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Today, we had the privilege of hosting Neal Bawa, a true technologist and luminary in the world of real estate, often hailed as the Mad Scientist of Multifamily. Neal is not only a sought-after speaker in the commercial real estate domain but also a master of data analysis, process optimization, and outsourcing.
Neal is the CEO and Founder of Grocapitus, a distinguished commercial real estate investment company that thrives on data-driven strategies. Looking ahead, Grocapitus is poised to add another 1,500 units to their portfolio within the next 12 months. Neal’s expertise and visionary approach to real estate investment truly exemplify the secrets to success in wealth strategy.
Through concrete examples and case studies, Neal showcased how this analytical approach has been a cornerstone of his success in managing a massive $1 billion-dollar portfolio and driving returns for investors.
In this episode, Neal shared that leveraging data and analytics isn’t just a strategy, but a mindset that guides decision-making in the real estate industry. By meticulously measuring and analyzing data, investors can optimize operations, enhance efficiency, and drive profitability within their portfolios.
In This Episode
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The success behind 2023 Location Magic – Best Cities for Real Estate Investing
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What Mission 10K is all about
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His current economic outlook, inflation and deflation
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Perspectives in investing in the energy sector and the years ahead for sustainable energy
Welcome to another episode of Wealth Strategy Secrets. Today, we’re joined by Neal Bawa, a technologist who is well-known in real estate circles as the “Mad Scientist of Multifamily.” Besides being one of the most sought-after speakers in commercial real estate, Neal is a data guru, a process perfectionist, and an outsourcing expert. He treats his $1 billion portfolio as an ongoing experiment in efficiency and optimization. Neal serves as the CEO and founder of Grow Capitis, an iconic, data-driven commercial real estate investment company.
Grow Capitis’ 28-person team acquires and builds multifamily and commercial properties across the U.S., with over 800 active investors and more than 2,000 projects under review. The Grow Capitis portfolio spans 10 states, with 31 projects, and they’ve completed equity raises totaling $270 million for multifamily properties. They are also on track to close another 1,500 units in the next 12 months. Neal, welcome to the show!
Thanks for having me, Dave. It’s a delight to talk with you again.
I always enjoy our conversations and look forward to sharing some of your pearls of wisdom with the audience today. For those who don’t know you, can you tell us a bit about your journey and how you got into real estate and alternative investing?
I’m a computer science graduate, so I’m a software engineer focused on data science. I had a successful 14-year career in tech, including a profitable exit with class-leading multiples. While running that company, with 400 people reporting to me, I started using real estate as a strategy to reduce my taxes because I live in California. There were years when I paid 53% of my gross income in taxes, and real estate was the best way to bring that down.
Ironically, unlike most people who get into real estate by doing fix-and-flips or buying single-family rentals, my first real estate experience was in 2003 when my boss, the senior partner at the tech company, asked for my help to build an entire campus from scratch. We didn’t want to be renters anymore; we wanted our campus.
We didn’t use investor money—just our own, all cash, no loans. We built the first campus, and I learned so much during that development process that we ended up working on six other campuses over the next five or six years. In 2008, I began aggressively using data science for real estate, realized it was the best time to buy, and ended up buying a property every month for quite a while.
Very interesting. On this show, Neal, we often discuss wealth strategy. As you know, investing in real estate and alternative assets goes against the grain of the other 95%. As you went through this journey, did you develop a particular investment thesis or create your wealth strategy?
I did, and it developed organically over a long period. In 2008-2009, I started mining websites like Zillow and the Department of Labor Statistics, using a Ukrainian hacker to gather that information and input it into a software tool we data scientists use called “R.” We took massive amounts of data and tried to figure out if there was a correlation between various factors—like population growth, job growth, income growth, crime—and profit. We also wanted to determine which factors were the biggest indicators of profit, and how to combine those factors for maximum returns.
Once we gathered all that data, we backtested it over the past 10 years, so we weren’t just making assumptions—we tested it against real-world results. Through that process, I realized there were five key factors that had a significant impact when buying properties, and some additional ones for development.
In my tech business, we had large classrooms, so I started a meetup group focused on multifamily real estate, which I enjoyed. But then I thought, “I’m a geek—where are all the other geeks and nerds out there? Don’t they want to know about my methodology?” So, I created another meetup group to present my findings and my investment thesis.
One day, someone came up to me and said, “You need to give your methodology a better name.” The name I had at the time was something like “statistical analysis blah, blah, blah”—a horrible name. The person suggested I call it “Location Magic,” because what I was talking about was identifying the specific factors that create the best locations for real estate profits. I liked the sound of that, so I went with it and started a meetup for “Location Magic.”
The first time, Dave, four people showed up. But three of them were from Apple, so they were all making good money because guess what? They were data scientists. So they were attracted to this meetup. The next time I spoke, there were 10 people. A year later, there were 100 nerdy, geeky data scientists and software programmers coming in.
Everyone was contributing, sharing data, and doing their own thing with it. There was no LP/GP, no deals, just people sharing data and ideas. This was around 2009-2011. Then someone came in and said, “This is amazing stuff, but you need to dumb it down for people who aren’t software programmers or data scientists.”
I spent six months simplifying it. I made it so that anyone could take a one-hour course or attend a meetup and, in just 10 minutes, figure out whether Columbus, Ohio, was a better city to invest in than Idaho Falls, Idaho. Any two cities in the U.S. that they’ve never even heard of, but within 10 minutes, they could figure it out.
We didn’t “dumb it down”—we just made the process more user-friendly, like a wizard. You just take five steps, and it teaches you so much. People loved it. All of a sudden, my meetup was packed. More and more people were coming in from everywhere. Conferences started calling me from across the U.S., saying, “Hey, you’re the nerdy guy who teaches something called Location Magic, right?” By then, one of my YouTube videos had gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of views. It was a long video—about 75 minutes—and had an 80% retention rate, which was amazing.
Suddenly, I became a micro-celebrity in the data-driven real estate world. People were asking me, “What do you have to pitch?” And I was like, “No, no, no. I’m a technologist. I have a company. It’s worth a lot of money. I’m not doing real estate; I just buy my stuff. You’re welcome to take my material, though.” People kept pushing, “At least get a list together!” So, I started keeping a list, and it grew—from 100 people to 1,000 to 10,000.
Then one day, a guy from Apple came in and said, “I’d like you to present across campuses.” He took me to the Apple Spaceship campus, and suddenly I was presenting to a large audience spread across different campuses globally. One group was even tuning in at 2 a.m. from outside the U.S. It was such a cool experience, and I thought, “How can I get this out to even more people?”
The solution? Udemy. I took my data science course and uploaded it there. Initially, I thought maybe 50 people would take the course, but now, Dave, 12,500 people are taking it, and it has over 1,000 five-star reviews. It’s the best-reviewed real estate course on Udemy, out of over 1,000 courses.
So I found a way to connect with fellow geeks, nerds, and dorks, bringing them together in an ecosystem where we obsessively use data to make investments. I did all of this before I ever launched a syndication or took money from investors. I was just a tech guy doing these things. Around 2012-2013, I was selling my company, and by then, I was getting invited to conferences and traveling around the country, all expenses paid, because people knew I had no pitch. I wasn’t selling anything.
In 2013, I sold my business and, of course, got hit with a massive tax bill. That’s when I knew I needed to take advantage of depreciation benefits and dove into multifamily value-added investing. From there, I expanded into new construction, self-storage, office/flex, student housing, luxury townhomes, and eventually built-to-rent projects. Over time, I raised about $300 million from around 1,000 people to buy and build properties. And through it all, it’s been one big experiment, with Location Magic evolving into something much more powerful than it was at the beginning, but still delivering amazing returns.
Is the product available to the public right now?
Yes, everything is available for free. We’ve never charged for it—no subscription, no upsell, no mentoring, no education. It’s completely free, like Wikipedia. You can use it however you like.
The vast majority of people who’ve used it, about 100,000 people, I don’t even know because Udemy doesn’t give me their information. I don’t even run meetups in the Bay Area anymore, so it’s all available in two places:
- MultifamilyU.com – You can take the course and access all the software tools there.
- Udemy.com/RealFocus – You’ll find the course there as well. Currently, 12,500 people are taking it.
It’s free, and it’s meant to stay free. Once a year, we update the software, so you can come back in January, take the new course, or just grab the updated tools. We haven’t even put a license on it yet, so technically, Dave, other people could be selling Location Magic too.
That’s interesting. How does it compare to other data providers like Yardi or CoStar? Is it complementary, or does it provide different data points?
It’s complementary in many ways. I would always recommend that if you have the budget, buy a CoStar license or a Yardi Matrix license. But Location Magic looks at the world from a backtesting perspective, whereas Yardi Matrix and CoStar focus on incoming supply. So, it’s highly complementary. I continue to use Yardi Matrix and CoStar data, but I still find Location Magic works well.
One advantage of Location Magic over Yardi Matrix and CoStar is that while those platforms provide phenomenal data for the top 50 or 100 metros in the U.S., they’re extremely weak when it comes to smaller metros, especially those with populations under 500,000. Location Magic works for smaller metros. For example, I invest in Idaho Falls, which has a population of about 130,000 to 150,000 people, and I’ve earned over 30% IRR for my investors there. CoStar wouldn’t have data for that.
One of my favorite metros right now is Rogers, Arkansas. Most people don’t think of Arkansas as having great markets, but I promise you, if you take a flight to Rogers, Arkansas, you’ll see exactly what I mean within an hour of landing.
And can Location Magic also be used for short-term rentals, like Airbnbs?
It can, but I recommend against using it for that. The challenge with short-term rentals is that supply is a much bigger determinant of success than anything else. AirDNA, which is specifically designed for short-term rentals, is very inexpensive. It’s only $50—come on, if you’re doing short-term rentals and not paying for AirDNA, you’re missing out. CoStar is $65,000, so it’s not affordable for everyone, but AirDNA at $40 or $100 is an excellent, affordable tool.
Before we dive into multifamily, Neal, I want to talk about your Mission 10k, which is really exciting.
I’m a mission-driven person. Thanks to my tech exit, I’m financially well-off, and now I focus on doing things I love. I want to get out of bed every day and say, “Today is a great day, and we’re going to change the world.” After traveling Europe and Asia for two years with my family, spending time, and enjoying life, I wanted to focus on what makes the most difference. I know that value-added multifamily and building new apartment complexes make a difference, but I wanted to find something that makes an even bigger impact.
My data science mindset is always at work. Most Americans are living in class A, B, or C properties because they have no choice. They would love to own a home, but since COVID, the average salary needed to buy a home has increased by 88%. It’s a combination of high interest rates and skyrocketing prices. Single-family home prices went up and have stayed at their peak, whereas multifamily prices came down. Home prices have only dropped by about 1% since their peak, and interest rates are at 7.18% today.
This situation, which was developing before COVID, has now exploded after it. There are families in America who make good money—around $60,000 to $80,000 a year—who don’t want to live in apartments but can’t afford to buy a single-family home. They’re often renting really old, run-down properties, which they hate.
I’ve identified a group of about 8 million families who don’t want to live in apartments but can’t afford a single-family home. My mission, which I call Mission 10k, is to build 10,000 brand-new townhomes for these people. These homes won’t be luxurious like my class-A properties. There won’t be infinity pools, CrossFit gyms, or clubhouses—just simple, practical townhomes.
There won’t be amenities like a pool or a gym, but if your alternative is renting a 70-year-old, dilapidated property, then a brand-new townhome is a better choice. These homes will be three-bedroom, 2.5-bath units with 9-foot ceilings and high-quality finishes like quartz or granite countertops. There will be simple amenities like a central park, a dog area, a swing, and maybe a fire pit.
The goal is to build these in markets across the U.S. that you’ve probably never heard of. Why? Because the math doesn’t work in booming markets like Orlando, Miami, or Denver. I’m just a robot with human qualities, and I focus on making the numbers work.
I’m just tied to mathematics. I look at these amazing markets and realize that construction costs are too high, property taxes are too high, and permit fees and insurance are too high. The combination of these four factors kills my ability to deliver affordable rents to middle-class Americans because they only make $60,000 to $80,000 a year. So my rents can’t exceed $20,000 to $26,000 a year, which means I’m trying to keep rents below $2,000 a month and still offer them a brand-new, beautiful townhome. Gorgeous 9-foot ceilings. How do I do that? Well, I can’t.
In most of these superstar markets, they are what is known as “rent burdened,” meaning 40-45% of their gross income goes toward rent. That doesn’t help America. Because I’m mission-driven, I want to make a profit for my investors. I’ve made a huge amount of money for them, and I want to continue doing that. But I also wanted to find a way to tie profit to not burdening people with high rents.
So, I went across the United States, doing surveys of construction costs, permit costs, land costs, property taxes, and insurance. I found a bunch of metros that nobody knows about. Now, I’m building townhome communities—100 to 150 units at a time, non-amenitized—in those areas. I call it Mission 10K. My investors love it and have already given me $50 million, which I have in the bank. Now, I’m buying land at extraordinarily cheap prices because of rising interest rates. The land has become almost worthless, so I’m paying about a third of what I was paying two years ago.
I love that, Neal. It’s similar to how Peter Diamandis talks about an MTP—your Massive Transformational Purpose. It’s spot-on and speaks to the heart of an entrepreneur. Waking up every day, having something that fascinates and motivates you, and making a difference in the world by solving a problem for that niche market you’ve identified. So, hats off to you for creating that opportunity for those in need and solving that problem. It’s amazing, and I’ve been following it to see how it progresses.
As we delve into this, let’s talk a little bit about the market. I know you’re quite the scientist when it comes to the market. There have been so many changes recently. These are interesting times, with so many dynamics at play. I’m not asking you to pull out a crystal ball but give us some of your thoughts on where the economy stands right now, especially with the potential for a pending recession and other dynamics you see in play.
It’s an incredibly interesting economy. The first thing I do every morning is read everything I can find on economics—The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg. That takes me about an hour. As real estate general partners, nothing affects our ability to deliver profits more than the general economy. Right now, the general economy is in charge of our ability to deliver profits to investors. Understanding what’s happening in the economy requires a tremendous amount of study. I dedicate an hour a day to this—seven days a week—and I’ve been doing this for the last three or four years. It allows me to stay slightly ahead of the market.
Here are a few things I’ll say. First, stop worrying about inflation. You should have been worried about inflation 18 months ago, 12 months ago, or six months ago. Today, if you’re still worried about inflation, you’re not looking at the data. I’m worried about disinflation and deflation.
Inflation in the U.S. peaked in June 2022 at 9.1%. Whether you’re looking at core inflation or PCE, it peaked at around 9.1%. Today, it’s below 3%. For the last quarter, it’s at 2%. Now, that doesn’t mean the Federal Reserve will cut rates immediately because they want to see it stay there and even go below that 2% line.
That’s when they’ll feel confident they’ve gotten inflation back to its baseline of 2% to 2.5%. So, while I’m not suggesting the Fed will cut rates anytime soon, I will point out that mentions of the word “deflation” or “disinflation” have increased by over 400% in the last 30 days. Meanwhile, mentions of “inflation” are ebbing away because we’ve broken inflation’s back.
The last piece we needed to address was wage inflation. Inflation comes from rents, wage inflation, and commodity inflation. Commodity inflation has been low for a while. Rents in the U.S. are flat. Each month, when you see a decline in inflation, a lot of that is due to rents being flat. We’re looking at a 12-month timeframe, and rents weren’t flat 12 months ago. So each month, inflation falls because rents aren’t increasing anymore.
They’re not falling, but they’re not increasing either. So, of the three main components, rents are supporting us because they’re staying flat. Commodities are supporting us because the cost of oil has dropped from $120 to $80, and the Chinese economy is performing poorly, reducing international demand. Remember, it’s difficult to experience inflation when demand is decreasing.
Demand drives inflation. Right now, there’s a lot of supply. For example, the United States has 1.2 million excess cars, which is causing car prices to drop. Both electric vehicles (EVs) and regular gas cars have been decreasing in price for months, and now used cars are also seeing a price drop. We’re witnessing demand destruction in the economy, which is exactly what the Federal Reserve wants. This is helping to bring inflation down.
The concern in the coming months will be whether we experience too much deflation, which could potentially push us into a recession. A few months ago, the chances of a recession were decreasing because the economy was performing well. Unemployment is still at 3.5%, but job growth is slowing down.
Three or four months ago, we were creating 400,000 to 425,000 jobs a month. However, I just saw the ADP report yesterday, and the government report is due tomorrow (Friday). Both reports are expected to show around 177,000 jobs created. Anything less than 200,000 jobs a month is a sign the economy may enter a recession.
The Federal Reserve is now more cautious. For example, Raphael Bostick, a Federal Reserve governor, came out this morning and said, “I think we’re done. We don’t need to do this anymore.” So, a Fed governor publicly stated that if we continue to raise rates, we may risk entering a recession. Unemployment remains at 3.5%, and core inflation is down to 2%. The progress is clear.
I believe we’re done with rate hikes. The Fed isn’t likely to reduce rates for a while. Looking ahead, I expect the first rate cut to happen around February or March next year, and it will likely be gradual. Why? Because unemployment is low, and there’s no immediate pressure to cut rates aggressively. If unemployment had risen from 3.5% to 5%, the Fed would be cutting rates quickly, but that’s not the case.
Even if the Fed cuts rates slightly, the effect on multifamily will be substantial. Some people argue that multifamily won’t benefit unless rates are cut significantly, but that’s a misunderstanding of how mortgage rates, spreads, SOFR, and LIBOR work. The economy is holding multifamily back, and even a small rate cut will have a significant impact on the market.
Now, let’s shift to the broader picture. Transaction volume in multifamily is down 70% this year, but 2024 is going to be the best time to invest in multifamily since 2018. I don’t want to say “the best” because that phrase is meaningless. I like to compare years. For example, if you bought in 2020 and got lucky because prices shot up in 2021, that wasn’t due to fundamentals—it was because the economy pumped $2 trillion into the system and people bought things. That wasn’t driven by fundamentals.
When we are looking at the fundamentals of economies, we cannot look at 2020, 2021, 2022, or 2023 because all four of these years are outliers. One, because of COVID; two, because of the money that flooded the economy after COVID; three, because interest rates started going up; and four, because interest rates are now very high. So, when’s the last “normal” year? It’s 2019.
I’m going to look at 2018 and 2019, and I’m going to base my decisions on those years because we didn’t have to deal with all the excess money, interest rate fluctuations, and volatility we’ve seen since then. Looking at 2024, it seems like a great opportunity. It looks like a bargain to me, and I’ll explain why.
Two years ago, many of my contemporaries were buying properties every month. I won’t name names, but there’s one guy, a student from my 2018 boot camp, who bought 10 properties in the latter part of 2021 and mid-2022. Why? Because money was flowing freely.
Now, whether those were good investments or not will only be determined with time, but from what I’ve seen, I was the one telling people not to buy. People would ask, “Neal, are you buying?” and my answer was no. I bought one and a half properties during that period—what I call the “crazy” time from the second half of 2021 to June 2022.
During that time, people were buying properties at a 3 to 3.5% cap rate and trying to justify those prices with outrageous underwriting. I bought one and a half properties. One of those properties was mine, and I exited my partner’s position, which was a good move. The other was a military base property, and people typically don’t buy these because when soldiers leave, occupancy can drop by 10-15%.
I made the bet that this pain would be temporary and less than the pain of overpaying for other properties. And it was—despite losing occupancy when some soldiers left for NATO support instead of Ukraine, that property is still cash flowing for me, even though I have the same floating rate loan as everyone else. Why? Because I paid 30% less than what others were paying for comparable properties.
During that period, I wasn’t buying into the hype. I only bought one and a half properties, paid my employees, and didn’t make any big moves. But now, I’m saying the next 12 to 15 months—let’s call it the next 15 months, including Q4 of this year and all of next year—are great times to buy multifamily properties, and my reasons are simple.
First, prices are down by 20-25% as of today (September 2023). While they weren’t truly 25% overpriced, there’s at least a 12% discount now. Why 12%? Because prices were too high, and now they’re too low.
Second, 70% of new multifamily construction in the U.S. has stopped. Back in 2008, that number was around 80-90%, and we saw what that did to rents when we didn’t build multifamily for 3 or 4 years. For the next decade, rent growth far exceeded historical trends—more than double what it was before. Why? Lack of supply. We’re in the same situation today.
Third, there’s still a large supply coming into the market from the construction boom two years ago, and that supply will have an impact. There’s a huge supply, and it’s pushing rents down. That’s giving me a bigger discount. I’m not just getting one discount; I’m getting two.
The first discount is from cap rates. Cap rates are high because interest rates are high. The second discount is that rents are artificially low. Rent growth in the United States has been at zero.
How can rent growth be zero when inflation is at 4%? If you look at the 50-year history of inflation and rent growth, rent growth has always been higher than inflation. Right now, it’s 4% lower than inflation. Why? The answer is straightforward.
There’s a lot of supply, and that supply is coming in with concessions—one-month or two-month concessions. That supply will end at the end of next year, creating a gap in 2025, and an even bigger gap in 2026, before we start seeing some normalcy in 2027. I want to buy when rents and prices are artificially low.
Both of those things are likely to be corrected in 2025 or 2026. That’s the perfect time to buy an asset. So, this has nothing to do with multifamily specifically; it’s all about timing.
Being a savvy investor, I love how you’ve layered that strategy with multiple levels of insight. You’ve got three ways to capitalize on the opportunity, and even if you’re wrong about one or two out of three, you’re still way ahead.
This brings me to another point I’d like to ask you, Neal. We have a lot of listeners, as you know, who are investors—many of whom are newer to investing in syndications, real estate, or other types of investments. Let’s face it: over 90% of Americans have the majority of their wealth tied up in government-sponsored plans or home equity.
Talk to us a bit about why you believe investing in multifamily real estate, or another type of syndication, is a better option compared to traditional investments like stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.
It’s all about the numbers. It’s about the math. I wouldn’t invest a single dime of my money anywhere else, and I’m currently invested in 26 syndications. I haven’t been doing much investing in the last two years because I felt the market was overpriced. But I’ve been syndication investing for a decade, contributing money to expert syndicators in markets that interested me but where I didn’t have the time to go and do it myself.
First and foremost, I believe in this because the math is strong. If you compare the average annualized return of syndications to that of real estate and then compare both to the stock market, it’s not even a contest. Real estate consistently outperforms, over any 10-year time frame. The metric to look at is called NCREIF (National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries). Just Google NCREIF vs. stock market, and you’ll immediately see the gap between what the stock market produces over a 5- or 10-year period.
You always want to look at a 10-year window because you want to capture at least one or two recessions. Then, compare that with what NCREIF produces. And then, what does syndication produce above NCREIF? NCREIF represents a collection of really wealthy REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) that buy properties and just sit on them. They don’t improve the properties. They don’t rehab them—they simply buy and hold.
I’m not against REITs; they’re great, and I encourage people to invest in them. But my point is, those people aren’t actively working to improve properties. They’re just sitting on them, making money as rents go up since rents and inflation are strongly correlated. They make money over time, and they’re smart about when they sell—they don’t sell during recessions.
They never sell in a hurry, so they always end up making money. Good for them. But then you’ve got syndicators who are above that level—those who are taking older properties, like 1980s or 1990s-era buildings that haven’t been rehabbed. The properties are in poor condition: old carpeting, laminate countertops, and white appliances that haven’t been bought in 20 years. We take those properties and improve them. We don’t spend a huge amount of money—just $7,000 to $9,000 to improve each unit.
We’re getting the same benefit that the REITs get, which is that as rents increase with inflation, we see the benefits. But we’re also creating additional value. That extra value means that the average return on a thousand or a hundred thousand projects is significantly higher than general real estate. And that’s the math. That’s the math that compels me to continue doing this.
There’s one tier above that, and that’s Mission 10K, where I’m buying ultra-cheap land—and I mean ridiculously cheap land—and building townhomes from scratch. When I do my value-add projects—and I love value-add, so I’m not trashing it, I adore it—I typically increase rents by $150 to $175 per apartment. But when I go from raw dirt, I’m going from $0 in rent to $1,800. And there, I’m creating 12 times the value.
Points are well taken. And one thing you didn’t mention, which was part of your journey, was also tax efficiency. Tax efficiency and also income generation. That’s what we’re all looking for, regardless of where we are in our journey.
People want passive income and alternative streams of income. I appreciate those insights, Neal. I also wanted to ask you—since we’ve talked in the past about other sectors—what are your thoughts on energy as a sector to invest in? I’m also fascinated by energy.
I’m equally fascinated by energy. There hasn’t been a Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, or Economist article in the last five years that I haven’t read. I even follow a website called OilPrice.com almost every weekend. Here’s what I believe: The renewable energy market is far more disruptive than people understand. It’s going to disrupt energy demand in the United States in the 2030s in an extremely radical way. And the oil companies know this.
The oil majors understand that over the next 10 years, they’re going to be disrupted. So the amount of money the oil majors and oil miners are spending on new exploration is way down compared to five, ten, or even twenty years ago. But the world’s oil needs are still growing. Ten years ago, we needed 95 million barrels per day of oil equivalent (which includes natural gas and other liquids, like NGLs).
Today, that number is 103 million barrels per day. So despite all the renewable energy coming in—like China producing an extraordinary amount of solar energy, more solar in one quarter than we’re installing in an entire year—the world has managed to increase its oil consumption from 95 million barrels per day to 103 million.
The reason for this is simple: the world has an ever-growing middle class. China and India now want to drive fancy cars, and so do African nations. So, we’ve gone from about 15% of the world being American-like consumers to 30% of the world being American-like consumers. Honestly, I’m thankful that oil consumption has only increased from 95 million barrels per day to 103 million barrels per day.
What we’re seeing is renewable energy making an incredible impact, allowing us to continue our current lifestyles. But at the same time, we still need more oil. The problem is that, due to disruptions in the market, fewer people are funding major oil exploration, especially for the long term (10 to 20 years).
Oil has always been a long-term investment. So, here’s my fundamental belief: I wouldn’t invest in oil in 2035, but I know we’re going to face oil shortages in the next 10 years. If we continue to direct funding solely towards renewable energy—something I fully support—we’re going to see oil shortages. As an investor, I want to take advantage of that.
We’re going to experience sporadic shortages of oil, but the equilibrium price of oil right now is $80 a barrel. That’s the price we’re seeing at the moment. If you compare the price in Europe to South Texas, it’s about the same. This is fine. We’re in equilibrium at a global level. But here’s the thing:
One refinery goes down somewhere, and suddenly, we’re out of equilibrium. Oil is one of the most inflexible products known to mankind, short of food. We need food every day, and while we can survive without oil for a few days, most people wouldn’t accept it.
If I told you, Dave, that your favorite haircut place is 3 miles away, and you should drive 2.5 miles and walk the last half mile, no one would be willing to do that. And yet, in places like Iraq, Iran, or India, people are forced to give up their oil because we, as American consumers, wouldn’t walk that last half mile. That’s how sensitive oil shortages are.
What happens when there’s just a 1% shortage in the global oil market? The price of oil goes up by 25%. If the shortage is 2%, the price nearly doubles and can reach $150 a barrel. That’s how inflexible oil is. But no one is calculating how much oil we’re going to need in the next 10 years or how much exploration is happening. There’s no central agency doing this.
There’s no one coordinating the global oil supply. The OPEC nations don’t coordinate with the U.S. because we’re producing shale oil. The Americans don’t share anything with the Russians because of political tensions. So, there’s no central coordination for how much oil should be extracted.
It’s just a feeling in the market about how much oil should be available. Given the inflexibility of oil, the chances of oil prices staying flat over the next 10 years are virtually zero. It’s a great time to invest in oil, even though I believe that, in the next 15 years, we’ll solve most of our energy problems. But right now, I’m focused on the next 5 years, and in that period, there are going to be shortages. How can there not be? No one is paying attention to the increasing use of oil. Everyone’s focused on renewable energy.
Really solid assessment, Neal, and I definitely agree. I think there are so many important lessons for investors to learn here.
It’s really about understanding markets, the fundamentals, and what’s truly driving things because you want to be investing where the puck is going, and looking at key data points, as Neal pointed out. So that’s why we’re bullish on the energy sector and real estate. Some great points.
Neal, it’s been such a pleasure today. One question I did want to ask you is: If you could give the audience just one piece of advice about how they could accelerate their wealth trajectories, what would it be?
Stop quoting Warren Buffett’s famous comment: “When others are fearful, be greedy, and when others are greedy, be fearful.” It’s probably the best-known comment in all of investing. Start following it.
Everyone says, “I wish I could go back to 2009,” but I can tell you that when I was buying a home a month ago, I was terrified. All I heard was horrible news about real estate—just horrible. People thought the homes I was buying for $80,000, which used to be $250,000, would drop to $30,000, and they said I was an idiot for buying them at $80,000. There’s never a time when opportunity and good vibes happen at the same time.
Real investors invest during times of distress, and that’s how they make money. That’s all it is. So just stop talking about it at cocktail parties and start following it. Anyone who doesn’t practice what Warren Buffett is talking about isn’t an investor—they’re just a speculator who likes to call themselves an investor. Jump over to the investor side. You’ll make a lot more money and sleep a lot better.
Real investors invest in times of distress, and that’s how they make money. That’s all it is.
Perfect. That’s spot on. Appreciate that. It’s been so insightful having you on the show today, Neal. We appreciate all the pearls of wisdom you’ve shared with the audience. If people would like to connect with you or learn more about Capitis, what’s the best way to do that?
Luckily, I’m the only Neal Bawa on the web. The easiest way to connect with me is simply to Google “Neal Bawa.” Everything, both good and bad, is out there about me. The second way, which is more structured, is to go to multifamilyu.com. We do 12 webinars a year where we share all our thoughts.
We actually have a webinar coming up about oil—our thoughts on oil as an opportunity, even though we’ve never invested in oil. We recently did a webinar that attracted 26,100 sign-ups about the impact of artificial intelligence and how it will radically change the world. About 20,000 people show up for these webinars. It’s our new way of giving away information. One webinar a month.
Everyone is welcome to join—there’s no subscription, no upsell, and no educational fees. You come in, join our community, and during these webinars, we spend about 60 seconds talking about our projects. If something looks interesting, you can jump in.
Awesome, thanks so much, Neal, and thanks to the listeners for tuning in this week.
Thanks again.