May 29, 2022
As a medical professional, what are you doing to protect your hard-earned wealth?
Listen in as guest David Iglewicz, DMD shares his mission to help other dental and medical professionals like him to get into real estate. David has been a practicing pediatric dentist since 2003. He has been through and experienced two major downturns in the market and personally lost a significant portion of his assets. David knew there had to be a better way and that’s how he found multifamily real estate.
[00:01 - 09:32] Finding Passion in Real Estate
- David talks about his career as a dentist
- Being successful in his field but wanting to do more
- Starting to invest passively
- His experience during COVID and not being able to practice
- How his multifamily assets helped him
- Transitioning to the active side
[09:33 - 18:13] Giving Back to the Medical and Dental Community
- Creating his company, Prostoig Capital
- Educating highly-trained professionals to invest
- Helping to change their mindset and grow their money
- What David’s future plans are
- Keeping the drive for life
[18:14 - 19:36] Closing Segment
- Reach out to David!
- Links Below
- Final Words
Tweetable Quotes
“A lot of people, especially syndicators, don't realize when they're dealing with a newer passive investor, how much trust that passive investor is actually enabling you or feeding into you and believing in you.” - David Iglewicz
“If they want to actively or passively invest, it's a no-go for me. They need it to invest in their own pediatric dental business because they need that business to grow so that in the future in 10 years, then they can start allocating money.” - David Iglewicz
“You need drive to live. I've seen too many people die too early or just fall apart because they were either given everything or they've left too early. You need a passion.” - David Iglewicz
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Connect with David! Email him at dsi@prostoig.com and head over to the Prostoig Capital website.
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I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
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Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
[00:00:00] David Iglewicz: If they're just starting out, I won't let them invest because your biggest asset right now is them and I want them to learn. I want them to learn about this, but I don't want them to invest because they need to invest in themselves first.
[00:00:14] David Iglewicz: So they need to grow as a person. and I will help them out if they want to find a deal and they have time for it, which they won't. But if they want to find a deal, then go for it. But if they want to actively passively invest, it's a no-go for me, because they need that money right now to grow.
[00:00:30] Sam Wilson: David Iglewicz is a pediatric dentist that transitioned to a full-time multifamily investor. David, welcome to the show.
[00:00:49] David Iglewicz: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:52] Sam Wilson: Pleasure's mine. Three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show, 90 seconds or less. Where did you start? Where are you now? How did you get there?
[00:00:59] David Iglewicz: Where did I start? We were talking about way back in childhood. Where did I start? Where are we talking about?
[00:01:03] Sam Wilson: It's your story, but you know, probably maybe to keep it in the 90 second window professionally.
[00:01:09] David Iglewicz: Alright, professionally. So I started off as a pediatric dentist, thought I was going to be a small time, pediatric dentists in a small time town, thought I was going to open up my own practice, ended up merging with a big player.
[00:01:22] David Iglewicz: And then we grew that practice quite successfully. He was the lead on it. And then I was always looking for something to do more than that. And I was always looking for something to invest in, try the traditional routes of stock market, tried day trading, tried all that stuff. So some of my friends get wiped out in 2000, then in 2008.
[00:01:43] David Iglewicz: And even though my dad was a statistician, he came to me one day and he was very involved in the stock market, big believer in it always thought it would always go up, but I kept seeing businesses that would go broke and I'd never understood that. And so they would lose money. I know I'm trying to keep this under 90 seconds, so I'm talking faster, faster to get it all.
[00:02:02] David Iglewicz: All right. So then what ended up happening was he came to me one day and he came to me in his typical Russian accent because he was from over there. And he said to me, David, you know, I had the C student, he was statistician or professor. So A students were always the best, right. In most things. And he always viewed education as very, very important, but you'd buy me anything related to education, but he's like I had this C student, he came back and he was in the masters MBA program.
[00:02:30] David Iglewicz: Got C's throughout it. But he invested in multi-family well, he didn't know it at the time, but apartment buildings and he's like, he called them a mega millionaire and he's super happy. The take away. I got from that was happy and then it was the millionaire and that's my premise is happiness. I love happiness.
[00:02:51] David Iglewicz: And he was happy and he was a multimillionaire. I can't stress that enough. And he was just like enjoying life and my dad couldn't understand it. And he said to me, he just got lucky and that was the first step. And that was way back before 2000. And that should have been the wake up call, but it takes me several years or 20 years.
[00:03:11] David Iglewicz: So fast forward to about 2015, 2016, my dad puts his arm around me. We're walking on the beach. He was sick. I'm actually at the beach. Cause I like to visit it from time to time where our last walk was. He puts his arm around me. He's all jaundiced. He's sick. I know things aren't going well. We're walking on the beach, puts his arm around me and he says, David, I'm really proud of you.
[00:03:37] David Iglewicz: And I was like, thank you, dad. And I didn't feel proud of myself. I was just lost. I was making all this money. I had this great family. But then I was bike racing. I was doing all these things, just, I was just wasting time and wasting time and I didn't feel successful even though on the outside, everyone saw me as this happy- go- lucky, had everything had nice cars, nice house, great family, but I just felt lost. So it takes me fast forward is that we merged with private equity in the dental business. Got to pay out the following year. And then I got really scared because all of a sudden I was double-checking everything my financial advisor was doing.
[00:04:21] David Iglewicz: I always did everything myself and now I will continue to do it myself. But I was relying on an advisor who was very nice as they always are, but there were just things that just didn't match. And then I started looking for other things and then being a pediatric dentist, taking care of the patients that I took care of, I realized that they stayed in apartments that I kind of was starting to veer towards in it.
[00:04:50] David Iglewicz: All of a sudden everything merged together. And I was like, oh my God, I can help people out with their quality of their housing. And at the same time, I can actually help out other dentists and help them invest. So they don't follow the same path that I have followed and then they can feel successful and they can get involved.
[00:05:08] David Iglewicz: And so that's like a short story, even though I went way beyond 90 secondson my journey through into multifamily.
[00:05:16] Sam Wilson: I think that's great. No, thank you for taking the time really, to share, you know, that gives some color because it's, you know, you hit on some things here that I think a lot of people, I would have never thought, okay, you're a pediatric dentist.
[00:05:28] Sam Wilson: You've merged with another big time player in the space. You guys are making money. You guys are, you know, you're out there helping kids. You're seeing, hey, look, you can tell. I got I'm 40 years old. Not that I'm the pediatric dentist, but I'm 40 years old with braces. Like, this is where I am right now. And it's like, I love my dentist.
[00:05:43] Sam Wilson: I needed help. So you're helping people out like, Hey, that's really cool. You know, but yet at the same time you knew you were missing something. It's like, gosh, there's something else out here I'm supposed to be doing. So talk to us about that transition then of, you know, not just being able to take this idea to other dentists, but then having the courage and the knowledge to then go start buying your own assets.
[00:06:04] Sam Wilson: I mean, there's a lot of moving pieces there. How did you put it all together?
[00:06:08] David Iglewicz: Now, I'm going to take you back a little bit. So it's now 2016, 17, and 18, and I'm looking for my own assets. So I was still had this individual mindset that I could take on the world myself. And because I'm just used to, I'm only five foot, two, five foot three on a good day.
[00:06:25] David Iglewicz: And so I'm just used to, like, if I bike race, I'll just drill it to the ground. And then I'm just used to that and then I'll drop everyone else. And so I had that old mentality. That old Russian mentality. It's funny that everything not really funny, it's ironic everything that's going on in the world right now and then that, and you see how it doesn't work.
[00:06:45] David Iglewicz: And it still was me. Right. And I had a release that and the first release that I did at that was investing passively. It was the scariest thing I've ever done. Because at the time, wiring money or wiring funds, I should go back a second. I could not find any great deals myself because I was being too individualistic.
[00:07:07] David Iglewicz: So I was contacting all these brokers in between patients. I was, you know, doing all this stuff, but I wasn't really making any headway. So what I ended up doing was I was like, you know what, I'm going to invest with the best. I'm going to investigate a whole bunch of different syndicators and I'm going to find the best and invest with.
[00:07:25] David Iglewicz: And that's now how I'm going to proceed. The scariest part was going into the bank and setting up the wire. Cause I was like it's for real now. And a lot of people, especially as syndicators don't realize when they're dealing with a newer passive investor, how much trust that passive investor is actually enabling you or, you know, feeding into you and believing in you.
[00:07:48] David Iglewicz: And it's this whole thing in this whole mindset of, I was used to somebody else taking care of all this stuff. And now all of a sudden I'm sending a wire into abyss hoping it gets to the right place. Number two, are they for real? Like, is this a scam? And so it was all that. And once I got through that mindset that it was life-changing. The minute that I, you know, signed over the wire paper.
[00:08:14] David Iglewicz: Remember this was 2019. You still had sometimes, you had to sign, but the minute I did that, it changed me and it was like, game on. And then I was a different person. I was like, I can rely on other people and then I'm going to fast forward you a little bit. And, and then we can go back. It made me a believer.
[00:08:32] David Iglewicz: And it made me a huge believer in it came true during COVID. I had in the beginning of COVID and go back and forth, but the real belief came in. It was, I started seeing the distributions and then the distributions kept going on throughout COVID. So I was at home being a dentist, highly trained professional, and on top of it, not only highly trained, but a lot of experience too.
[00:08:57] David Iglewicz: And. I couldn't work. I was shut down. My stocks were losing money. My muni bonds actually went down. Everything went down, everything went down, except for guess what? My multifamily assets and the passive income. And that's a huge flight. And that's what I set to believe on that. And then it was bring it. I need to be active.
[00:09:18] David Iglewicz: This is too much fun. I fell in love with it. And I was, I honestly thought I could be passive, but my energy just geared me that I needed to drive towards the active side, so.
[00:09:29] Sam Wilson: That's awesome. Kudos for you for following that. What does your business look like today?
[00:09:34] David Iglewicz: My business looks like today is multiple deals with various syndicators, and now I'm starting to take down several deals myself.
[00:09:44] David Iglewicz: So Prostoig Capital, that's the name of the company pro for professional, sto for stomatology, and ig also for Iggy, but ingenious growth. And that I created that to actually help other dentists invest passively in other either syndications where just help them out and help them grow that, knowing that multifamily is a great investment.
[00:10:06] David Iglewicz: Yeah. Also to help them start doing, either what I do, invest passively or look at other people's passive deals to see if it's acceptable for them to invest in it too. So it really is.
[00:10:20] Sam Wilson: Right. What's that conversation like, I mean, with highly trained professionals, such as yourself, you guys just spent a ton of time in school, you spend a ton of time being, I don't know how long it takes to be a pediatric dentist.
[00:10:30] Sam Wilson: You know, I have no idea. What does that? 10, 12, 15 years out of, out of high school.
[00:10:34] David Iglewicz: It's four years. Yeah. It's four years of dental school and then two to three years of a residency program,.
[00:10:41] Sam Wilson: Plus a four year undergrad, right?
[00:10:42] David Iglewicz: Yes.
[00:10:43] Sam Wilson: Right. So you're 11 years out. And so now you've got all these highly trained professionals and you're like, hey waving the flag. There's something really cool over here. You've got to see what's that conversation like?
[00:10:54] David Iglewicz: It depends where they are. So if they're just starting out, I won't let them invest because your biggest asset right now is them is I want them to learn. I want them to learn about this, but I don't want them to invest because they need to invest in themselves first.
[00:11:10] David Iglewicz: So they need to grow as a person. and I will help them out if they want to find a deal and they have time for it, which they won't. But if they want to find a deal, then go for it. But if they want to actively passively invest, if they want to just passively invest, it's a no-go for me, because they need that money right now to grow.
[00:11:28] David Iglewicz: And they need it to invest in their own pediatric dental business because they need that business to grow so that in the future in 10 years, then they can start allocating money. And it's a good rule to follow. And so, but I want them to learn about it and to show them that there's this avenue. Now, if they start setting up a self-directed IRA, that's a different story.
[00:11:52] David Iglewicz: That's a totally different story. But some of the people that I deal with still have tremendous amount of debt from their student loans are trying to buy their own first house. And it's just a lot on their plate, even though they have these big income, six, seven figures. It's just a lot because their expenses are a lot.
[00:12:11] David Iglewicz: So once they get that in order, then we can talk about investing passively. But remember, I still want them to learn about it. Right. And that's the key is that they need to learn about it because this is a huge, I mean, I think that this is the most powerful way to grow your hard earned money.
[00:12:30] Sam Wilson: So for sure, how do you go about educating these people that are coming alongside you, maybe what you're like, Hey, you're not ready to invest yet, but you need to go out and get education. Is this something you guide them along? Do you send them to certain resources? What's that process like?
[00:12:45] David Iglewicz: So a lot of times I'll just send them to books. I start usually with, you've heard this before, but Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad because...
[00:12:54] Sam Wilson: No I never heard of it.
[00:12:56] David Iglewicz: I know you would say that did so it creates that mindset because that's the first part is creating that mindset. And what I didn't mention, which for me was very powerful, was joining a coaching program because what, that there's a lot of ups and downs. As you know, in this field, everyone sees the ups, they don't know the rollercoaster ride that even get, you know, to close a deal.
[00:13:20] David Iglewicz: Let alone to run that on the asset. and so there's a lot of hiccups on the way. So setting yourself up with a book like that, just to get started and get that mindset going is a wonderful resource. And then we go from there and so then I either go one-on-one or I take them out to dinner and we go over some basic underwriting and we go over some basic terms.
[00:13:42] David Iglewicz: I also put on my website, I made some like YouTube videos, the basic stuff. So they know a dentist, that's actually doing this and it's explaining the terms. And there's people that do a much better job than me, but it's that relationship. And knowing that I did it, maybe they can understand it because they know, I know the dental lingo.
[00:14:03] Sam Wilson: So, yeah, that's really, really key is being able to speak to your audience and have that, not just that common bond, but it'd be able to use the same language and say, Hey, I know the position you're coming from. This is where you start. This is what we're going to look at. So that's absolutely awesome. Tell me, what do you want the future to look like?
[00:14:22] Sam Wilson: I guess there's two questions. Where are you going? And then how are you protecting yourself in kind of today's economy? I mean, there's a lot of things that we're looking. We've had obscene rent growth. What are you doing right now to make sure that you don't get caught holding the bag, buying something, you know, that's way too expensive.
[00:14:39] David Iglewicz: I think if anyone had that answer, I mean, that would be crystal ball. So where do I see myself? I thought before COVID that I wanted to retire. I will never retire. I love this. Absolutely love it. I see syndicators that are like, oh, I only want to be passive. I can't be passive. I mean, even if you gave me, it's people think that sitting on a beach all day is what they really want.
[00:15:07] David Iglewicz: You don't want that. You need drive to live. I've seen too many people die too early, or just fall apart because they were either given everything or they've left too early. You need a passion, whether it's a charity or something. So where do I see myself? Keep escalating the business and keep helping out other dentists in helping them grow.
[00:15:28] David Iglewicz: But the biggest success story is giving back to the dental community and helping them grow so they don't see the 2008 again. I mean, I was walking around a dental meeting late 2008, early 2009, actually. And the faces of the 70 year old dentist that just lost. I mean, my 401k became a 201k .There's, I mean, they got wiped. And so they were already retired, their hands were shaking and they had to go back to work just to create that income. And yeah, you can say that it took them two years and then they were back. Those two years killed them. Right. I mean, just totally destroyed them. So I never want to see that again.
[00:16:09] David Iglewicz: So moving forward, what are we doing to protect our assets? Well, I started spending money and I know that sounds ridiculous, but we now have a huge regional, she was ex regional manager for a big company over 20 years of experience. And we hired her to help us with asset management. And that is the huge missing block that bridges the gap between the owner and the property manager, because I think that that is the best investment that I can make. And if you invest in somebody like that, so they can truly transform the property because they know the inner workings. Me and you think we get the conversation right? With our property managers? We don't, we think we do, but she gets it because she's been there.
[00:16:56] David Iglewicz: She's been on the grass root and knowing what truly is important in running these apartment buildings. Truly important are the people on the ground. It's not me that puts in the money. Our investors are important because we want to get them their returns. But the only way to do that is those people on the ground are the most important and taking care of those people.
[00:17:18] David Iglewicz: And so that's where I'm investing. In buying, so then even if we bought wrong, which we don't, you got. And that's your insurance. And also I'm trying to stay away from heavy lifts. I always wanted to do that turn around the 50% occupied and flipping it and you know, and just totally transforming the property.
[00:17:38] David Iglewicz: I'm staying away from those. I say this now, and then you're going to call me out on it a year. I'm staying away from new construction right now because I see how difficult it is dealing with contractors, the fluctuating price of two by fours. I'm trying to stay away from that kind of stuff. If super great opportunity comes up, yeah, I'm in, but I'm trying to stay away from that kind of stuff. And I'm sticking with the markets that we know that are less likely to fall into a rent control kind of area because that's going to happen. And so, yeah, that's basically it.
[00:18:13] Sam Wilson: I love it. David, thank you for taking the time to break down your business, your journey.
[00:18:19] Sam Wilson: From a pediatric dentist to full-time multifamily, active multifamily investor. I know you're also still serving on the pediatric dentist side as well. So you've got your hands full and I love it. It's loads of fun just hearing about your journey and also how you're sharing this with the world. I think the one thing that you said here was you need a passion and clearly it seems like you have found it. And I think it's absolutely awesome and inspiring to see other people live inside of their passion. So thanks for taking the time to do that with share that with us here today. Tell me if our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?
[00:18:53] David Iglewicz: Oh, the best way you need to go to my website, prostoig.com, P R O S T O I G.Com. Or you can email me at dsi@prostoig.com.
[00:19:06] Sam Wilson: Awesome. David, thank you again for your time today. I do appreciate it.
[00:19:10] David Iglewicz: All right. Thank you.