Transforming Challenges into Triumphs: The Journey of Cherif Medawar

On the REsimpli Podcast, Sharad Mehta praised the tenaciousness and inventiveness of real estate entrepreneur and educator Cherif Medawar.

From hotel manager to real estate juggernaut, Cherif’s path was one of mentoring, boldness, and consistent development. Billionaire Edmond Beshari under instruction, opened his hotel. He entered the affluent real estate industry, driven by this important link. After eight years of school and then multi-million dollar agreements, Cherif founded his own business. His first solo job was a modest Solana Beach duplex he painstakingly restored for $250,000 in four months.

After this triumph, Cherif raised more. His second contract turned a flat building into a condo and made him rich. Notwithstanding these challenges, he shrewdly obtained rights and raised the value of land for municipal development.

Starting his work in commercial real estate, Cherif found abandoned sites. Particularly fast-food restaurants, his specialization was single-tenant properties leased under Starbucks and Subway. These first-rate commercial leases raised property values, therefore producing a portfolio valued at more than $100 million.

Looking for more responsibility, Cherif traveled under American tax benefits to Puerto Rico in 2003. Assuming authority as Old San Juan’s architectural treasures’ largest owner, he helped the area grow and lowered taxes.

From his real estate background, Cherif advises investors. Projects using real estate funds let students grow their businesses. Along with whole real estate buying, management, and profit concepts, he offers tax-efficient alternatives.

Apart from success in the field, Cherif stresses personal fulfillment and work-life balance. His objectives evolved from rapid growth to valuing his successes and honoring family. Travel is his love; he started his adventure around Paris, a city rich in culture and past.

Cherif lived tenaciously and flexibly. His attitude to life as a game to be played has led him to grab opportunities and overcome various challenges which would otherwise be much harder. Cherif’s career shows how in real estate, mastery and financial freedom education, invention, and endurance are essential.

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Transcript:

Cherif Medawar  0:00  

I went from $1,500 cash 250,000 cash in less than four months. The rest is history, and I was able to assign the deal in escrow, and became millionaire at that time. With my second deal, I set up a real estate fund, and that was the best thing I did, because if I would have known about real estate funds and I set it up like in 99 I would have grown like crazy, like I would have been in the billions.

Sharad Mehta  0:31  

Hey guys, this is Sharad with recently host of the recently podcast, bringing you another very special guest on this podcast, Cherif Medawar. Cherif, welcome to REsimpli podcast. How are you doing today? I’m fine. Thank you, Sharad. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. Sharif. Tell us a little bit about yourself, about your real estate journey. You know? How did you get started? And you know, how are you involved in real estate now? Thank

Cherif Medawar  0:59  

you. Well, many family members are in real estate. And when I came to the United States, I was 19, I had the hotel degree, and I was working at the hotel called Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. And I love the hotel business. I just wanted to become a general manager, so I was working around the clock and a wealthy investor, a billionaire in the name of Edmond. Be sorry. Stopped me in the lobby one day, and he said, Sharif, I see you working from six o’clock in the morning to like 11 at night. What’s going on? And I told him, Oh, sir, I don’t know if you notice I have a golden name tag. You know, I they identified me as a potential General Manager, and if I work hard for 10 years, I may move up. He looked at me, he said, Are you crazy? You know, they tell you what to do, what to wear, when to take off. You need to come and work for me. I have real estate around the world, and I need somebody with your enthusiasm and energy to do the work on my behalf. I got scared. I was excited, but I got scared. I said, Sir, I don’t know anything about real estate. And he grabbed me by my shoulder, and he said, Sharif, you’re at the right place at the right time. Just say yes. So I said yes, and I went to work for it won’t be sorry for eight years, all the way till, literally, it was 1989 January, when I left him and and the reason I left him is I realized I had learned so much, had done so much for him, that I could do it on my own with very little money, just credit lines and credit cards and stuff. And I told him, I said, Mr. Visari, I’m ready to move on. Are you okay with that? And his answer to me was, Sharif, you’ve labeled yourself as a hotel manager and you are going to stay in hotel business forever, then you label yourself as working for me, as my right hand man, and you were going to be stuck with me forever. You’re a free man. Go out there, do your thing and help at least 10 other people. That was the best message he gave me, because I left and I continued in hotel business, but I started doing real estate on the side, and started getting my first deals in San Diego. As a matter of fact, first deal was in Solana Beach on Loma, Santa Fe drive, and I took, actually duplex and got cash advance on my credit card because they had what’s called Nina loan, no income, no asset verification. They just didn’t care what down payment came from. And they had a special program. Those living in Del Mar and Solana Beach, that area could put 5% down in a home. So I put 5% down, got a duplex to live one side, ran the other side, but then I didn’t want to live there. I split the two units, separated the water meter, gas meter, electric meter, created condo units and sold them both. I remember, bought the duplex at $300,000 it was 295 I’m running the numbers. When I split them, I sold each one at 200 some 1000. I netted 150 thumb, some $1,000 in cash sitting in my bank account. I went from $1,500 cash 250,000 cash in less than four months. The rest is history. I just said, Oh my god, this is unbelievable. In hotel business, I cannot make that much money in so little time. So I kept doing more and more and more, and kept growing in hotel business while I’m doing stuff on the side. And then in 1990 when was it? 1998 I decided to start teaching people, because people started asking me, in the hotel business, how are you driving this convertible Mercedes? We’re we’re in the hotel business. You moved up, but you don’t make that much money. And I’m like, No, I make my money in real estate. I do this. And so they started getting me into groups, started teaching people. And when I started teaching, I realized I had to learn so much more, they asked me questions I didn’t know. So I got better at the game. Then fast forward another 10 years. In 2009 I grew with my education company so big that people started asking me if they could invest with me. So I set up a real estate fund. I from the education company people wanted to invest. So I set up in real estate fund. And that was the best thing I did, because if I would have known about real estate funds, and I set it up like in 99 And I would have grown like crazy, like would have been in the billions. But it’s okay. Everything happens at time, at the right time, and when I set up the Real Estate Fund in 2009 people started investing with me, and they invested alongside what I do, and that has been my journey. So today I am, I’m doing, you know, my real estate funds in Puerto Rico, in San Francisco, in Florida. I enjoy teaching. I still teach, and I have a huge portfolio. I’m the largest owner of historic properties in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. I took residence in Puerto Rico. I moved from California because in Puerto Rico, you can drop your taxes from 50% to like 15 16% if not less. Yeah,

Sharad Mehta  5:41  

I live in California. It’s crazy with taxes that we have. Sharif, congratulations on all the success, but it’s incredible like for you to be in the right place at the right time. Like, if you are not come across the mentor that you got, you probably would not be where you are right now, because sometimes, like, we’re so much in our world that we don’t realize the opportunities that are outside available. And this mentor of yours, he almost insisted you to join him. Right? He saw the potential in you that you probably didn’t even see the potential in you, in yourself. So that’s that’s incredible to come across someone like that, and that person also being so open, after eight years of working with him, to say, yes, you’re a free man, go do and help 10 other people. I think that’s an incredible story, one of the best stories I’ve heard. So thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you. So the first property that you bought and sold in salona Beach, not too far from where I live, incredible area. What were you doing afterwards? Were you just basically repeating the same process, because at this point you still had that full time job working at the hotel. So are you just doing the same thing, basically like a method? So

Cherif Medawar  6:57  

I was a general manager at the Denmark Hilton, because I had opened the Hilton because when I left, it won’t be sorry. What he did is he said, Look, let me give a call to Hilton Hotels, because he had hotels and stuff. So he picked up the phone and he called them, Beverly Hills. He said, Look, I’m going to give you a gift because he knew the top people. Sharif Mehta war worked for me. He managed my resort in Wisconsin. We had a resort there called Olympia Resort and Spa, and I was doing these for him, doing even trading the stock market as I learned and I done things. And he said, Look, I’m going to give you a gift. This guy can run hotels, but he can also talk to the owners, because he understands the real estate part, not just the management of hotels. So they took me over right away, after a quick interview, and they sent me over to open the Del Mar Hilton, and I was with a great team, but then a great area also. So I did the Solana Beach deal, which was a mile away from Hotel Del Mar to Solana Beach. And then when I finished that first deal, I said, Oh, my God. If I can separate units and sell them separately and make so much money, what am I doing dealing with duplexes? Let me look for bigger deal. And I found a bigger deal, believe it or not, at the penny saver. You know the pennies. There was no internet at that time. Yeah. Saver was where I found my first deal. And the penny saver, I found a deal in Mira Mesa, California. Was a large apartment building, 172 units, and somebody

Sharad Mehta  8:17  

had posted on Penny saver, yes, wow,

Cherif Medawar  8:21  

yeah. And I called the guy, very nice gentleman, and he said, Come and meet with me. And we sat down. He said, I only have five minutes. What is the proof of funds? You don’t have enough down payment. I said, like, I have 156,000 but I’m gonna get the deal done, but if you can just help me, because I have some people. And he thought that my family was rich or something, so he kind of worked with me a little bit. And he said, Look, I’ll give you an option to buy it, but you got 45 days. So what I did is I asked him, you know, let’s put things in writing. And then I went to the City Planning and Zoning department, and I asked them if they would allow me to separate the units and make condos, and the guy in charge cannot literally just brush me off like, no, no, no, we’re not gonna approve that we don’t need condos. This is, this is an apartment building. Good luck to you. So I left, and then I went back to the seller, and I told him, Listen, can you allow me to talk to some sellers? I just want to see if I can talk to them directly, because I want to condo minimize the thing. He said, Okay, but you need to tell me what you’re going to tell them. And I told him, I’m going to tell them if they would like to approve that we make it condos so later they can become owners of their own units that they’re renting. And he said, Okay, do it. So I went and I remember the first person I talked to, I asked he had a baby in the background with his wife, and I told him, Listen, I I’m having the deal under contract. If it’s okay with you, would you like to act you? He was paying 1095

Sharad Mehta  9:56  

for rent at the time, so you’re talking to the tenants of the building

Cherif Medawar  9:59  

this. To one of the units. Yeah. And I told him, would you like to own the building, the actual unit you’re in the condo, and your payment will be 1300 and he said, Why will I pay more I’m renting here, and why will I obligate myself to this with the tax and insurance? And he said, because you can get deductions and you will actually be paying less. And I showed him, like, literally educated the guy at the door. He wouldn’t let me inside, and he said, Okay. I said, if you agree, sign this petition here, because I’m going to go to the city planning office to make it condos. And he signed. And he said, Talk to my brother in law. He’s living over there. So I went, knocked on the other door, and this guy told me about the neighbor anyway. So I got a board, kind of a clipboard, and it only had like maybe 17 signatures out of the whole apartment building, and the rest either nobody answered the door or they weren’t there. Never called me back. It was very frustrating, so But I went back to the city planning office about four days later, and I saw the same guy, and I remember he had me waiting, and I was there very early in the morning, and he was talking about waking up at six and watching the movie gun with the wind. I mean, the guy was just an absolute loser. But anyway, finally he called me over. He said, what’s going on? I said, Look, I got a petition right here signed by the condo renters. They want to become condo owners. If you don’t approve this, I’m gonna go get Channel Four and they’re gonna make a big expose about this thing that the city is not helping people become owners, and I’m gonna raise a holy hell against the city. Because he said, Hey, let me talk to my supervisor. They take me in the office, and they say, Okay, we’re gonna work with you. As a matter of fact, a good idea. These are gonna be affordable housing. You gotta dedicate so many units for whatever, whatever all what they told me, I said, Fine, fine, fine. Got a piece of paper saying that this is okay, and I went back and I advertised 172 units, Mira Mesa, California, approved for condos. Value will increase by so much. And this this, and I was able to assign the deal in escrow, and became millionaire at that time with my second deal. So it was creativity and guts and experience. And you know, you win wars by having great timing, very, very powerful force, relentless force. Intelligence. I knew that the city would need condos and great allies, because the guy, the seller, wanted to sell. So he gave me an extension of time because it just took a little longer for me to assign it. And I told him, Look, look, I got some people interested. Let me go back in. I need to inspect this and that. So he worked with me, because you’re an older guy. He wanted to sell. He told me he had kids from two different wives, and he wanted to separate the money. And like, he had these reasons. I was working with him. He was working with me. I mean, he could have told me, No, I don’t want don’t want to give you an extension. So it’s knowledge, really skills and a degree of luck in life.

Sharad Mehta  12:50  

Sharif, that is absolutely incredible. So, so impressive. I have so many questions. So you became a millionaire with your second deal that your day? Yes, I have so many questions. First, it’s, it’s crazy like to become a millionaire from a property that you saw on Penny saver. That is such an amazing story. I want to ask you. I want to go, you know, if you can go back to, like, the mindset that you had, first of all, to go from a duplex to do like, 170 plus unit building to take that leap, right? What mindset did you have? Like, I want to just think big. I don’t want to go after these duplexes make like, you know, you did pretty well on the first 850,000 this is like back in 1989 1990 early 1990s right? Yes,

Cherif Medawar  13:41  

which is 89 was the first deal, october 17. I remember I closed and and then the other one was done, really, by early 1990 but, but this is a great question, so I gotta tell you, so I was doing deals for it movie, sorry for the billionaire in the 10s of millions. Okay, I remember even took a land under contract in Martinique, in the island of Martinique, I speak French as well, so I put it under contract, and then he told me, We got approval from the city to give us tax increment financing, like we made it more valuable because of some tax credits from the government there, which I didn’t know what I was doing. He was telling me, and I would go and tell them, and I understood what I was doing, step by step. But then I assigned it to Marriott Hotels, because Marriott wanted to build, but we controlled the land. And my next meeting was Holiday Inn, but Marriott, at the time, wanted to grow, and they closed the deal right there. And then, when I was there, and I made him on that deal, $9.9 million just really talking and putting 100,000 non refundable in escrow for the guy to to give me the option to buy the land for it more bizarre. So when I put the piece together, and I stepped back and I realized, oh my god, this is I can do this with my cash advance on a credit card. So I left it mom be sorry, and then went to do my own deal. My first deal at duplex was 300,000 and I remember the evening, I had called the lady that advertised it, and she told me, come at seven o’clock, I’ll be back from work. Come from the back door of the duplex. I’m in the unit A, not unit B. Unit B is rented. Come to unit A at 7pm and I remember she didn’t tell me how much she wanted, but I knew I did some assessment that the duplex should be she should sell it to me for 360,000 to 380,000 because I looked at the comparable sales, and I figured it’s a good idea to check and test. My heart was beating so fast when I parked my car. I had an old car, parked my car downstairs, and came out to talk to her. And that was just 300,000 but it was my money now, and I didn’t have but 1500 in the bank. I just said, I gotta move forward intestines. And I knocked on the door. When she opened the door, I couldn’t remember her name. I couldn’t remember her name. She said, Hi, are you Sharif? I said, she goes, come, let me show you. And I walked in, she showed me the kitchen. She showed me upstairs. Look at the two bedrooms, the bathroom connects, and the bathroom downstairs and and then she said, You’re too quiet. Are you interested or what I said, Why are you selling? That’s only the question I could think of. And she said, I have this great opportunity to work overseas, and I’m going to be saving like the first 70,000 is tax free. So I’m so excited. My dad bought me this, and I’m ready to sell. I said, Well, how much you want? She’s at 315,000 now I thought she said 350 so, so I said, Wow. And she said, 315 is too much. When I heard 315 I said, whoa. And she said, okay, okay, if you’re serious, I’ll give it to you for 295 so I I couldn’t believe myself. I flinched, and I got a better deal. I’ve been flinching since. But the point is, we worked out a great deal. I went to the bank. The Bank had a special program with 5% down, no income, no asset verification. I got the money from a credit card, and I was very scared throughout the whole process, my heart was constantly beating fast out wake up in the middle of the night, all sweaty. My dad told me, you know, I don’t know what you know what you’re doing. Why are you jumping so big? Why don’t you buy something small? Like everybody was giving me doubt, every person that loved me wanted to protect me. I bought it, split it, sold it medically. The second deal, I said to myself, I gotta change my mindset. I can’t be so scared. I’m gonna go into the millions here. So what I did is I said, Life is a game, and I have to approach winning and losing with the same level of enthusiasm. I just want to play the game that mentality till today, and I’m 63 now, I’m just full of energy. I can box for an hour. I I was just doing boxing training the other day. On Sunday, it was 45 minutes boxing. The guy came to me. He said, Wait a minute, are you the guy? Sharif? That’s yeah. He said, man, you’re in good shape. I said, Yeah, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. I just like life, you know, live it well. So the thing is, till now, I think life is a game. So when there is problem, you got some people that get inside the problem, they get overwhelmed by the problem. They can come out of it. So I I think of it like I’m going to come outside of the problem and look at it from different points of view, to be creative about it, to play the game and and sometimes it’s not easy, but I think of it as if it’s a friend of mine who’s got that problem. What advice would I give him? And I became my own best advisor, and because I teach, I constantly hear other people’s stories and problems, and I have to help him and guide them. And I became better at the game itself, and it’s still a game, and the minute I lose essence of the game, I succumb to the problems of it, because it’s series of problems that you’re trying to solve, and in between, you have moments of happiness and moment of excitement that you have to relish and enjoy. But, yeah, there are plenty of problems, but the mindset is, it’s a game play it, and it’s okay, if you lose some you’re gonna win at the end. If you stay. It’s like a 15 round boxing game, just round. You know, I love

Sharad Mehta  19:15  

that. I love that. Alright, so you became a millionaire with this deal. The second deal, yes, are you still working at this point? Or do you leave your hotel job?

Cherif Medawar  19:25  

I work, yes, but through teams of people like in Puerto Rico, I have an entire team. I have in house attorney, in house CPA, I have

Sharad Mehta  19:33  

no no. What I mean is like when you when you got your million a second deal million, or did you still continue to work at the hotel job? Or do you continue?

Cherif Medawar  19:40  

Actually, believe it or not, I continue because hotel hotel for me was very easy business and a lot of fun. Now I own hotels but, but they’re small hotels. I have no big, big hotels, like boutique hotels and a lot of Airbnbs, etc. But what happened is, in 1991 January, 6. 1991

Sharad Mehta  20:01  

I love that you remember these dates. So specifically I love that

Cherif Medawar  20:06  

January 6, 1991 what happened is golf, the Gulf War started. So we went from very busy, actually, I remember like December was a busy time for open houses and stuff. And stuff. And it was very unusual, because usually it’s slow. Around Christmas, January 6, they deployed all the Camp Pendleton, which is north county, like a little bit north of San Diego, north of COVID where you are. They all were deployed to Iraq and the Gulf War started. And let me tell you, that weekend you could walk into any open house and there is nobody. The brokers are standing there looking at each other, like, what’s going on, what’s going to happen? So the market dropped completely. So the first few weeks, I said to myself, Okay, the real estate game is over. I’m going to lose the money. This is if I invest in things, and what am I going to do? And I had just bought some property, and the guy that had called me didn’t call me again. I called him and doesn’t call this so I asked him a question. I called him, left him a message, and I said, What would it take for you to buy the property? I’m very happy to carry the financing for you. So the guy called me back and said, Oh, will you carry the financing? I said, Yes. He said, Okay, will you give me a better price? Because the market is this, this, this. I said, let me see the loan you’re getting. And then I worked with him. So, so I sold it at a profit, but I carried my profit. What happened is I ended up not having taxes, because when you carry the so let’s say the profit is $100,000 so let’s say I bought a property for 400,000 and sold it to the guy for 500 but I carry the 100,000 as a finance, as a mortgage note. What’s a trust deed in California, and you record it as a second trust deed? It’s profit, but it’s unrealized gains. So the IRS said, Oh, you don’t my CPA, so you don’t pay taxes, because you didn’t have to realize the gain. I said, but it is again. He said, Yeah, but it’s a paper they’re paying you. I believe at that time the interest was around 9% I think I charged him 8% to even make it sweeter. So he was gonna pay me 8000 a year on the 100,000 and in two years, he’s supposed to pay it off, but it’s all my profit, so I was having profit on the profit. So I said, this is a great idea, but why don’t they tax me on the 100,000 he said, Because you did not realize that gain maybe later he will default. Maybe you can sell it at a discount. I said, Oh, I can sell it at a discount so I can get cash out right now. And it started opening other ways to do creative transactions, and I started getting so creative with the real estate. I started doing wraparound mortgages. I started doing seller carry back. I know some people do what’s called subject to, subject to. I’ve known so many people doing subject two, and the loan got called by the bank, meaning they buy property subject to the existing loan, then they put their their name on the deed. They transfer deed in their name. I mean, I can tell you every person I know who has done this, the bank, when they found out, they called the loan because it’s a transfer of ownership. So created big havoc. But so I did not structure the deeds like this. I structured them as a wrap around so if there is an existing loan, even a second loan. I’ve done even better deals like this. But through the war, I realized that when those time, times get bad, this one, you make the best deals, especially sitting from the outside coming in. So I made a lot of money, 9192 93 and then I continued with the with the business and what. And I continued with the notes business. I like the mortgage notes because then you have cash flow right away. It’s secured against Real Estate. If they default, you don’t have to foreclose. I never want to kick somebody out, but I would work with them. I’d say, Listen, let me sell the property. I’ll save you credit. So I had a lot of control. And the entire country is set up to benefit the creditors. But like, look, the banks control everything. They get federal money to give us. You lie to them. You go to jail. I mean, you lie on a federal application. This the FBI that comes after you, the federal business, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, because it’s a federal crime. So, so I said, this is great. I could be a lender. Of course, I’m not an FDIC lender, but I could buy existing notes at a discount. I could partner up on deals that have notes, etc. I can sell part of the notes. But there is nothing more profitable than commercial real estate. So I started growing the business into commercial and my favorite has been what’s called the single tenant buildings. I know I talk too much, I talk too much, I get too excited, but do you want

Sharad Mehta  24:43  

me to go? This is great. I’m loving it. Yeah. Okay, thank you. So then I

Cherif Medawar  24:47  

realized something unbelievable. I realized that I can get a building, single tenant, standalone building, like a jack in the box that is vacant, the Starbucks that’s vacant, sitting there. There’s a drive through, and it says. For lease, or says available, usually available. That means if we have a tenant who rent it, if we have a buyer, we sell it. So I would call on these people, and they would say, let’s say, I’ll give you the numbers on today’s market. You call the broker, and the broker says, I want 800,000 for the seller wants 800,000 so I’d say, Listen, I would like to buy the building, but it’s sitting vacant. The seller is making payments on a vacant building. You lost Jack in the Box, or whoever they have. So listen, I’ll make you an offer, but the best I can give you, let’s say it’s 700,000 and they say, Okay, let’s do the 700 but we’re not going to wait 90 days. We’ll give you just 45 days due diligence. So I put it under contract. And I start, instead of doing due diligence to check the building, I start smiling and dialing, and I call these national tenants. So you call Starbucks and you call McDonald’s, you call Burger King, and you call Ben and Jerry’s, and you call all there is 4500 national tenants. All I need is one of them to call me back. And of course, I’m simplifying it. I usually choose a building that has good neighboring tenants, that has a very good traffic, that’s very visible, that’s about 1500 to 2000 square feet, ideally drive through. These are today’s numbers. I mean, I’m the master of this. I made millions upon millions on this. Okay, that’s how I bought over 100 million in inventory of properties in Puerto Rico. You can go to my website, C, R, E, P, r.com, you could see the best portfolio of commercial properties in the entire Caribbean. I own it. So what I did is I would call and call and call and all I needed, and I’d send them a video. Now I send a video also by email, is the property. All I need is one tenant to call me back, or usually they email back and they say, Listen, we got your email. You got we got your phone call. We’re interested to talk. And I talk to them on the phone, and we make a deal happen. Usually a company like, let’s say subway, will say, Okay, we’re interested. We know our numbers. We know the area, because you can do everything online now they can actually, they have softwares that can tell them what they’re going to sell approximately based on other sales that they hear about their competitors, etc. And say, Okay, how much do you want for the place? And I say, well, we want 100,000 base rent for the year. That’s 8300 a month. That’s the best I can do for you. And they say, Well, okay, we’ll pay you the 100,000 but you got to give us, let’s say, $100,000 up front for tenant improvement, because we need to change the kitchen, we need to change the floor and whatever. I say, Okay, we got a deal, but you need to sign for 10 years. These people want to sign 10 to 15 years. They sign triple net, meaning they pay me the lease, 8300 a month, plus proportionate share of their property taxes, property insurance, and they handle the maintenance. It’s called the triple net, net net, net of tax, insurance and maintenance. So I’m buying it for 700 now I’m gonna give them 100,000 for tenant improvement. So the whole building cost me 800 but once they they signed that letter of intent, and I go to the bank, I go to the bank and I say, Look, I got a contract right here. You just get a couple piece of paper. I got a contract right here to buy this property at 800,000 and now this tenant is coming in. I have letter of intent from Subway. And subway is a nationally it’s publicly traded company. They have 33,000 stores worldwide, corporate guarantee. Corporate guarantee means guaranteed by the corporation, not by what they sell in the location. So, so the value of the building goes to 1.6 million, which is whatever the base rent times 16. How did I come up with that? It’s really whatever the net is, is a 6% cap, 6% capital return. Even in today’s market where the interest is high, I know it’s coming down, but even in today’s market, you can look up on loop net and whatever you see them selling at 6% cap. Why? Because people will buy them, get 6% income with no hassles, for 10 years and every unit goes up 3% I mean, talk about in unbelievable freedom and owners of ownership of real estate that you can pass on to your kids and grandkids and and create a legacy and be free travel the world. So. So what happened is I realized that this is an untapped market. Nobody even teaches that stuff. And I didn’t want to tell anybody. Frankly, my only problem became, when I buy these properties at 700 and I put a tenant. And now these, these are big tenants, the value becomes 1.6 1.5 I can sell it. And I mean, I put, like, 200,000 down, 300,000 down. So I’m like quadruple quantuple My money. I knew I would go into the 10s of millions very quickly. But my problem was, every time you make 100,000 in net gain in California, you’re paying federal tax, state tax, 13.3 and then they came up with Obama Care Tax 3.8% it was like. 53.8% tax. So my biggest problem became, okay, how can I reduce my taxes legally? And that became my mission. And what happened is, as I talked to attorneys, every attorney wanted to pigeon hole me in what they do. Oh, we can set you up in the Cayman Islands. I don’t want to go offshore. Oh, we can set up something in the Bahamas that will be I want in the United States. I don’t want to create a problem for taxes. Then I found out through my last endeavors with Hilton Hotels, because I became an expert for Hilton became like working for the corporate office. Wherever they have problems, they’re going to lose their management contract. They would call me to go in and work with them. So my last endeavor there was in 1998 99 they sent me to to Puerto Rico because they had opened a hotel and casino, and I was very good with numbers. And in Puerto Rico, I realized that is a place called Old San Juan. Puerto Rico is part of the United States. It’s a US territory. It’s very nice place, very nice people English and Spanish. A lot of people think it’s Spanish only. They don’t know. They think it’s Costa Rica, Puerto Rico. So I went there to take an assignment for Hilton Hotels. And while I’m there, I’m looking at real estate, because it’s my nature to invest. I found that there are some tax benefits in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, where the cruise ships arrive. It’s a historic zone. It’s the oldest historic zone under US flag. And these are beautiful historic buildings, and they said. The Congress said those who actually can do certain things for these buildings, maintain the facade, maintain the historic integrity. It will allow the cruise ships to do more tourism there, and will bring more business to Puerto Rico. Will have the United States give less aid money to Puerto Rico, so a lot of tax incentive, but you have to be resident there. So in the beginning, I heard it, and I said, Okay, well, this is too complicated, and I’ll look at it later. When I went back to California and my business was growing, that’s when I realized, oh my god, I gotta go back to Puerto Rico and figure out this tax thing. I can be paying a million dollars in taxes every year. So in 2003 I went to Puerto Rico and I realized the opportunity. I met with a retired judge. He explained to me the tax structure. I took residence in Puerto Rico, started buying there and getting the buildings, and I would call the National tenants, and now I had, like, an unbelievable opportunity. I would get a building under contract. I’ll give you an example. There was this building three floors the same, these very expensive building in Olsen. One was $3.5 million it’s a historic building, vacant downstairs and upstairs the penthouse. I called a bunch of tenants. I told them I got the deal under contract. Are you interested in coming in? Puma corporation called me. Puma paid me $20,000 a month for the first and second floor. That means the first and second floor alone, 20,000 a month is $240,000 just think of it this way, if it’s a 6% cap, when you have one of these big tenants with the corporate guarantee, that means every 60,000 of income make the building worth a million. This is 240,000

that means it’s four times 60,000 so the first and second floor alone became worth 4 million. That’s before I buy it. I put it under contract, I called them, I went on a little cruise. I came back. The Cruise was three days, came back, and what happened is the actual voice made from Puma, they said, we’re very interested in this location. We have a big location in the big mall, and we’re selling 8 million a year. We need a satellite location, and we love to be in Old San Juan where the cruise ships arrive. We can put our discounted store there in the outlet store. So when I called the guy back, I was all excited. And I was literally so excited when he said, How much is the rent? I said, 20,000 a month. And I stopped breathing, and he said, Okay, how quickly can we get in? I said, Wait a minute. I just want to make sure. Make sure that this is going to be a 10 year lease with the corporate guarantee. He said, Yes, of course, our corporate guarantee is $800 million but we need to get in before the busy season. We need to get in fast. So I said, Oh, my God. What do I need to do? He said, send me a letter of intent. Send me that what we discussed so we can review it. I said, but you should write he said, No, no, you write it. Send it to me. Send it today, I was flying from Puerto Rico to LA and I remember throughout the flight, I’m like, This flight is too slow. I needed to land already. Anyway, the next day, they said, Okay, we’ll do it. They signed the letter of intent, and I called the seller. I said, you know, I know we put the deal under contract five days ago. I have good news and bad news. He said, Oh, you’re not going to buy. I said, No, I’m going to give you the three and a half million. It’s under the contract, but I need you to pay the closing cost, because the good news is I’m going to close as quickly as possible. He said, Okay, I wired $5,000 in escrow because I hadn’t even opened escrow. I wired 5000 And escrow to legitimizes the deal. I called the bank Banco popular, which is a bank there in Puerto Rico. They have branch in New York and Miami and La actually, and they send the appraiser, and we closed. Puma came in, and they took the first and second floor, making it worth 4 million the upstairs. I separated it. Remember my condo from 1989 now this is 2006 so many years later, I separated the condo on top, sold it for $2 million it appraised, appraised 2.2 sold for $2 million yes, so And guess what? The bank did not have me reduce the loan. They said, listen, since we gave you the loan, and it’s secured against the whole property, but we have a corporate guarantee with Puma. When you sell the upstairs, you can cash out the money. We’re good. We’re good with this corporate guarantee, and we don’t need you to reduce the loan. We like to have our money out on properties like this that have corporate guarantees and stuff. I cashed out 2 million guess what I did about another building. Got some glass hut there, but another building out, buying cash, put the tenants the value increases, refinance cash out more money than I put. That’s how I bought this portfolio that you would see at CR, EPR and and then I started saying, You know what? I’m going to teach people how to do this. So I created my education company is called Sharif Mehta war, real estate investing, cm, Rei. So I created a program to teach people how to identify the buildings that I look for anywhere in the country, put them under contract. Here is a list of tenants. Call on the tenants, tell them this. Here is a text. Here is the exact script. And when you put a deal under contract, they’re gonna ask you for proof of funds. I will send you. I got $3 million CD. I’ll send you that as proof of funds. I got the fund. I can my real estate funds. I have two real estate funds. They’ve been running since 2009 now. So 15 years, and we’re going to help you get the deal under contract. You have 45 days. If you can find the tenant, you walk away. But you find the tenant interested, they communicate with you. I will get on the call on zoom with my student who is in the deal and the tenant, like we had a call the other day with Jack in the Box. That’s why they’ve been on my mind. And we close the deal. What do you don’t want? Okay, I’ll give you tenant improvement this. I will give you so many years. Oh, you want to do 15. We’ll do this escalation this way, and then negotiate the deal, and then I pay my students an upside, like, if you got it under contract, like the old number 700,000 now it’s going to be worth 1,000,006 so we have, like, eight, 900,000 profit. I give them 10 to 25% of that upside. So they got the check for $80,000 just by making, smiling and dialing, putting the pieces together. I have success. I have over 1000 success stories on YouTube. Just, just forget what I’m saying. It’s amazing. It’s

Sharad Mehta  37:46  

amazing. Sharad, that’s really incredible. So you’re resident of Puerto Rico, and you’re buying historic properties. What’s your what’s your goal? Like, where do you see yourself? Like, three, five years? Well, you know, direction.

Cherif Medawar  38:02  

So this is a great question, because this year, actually, I went from the condition of wanting, I constantly want, oh, I want to grow. I want to scale. I want to get more people, I want to teach more people, to the condition of having I just like, suddenly, I don’t know what happened in my mind. I said, You know what I have? I have enough, enough buildings. I just want to maintain them and make them look beautiful always. I have great students. I want to continue teaching. I have that gift that God gave me, that I’m willing to share. I’m happy to share. I believe there is a big pie out there. A lot of people I’ve met, they don’t even want to tell me what they did after I share with them what I’m doing. It’s fine with me. You know, it’s a big world out there. So I have this blessing that I no longer need to acquire and grow and do all this. I have two wonderful kids that are my biggest asset. So I spend my time with them. I like to take vacations. So So really, the goal now is to simplify and sustain and once people reach that stage in their life, it’s like you’re already in heaven. Heaven is on earth. I wish I reached that before. I would have had more wisdom, I guess. But it just hit me this year. So I I’m really, really happy. And whatever happens, I’m happy. I accept we have some challenges. I would like to mention, if you don’t mind, we do have some challenges. For example, we have investments in port in San Francisco. My fund remodels these rehab luxury homes, luxury like we buy them five, 6 million, we increase the square footage, we rehab them and sell them for 10, 12 million. We have the city of San Francisco went from the best city in the country to the worst. So we have challenges. So I always deal with the challenges, but with an open mind and an acceptance. And I’m kind of scaling things. And simplifying so, so my life continues in a happy pattern where I focus more on the trainings and maintaining the buildings I have.

Sharad Mehta  40:09  

How old are your kids and are they part of the business? My Yes,

Cherif Medawar  40:13  

my daughter is 18 and my son is 17. Almost, almost 17. Okay, okay. They love real estate. They watch my trainings. They they probably watch this interview you’re doing, right?

Sharad Mehta  40:24  

Awesome. You’re doing absolutely incredible. They should be very, very proud of you. Thank

Cherif Medawar  40:29  

you. Thank you. I started late in my personal life because I was so busy, so busy, yeah, and I knew I don’t want to get married till I am established. And it was constant run the the race for the dollar, if you will. And even whatever I made, it wasn’t enough. No, I need, I need more money. I need another million. Oh, my God, I’m so vulnerable. This guy’s got 10 million. I only got 2 million. I gotta, I gotta do some and then I stopped, I stopped comparing this, and I started saying, Okay, this is all good. It’s all fine.

Sharad Mehta  40:56  

I feel like that’s sometimes that’s the biggest challenge we deal with as human says when to know it’s enough. I think that’s if you know it feels like you’ve got into that stage in your life it’s enough, and want to enjoy the time with family, and then you take care of yourself and knowing that there’s no point about chasing money, chasing dollars, just, you know, without any bigger purpose. So I absolutely respect you for that. Thank you, incredible. I mean, just the story that you shared like to go from, you know, like working at a hotel, wanting to be a general manager, and then Mr. Beshari, yeah,

Cherif Medawar  41:39  

see my picture with him on LinkedIn. I was standing next to him, and one he has a castle in France chat, and I’m standing I was 2526

Sharad Mehta  41:49  

you could see I’ll definitely check that out. Like do to have a mentor like that, and how your life trajectory changes completely, and then to buy real estate. And what I absolutely love about your story is, like the big vision that you have a lot of investors, they get scared about, you know, they look at like small deals. They keep doing small deals. And then you go from like a duplex where you made 150,000 this is back in 1989 which probably worth about three, $400,000 in today’s dollar. And then to next deal, you go 170 units. You, I love the story. You go back to the city this they just, you know, brushed you off. You go to the tenants, get the signatures, go back and then, like, force them and say, Hey, we’re gonna do this channel for expose a and I this is absolutely incredible. Like, just to be able to do that, have the courage to this is like you were, like, 2025 at that time when you did that.

Cherif Medawar  42:50  

I was, you know, I was 28 when I did my 28 Yeah, when I did the appointment. I

Sharad Mehta  42:55  

mean, to be able to do that, and like, especially to talk to a city official, and then have that courage to say, hey, knowing this is a good deal, and to be able to just go back and say, I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna go to like news channels and do this, and then get them to convince them be a millionaire. I love it. I cannot tell you how much I absolutely love that story.

Cherif Medawar  43:15  

And to that point, sometimes people think I gotta be nice to make it in life. Yeah, nice. And then people will be nice to me, but you have to know when to be nice and when to be a monster. You have to be like a tamed monster to win, because there is no virtue in being a rabbit that’s trying to be nice, but there is a big virtue in being the tiger or the lion and trying to be nice and showing that, Hey, I can’t like I told them. I will sue. I will go after you. I will come out on Wednesday with the channel four in the city meeting, and I will expose you. And I’ll bring all these people that signed on this, and it was only one page signature, so 17 people, and I’ll bring everybody with their babies, and you’re gonna explain to them why you don’t want them to be owners. And I also would like to mention, I thank you for that feedback. You’re actually a great listener. You ask great questions. I never actually shared the story in such a flow in my life, and I’ve been interviewed a lot, but thank you. What is important to mention is I’ve had losses. I’ve done deals that did not go well, but I didn’t let them discourage me. I stepped back and I said, Okay, so it’s a little depressing. I messed up. Let me really analyze what I did wrong. And a lot of people don’t want to look at it. They’re like, Oh, I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve done it in business relationships, and I it’s so important because your network is what gets you places. It’s what you know and what actions you take. And when I mess up with the knowledge or the action or the network, I go back and reestablish the relationship, check what what I thought was correct, what I thought is reality, but it’s not the true reality. I. It’s a fake reality. It says it’s not the true reality, as evidenced by the wrong result. Because when something goes wrong, I look first at myself, what have I gone wrong? Did I not engage correctly? Did I not look at this number two, who did I put in charge? So if it’s not me, who are the people involved? Did they not care? Were they not incentivized? Were they not qualified? Did they not communicate properly with each other? And if everything’s okay with me and everything’s okay with the team, then the third thing is, what are the outside factors that ruined this deal? Oh my god, the market went bad. Oh my god, the politicians did this. Oh my god, the city planning now is working from home, and they couldn’t care less if you got a ten million home blocks away from Nancy Pelosi and across the street from Larry Allison, the third now richest man in the world city planning office, saying, Oh, we don’t, we don’t have it scheduled for another four months, four months on a ten million home. Do you understand what my holding cost is? And the guy’s like, Sir, we’re gonna get to it. He’s working from home. I can’t do anything. You can’t fight city hall. So that’s when I realized, you know, the government has changed, and things are not as fluid as they have been in the United States. And once you understand that, you reposition yourself and you take things to your advantage. For example, who do you want to become the president of the United States, Trump or Kamala Harris or whatever? You know, it doesn’t matter. I think everybody’s trying to do their best. Everybody has good intentions. From their own point of view. All I want to understand is, whoever is going to become a president? Please tell me your policies. So once they tell me the policies in real estate is so powerful, it’s so leveraged, so magnified. You say, Okay, so that’s their policy. This is what I need to do with my inventory. I need my taxes. Oh, I need to now sell these homes. I remember Bill Clinton when he came to the office. He came up with the Internal Revenue Code, 121, he said, if you live in a home for a couple of years and it’s your home and you sell it, you can keep up to $250,000 tax free money capital gains, tax free your husband and wife, up to half a million tax free. Just live a minimum of two years in the last five years. So that news immediately, I understood residential real estate is going to go through the roof, because everybody’s gonna trade up, actually. So I went to residential big time, made a lot of money when September 11, the attack. And in September 11, 2001 and the attack happened, the terrorist attack. I mean, we’re in the United States, it was so bad. I remember I’d walk in a place, and everything is different. I walked one time in a bookstore and I said, none of these books will make sense now. The world has changed. I said, But wait a minute. The US is going to react. They’re going to drop interest rate. They’re going to create home ownership. And sure enough, I went bigger in real estate. It was an absolute bonanza. It was the during Bush time, after September 11, was the highest ownership in the history of the United States, percentage was 67.7 I think it was so Trump, when Trump came up and he said, we’re going to have opportunity zones. You can roll your money into this and hold them for 10 years. You’re going to go to areas that nobody wanted to invest in. Well, guess what? It opened opportunities in my real estate funds and grew. Obama came in in 2015 and he said, I’m taking a country that’s falling apart. I’m gonna allow real estate funds to now publicly solicit. It was never since 1933 real estate funds was just private like, I know you. You know me. I I solicit you to come into my fund that Give me 100,000 a million, whatever. But in 2015 that created reg D, 506, C, that opened the world, created trillions of dollars, and come back, he doesn’t get enough credit for it, but So to close my statement here, so today in my training, we teach people not just how to get these single tenant buildings and do joint venture with me, but how to set up their own real estate funds. I help people who have some experience in wholesaling or buying and fixing to set up their own real estate funds, and no matter who the president is, they’re going to make millions. So that’s what has changed in the country, is you got to be a fund. You got to group investors together and put the money to make these otherwise you are not going to be able to compete within next five years, only the big funds are going to own everything. It’s man,

Sharad Mehta  49:23  

yeah. And you know what I love about your stories. I was watching this, this talk the other day. I forgot who it was from, but they said that if you want to make money, follow the tax code. There’s so much, so much opportunity in tax code. Follow the tax code, and that will tell you what opportunities you need to invest in. And I love about your story that that’s exactly what you’ve done. You moved to Puerto Rico, away from California, which is like, taxes are insane, by the way. You move to Puerto Rico, and then you, you know, you reduce your property tax rate from like 53% to like 15% and that’s where, like, you started falling. That’s where you saw the opportunity. So absolutely incredible story. Thank you so much for sharing that. I got final three questions for you. What do you do? For fun? Oh, for

Cherif Medawar  50:09  

fun, I like to travel. I love traveling. I love cruises. And I just meeting different cultures. I love how every culture in the world has participated in the growth of humanity. It’s just fascinating to me.

Sharad Mehta  50:21  

What’s the most memorable place that you’ve traveled to recently that you can think of? You

Cherif Medawar  50:25  

know, the most memorable experience is always Paris. Paris. Like I almost start every trip with Paris. I go to Paris, and then I go to whatever else so I can be in Europe, and then from there I go. So I love Paris, walking just around in the streets, every bit of it is an experience to remember, and especially if you’re with loved ones or family or so, it’s just a great experience, awesome.

Sharad Mehta  50:50  

What’s the one book that’s had the biggest impact on your life? It could be a business book or a personal book or one of each.

Cherif Medawar  50:57  

The Best Book, believe it or not, is how to win friends and influence people? I was 13 years old, and my dad had that box with a lot of books, and I pulled it, it was in French, and I looked at it, and I said, Oh, how to make friends and influence people, but it’s a French edition, so, and I was with the Jesuit school, and, you know, so I spoke French fluently, and my mom is French. So I opened it, and I started reading, and I couldn’t put it down. That was the first book I read that was enforced on me from the schools. And till now, I still have the book and all my highlights and my comments and all this till now, some of what I learned there has impacted me regarding relationships, because if you think of relationships as long term relationships, you would behave completely different.

Sharad Mehta  51:44  

You know, absolutely it’s an incredible book. I remember reading it a while back. Final question, if you could spend a day with anyone, dead or alive, who would you want to spend that day with, and why

Cherif Medawar  51:58  

I would want to spend it with Jesus Christ. I mean, for obvious reasons, I think the man, when he was a man, you know, alive, he had such wisdom and such secrets that he could share about living, not so much for the life of acquiring assets and all this, but for the divine. And you know that I often thought of that, you know, it’s like, Oh, what if I meet this person and I sat down had lunch with them, you know, like Warren Buffett, he shares so much with what he has. I don’t think he would say anything different during lunch. Maybe something specific for me, but, but Jesus Christ? I mean, it’s like, where did that wisdom come from? How is he one with God? What is this story of Christianity? And why are there so many religions? And why are we really making our own decisions? And, or is there, you know, like, I think we constantly rewrite our destiny. You can. You can make a decision right now and say, I want to go do this. And it’s like the universe opens up. How is this happening? How does that happen,

Sharad Mehta  53:03  

right? Yeah, so Jesus is the number one answer on the podcast so far. So, yeah, really? Sharad, thank you so much. Absolutely incredible. Total pleasure. If someone listening to this wants to connect with you, learn more about your journey or about your coaching program. What’s the best way for them to do Thank you. The best way

Cherif Medawar  53:22  

is to reach my VP. She’s been with me 20 years. Ashley at cm, R, ei.com, Ashley is A, S, H, L, E, E, at, C, M, r, e, i.com

Sharad Mehta  53:37  

put links to that in the show notes. Also. Sharif, thank you again, so much. This was absolutely incredible. My pleasure. Thank you, Sharad, all the best. You.