I’M MICHAEL BLANK
I’m a full-time entrepreneur, investor, and coach who is (maybe a little overly) passionate about helping others become financially free by investing in multifamily real estate.
I was a comfortable six figure earner, found myself in the rat race, quit my job, and tried a bunch of stuff (unsuccessfully) to become financially free until I found multifamily. Now, I help other people avoid the same mistakes I made.
“My Mission Is to Show You How You Can Become
Financially Free with Real Estate in the Next Year”
Through my investing company, Nighthawk Equity, I control over $350 million in performing multifamily assets all over the United States.
In addition to investing nationwide, I also teach others how to buy their first apartment through my free content and mentoring program, which has helped students acquire 15,000 units valued at over $1.6 billion.
I’m the author of the best-selling book and the host of the popular podcast “Financial Freedom with Real Estate Podcast.” I have taught computer science courses, financial literacy classes to adults and children, and courses on how to buy apartment buildings.
I live near Atlanta, Georgia with my wife and 4 children. I have the time to travel with my family, get 1-on-1 lunches with my kids, and strive to make a difference in the lives of people I meet.
But my life wasn’t always like this.
My journey to financial freedom began with Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad. It ruined my life, made me quit my job, and then lose everything. In 1997 I joined a software startup called web Methods as a programmer. In 2000 the company went public and I put a BUNCH of money in my pocket. We went from a group of three out of our CEO's basement to 1,300 employees worldwide.
Me and the leadership team on Morgan Stanley trading floor.
After that, I coasted for the next several years. Things got less and less exciting and more and more corporate.
I was no longer enjoying my job.
So I thought about joining another startup. It would be more exciting, but I knew it would mean working 60+ hours a week for the next 5 years.
And I had a young family – my first daughter was born in 2002 and my son in 2004. When I was at work, I would daydream of being with them.
I wasn’t afraid to work hard. But I just turned 30 (I'd already been working for a decade) and I still needed to work another 30 years until I retired. I didn’t want to keep missing key moments with my kids.
That sounded awful.
Then one day in 2005 I picked up Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad and read it in two days.
My first reaction was: “I’m SUCH an idiot! Passive income is what I need, not money in the bank!” Creating passive income became my #1 goal and the way out of my misery. If I could cover my living expenses with passive income, I wouldn’t have to work if I didn’t want to.
So in 2005, after 8 awesome years at web Methods, I put in my two weeks and launched my big idea – my path to financial freedom – the restaurant business. And I went all in with my IPO millions.
I opened my first pizza restaurant in 2006 and by 2008 I had 6 locations. Then the recession hit.
I subsequently lost my IPO millions in the great restaurant experiment. I lost all of my cash and added another $200K in debt.
Also in 2006, I started flipping houses and in 2009, I decided to scale that. Over the next three years, I flipped 36 homes.
I was losing money on the restaurants, making money in the house flips, and breaking even while working 80 hours a week.
I had created my own entrepreneurial rat race, and I couldn’t get out of it.
Flipping houses wasn’t passive, either.
If I wasn’t buying, fixing, or selling homes, I wasn’t making any money. That’s not passive income! To fix this, I thought to myself, “Instead of flipping houses, why don’t I just keep them and build a rental portfolio?”
That way, I could build a steady passive income stream from the cash flow of those properties.
But after doing the math, I found that I’d need 50 rentals cash flowing at $200/month to reach the $10,000 to cover my current monthly expenses. I was NOT going to buy and hold 50 houses.
And even if I would build a huge rental portfolio, I didn’t have any time to manage all of it!
What was I going to do?
I discovered the solution a bit by accident.
This is the first apartment I ever bought. It was 12 units in 2011. I got it from one of the wholesalers I was buying houses from to flip.
The deal was a disaster in the beginning.
I bought in the wrong market, I hired the wrong property manager, and I had a professional tenant who wasn’t paying rent and sued me every other month.
It was a complete nightmare. But after about 18 months, things finally calmed down, and the property was sending me $1,500 per month in mailbox money.
That first deal was over a decade ago. Since then I’ve found three things to be true if you want to scale with real estate to become financially free:
1.Single-family house investing will NOT make you financially free. The only way is through investing in multifamily apartments.
2.You don’t need experience or millions of dollars in the bank to invest in apartments.
3.By following the right system, you can get your first deal under contract in as little as 6 months and achieve financial freedom within the following 12 months.
To learn more about scaling with multifamily real estate, check out our Scaling Course or apply for mentorship.
I’m excited you’re here and I look forward to staying connected!!
To your success!
TAKE YOUR NEXT STEP
THE SCALING MASTERCLASS
You DON’T need to start with single-family. You can buy your first multifamily apartment without any prior experience.
Watch this training to find out how.
APPLY FOR
MENTORSHIP
Apply for mentorship if you already know that multifamily is the best real estate strategy for you to scale and become financially free
Have a conversation with one of our deal maker advisors about joining our mentorship program so that we can help you do your first deal in the next 6–12 months.