Best George Gao Podcasts (2025)

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Episode 32 - Misty Flanagan, Commercial Real Estate Developer and the importance of Mindset 1:35:23

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5y ago1:35:23

1:35:23

Today we have Misty Flanagan, co-founder and head of marketing at Elevated Development, a local Houston based residential and commercial development firm. Misty came from a strong corporate background having worked for a Fortune 500 general contractor firm before diving into her real estate career. What I found so fascinating about Misty is not onl…

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Episode 31 - Grant Burwash, How to empower landlords and tenants with Landlord Credit Bureau 47:16

5y ago47:16

47:16

Today we have Grant Burwash from Landlord Credit Bureau, which is a company based out of Toronto Canada started by a serial tech entrepreneur who was trying to solve his own problems with his rental portfolio to improve property management and rent collection. LCB is a consumer reporting agency when a landlord signs up, they can report all their re…

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Episode 30 - Michael Seago, 25 Years of Investing in Houston 1:07:48

5y ago1:07:48

1:07:48

Today we have Michael Seago, a local investor and broker who has been investing in the great Houston area for more than 25 years. As he mentioned during the introduction, Michael graduated from Texas A&M and got a business degree from Houston Baptist University. He went on to become the CFO for a multimillion dollar company before following his pas…

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Episode 29 - Evan Trinidad, What's Tourlie? 40:11

5+ y ago40:11

40:11

Today we have Evan Trinidad, President and co-founder of Tourlie. What’s Tourlie you might ask. Tourlie is a new start-up company that helps busy real estate agents with showings and open houses and also provide extra income other agents who has time and looking to do some side hustles. It’s almost like Uber/Lyft concept but for real estate showing…

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Episode 28 - Howard Wang, Multifamily Syndication First Deal 225-Units! 1:12:51

5+ y ago1:12:51

1:12:51

Today we have Howard Wang from Alpha One Capital to share some of his experience in the multifamily real estate syndication world. As you'll hear in our conversation, Howard has a very impressive background. He worked in private equity consulting firm and performed valuation for over $600m of transactions. Then he started his own RE investment care…

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Episode 27 - Christine Lin, Title Insurance Overview and Costs 54:13

5+ y ago54:13

54:13

Today we have Christine Lin from Fidelity National Title to shed some light on what title companies do during the real estate transactions in Texas and also what to look for in Schedule A through D of the Title commitment documents, and most importantly what are some of the state regulated fees vs. other negotiable fees. She also offered some tips …

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Episode 26 - Sam Yee, Multifamily SBL Lending at CBRE 1:15:37

5+ y ago1:15:37

1:15:37

This was one of the last episodes we recorded before COVID. Sam Yee is a Vice President on the Debt and Structured Finance team at CBRE, focused on small balance apartment lending in Houston and across the US. During his time at the firm, CBRE funded over $2 billion in small multifamily loans and in 2017 became the nation’s top SBL lender. Sam has …

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Episode 25 - Vivian Khai, 2020 Tax Preparation for Realtors 46:06

5+ y ago46:06

46:06

Vivian Khai is a CPA and has a MBA from University of Houston. She has a very extensive professional background in accounting, project management, and software training on Microsoft Office products for small businesses and accountants. For the last seven and half years, she has been running her own tax preparation firm here in Houston and has a lot…

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Episode 24 - Huy Nguyen, eXp Realty What To Do As A New Agent 43:19

5+ y ago43:19

43:19

Today’s guest is Huy Nguyen from eXp Realty and one of the longest standing members of the Landlord Association. This conversation was hosted by Jimmy Lam where the three of us shared our experiences from both a part-time and full-time real estate agents’ perspectives. As many of you know, Huy transitioned from a W2 job to being a full-time real es…

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Episode 23 - Na Guo, COVID update from a Houston RE developer 38:38

5+ y ago38:38

38:38

This is a follow-up interview with our guest from the last episode, Na Guo of River Bridge Investments who develops residential and mixed-use projects here in Houston. She gave us an update on the townhouse projects in Independence Heights and her two new projects in the Medical Center and Conroe. We’ll talk about some of the financing hurdles as w…

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Episode 22 - Na Guo, Ground-Up Development in Houston 42:08

5+ y ago42:08

42:08

Today we have an interview with Na Guo from River Bridge Investments who specializes in ground-up developments. This was also recorded before COVID. And like what we did with Nikhil on the commercial retail side, hopefully we can bring Na back to give us an update on how the pandemic has affected the real estate business from a developer’s perspect…

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Episode 21 - Nikhil Shah, Retail Sector COVID Update 33:18

5+ y ago33:18

33:18

Today we have a follow up episode with Nikhil Shah from SGRE Capital, whose business model is purely focused on buy, value-add, and sell commercial retail properties in the Houston and Dallas areas. We brought him back to give us an update on how the retail sector is holding up relative to other real estate asset classes as well as get his future o…

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Episode 20 - Nikhil Shah from SGRE Capital, how to succeed in commercial retail space 1:06:10

5+ y ago1:06:10

1:06:10

Nikhil Shah is a founder of SGRE Capital, which focuses on the commercial retail space in the greater Dallas and Houston areas. Before SGRE Capital, Nikhil has done more than $1b of transactions at GE Capital and has 6yrs of energy investment experience at Enron. Today, Nikhil and his team focuses on value-added retail and neighborhood shopping mal…

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Episode 19 - askJimmy (COVID-19 update edition) 47:30

5+ y ago47:30

47:30

Today, Jimmy is going to give us an update on his portfolio as an example and a glimpse of the market conditions. He also mentions how he is dealing with some of the tenants who are struggling to pay rent and how his group is leveraging the SBA loan programs. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/landlord-association-podcast/donations…

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Episode 18 - Thaison Hua, Importance of Legal Protections 1:34:28

6y ago1:34:28

1:34:28

Hello everyone, welcome back to new season of the Landlord Association podcast. Today we episode 18 that has been long overdue. This was a recording from our last meet-up in February with featuring Thaison Hua and a founding member of the Hua Law Group. Thaison is a fantastic young attorney here in Houston that provides legal services on LLC format…

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Episode 17 - AskJimmy about late rent, pet deposit, ozone machines and much more! 16:47

6y ago16:47

16:47

Today we have another Ask Jimmy session that was recorded on a webinar and converted into a short podcast. We’re hoping that in the future, we can host live webinars online, have Q&A sessions to answer questions, host guests online instead of in-person meet-ups, presentations, excel tutorials, the possibilities are endless. So we’re very excited. I…

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Episode 16 - David Williams & David Hoke, HML from Red Door Funding 52:13

6y ago52:13

52:13

Today we have David Williams and David Hoke from Red Door Funding, a Houston based hard money lender focused on helping real estate investors for more than a decade and have done thousands of deals. They went over the basics of what is hard money lending, also the different products they have for fix-n-flippers and buy-n-hold landlord investors; as…

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Episode 15 - Lance Langenhoven Commercial Properties with No Overnight Tenants and Kiva.org! 1:58:26

6y ago1:58:26

1:58:26

This is a recording from our September monthly meeting last Thursday. We invited Lance Langenhoven, who is a commercial real estate broker who has done more than $150M of transactions in the Houston area. This is not a typical presentation about apartments and multi-families. Lance focuses on properties that doesn’t have ‘overnight’ tenants, that i…

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Episode 14 - John Hernandez, Maximize Cash Flow with Rooms for Rent 44:04

6+ y ago44:04

44:04

We have a great episode for you this week. We met up with John Hernandez from Houston Rooming Houses to talk about his investing experience and how he differentiates himself from other investors with an unique investment style that specializes in buying fixer-uppers and turning them into rooms for rent that really maximizes the cash flow per proper…

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Episode 13 - #askJimmy 12:50

6+ y ago12:50

12:50

Today we have another Q&A session with Jimmy Lam, the president of the Landlord Association, to answer some of the questions posted on our Facebook page. We always get great questions from our members and so Jimmy is here to give his perspectives. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/landlord-association-podcast/donations…

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Episode 12 - Michael Plaks, "Black Belt" Tax Strategist 1:17:37

6+ y ago1:17:37

1:17:37

Last week, we have the honor of speaking with Michael Plaks, who founded the tax accounting company call REI Tax Firm. Michael is an expert on IRS taxation and real estate business and he frequently writes and speaks on these topics and is a regular contributor on the biggerpockets forums. Michael also has over 20 year of experience representing cl…

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Episode 11 - Charles Nguyen "WholeScaling Ninja" 1:23:43

6+ y ago1:23:43

1:23:43

Today we have the pleasure speaking with Charles Nguyen, a Houston-based wholesaler who was corporate IT professional and built a wholesaling business with scalable systems and processes while maintaining his full-time job. So he has since became known as the “wholescaling ninja”. Now Charles has expanded his wholesaling business into multiple mark…

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Episode 10 - #askJimmy 32:10

6+ y ago32:10

32:10

We have another installment of the #askJimmy segment where he answers some of the burning questions posted on our facebook page. Also, as a bonus, just to give our listeners a different perspective: we talked at a high level about the commercial office building asset class, based on Jimmy’s professional experience at Hines. Obviously, class A offic…

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Episode 9 - Loan Factory with Hanh Dao and Richard Blanchard 1:51:31

6+ y ago1:51:31

1:51:31

This was recorded at our last monthly meeting when Nacy Zheng invited Hang Dao and Richard Blanchard from the Loan Factory, where they have closed more than 60 loans last month. Because it was recorded at the meeting, some of the questions didn’t come out but you’ll understand the gist based on Hanh and Richard’s response. They also walked through …

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Episode 8 - Tommy Lee of Kirkwood Haven Partners 48:50

6+ y ago48:50

48:50

Today we have Tommy Lee from Kirkwood Haven Partners, a real estate development company where he is a managing partner responsible for overseeing construction projects. I have known Tommy and his wife Nancy for about a year. Together, they own many single family rentals in their portfolio as well as have done about 30 fix and flips in the last twel…

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Episode 7 - #askJimmy 12:59

6+ y ago12:59

12:59

Jimmy Lam answers questions about rent-to-own, appliances warranty, benefits of owning rental properties and how he does rental inspections. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/landlord-association-podcast/donationsBy George Gao

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Episode 6 - How is Salvation Army Helping Affordable Housing in Houston with MaKieba Hatton 1:24:16

6+ y ago1:24:16

1:24:16

Today we have MaKieba Hatton from Salvation Army where she currently works as a Housing Navigator or case manager, which means she helps veterans and other Houston residents find affordable housing with the support of government agencies based on their unique situations. She came to our meeting last week to tell us about the different types of publ…

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Episode 5 - Rich Drake Renters Warehouse 48:36

6+ y ago48:36

48:36

Rich Drake is the CEO of Renters Warehouse franchise in Houston as well as an active investor. Rich and his team grew Renters Warehouse into one of the biggest property management companies for single family residences in the Houston area. In this show, we’ll talk about some new ideas and strategies for property owners like how to increase you pote…

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Episode 4 - #askJimmy 11:35

6+ y ago11:35

11:35

#asJimmy segment where Jimmy answers Facebook member questions on trampolines, evictions and rent increases Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/landlord-association-podcast/donationsBy George Gao

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Episode 3 - Home Inspection with Larry Waidhofer 37:15

6+ y ago37:15

37:15

Today we have Larry Waidhofer from Premier Home Inspection to talk about some of things to watch out for during a home inspection. Larry has been in the home inspection business since 2013, and have done more than 2,200 inspections on a wide range of properties built anywhere from the 1900’s to new-builds. Many of our Landlord Association members h…

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Episode 2 - Property Insurance with Trista Carr 39:37

6+ y ago39:37

39:37

In this episode, we interview Trista Carr from Sunup Insurance to talk about a wide range of topics related to property insurance including flood insurance, cash value vs. replacement value policies, umbrella insurance, and commercial property insurances. Some of our listeners maybe familiar with Trista because she helped underwrite policies for ma…

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Episode 1 - Quest Trust (Derrick Long) and Self-Directed IRA 1:33:26

6+ y ago1:33:26

1:33:26

Hi everyone! Here is the first episode of our Landlord Association podcast. This episode was a recording of our last meeting with Derrick Long of Quest Trust who discussed the ins and outs of a self-directed IRA. It's a little long, about 1.5hrs but totally worth the time. Please leave a comment or feedback to let us know what you think or suggesti…