Street Smart Success

Hosted by Roger Becker

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714

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Jun 2026

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About the show

Street Smart Success is a show for accredited investors. Whether you’re investing in Real Estate, Private Equity, Private credit, Debt, or other alternative assets, or you’re just starting out, this is the show for you. Street Smart Success interviews successful entrepreneurs about their backgrounds, careers, and lessons learned.

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60 recent

June 16, 202646 min

720: Long-Term Holds Are The Path To Wealth Creation

Although multifamily has taken a big hit lately because of higher interest rates, higher expenses, and flat to declining rents, good deals are still hard to find. Sellers still want too much for their properties. Gino Barbaro, co-founder of Jake and Gino LLC, owns 1900 multifamily units in Knoxville, TN. Gino likes 2BR, 1.5 bath townhomes. Townhomes command more rent than apartments because they’re two stories with in-unit washer/ dryers and often parking. After years of trial and error, and investing in several valuable mentorship programs, Gino Barbaro has built an impressive, long-term multifamily portfolio with his partner Jake Stenziano. Gino also co-hosts the well-known Jake and Gino Real Estate podcast.

June 11, 202640 min

719: Great Opportunities In Flex Industrial In Growing, Secondary Markets

As light bay industrial continues to thrive, and other asset classes struggle, institutional money is chasing these deals. There’s still a shortage of supply, and new construction costs are prohibitive. Private equity, family offices, life insurance companies, and others are partnering with operators to generate yield. There is compelling value in secondary, under the radar markets. Many of these properties are owned by ma-and-pa operators with significantly below market rents and prices up to 50% below replacement cost. Grant Reaves, Managing Director and Co-founder of Stoic Equity Partners in Alabama, is acquiring value-add Flex Industrial properties in secondary markets in the Southeast.

June 9, 202649 min

718: Lenders Are Starting To Capitulate On Pricing Distressed Properties

In multifamily real estate, each property has unique aspects, no two properties are exactly alike. This lends itself to market inefficiency and opportunity. That’s why it’s possible to achieve alpha returns in any environment if you look hard enough. Bo Diamond, Co-founder of Caisson Capital Partners, identifies properties with value-add opportunities that make it possible to achieve outsize returns for his investors. Over the past few months, lenders have started to dispose of properties at highly discounted prices that reflect the current distress in the market.

June 4, 202635 min

717: Precious Metals, The Ultimate Hedge Against Market Volatility

As the federal government continues to print more money, the value of the dollar decreases. Other countries are already beginning to trade in alternative currencies to the dollar. With economic uncertainty, including inflation and other types of market instability, risk mitigation is key. That’s why hard assets with a component of scarcity in a portfolio make sense for capital preservation. One of the better examples is precious metals like gold. Gold holds its value and even increases in downturns. Gold hit new highs in 2025. Dana Samuelson, President of the American Gold Exchange, has decades of experience with rare U.S. gold coins and other precious metals.

June 2, 202634 min

716: Great Opportunities In Affordable Housing Tax Credits

As market rate apartments have become cost prohibitive to acquire over the past several years as a result of higher interest rates and expenses, ground up construction has become a more economically feasible option, especially with various federal, state, and local government tax credit programs. Lee Harris, President and CEO of Cohen Esrey, specializes in the development of 100-300 unit subsidized multifamily properties in the Midwest and Sunbelt markets, often with complex funding strategies. Cohen Esrey has either owned or managed more than 82,000 multifamily units since its formation in 1970.

May 28, 202639 min

715: It’s The Best Time To Buy Multifamily

It’s the best time to buy Multifamily properties since the Global Financial Crises, especially value-add properties. Prices have come down dramatically over the past few years, yet the fundamentals for rental housing remain strong as the demand drivers persist. Additionally, as new supply continues to gets absorbed, there will be a major shortage of rental inventory in 2027 and 2028. Hans Box, co-founder of Box Wilson Equity, is doubling down on Multifamily investing. Hans recently acquired a C Class property in Birmingham, Alabama, which has become an emerging biotech hub. Hans is also looking for other opportunities in the Southeast.

May 26, 202639 min

714: Multifamily Is Hard To Sell But It’s A Great Time To Buy

Multifamily has seen some of its largest headwinds in almost two decades. In many markets, new supply levels are at historic records, expenses such as insurance and taxes have skyrocketed, and other operating expenses have also escalated. All of these challenges, plus impending loan maturities and less liquidity, are making this an opportune time to buy. Ivan Barratt, Founder and CEO of the BAM companies, is acquiring newly built properties at significantly less than replacement cost, and is also evaluating older, value-add properties that have also come down in price. Ivan has seen the same challenges as others in his existing portfolio, but has managed well through the turmoil by raising more equity on the front end, taking on less leverage, and hedging with conservative rate caps.

May 21, 202630 min

713: Great Deals In Smaller, Growing Markets

Finding great deals in this market can require investigating different geographies and possibly different asset classes. Although most Real Estate has encountered major challenges and headwinds, prices are still too high and generate insufficient cash flow. Robert Nelson, Managing Member of Permian Flex Capital, 1031 exchanged one of successful Self-Storage facilities in Northeast Pennsylvania into a small industrial building in Midland, Texas at over a 9 cap entry point, thereby generating strong in-place cash flow. Midland-Odessa, Texas is a rapidly growing market with very limited new construction to compete with.

May 19, 202620 min

712: Who You Invest With Is More Important Than What You Invest In

Managing a lot of private investments can be cumbersome with the amount of paperwork, reporting and tracking involved. Having them on one central platform, however, makes life a lot easier. That’s what Vyzer does. It houses all your investments in one place. Vyzer also provides valuable statistical performance data across a cross section of $30 billion invested in deals and sponsors currently on Vyver’s site. Litan Yahav, CEO of Vyzer, is also an experienced LP investor. Litan has learned that despite countless resources on how to vet operators and deals, who you actually invest with is the most important part of the decision. Proformas are helpful, but the differentiator is the operator.

May 14, 202648 min

711: The Perils Of Private Real Estate Investing As A Passive Investor

Passive investing is not always east. It’s harder, more time consuming, and riskier than most people think. It takes evaluating dozens, even hundreds of General Partners and deals to learn the difference between a good and a bad opportunity. There is so much to learn, that often more time is required of Limited Partners than they have to spend. Unfortunately, this elevates the risk of making private Real Estate investments. Alexsey Chernobelskiy is Founder and CEO of GP/LP match, a website where GPs submit investment opportunities and LPs receive deals matching their criteria directly via email within minutes.