Falling into Passive Investing with Jeff Anzalone

What was supposed to be an adventurous and stress-free vacation led to a moment that changed the trajectory of Dr. Jeff Anzalone’s financial perspective. While enjoying a skiing trip with his family, another skier cut Jeff off as he was exiting a ski lift with his wife. Jeff swerved in an attempt to avoid injuring himself and the other skier.

The result was a badly injured wrist, which might seem like a minor injury to most skiers. However, Jeff Anzalone has been a periodontist for nearly 20 years, a profession that requires constant and steady use of both hands. For the first time, Jeff had been forced into the position of thinking about what his lifestyle would be like if he were unable to work.

“I knew that I needed to do something, but I had no clue where to start. I didn’t want to work more or longer hours. But I knew that I needed extra income streams. I had read some books from people that were successful, and I learned two things,” Jeff Anzalone shared. “Number one, 90-plus percent of millionaires had real estate in their portfolio. I had zero; besides my primary residence, I had none. The second thing, which was even more eye-opening, was that the average millionaire had anywhere from three to nine extra income streams. I had one.”

Jeff’s knowledge of real estate led him to believe that to be an investor you had to be a landlord, which automatically didn’t meet his criteria since it would require working longer hours. But after starting to network with other like-minded professionals, he discovered passive investments through syndications.

After starting with syndications in 2017, Jeff’s investment portfolio quickly grew. As he continued to broaden his investments, he asked other investors where they found deals and what avenues they used to help grow their knowledge. They repeatedly recommended networking conferences.

“The majority of the investors were saying that they had been to the Best Ever Conference, and it just kept coming up, so that piqued my interest,” Jeff shared. “I am always looking to learn. I eventually want to get to the point where I start doing my own deals once my kids are out of the house and I have more time, but right now, I want to just be a passive investor.”

When it comes to the conference experience, one fundamental difference separates the investor community from dental professionals: the openness to share information, lessons learned, and best practices.

“It’s been amazing how giving people are at those types of conferences and in real estate. I guess from all the training that I’ve had, whether that’s in dental school or my residency, everybody was trying to compete with everybody, so nobody would share anything. They always kept it to themselves,” Jeff said. “Then you get to somewhere like this and people are very open in sharing. It’s always in the back of your mind: ‘Why are you telling me this? What’s the catch?’ And it wasn’t a catch. I think most people realize, myself included, that we wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for other people and sharing information and helping people along.”

For other investors like Jeff Anzalone who are looking to broaden their network and expand their understanding of real estate, Jeff’s advice on how to approach the conference to get the most out of it comes back to identifying goals that you want to walk away from the event with.

“It can be a bit overwhelming, for sure. It’s best when you go with maybe two or three specific goals that you’re trying to accomplish, whether that be wanting to syndicate your first deal or meeting people to invest with,” Jeff reflected. “That way, you can figure out which person you should go listen to, or what networking event you should do.”

The next chapter for Jeff Anzalone in his investment journey has already started, thanks to the confidence and knowledge that he’s gained from the Best Ever Conference.

“Now that I have gotten into something that I’m really passionate about, I thought, well, how can I share this information, this journey, the path that I’m going down? So about three years ago, I did something that I never thought I’d do: I started a blog, debtfreedr.com,” Jeff said. “All that started out as the information I was learning and what I thought doctors and other busy professionals should know about educating themselves about passive income and real estate. It really has started to take off and allowed me to potentially get out of my practice within five years and go full-time into real estate.”

About the Author:

Leslie Chunta is a marketing consultant with nearly 15 years of experience in creating dynamic marketing programs and building brands for startups to enterprise organizations. She has worked agency- and client-side with high-growth companies that include Silicon Valley Bank, JPMorgan Chase, SailPoint, EMC, Spanning Cloud Apps, Ashcroft Capital, Netspend, and Universal Studios. www.thelabcollective.com

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell any securities or to make or consider any investment or course of action.