this seem accurate to you? 

27:42
And so once I did that enough times. I just started making offers and then, as we know, the offers turned into contracts and I was like, oh okay, I bought my first rental. How do we cycle that and do it again? Because it's already paying me first month? It's cash flowing immediately. So I kind of I shot the gap between not so I mean, looking back, it was perfect. I had no way of knowing at that time. That's kind of lucky. But I shot the gap between not so disheveled or in a state of disrepair that it required hard money and I could still do it with conventional financing and get really great rates and not so nice that it fetched a premium on the market. But most of these I just bought them on the market. So every month I was just buying another rental. Once I got to that level where I knew what to look for and properly analyze it. 

28:34 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, and your monthly nuts basically at least getting covered. I mean, they're cash flowing, so they're positive, right? Um, yeah, and so you got. You got up to how many properties during that time period before you kind of started? 

28:48 - James Lascara (Guest)
1031 in them uh, I got like I think I had eight properties within, I don't know, maybe 10 months or a year starting that strategy and then I think at the time I started unload, I was like close to 20 units. 

29:01
I'd also kind of bought a four unit and this, like testing new strategy, I think, is sorry. 

29:07
Let me rephrase that Testing new strategies as an entrepreneur is something I think a lot of people do, and I think you should do it, because you're either going to win in that strategy, you're going to learn something really valuable, and so one of the things I did in that time was I bought a four unit in North Carolina had I bought it, ran it and sold it, and I've never even I don't even know what it really looks like, I've never been there and so I wouldn't do that again at a residential multifamily property in an area I don't really know. Um, I, I it worked out. It worked out because the market did its thing, but I wouldn't do it again, and so that taught me a valuable lesson anyway. So at the time I started to kind of slowly unload my rental portfolio. I think I was close to 20 units and I'd already started investing. I mean, I think I did my first multi-family syndication like early, so I was doing some of this stuff concurrently. 

30:08 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, and what was the model of ownership or investment? 

30:09 - James Lascara (Guest)
you said you were rolling that into on the commercial side, like commercial value add multifamily. 

30:12 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Oh, okay, got it. Yeah, and what size of units did you start jumping into? 

30:20 - James Lascara (Guest)
All of these are 506Bs or C's, and so they're almost all. I think the smallest one is like 70 something units, and then I think in the next month we're closing on one that probably be the biggest one I've ever done, which is like 375 units. 

30:34 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Nice. 

30:35 - James Lascara (Guest)
I'm not. I'm not usually the one finding the deal, I'm usually the one bringing like running some investor relations and helping put together some of the numbers on the deal and then investing in it personally. If I am going to endorse somebody's deal, I always invest in it personally. 

30:51 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Ah, okay, and so is that predominantly then, or how many units are you up to now? 

30:59 - James Lascara (Guest)
I don't even I think to candidly. I think that's a really vanity number of people like to throw around and I don't even track it and I don't, I don't know. Here's why If I have a half million dollars into a project that has a hundred units and I have 5% of the equity or whatever, like is it 5% of the hundred? Do I have five units? Like do I have a? 

31:20 - Hope (Announcement)
hundred units, so it's like yeah. 

31:24 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah, so the vast what I do is I have these investment strategies that pay me and when I have an excess of funds I put it into a deal with a team I trust and I think is sufficiently mitigated on risk and then I just let that thing run. I don't really I'm not like two in the weeds of that deal once. It's running every day, uh, but if, if it's, I'm probably in 20 deals Um, most are in the Southeast and that's. I've been doing that since 2020. 

31:56 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, so I, I get it. Now. It's more about you diversifying your investments across deals than being like the lead to go buy a big complex or something. Yep, okay, got it, and so is that. What you teach predominantly is that kind of methodology, or like walk us, walk us through that. 

32:18 - James Lascara (Guest)
I'm not, so I would not consider myself a coach. So we have a real estate investing community. That that's. It's the center of excellence for collaboration in the Tampa market. So we have over a hundred investors in it. Now it's invite only, so for people who are like brand new to real estate investing, it's not usually a good fit. We need, we want people to be at a certain level before we invite them in. Otherwise it's kind of not fair to our current members who are just operating at a really high level, and so that is just a place where folks can collaborate and grow their business together. So I'm big on the entrepreneurial business growth. Use leverage effectively grow a really high performance team. I think that's my unfair advantage kind of thing. But I wouldn't consider myself a coach. 

33:09 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah. 

33:09 - James Lascara (Guest)
I don't have a course to sell anybody. 

33:11 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, you're not, I totally, I totally get you there. So I mean, what's like I think the one someone listening what's like the big, I think takeaway potentially for them on. Like this kind of methodology you're primarily doing aside from the community and I want to talk about the community more but like I think, what are the advantages and what's the appeal to you to do this more kind of diversified strategy? 

33:40 - James Lascara (Guest)
I like having capital in different buckets and what's the appeal to you to do this more kind of diversified strategy? I like having capital in different buckets. So we have a development. I'm going before city council tomorrow and that's a development project and that'll be like maybe $150,000 return in nine months. Okay. So to me that's very short term. But then, if I can have and, by the way, that requires active involvement from me like I'm putting together the plan, I'm hunting for the deal, I'm going before city council talking at a hearing, maybe I'm doing a site plan, so that's very active for my team. 

34:14
But I also like the, the diversification of having something that makes me money while I sleep, and that's the opposite of that. It's more long-term. That's the property manager and asset manager both running the deal, make sure the value add plan is successful. So I guess I like having capital in a lot of different buckets. I also do a little bit of private lending, so when something meets our criteria and people need money pretty quickly, like that's kind of a sweet spot for us. So we have about a million dollars on the street. It's nothing crazy. I'm not going to like go out and start marketing for it or anything, but that's just another thing that diversifies um our returns. Why I like that, by the way, is because we get paid monthly and I don't have to manage a tenant or anything. 

35:01 - Preston Zeller (Host)
And those are like the private money lending aspects, probably only like what? 60 to 90 days on those, or are they long, longer term? Most are six to 12 months, Okay. Six to 12 months Okay, Got it. And so are you then tapped into? I know you invest your own money, but are you tapped into? Do you ever raise other money for some of these ventures? Or is it just managing your own? Okay, you do raise. 

35:28 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah, so my company has a debt fund and so we do. It's friends and family only, so I'm not like I can't market it, but we have a mechanism by which people can invest in our development deals for a fixed return. 

35:44 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Nice. And I mean, how did you, at what point did you put that together to branch out of like just using your own? 

35:50 - James Lascara (Guest)
money Slowly from like 2022, we're about to. We're about to actually transition. I don't want to get too into the weeds with this, but we're about to transition the way that we do it this year. But since 2022, we've been using private money, Because what you'll see with non-real estate professionals is people will have $100,000, $200,000. They're like oh, it's in a CD. I'm like dude, what are you earning on that CD? 2%. And so I'm like you don't need a liquid, otherwise you wouldn't have it in a CD. Do you want to earn something like 8% on that money? And they're like oh, that sounds great and I know you and I trust you. And then we do it. They love that. 

36:32 - Preston Zeller (Host)
So yeah, I mean, I think that just kind of speaks to the aspect of the business where you you've proven it and done it yourself and people you know who, who do like, like, know and trust right, but really truly those relationships they'll, you know, start to listen to you and help you grow it in that way, I mean, and I'm curious to hear what kind of the future holds in that regard as well. But, okay, cool, so you're, you're diversified and all these different, you know, multifamily, have you done anything in like other aspects of commercial as well? Is there mainly just like the multifamily stuff? 

37:13 - James Lascara (Guest)
You know, I I really want to eventually get in the retail strip center. I've invested in some retail deals. I've invested also in some hotel deals. Those didn't go quite as well as the other ones. But yeah, I think really like a primacy on multifamily and then eventually some triple net retail strip center. But I eventually want to run some of my own deals that are commercial retail. 

37:39 - Preston Zeller (Host)
So from a, do you want to develop or buy? You know resale. 

37:45 - James Lascara (Guest)
By existing? Yeah, probably by existing. 

37:48 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, why? Why the retail strip mall side? 

37:53 - James Lascara (Guest)
Because? Yeah, because you can add value on paper if you do it right, unlike multifamily. So you have a commercial tenant on a triple net lease and their lease is coming due in two years and that's when you buy the property. And let's say they were leasing it at like $18 a square foot but market is $40. Okay, well, in two years you bring it up to like 35 and maybe you do a little bit of TI to incentivize them to stay. Commercial is going to trade at a cap rate. In that equation, you nearly doubled the value of the property in like two, three years. Mm-hmm. 

38:35 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Interesting, yeah, and so those who may be listening don't know. So. Triple net is basically shared expenses of the like common areas. Is that correct? 

38:49 - James Lascara (Guest)
yes, you're billing back. You're billing them back for uh taxes, insurance and uh and cam common area maintenance okay, got it um, and then ti tenant improvement. 

39:02 - Preston Zeller (Host)
So, uh, how, how did you get on to that kind of notion? Is that someone you met who kind of introduced that to you? 

39:10 - James Lascara (Guest)
yeah, I'm so big on collaboration, like if you don't, this is, I guess, if, if anybody's listening and they're going to take one thing away, I guess I'll give two things real quick. Take two things away from this episode. One is that, in terms of leadership, your business will never surpass the level of your leadership. So if your business is really faltering, look inwardly at yourself. Is it because you're not a great leader? Are there areas you need to improve as a leader? That may be very likely. That's the first thing. Second, you're not going to get exposed to new ideas, innovation and breakthrough concepts if you're not surrounding yourself with savages, and so you need to collaborate with people that are operating at a high level. 

39:56
All of the business I tell people this all of the business growth I've ever experienced has never been absent of two things, and that's collaboration and consistency. If I'm not consistent, it won't happen. If I'm not collaborating, it won't happen. So, to answer your short question, though, my broker so I have my real estate license that's kind of another vertical that I added back in 2021. And so my broker is is big into that space and he's running some projects here in Tampa that are very successful. 

40:27 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Nice. Are you a broker in Florida? Obviously not Virginia. 

40:33 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah, I don't have my. I just have my real estate license here in Tampa. But yeah, it's a Tampa boutique brokerage. We're small. Quality over quantity kind of thing. 

40:41 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, no, I love what you said there about surrounding yourself with the right people. I mean, I think a lot of people listening are going to go. Oh yeah, I know that. But there's such a big difference between kind of intellectually knowing that and doing it and not just reading books either, or even in just listening to this podcast, like that's going to give you some information, but the ideas you get just by sharing where you want to go is. This all has been so fascinating to me because you think you you're so clear and then you share your idea with somebody and they give you a piece of advice that you're like Whoa, that opened it up. 

41:22 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah, not to not to be too granola here or anything, but if you are literally just in proximity to a group of high achievers and you don't even communicate, you are I think it's like 20 something percent more likely to achieve more than if you aren't. If you're just in proximity. So there's like an energy thing there. Uh and, and I believe it, I mean the opposite is also true. That's probably the dark part of it. If you're around people who are naysaying, I'll tell you something I learned on this path too. 

41:56
If you're around people that are naysaying and negative and they just they're not supportive at all, that's going to bring you down. But I like to ask did they get a result that I'm looking to achieve? Because if they have something negative to say about the path I'm on but they don't aren't living the kind of life that I want or achieve the result that I'm looking for, they have no advice to give me. Yep, yeah, yeah, I mean I like love my family, close with them, very supportive. When I was really getting into real estate, they're like do you really want to do this real estate? I'm like they're not doing it either. They're unqualified, like they're unqualified in this one thing and that's okay, just be aware of it, yeah, so I would take that advice. 

42:43 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Well, you know, a lot of people project their fears right, like you know. You say oh, I'm going to go do this thing to someone. You know, oftentimes family members never done it and I just go. Why would you do that? That sounds crazy, it sounds too risky. And just because they don't understand sounds crazy. It sounds too risky, um, and just because they don't understand they wouldn't do it themselves. Why would they understand? You know, yeah, oftentimes, um, are you married kids? 

43:07
neither okay, got it. Um, yeah, it always helps to uh get that, get that context and you're like your parents real quick. What, what did they do growing up? 

43:18 - James Lascara (Guest)
They were both civil engineers. I grew up with two brothers, so I was in the middle Super competitive since I was a kid. 

43:27 - Preston Zeller (Host)
I was middle too. All the psychologists said we were the most messed up ones growing up. 

43:35 - James Lascara (Guest)
I don't disagree. 

43:37 - Preston Zeller (Host)
But why is that? Uh, why did I think? Um, they said that because you got so much, uh, so much pressure from the older sibling and the younger sibling, or, like you know, whatever the sibling dynamics, and then parents in theory, gave the firstborn so much attention and then the lastborn so much attention, but you got ignored. I actually find that, in some ways, middle children are a little more stable just because they had to figure it out and you, you, you work through a lot of the you know, I don't know the, the relationship nuances that you got to develop later on in life, versus being overly catered to as a younger kid or, you know, having the oldest child syndrome. That's my psychoanalysis of it. I could be totally wrong, but it's fascinating, isn't it? 

44:32 - James Lascara (Guest)
I mean, I have this theory that some of the most driven entrepreneurs this is like a lot of people you get on social media and you talk about or you see a lot of content rather, that's like grind and hustle and stuff. I feel like there's a dark part of entrepreneurship that's not really talked about too often. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. I kind of feel like the most successful entrepreneurs also were conditioned at a pretty young age that the amount of support or adoration or love they received was conditional on the result they produced as a kid, and so this drives an entrepreneur to seek more and more and more or better, more improvements. Just keep going through all the challenges, because this business is definitely challenging. I don't know. What do you think of that? 

45:26 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Well, you know, so this is kind of a tougher one. So my one of my brothers that was in the military, he died in 2019. And so you know that caused me to go through a lot of reflection. But one of them was like to your point about you know how you, how you sort of navigate the and are programmed in some ways to function and experience success and what drives you there. It's like we make vows early in life and I had to kind of go back in time once my brother passed to think about what vows I made in life, because when he died, one of my vows that I had made in my head with my brother died with him, and so you feel rudderless. 

46:14
But I think oftentimes it's between you and a parent or you and a sibling, or maybe it's both, and it's like that's the thing that drives you, and when that thing runs out, I think people can become rudderless, but it can also steer you in a way. As you were explaining, that is is really not like ultimately healthy, but it's, and it's not actually like probably even what you want maybe. So you have to really search deep down and even back to what you're saying about budge training, like why are you doing this thing you're doing? Is it just like a robotic exercise, or is there some really more profound reason that you can connect to as to why you're willing to suffer through the hard times of entrepreneurship in general? You know, know, let alone you know real estate. So that's, that's my take on it. I'm just curious your thoughts there. 

47:05 - James Lascara (Guest)
I agree. I agree, there's something there. I think a lot of our characteristics as an adult is formed as a conditioning in our childhood, so yeah, that's not a bad thing, so yeah, that's not a bad. 

47:21 - Preston Zeller (Host)
So what? Yeah, I mean it's where it's unavoidable. You get to be an adult, you had a childhood somewhere, right, and so yeah you get the other hand, too, you get. 

47:31 - James Lascara (Guest)
You get spoiled, you get everything Like. If I wanted someone to be resilient in life, I wouldn't have them grow up getting everything they ever wanted. I'd want to make sure they didn't get what they want a lot of times. So you see the opposite too. 

47:46 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Anyway, yeah, no, I mean, I have three kids and you know they're all you know, uh, around 10 years old, but uh, it's definitely at that point of, or you know they've always been. You're balancing that yes to this, no to this, and how do they respond to the no? Everyone loves a yes, um, when you're asking for something you want, but the no, how you respond to that. My wife and I are constantly like refining that and going, okay, this thing is the, this thing is possible. Could say yes, we're just going to say no on principle because you know it's like their level of actually had my son do this last night. 

48:23
I said no to something, forget what it was, but I had him go write a list of the last 10 things he was grateful for, just because he was, you know, kind of definitely losing his perspective. He's eight, so makes sense. But it's like, yeah, if you can drill those things in earlier on, why wouldn't you? So what's the strip malls? That sounds really interesting, I mean. And you got the mastermind. Do you want to talk about the mastermind program and kind of what's going on there? 

48:54 - James Lascara (Guest)
Yeah, yeah. 

48:55
So what's interesting is it's a geographically focused mastermind. So everybody's doing deals in Tampa Bay. Probably 95% of people are also located here. For people who aren't located here, they're doing deals here remotely person. 

49:21
So we get together at least once a month, usually twice a month, and we're actually doing it later today, like we're going to a group members flip. That's going well. He learned some lessons along the way, sourced it off market, nearing the end of completion, going to list it on the market, and so we'll get together and go over all of his lessons from that project and then that might be a catalyst for somebody else having a new thought or pivoting their business to do something better, maybe somebody implementing a strategy they otherwise wouldn't have like getting to list their own flip, and so it's really powerful because you get to learn through the lens of others in a collaboration mode instead of just being siloed to your own devices uh, you know, to your own devices when it's more of a competition type thing. So it's pretty, uh, it's pretty special. I enjoy it. In fact I do. 

50:09
Like 80% of my own deals they come from the group. Yeah, yeah. So we've got all kinds of strategies in there. I mean we have people doing wholesale deals. We have a hundred plus ground up projects, development projects, that are going on in the group right now. Six of them are mine or ones I'm involved in. We've got lenders in the group, we've got flippers. I mean we've got pretty much every strategy. We've got agents in the group who also invest, some folks who do syndications. I mean I could go keep going on the list. But it's valuable to get other high level people in the same rooms because there's ideas that inspire others back and forth. 

50:48 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yep, yep, and what year did you start this community? 

50:53 - James Lascara (Guest)
In Q4 of 2023. 

50:55 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Yeah, so it hasn't been that long a little over a year and I mean you got it. Sounds like you have a lot going on there. What's the name of the group again? 

51:03 - James Lascara (Guest)
The elite investor mindset group. 

51:05 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Okay, yeah. So for anyone listening and in the Tampa area is, you know, on the up and up and they're investing, that's a good one to check out or aspire to be in. It sounds like yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, anything else you want to share? Yeah, I see this a lot with newer investors. 

51:49 - James Lascara (Guest)
They tend to think they need to start perfect and have this perfect plan. And I'm not saying skip over all your risk mitigation and go to the casino and put it all in red and roll the dice. I do think there's a power to starting and starting today and taking massive imperfect action and letting the path that you get on help you learn the lesson so that you can get to perfect instead of trying to start perfect. That's what I would say Like take initiative, take initiative, yeah. 

52:19 - Preston Zeller (Host)
Awesome, I love it. James, thanks so much for being on the property perspective. Um, yeah, look forward to seeing person sometime soon sounds good. 

52:29 - James Lascara (Guest)
Preston, thanks for having me. 

52:32 - Hope (Announcement)
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