Hey, hey, hey, we're back. We're black, we're brown and abition. We're extra brown today. Well we're minus a brown, but plus a brown, so I think we're on net. We're the same level of brown ambition. Welcome to the show. We've got a special guest today. But before I introduce our special guests, I want to remind you that next week,
my new book, Made Whole comes out. Remember it is the workbook version of my textbook at Geting with Money, New York Times bestseller, almost three hundred thousand copies sold. Maid Whole is going to walk you through ten simple steps to achieving the financial foundation you need to build the rest of your amazing life on. Okay, so if you want to get a copy, go ahead on over to Maid Whole Workbook dot com. Get yourself a copy. There still might be some signed copy he left. That's
Made Whole Workbook dot com. All right, So in this stew today we have a let let me get let me pull his bio up. I think I bet Jude, I don't even know like three years ago. So Jude Bernard, he is the founder and CEO. He's a founder and a CEO, and he owns a company now called the Brooklyn Bank. Jude founded Brooklyn Bank, Inc. In twenty seventeen, and he is responsible for the organization's direction from his
thirty plus year span of his entrepreneurship career. Jude prides himself in learning from mistakes and bouncing back from numerous setbacks. He's passionate about sharing his wealth of information and personal experience with local schools and community organizations to help others avoid the mistakes he's made and successfully navigated to his
own source of financial freedom. So beyond his role as a leader of the Brooklyn Bank and as an entrepreneur, he is also a licensed real estate broke her, a licensed general contractor or. I didn't know that, dude, a business consultant, landlord, public speaker, philanthropists and wealth educator. So we welcome to the show, Jude, We're not welcome, Dude.
Hey, you know I was about to call you by my.
Last name exactly. Well, so I met Jude.
Jude.
When did I meet you? Because I think you invited me to speak. You had like a Father's day kind of well it was juneteenth, also Father's Day. But did I know you before that? When you invited me to speak?
I think we had kind of like you know, through the circuit, kind of known of each other and the end of that nature. So we first really started communicating. I think it was like June twenty twelve, No excuse me, it was earlier than that. It was early twenty twenty.
Two, because you like this amazing I remember it was like Aunt angelaee, you have the guys from Earned your Leisure. Honestly, you had some of the best and brightest minds and black personal finance on that stage. And so it was a really pretty awesome experience to some people I'd known be a social some people I knew obviously real life in person, and it was kind of like the first time that I had like experienced what you do in person. But for the people who don't know what you do.
So there's like two sides of you. I know, there's like the real estate side. You know, you're like, you know, the joke is, Jude owns half of Brooklyn, right, But then there's also this like financial education philanthropists side that I've come to know through the Brooklyn Bank and the work you do there. So let's talk first about kind of like the real estate side. So when it comes to real estate, like where do you stand now? Like what? Like what do you do? Do you own commercial properties?
Do you own like residential properties? Like what are you what's your main source of business?
Yes? Yes, all that now. I have a very very diverse portfolio. I focused on pretty much multi you know, multifamily units of Brownstone Brooklyn. I was lucky to get into Brooklyn in early two thousands before Brooklyn became Brooklyn. So I picked up you know, a dozen missild Brownstones back then for a couple hundred thousand, and never in my wildest dream did I ever think that this is what this is what it would become. Also, I recently, I recently got into the the short term rental business.
I picked up a seventeen unit building in Harlem that had a what do you call those licenses? An SRO license, which which allows for transient occupancy. So I picked that up a few years ago and I converted it into a short term rental, a short term rental building that would be legally able to host Airbnb. So the whole world is crime. Airbnb is the devil. Airbnb is bad, EBB is gone. You know, I've been doing pretty well with that. I have events space. You know, I'm just real estick guy, you know.
Yeah, but I remember, like you told me once, I think it was like I was hanging out with you and your friend Uja. You guys were kind of laughing about like how you started like in the real estate space because you weren't always obviously in real estate, and you like it was kind of like an ex girlfriend that prompted you to get your to get your money out. And I don't know how comfortable you feel like telling the story, but as much as you feel comfortable, I think that people would love to know.
Oh, sure, I'd love to share it. It's you know, in every situation, there's there's like this point where a turning point where it seems really really bad, but then in hindsight it kind of becomes the seed that grows into something else. So I remember it was, you know, the early nineties, mid to early nineties, and I was seeing a beautiful, beautiful girl before there were before there were there were video vixens, and I had the pleasure
and the discomfort of dating one. So she ended up being a lead in a fun you know, funny enough, more money, more problems was the video. And once that started. You know, I had I had the Puffies, the Mike Tyses, the Maces call in my house for my girlfriend and stuff like that, you know. And I remember one time she came home with about fifty thousand dollars working with Sachi clothes about Oh yeah, Mike Tyson brought this for me. You know, that's my friend.
Oh my god. It's all like you could fight Mike Tyson.
It's not like I could fight Mike Tyson. Anyway, I was working at Verizon make Happy, happily, making you know, a couple of hundred dollars a week, and you know, things got to a boiling point. And on my exit interview, you know, you know how you have the exit interview as you've breaken up. You know, she pointed to me. She was just like, y'all asked you to buy me a CD, and you told me I had to wait till the end of the week to get the CD.
You know, it's like thirteen hours exactly. And it's just like CDs came out on Tuesdays back then, and I got paid on Friday, so she's like, by Friday, everybody would know all the songs of this that the d.
How old were you both about around in your twenties nineteen twenty oh yeah, yeah, like young.
So it was at that point I was just like, all right, cool, I'm never ever going to be in a situation where I don't, like, I'm not able to compete financially, Okay, you know, not that you know, not that my whole thing is tricking or anything like that. It was just like the insecurity, the way I felt less than the way I felt that you know, somebody was choosing other people because I was lacking into one capacity.
Okay.
So you know, at that point, that's when I was like, oh, never again, will this be me?
Okay.
So it was at that point that I started taking It was at that point I realized that, you know, four or five hundred dollars a week is not that much money, even though it was enough for me at the time, you know, but just realizing that, you know, like like there was a lot more out there. So a couple of months after that, that's when I acquired my first property with the goal of making five hundred dollars a week, you know, an extra five hundred dollars a month.
Okay, And so how did that look? Like? Like so you know, you go from this heartbreak like, oh she chose why tice it over me, which is very interesting, right, But so then what did that look like? I remember when I was hanging out with you and then your friend came over and you guys were sharing that there was a group of you at that time that initially we're supposed to invest together. Correct in Brooklyn. Yeah, I remember we had this meeting.
There's about twenty of us that got together and we were just like, hey, if we each put like a thousand dollars together, we can start buying real estate together. And it's kind of like that group trip, you know, everybody's like, oh, yeah, I want to go to Africa.
I want to go to Africa, and go to Africa, you know, six months, six months, six months, when it's six months out, and then when it's three months out, I was like, well I can, and this person I can, and then thing you know, you're in Africa by yourself. So it was just exactly what happened from the twenty of us that from the twenty of us that got started to my friend and another guy they partnered together, and I pretty much I pretty much went on my own and out of that big group, we were the
only ones that actually did anything. And funny enough, you know, decades later, everybody's like, oh my god, if I.
Only knew, hindsight is twenty twenty all the time. Mm hmmm. So you got your first property. Do you remember what it was?
Yes? I do. It was it was a two family house with an illegal basement. Don't go get illegal basements out there. It was a two family house with an illegal basement in southside Jamaica, Queens. It was. I had two section eight, I had two sectionally tenant, and I had I had somebody living downstairs in the basement. And at the end of at the end of the day, like I ended, I was working on my MBA at
the time. Okay, I was working on my MBA. And you know, you know how like when your your your financially, it hits and then you get that refund check. So I used that refund check as my down payment, okay, to get the properties. So that's how I got the first property.
Okay. I was going to ask you because so many people are listening and they're just like and certainly we're not giving you know, financial advice or investment advice, but just curiosity of like, you know, you're making five hundred bucks a week, which you know for a nineteen year old back you know in the nineties. Like you said, it's not bad money. It's not my tyson money or jay z or Puffy money. But still, but how do you get enough money together? So you found a way.
Basically, there's always a way. Like I always say, you could either beg borrow or steal without stealing.
Okay, you found a way. You got your first property. And how much was it generating you monthly?
It was generating me about six millars a month, you know, and I remember it was it was generating six hundred dollars a month cash flow. But what I did not realize that I would now start getting a huge, a huge tax return, excuse me, a huge tax refund because of all the benefits the tax benefits that go alongside of it. Yeah. And what I did not know as well at the time, because I was just thinking, I was just thinking, oh, I just need cash flow. I
wasn't aware of the appreciation. Yeah, so there was durant the appreciation. I was not aware of the debt reduction on the mortgage that every month that the it would become a little less. So this in reality, this one I was thinking five hundred dollars a month, but this one thing was probably bringing me, you know, a couple of thousand dollars a month, like when you add up everything all together.
So here you are this young man scorned. But you know, we thank God for Sis. She's doing well. But it opens you up to you know, basically put a battery in your back. And you started to invest. And so you were did you finish to get your getting your MBA?
No? No, no. Before First of all, I stayed at home, like you know, when I started making money, I was three properties in before I left my house. M you know, that's that's a key, like you know, while you have minimal responsibilities, you've got to stack that paper and you've got it through the most. And I was working on my m b A and I had I had I think at that time I had about three properties and I was flipping properties as well while I was working on my NBA in and keeping my nine to five.
And I remember I remember the coming into late, coming in late one day to one of my classes after work, after dealing with something on a job site. And you know the professor had said something as I walked in late. He said, is there someplace you'd rather be? And you remember how the teachers used to give those little breaks, you know, halfway through the class, so you go stretch
your legs and things like that. I remember leaving my book bag, my books, all of that stuff as I went on that break, and I decided right then and there that I was done with the whole NBA thing that you know, he was right, there was someplace I'd rather be, okay. And I remember I was working on the NBA as a plan B to climb the corporate ladder, and I was working at Verizon at the time. I could use that to that piece of paper to climb
the corporate ladder. But it kind of clicked when he asked, if you had someplace better to be, then you would you would much rather be. I decided right then and there, Yeah, I'm going to make my plan be my plan a okay.
And so in that one thing I've learned is that you know, education for all, college for some you know, because somehow you you know, you're a general contractor. So when did you pick up that licensing and that skill set?
I picked up that license about six seven years ago. Okay, I was doing all these construction projects and I was paying people to pull permits. I was I was actually acting as a general contractor. I didn't know what it was.
And just like anything else, if you immerse yourself, you kind of learn as you go along, and next thing, you know, it gave me having the ability to look at properties from the perspective of a contractor, gave me another income stream as well as another avenue to get more property.
Okay, because I know, for example, like I remember when I was buying my condo. Nothing you charged me, but I called you and said, oh, I'm not really sure,
so I'm purchasing a condo. This is the amount that it was, you know, I think it was like at its peak, it was on the market for six hundred and seventy five thousand or something like six seventy five or six fifty, and then she brought it down to like five seventy five because people didn't buy it, and then she brought it down to five point fifty, then five forty, and I just remember being like, I'm able
to get it. I think I got it for five to twenty If that's what I was going to put an offer in, but part of me felt like I wanted to get it for like four seventy five or four to fifty. Yeah, four seventy five. I think I wanted to put an offer in, which I did. Is she rejected it. And I told you I felt like I should just walk away, And you said, you know, you gave me some really good advice. You said a few things like one, you know, how's that not a
good deal? It was on the market for six seventy five and now you're getting here for five twenty And I just like, I just feel like I guve me lower. And then you ask me, is this something that comes on the market often? Is it special?
Is it? Like?
You know what, this is a very very very regular property that comes on the market quite often. And I was like, honestly, it is a unicorn and that it's five bedoms, three and a half bath. It's a condo, all one floor views of Manhattan, like you know, you see the New York City skyline. It has a working fireplace.
It was built about one hundred years ago, so it has all the beautiful structure that comes along with it, and so well built and quiet there's only one other person on my floor, so I have a semi private elevator.
And you were like yeah, in other words, once in a lifetime, like okay, you can hold out, but and you certainly could get a cheaper place, but it's not going to give this level a specialist and that, you know, that was one of the reasons why you know, that advice that you gave me one of the reasons why I you know, I went ahead, and I'm really happy that I did, and I purchased the property because I had not looked at it that way in my mind.
I just kept thinking I could do even better. I could get it down lower if I make if I make her hold out, maybe because she hasn't been able to sell it. That was my thing. She had not been able to sell it in two years, you know, and you're like yeah, or somebody might come on, come along and gather it fro underneath it and you'll be sad.
So you know, like we should never make an issue out of money. That doesn't matter, you know. True story. I purchased for seventy seven Quincy in two thousand and seven, and I paid four hundred and thirty thousand dollars for it for seventy five Quincy came on the market I think it was like less than six months later, and they wanted about five hundred thousand dollars for it.
Twenty five thousand dollars more.
Yeah, And I was just like, hey, I know what I just paid for this property six months ago. This is the same exact house next door. You're not getting me, you know. Fast forward twenty twenty, twenty nineteen. Fast forward twenty nineteen. I just paid for for seventy nine Quincy on the other side of the house. I paid one point two million dollars for that house. Oh man, all right. And then fast forward, fast forward last year, I was in a bidding war for four seventy five Quincy, the
one that I turned down. Oh my gosh, it went all the way up to like one point nine million.
Wow.
And then and then I I that's when I had to bob out. Okay, you know, but that was my building to have, you know, for money. That doesn't matter, because the truth is whether you know, from five hundred thousand to you know, the seventy five thousand dollars out that I thought that I was really holding up for was really was that seventy. I mean that's that's like fourteen thousand dollars out of my pocket would have been and maybe the mortgage would have been like another another
one hundred bucks a month. But sometimes we get so caught up in number and the competition and the and the game, yeah, that we start to we start to make things, We start to lose sight of the big picture, and we just want to win.
Yeah, and that's how it's feeling. I was like, because I bought my current house, now I got it from it was a bank floor foreclosure. I got it for one eighty you know, put like one hundred eighty into it. It's now worth about five twenty. So I was like, okay. Then I bought a city property for ten thousand dollars.
It was a tax deed and I put like one thirty into it and I sold it for two seven, right, So that and I remember you told me, you were like, that's cool, but that's not normal, Like, don't if you can't measure all of those deals and thinking like I should always come out three, four or five times ahead, you know. So that was just a really good let me I don't consider myself quote unquote a real estate investor, just if a property comes up and it makes sense,
then I may invest. But it was like really good advice to kind of pull. Plus I didn't really like the seller. She was kind of like a terrible person. She still is, Charla, you owned four hundred dollars. But but so so that also played a role, because like the negotiating with her was just she just wasn't pleasant And I was just like, but you're like, but it's going to be your house, Like who cares? Like she's you know, burn inseids whatever, get rid of her energy.
But you know what, you purchase it from her. Yeah.
There, you know there there are business decisions and there are personal decisions that involve money. They're not the same thing. Okay, you know so it's just like you touched on something. It's not going to go about how you flip that property that you purchased for You got it for a defil for ten thousand, and then you spent put one hundred and thirty into it and you sold it for
two eighty. And I think when we were speaking earlier offline, I had told you that I had a windfall, a windfall in crypto this week and I had to tell you, like I had to, I had to also say it's not it's not like I could replicate that all the time. Yes, you know, And I think sometimes we get so caught up, like, you know, we we score what the kids say, get a lick, hit a lick, hit a lick, right, So
like everybody wants to hit a lick every time. That's not that's not that's not how the world works, you know, in reality. In reality, if you're doing if you're doing ten percent return on your investment, you're doing good. You're doing twenty percent, you're doing great. Okay, you know, if you're doing thirty percent, you know, it's a unicorn, you know, don't you know, don't think that every deal is going
to be a uniformn Okay. That means I don't think that every time you're at the bat, you're going to hit a Grand Slam home run, you know, but those base hits sat up, okay, don't sit on the sideline either.
So that's a good transition into someone might be listening and they're like, right now interest rates are relatively speaking high to what terribly to what I mean? If you ask my dad, he's like in nineteen eighty five, the interest rate was fifteen percent. You know whatever, crazy it was?
Yeah, but I was in third grade. It's not my business, right, so, but someone who the press rods.
But if someone is listening and they're like, Okay, I want to either be a homeowner just to own my own property, or I want to consider investing in real estate, what would you tell them during this time now with interest rates being the way they are, inflation being the way it is, Like, what advice would you give someone, Like if you were starting out in the space, what would you want to hear?
Hit the pavement and be relentless. The deal is out there, you just have to You just have to find it. And if it makes sense at eight and a half percent interest rate, it's going to make you a ton of money when you refinance it to six and a half or six percent. Okay, you know, like the deals are out there. You know a lot of people are sitting on the sidelines and there are people who just have to sell and they're going to be deals out there.
So if it cash flows, if it cash flows at eight and a half percent, then it's definitely going it's going to be a cash cow. At six percent, so.
Bring that down for people. So let's just say so, you know, I was just on ig and I saw Fortune magazine posted this thing called the Silver Way that they're that at a conference, AARP just said that there are about thirty million homes that will be joining the market because you know, we know that the baby boomers is the largest like block of demographic folks that you know, in this in this current like where we are now in the world, right, and so these are people who
are in there, like I guess baby boomers are in there, maybe sixties and seventies, and many of them are wanting to downsize. And so as a result, there's about potentially about thirty million homes that might hit the market, you know,
in the next ten years. And so like, you know, to your point, it's like, you know, you might live next to an older lady who's sixty, who's not sixty but seventy years old, who was like, you know what, I wouldn't mind selling to my neighbor, you know, the young lady next door who lives with her mom, and you know, I don't have to go through the rigamarole of putting on the market. So that's this what you mean by hitting the pavement of seeing like not everything is going to be on realter dot.
Com right exactly. You have to speak to your neighbors, speak to you know, speak to the barbershop, you know, make make a nerder in the barbershop, what you're looking for, the laundromat, your attorney, your accountant, you know, everybody who has access to deal two deals is a lead source, okay, you know. And you also you also have to keep hitting real to dot com and the MLS so that you can familiarize yourself so that you are aware of what a deal is when you see it.
Okay.
So if you're on realtor dot com every day and you're seeing that, you know, houses on Flatbush Avenue are going for you know, six hundred thousand, six hundred thousand, six hundred thousand, and one day you see something advertised for four hundred and fifty thousand right there, you already
know offhand boom, that this is a deal. But unless you are there continuously, you just you know, look if this is the only time you looking and you see, oh look it's going for four hundred fifty thousand, but you have no point of reference, you can't appreciate that, so you have to, you know, constantly educate yourself. I like that line you dropped there. Oh yeah too, college for some education for all.
Yes, yeah, I forgot. Somebody told me that one time, and I just saw this true. You know, like everybody doesn't need to go to college, but everyone does need to be educated, you know, like whatever that kind of looks like no, and you're right, like people kind of
know that. Like, you know, like I said, I, I don't heavily invest in real estate, but I keep my ear to the street where I'm just like if it makes sense, like the I wasn't looking for the tax deed, but a friend of mine kept talking about this list and she's like, oh, you know, do you do you ever look at take a look at the list. I'm like,
what list? She's like, there's just a list of like tax deed teeds at the city sometimes trying to get rid of because these are broken down some of them properties, some of the nicer ones get gobbled up quickly, but there's some of them that are like basically damn near condemned, you know. And I was like no, and so went down the city hall and sure enough, there was a list of all these properties, and I drove by all of them and I was like, ooh, that's D Block.
You know if you live in Newark, you know them number blocks. No no, no, no no. And so the property that I saw, though, it was a last one. It was like a list of thirty properties, and it was in the southward, which is definitely a rougher award, but it was right out like it was like three houses down from Weekway Park, which is a really nice park.
And I knew for a fact because I used to teach preschool around there, that they had just bought that New Jersey Transit bought this project built and called seth Board and Projects, which is really bad project. Back then, my kids used to actually like the students so I taught used to live there, and they had condemned it years prior, and I knew that New Jersey Transit purchased it because they were going to be putting in a train line to go directly to the city and to
the to the airport. And I was like, wait, how is it still on the list? I mean the property was, I mean, it was probably thirty cats living in there. It was not safe to walk on the floors were It just was a mess. But I knew location wise that it was in a good location for what was coming to that area, and so it took two years to close. It was such a mess because halfway through closing we had to go through like a mayoral race, you know, depending who when, you might not get that property.
And so you know, the you know, the current mayor kept his spot, and you know, it took two years to close. But I was really happy that I did. But it took I mean I considered tearing it down and putting up a multifamily, but the cost because of because the property is long not wide, the cost to do so, because you would have to basically shift the foundation back and we'd have to I would have to move power lines, the cost to do so based upon
what homes went for. New York is a strange real estate space because the multi family and single family houses kind of go for the same amount depending on they're the same size. It's so weird. You can get a two family house, yeah I don't know.
The values are based by square footage.
Yeah, they don't, which is so weird. I mean, of course, you know, you know, in the end, if you're getting cash flow. But I just remember thinking, like it just the math was just it didn't math. I just said, let's renovate what's already here, which was a modest two bedroom, one one bathroom. I put a half bath in the off the kitchen, and so I did that, and I'm so glad that I did. My late husband, Darrell, you know, managed a project and I was going he was going
to rent it out. This was going to be the beginning of He worked for housing as a super so he was going to after retiring in a few years. Because he was forty one when he passed away. The aim was by forty five, he had twenty five years in housing, he would have a pension, he would have his full and like insurance, and then this was going to be like the second half of his life was going to be like I, you know, we'll get into real estate, and you know he could do that. I
still do the budgetista. But he passed away just as the property was finished. And I knew I did not want to be a landlord, and I knew that his twin brother wanted to be a homeowner, especially in Newark where they were born and raised. So it's a perfect opportunity to keep that property in the family. So I sold it to his twin brother, who loves it so much because he his twin brother is a master painter.
He actually painted the house for us inside. And so now Terrell gets to live in the house that his brother built, which is awesome. And I sold it for him, you know, at a fair price because I told him, all that money goes right into my stepdaughter Alyssa's account, so she doesn't have to worry about school or her first property when she graduates school. And so it just
worked out beautifully. I knew I could have kept it and made more money in the long run, but some decisions are hard decisions, you know, And so yeah, they just worked out wonderfully. And now I just found out that they're building a Lion's Gate is building a studio like two minutes away from the house. You know, the appreciation is just going to be tremendous for him. So it will change the trajectory of his family, you know,
because you have this property, it's already worth more. When the train station is done, it's gonna be worth even more. And then when Lionsgate comes, it's gonna be worth even more. And so that's transformative for him, his son, his wife, and his family.
So yeah, it's just a beautiful legacy.
Legacy literally, and so I love that. Yeah, real estate can do that.
So one of the things that you you had great You had great vision on this one, right, And I think I think when you are purchasing property, you know, and to be a great investor, you have to buy with vision. You know, most people sell what they have, but the great investors are buying what the property can
be as opposed to what it is. Okay, you know, like you if if you're buying it, if you're buying a property, that's where two hundred thousand dollars and your your use for it is going to be exactly the same thing. You know, you you and you're not you're not going to come off. That's not a lick. But when you buy that property that's worth two hundred thousand dollars, but you see, you see where the neighborhood is going, You see the improvements that you could make, You see
how you can reconfigure this property. That's that's where where the wealth happens. That's where you get the big bang. You know, the building that I purchased in Harlem. I ended up putting an extra thousand square feet on it. And this building that that nobody wanted, I make it anywhere from sixty to eighty five thousand dollars a month
on it. That's incredible, you know, thank you. But everybody just had this because it had a stigma on it that people were not thinking, well on a positive note, that you could do short termentals and nobody was thinking. Nobody was looking at it. Nobody was looking at it from that lens. So once you change, once you master your vision of seeing things like different ways, and once you make yourself able to profit from many different ways,
you do well in this business. I load whether whether you're trying to make your money as a landlord, whether you're trying to make your land your money as a real estate brokeer, whether you're trying to make your money as a general contractor a consultant, whatever it is, you know you could if you have many avenues to make money, you always make money in real estate because there's more, you know, it's not just buying and selling. There's so many ancillary ways you could do well.
So I want to take a quick break and I want to come back and talk about the transition that you made into teaching financial education. You know, this real estate investor that's that's doing well. You know why pour back in. So we're gonna take a break and we'll be back in black. Okay, So we're back. We're talking to Jude Bernard. I didn't even say, you know, for those of you who are means like, wait, what's up right? Exactly and then means what I'm burning. Literally that's what
That's what it means. But that's just that's the slang. It's like I'm good, I'm cool, you know, Okay, I love it.
Basically, I'm lit, you know exactly exactly fire em.
Okay, So judas here with us in the stew so, so here you are. You know, you become successful and real estate. I know you've definitely told me you had some times where you, although on the surface seemed successful, that you were broke because real estate can also take everything out of you too.
Yeah. Two thousand. You know, I went from I started my real estate journey in nineteen ninety seven, and I had I had a good run from ninety seven to two thousand and five. Two thousand and six, session two thousand and eight hit and I had no doubt. I wasn't playing any defense. So when the you know, when the tide switched, you know, I lost it all, okay, you know, like I went from I went from you know, having a what I like, a network of a couple million in the hood like when you're young, is like
being a billionaire. Yeah, yeah, right, So I went from like being a billionaire, a hood billionaire, to literally like literally sitting in my house waiting for them to come take it away. So I I during that time, you know, the depression, the thoughts, the thinking about how did I get here, all the mistakes that I made. You know, that's when I realized that I really never learned about business,
about money or anything like that. All I did was I was just riding a good time, you know, because those you know, in the early years, it was just like, hey, you buy it for one hundred and a year later it'll be worth one hundred and fifty. You buy it for one hundred and fifty and a year later it is going to do worth two fifty. And then you take money out of that and this that the other.
But I didn't I did not understand how it works, and the importance of playing defanity of having having a good understanding of your risk tolerance, and what if all that other stuff. So by twoy eleven, twenty twelve, when I got back into the real estate game and I started making money again, I was selling these properties that I were I was picking up properties for about five or six hundred thousand dollars, putting two three hundred thousand dollars into them, and I was selling them for like
a million and a half to two million dollars. And I was doing that like twice a year. And I realized that not one person that I was flipping these
properties too. I was buying them from people that looked like me, but I wasn't selling them to the people that looked like so I was kind of whitewashing the neighborhoods okay, all right, And I realized, not even I realized, but I thought that the reason people like me were not purchasing these properties is because they did not know how to how to manipulate money, because money is a tool that needs to be manipulated to do what you needed to do, all right. So that's when I started
the Brooklyn Bank. You know, focused on financial literacy and economic empowerment.
Yay, So Brooklyn Bank is not actually a bank. I remember the first I heard it, I was like, oh, so why did you call it that?
You see, I got this little line in it, right, because it's not really a bank, right in the sense that that you know, we don't We don't make deposits and withdrawals of cash. But what we do is we make deposits and withdraw of information, which is which is what we do is we share the information so that people could be better suited to a better armed to to compete for real estate stocks. And sure you know
all these things that my mom didn't teach me. Okay, you know that that I had to basically learned the hard way. So hopefully through the Brooklyn Bank, we can skip a step of people making these mistakes because they're on the information so that they could you know, know how to invest so they can actually buy some of my properties instead of you know, it all being the others.
Yeah, no, I love that, And so I know the Brooklyn Bank is also event space that you allow people, especially people who are wanting to teach financial educate. I know you offered to me with my new book made whole coming up at that if I wanted to have like a launch party, since it's a financial education base, to have something there to reach and teach the community.
Yeah, you know there needs there needs to be a place where people come and they get the information that they need to take them to the next level. You know. And even as the event space, what what I do with the event space is I use the events to kind of pay for the nonprofit work.
Mh.
So I love that. So that way the the you know, the building is self suffice and you know, everything could be done with a pure heart.
Okay, So so what's like what is the next phase? I know you and I sometimes talk offline about like what does life look like? What does legacy look like? What does life look like in the next five or ten years? Because now you've done the thing right. You created wealth for yourself. You've you know, you've invested in
real estate. You know where you were I'm assuming you were you born in Brooklyn, you were born in Hayen, born in Brooklyn, born in Brooklyn, and raised in Brooklyn, you know, and then you know, you turn right back around and poured right back into the same community from where you came, so like, what does it look like? What does five ten years look like for you?
Well, what I'm doing right now is I'm investing heavily, not only in really in real estate, but in really relationships.
Okay, you know, I'm pouring.
Into the next generation. I got to share this one quick little story of why I like to pour so
much into it. Back in like twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, when I started rocking and rolling in real estate, I had a I had an assistant that was working with me from like two thousand and eight when things fell apart, and she rocked with me for like three or four years, and I had an opportunity to acquire a deal that was gonna, you know, net me a couple hundred thousand dollars, but I was short one hundred thousand dollars to get
to the table. So I call her and I'm just like, yo, I need you to I need you to make some phone calls. We need to raise one hundred grand by the end of the day, so we need to call everybody everybody see how much we could raise. So she's she's just like, well, what's the what's the return on it? You know, what's the risk. Well, you know, she's asking me all these questions, it's all these qualifying questions. I was like, yo, yeah, just get them on the phone.
Just get whoever on the phone, and I'll go through this with them once I get them on the phone. But she's asking me. I'm just like, all right, all right, So I'm answering these questions and I'm just likely, oh, where we going with this. She's like like, well, all right, cool, I'll give you a check, I'll cut it. And I was just like, where'd you get one hundred grand from? She's and she's like, yo, I've been up under you
for the last four years. I would have been fool if I don't have one hundred grand to show for it. With all the information that you know, all the information
and all the deals, right. And it was at that point I realized that, you know, you have to invest in people because these are the same people that are going to come back and push you, you know, and like even so, not only am I buying real estate and and investment in business and stuff like that, but it's it's super important for me to invest in the
next generation because I don't want to learn AI. You know what I'm saying, like chat GPTs as far as I go, you know, but but it's super that that's something that I'm doing right now now, So the next five years, ten years, I won't have to be out there hustling as hard because I will have you know, a few people that I invested in that are kind of keeping me in the loop and bringing me, you know, opportunities that that I don't that I can handle from the beach, or I can handle a while, you know,
while I'm taking care of my daughter. I can handle while I'm watching TV in the middle of the day. Yeah, you know, sod with.
You that that is? She just gone off to.
Oh no, she's It's so funny because she manages she manages like luxury luxury event spaces like around the world, like I'm talking about like Abu Dhabi and the World Trade Center, things like that. Nature And I asked her to come take a look at some stuff the other day and she's like, sure, you sure you could afford me. I love, But that's how that's how it's always going to be because you know, at I'm not going to be
able to run full steam for the rest of my life. Yeah, you know, so it's important that I create a life with people with the right people, with the right opportunities where I can sustain you know.
Okay, Well, if you had any advice for someone who is kind of like just starting on there, maybe they had a light bulb moment, but they might not be twenty, maybe they're thirty, maybe they're forty of like, Okay, I want to start to grow wealth for myself. I want to put myself and position myself to be able to take care of myself and my family in a way
that's more sustainable. But they're just like I don't know where to start, you know, like I don't know anybody in real estate, or I'm not really sure how to invest. Like where would you suggest that someone who might be listening to this and might be like, well, I want to have my my journey to greatness like you have, Like, where would you suggest for them to start?
I would take a look. I would tell them first to educate themselves. Read the books. But not just read the books, but find find a mentor. Okay, whether whether that mentor is online or in person, or even whether that mentor even knows you exist, but find somebody, find somebody that you could kind of watch their moves, you know, like jay Z has been mentoring me since nineteen ninety six directly, you know, like and I would tell them
to do that. I would tell them to sacrifice, you know, like you could have which and I make sure that they understand that they could have what they want right now or they could have what they really want, you know, like I tell people all the time, everybody wants abs, everybody wants fries. Ah, yeah, it's going to win out exactly. You can have thrives today, but you won't have ads tomorrow. So, like being able to make those sacrifices is super important.
I think it's very necessary that you are like true to yourself to decide what is important to you and staying true to that because at the end of the day, there are certain things that you are going to that are required for you to be successful. Amount of hours that are necessary for you to be truly successful and great at things, and you have to look at yourself in the mirror say yeah, I'm willing to do that, okay, you know even on the bad days.
Well, we thank you for coming in, mister Bernard. Where people do they want to learn more about you. They want to follow you on social media? Where can they find you?
I'm on I G mister Jude Bernard. That's pretty much it. The brook Bank, all.
Right, if you're ever in BK the Home of Biggie and j exactly and the home of Jude, Biggie and.
Jay exactly exactly. I still live here. I haven't sold that yet.
And again, like I told you guys, next week, my new book Made Whole becomes live November twenty first. Yeah, it's available at Maidhole workbook dot com. If you're looking for that step by step guidance. As you'd mentioned, sometimes you just have to start well, you always have to start just where you are. So if you need guidance and the area of budgeting, savings, debt, credit, learning to earn, investing, insurance, building a financial team, your net worth, and estate planning,
all ten of those steps. If you achieve all ten, each ten is worth ten percent and that is where you reach financial wholeness. And my book Made Whole will help you reach financial wholeness. So until well, we actually have BAQA. So I'll see you guys on Friday. If not me, Maddy will certainly be here. But Thank you so much Jude for joining us. You've been really good pleasure.
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me