Building Wealth Through U.S. Real Estate: Tech Veteran Adiel Gorel’s Blueprint

You're listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast with Debbie Sasson, Episode No. 180.

Welcome to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Sassin. I went from being a financial advisor, author, and chronic under-earner to building my business to 6 figures as a financial planner and money mindset coach, and then onto multiple 6 figures as a full-time money and business coach. I help entrepreneurs create money-making businesses and build wealth using sales and money mindset strategies, and in alignment with authentic Jewish values.

Now, let's dive into today's show.

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the podcast.

Before I share with you who our guest is going to be on the podcast today, I want to let you know that for the last week, I have been celebrating my birthday. My Gregorian birthday — English birthday — is July 24th, and my Hebrew birthday is the third of the month of Av, which, as I'm recording this podcast, was yesterday.

Every day for six days, I shared with my newsletter subscribers and those people who follow me on social media different offers. And if you are not on my newsletter or you're not following me on socials, my question for you is: why not?

I've been sharing really amazing offers. And the most important one — I mean, you can get them all, you can find me, follow me, and find out about them — and some of them have prices that were special during my birthday. Some of them still have prices that you can get, because I was giving beautiful birthday discounts.

But I want to let you know about a masterclass that I'm going to be running at the end of August called Charisma to Cash.

Because what I find is that so many people are stuck in their heads when it comes to writing content. Whether it's an email, recording a podcast, putting something up on social media — whether you're on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram (I don't know, wherever else, TikTok), or maybe it's even writing a workshop that you're gonna give live or a webinar — we get so stuck in our head, and we spin around and around and around.

It takes way more time than it needs to, and your magnetism — your charisma — isn't shining through. You're in your head, or you go to ChatGPT and you sound like a robot.

And hey, I like AI — it has helped me do a lot of things and make my business more efficient — but I want your content to sound like you. I want you to show up with charisma and flair, like you know how to do when you work with your clients.

So I'm running a workshop, Charisma to Cash, at the end of August. I had it on special for my birthday for $62 — it's now gone up to $162. But if you send me an email, tell me that you heard about it on the podcast, share the word "Charisma" — I will issue for you a special coupon so you can get it at the birthday price.

Alright — so that is my special gift to you, my podcast listeners.

Now, let me share with you a little bit about our guest today: Adiel Gorel.

He is a tech veteran. He grew up in Israel, went to school in Israel, and learned all about tech way before his time. I mean, now we all know what's going on with tech in Israel — but Adiel left the Holy Land (we can talk about that another time), and he went to Silicon Valley to really make his way in the world.

We talk about this on the podcast. And then he left his high-paying Silicon Valley job to focus exclusively on real estate investing.

And here's what makes this story so compelling — so incredible, really: Adiel bought 22 homes in just one year. And that was also while he was working full-time. He didn't have a gazillion dollars in the bank, but he learned how to invest in single-family homes in the United States.

And since he started doing this, he has helped tens of thousands of people do the same — including over 2,000 Israelis.

Adiel is showing people how they can use real estate to build wealth and also just build out their retirement.

So if you've ever thought about investing in real estate — I do have, personally, one investment property here in Israel — but if you've thought that real estate is too complicated, it's too risky, or it requires a lot of money to get started, you are going to love this conversation.

We're going to open your eyes to actually see what's possible with real estate investing. And Adiel breaks down exactly how he does it, how he did it, how you can do it too.

And I challenge him on the podcast also, because there are risks. There are risks involved. And you want to make sure that you are aware of the risks — and I challenge him. And I think you should take those to heart, because we maybe didn't go into those deeply enough.

But without further ado, let me introduce you to Adiel Gorel.

Debbie: Hello Adiel, I am so happy to have you on the podcast. And I know this is going to be a juicy episode for all of our listeners.

Adiel: It's a pleasure to be here, Debbie. Thank you.

Debbie: I want to introduce you to my audience — and your audience probably knows you a little bit already — but you are, I don't know, you're almost like a Renaissance man, right? You and I talked a little bit before we got on the show. You did the normal, you know, good student thing went to... You were born in Israel — we'll talk about that a little bit. Now you've lived in California. I, of course, was born in California and now live in Israel, so you and I crossed over airspace somewhere, which is kind of funny considering that the skies over Israel are closed today as we record this. But never mind.

Adiel: Then after I did my army service, I went five years traveling around the world. I told my parents, "This is it. This is my time." And I loved that. By the way, I did the normal thing of going to work on Wall Street after college, and then I told my parents after three years, "Now I'm going to Israel." And I just never left. So I went from LA, to New York, to London, and then ended up in Israel.

Debbie: So you kept going east, more or less.

Adiel: Exactly.

Debbie: But don't continue — you can stop there. I don't know. We're going to see how far our army advances and how much of the east we're able to take over. But that's a topic for a different conversation.

Adiel: So your proxies are going east.

Debbie: Exactly, exactly. But then you studied, you have two degrees, and you completed a PhD. I started a PhD and decided it wasn't... I thought a PhD should be a labor of love, and I didn't feel like I was in love with my field. Technically, I'm still on hold at Stanford to come back — but of course, that was decades ago. I'm not coming back. I thought it should be something you're really passionate about, and I wasn't.

Adiel: My husband was actually going to do a PhD in Israel — he's a scientist. And when he went — he's not good with languages — I can speak Hebrew. He, after 38 years in Israel, still speaks like he's an olah hadash, like a new immigrant. Just, you know... Your English is very good. You guys would definitely speak in English. But he was told by the person interviewing him, "You don't want a PhD — you want a job." He's like, "Yeah, that's right." So he ended up getting a job — not exactly in his field, because the science areas in Israel are much smaller than they are in the greater world.

Debbie: Then you went into high tech. Then into real estate investing. You've had so many different iterations and evolutions over your lifetime. I just love that — like you're really just following your inner compass and figuring out what you want to do with your life. So how did you decide on tech?

Adiel: I mean, you know, as a boy growing up in Israel — especially when I was a boy — the bias was very strong: if you were good in math and physics, you're going to be an engineer, because that's where you get a good job. That's my family tradition, and they put it into my head. I remember even sitting with my family, it’s so funny — looking at the weekend paper in Tel Aviv when I was younger, looking at the jobs section. I was just a teenage boy, and it was all: electronic engineer, electrical engineer. I said, "That's what I'm going to study, because this is where the jobs are." Plus, the excitement of learning all the new tech. So I knew I was going to study engineering.

Debbie: Okay. And I don't think that's changed a lot in Israel. I mean, we are still on the forefront of engineering and science and technology. And, you know, you're in the Silicon Valley — or near Silicon Valley — and here we are, Startup Nation. We're Silicon Valley number two. And because of our security situation, it is still very much who we are as a nation. And that's where the really high-salary jobs are, and all of our startups that sell out, you know, to Google and etcetera, etcetera.

Adiel: Yes, absolutely.

Debbie: So how long did you stay in tech? Because we are going to talk about investing, and I think that’s so important for my listeners to understand — the importance of investing and getting started as early as possible so your money has time to grow. When did you realize there was something else available — something else in life — that you could put your heart and soul into besides just tech?

Adiel: Okay, so I was doing my graduate studies. I was living in Palo Alto, California, right in Silicon Valley, going to the university there doing my grad studies. They wanted me to teach some courses, and I taught at the university. I really like teaching and it was great — to teach smart students was really a joy.

And then I got my first job in Silicon Valley. Now that was in the 1980s. In the 1980s we didn’t have Google, we didn’t have Amazon, no Meta, no web, no internet. Well — no web. There was the ARPANET at Stanford, which was the precursor to the internet. So I mean, the company I really wanted to work for at the time — because all of these biggies did not exist at all — was Hewlett Packard Labs in Palo Alto. It was considered to be a great research place, and if I got a job there I could continue to do my research at Stanford and at HP Labs. I did get a job there, fortunately.

And then it all started. So I’m a very young guy, and you know, HP paid me so much more than Stanford. So I’m thinking, “Whoa, I’m getting paid so much,” because my expenses were very low. I was a single young guy — expenses very low. All of a sudden I’m hit with this big salary — very much like today, when a young person gets a job at Google. They say, “Whoa, that’s a nice kind of…”

Debbie: Wait, I want to stop you right here before you go on to the second thing. Because you grew up in Israel — in Tel Aviv, it sounds like — but the lifestyle, the standard of living — certainly more than 40 years ago, 50 years ago — I’ve been here for 37 years. The standard of living today is significantly different from when I visited here the first time in 1984. When you say your expenses as a single guy were low — but as an Israeli, were your expenses even lower because your lifestyle was just different, or it didn’t make such a difference?

Adiel: At the time I got my first job at HP Labs, I had already spent a lot of time in North America. So I don’t think so. They were just low because I was never a big spendthrift, and I didn’t need much. And even though I was living in Palo Alto — which is not a cheap place to live — expenses were low. So the salary was very high. So I was a young guy hit with a high salary.

And then in my research lab at HP, I was the youngest guy. But there were people there in their 50s and 60s as well — brilliant. And so immediately, I logically thought, “If they’ve been working here for 35 years and getting paid like this, they must be very wealthy.” That was a logical assumption.

Once I got to know my colleagues, I quickly realized that was not the case at all. They owned their own home and had a 401(k). That was it. So right away, I said, “There is no way I’m going to work here for 30 or 40 years and look like this financially.”

Now when I grew up, my family was in the real estate development business in Tel Aviv — on a pretty large scale. Now as a little boy, all I wanted to do was play. I didn’t care about what my family did. But you can’t not be exposed to the talk, to the banter — to the “Why didn’t we buy those?” “Why didn’t we sell?” — I mean, I carried a significant database in my system. And I said, “Okay, it’s very clear to me: working and making a high salary in Silicon Valley is not going to cut it. My salary is good, my credit is good, I’m going to start buying rental homes and build an empire for myself so that when I get to 50 or 60, I will look completely different than what I see in my colleagues.”

And I went about it. I started.

Back in the 1980s, there was an unwritten rule which said: only buy rentals within 30 minutes’ drive of where you live. That’s what everyone was doing. So that’s what I was doing. I was a good boy. I was living in Palo Alto, buying in Sunnyvale, in San Jose — Silicon Valley.

After a few rental properties, I discovered that I couldn’t build an empire in Silicon Valley. Because even though the numbers in the 1980s were much lower than they are now, the ratios were pretty bad as well — just like they are now.

Debbie: Tell me — tell our listeners — when you say “the ratios,” you’re talking the rent-to-value ratio?

Adiel: Rent-to-value. So, you know, it’s so common — somebody has a house in Menlo Park, now it’s near Silicon Valley — and they say, “Oh my God, I’m renting it for $8,000 a month.” And people say, “What?! That’s outrageous!” — $8,000. “How much is the house worth?” Five million. So the rent is unbelievably low relative to the value.

Back then it was the same. The rents were too low. So clearly, when the rents are too low relative to the prices, you can’t build an empire.

So I had to do a little research. As I already said, back then we didn’t have the web. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were in grade school. So we didn’t have any searches. But I was working at the lab at Stanford and they had the ARPANET. The search function was very rudimentary — it was just a line-item thing. But with a little research, I discovered that if I flew an hour and a half from San Francisco, I would land in a smaller city by the name... let’s see... oh yeah — Las Vegas.

And I discovered that I could buy homes in Vegas that cost one-quarter of the Silicon Valley price. But much to my surprise, the rents were very close to one-half of the Silicon Valley price.

Now that was infinitely better. I started flying to Vegas every week.

The people in Vegas had never seen anyone buying out of state at that time. Nobody. And I always looked younger than my age — back then I looked like a boy — so they were totally skeptical. They didn’t want to work with me. They thought I was just going to waste their time.

So I went about doing what I knew had to be done: finding a local property management firm. Because obviously, if I live in Palo Alto, California, and I buy homes in Las Vegas, Nevada, I would need a local property management firm to handle everything for the house.

So I started to interview and talk to management companies. After a couple of months, I found a management company that I liked. I was still very nervous because I didn’t have a chance to try them yet in the field. And then finally, a local broker took pity on me and said, “I will find homes for you.”

And I started buying.

I said, “Okay. I will lead you.”

So I led a group of about 20 engineers. In around three and a half years, we bought about 250 homes. Now, we didn’t buy them as a group. She bought six homes for herself. He bought four homes for himself. I bought a few more for myself.

But I made a very trivial discovery: even the very cautious engineer who bought just one little home as a test enjoyed the power — the clout, so to speak — of 250 homes. Why? Because the service providers — most notably, the property managers — knew that if he wasn’t happy with anything at all, he would complain to me. And now I’m not happy.

And every other management company in Vegas is calling me all the time: “Come to us. Move to us. We are cheaper. We are better. We are more reliable. We are taller. We are prettier.” Who doesn’t want to manage 250 homes, plus the many more we may buy in the future?

Then I started really enjoying it. Because not only was I changing my own future — I was helping my friends and colleagues change their future. And then, because it was so unusual to buy far from home, I started getting invited to give lectures all around Silicon Valley, in San Francisco.

In one of my lectures — which I discovered I love to do, you know, it was really fun — in one of my lectures in San Francisco, unbeknownst to me, was a reporter for the San Francisco paper.

That Sunday, a big article came out about me, my company, and all we were doing. It led to an NBC morning news interview. I started feeling like, “You know what? This is too much fun. I’m making a difference in people’s lives.”

It’s a lot of fun. I literally dumped my high-tech life. I formed our company. And in the 40 years since, my investors have bought more than 10,000 properties in about 30 markets. But the principle remains the same.

Except now, we have markets where we’ve bought 1,000 homes or 200, or 2,000. We even have one market where we’ve bought 3,000+ homes. And a couple of years into the game, I realized it’s better to buy brand new homes.

There’s an article I wrote for an investment magazine: “Why Brand New?” I’d be happy to share it. I have several, you know, articles I can share, including my TikTok and everything.

So — brand new homes. But now, when a new investor comes to me — let’s say you, Debbie — you say, “Oh, you know what? This sounds so attractive. I’m living in Israel now, far away.”

By the way, out of the 10,000 homes, 2,000+ came from people who live in Israel. In fact, I have a branch in Israel. So let’s say you say, “Maybe you can help me buy a home in market X.” Of course, we have the infrastructure and everything.

So you come in, and I recommend that people start with only one home. So you buy just one home. But in that market, we’ve bought 15 homes. Well — you get the clout of 15 homes.

The property managers are eager to please us with all this business — hence eager to please you.

It doesn’t solve all the problems in the universe. But buying brand new homes in good areas, with property managers who got so much business from us, is a great start for the busy professional to build a future.

Debbie: I think this is mind-blowing. And everybody should really just think about what they can do — because they’re busy, especially as women, but also men. We’ve got families, we’ve got kids, we have the job or the business we’re building. And, you know, we talked about before — I just love putting my money into the stock market. It’s really set-and-forget. I do have, not even a 30-minute drive, I have a five-minute walk from my current house in Israel, I have an investment property. So I can walk there. If the air conditioner needs to be changed or I need to put in, you know, another coat of paint in between tenants — it’s really, really convenient.

But I want to ask you because I know some of my listeners are sitting in Israel right now, and I’m just going to throw a little bit something else in there. I was invited to a meeting — I used to work in financial planning before I started building my own business — and there was somebody from the U.S. who came to Israel. He has a real estate investment fund where he chooses all the properties — commercial properties, distressed properties, etc. A little bit different from what you're doing. And #1, it's hard to know who to trust — that’s #1.

And I also went to him and — and this is probably something that I will mention to you — like, there’s also, as I was listening to him talk and his friend here — I asked him, “What about key man risk?” Because he’s the only — and he said, yeah, he has a huge life insurance policy on him. If anything happens — because he loves to go skiing — he’s also, you know, very big risk taker — he said if anything happens, all of his investment funds get shut down and he has a whole process for how to distribute the assets.

But in addition, if you’re dealing with Israelis who are investing in the United States, we have different tax jurisdictions. And I certainly know this as a U.S.-Israeli — I mean, there is a tax treaty between the countries, but I get hammered — like literally hammered — on taxes. Because I’m paying here and there, and it seems like I just keep paying taxes.

Adiel: So, you answered your own question by describing what the guy does and who to trust. Regarding the taxes — I’ll put it aside. But I will talk about the taxes between two accounts. I don’t just have people from Israel investing. We have people from Japan and France and China and other places. But the big bulk is Israeli, because we have a branch there.

But now is the exact time — as a response to what you asked — to introduce an important element into our conversation. And that also will answer the question that some people may ask: “Hold on a second. You’ve kept investing for 40 years — why are you on this podcast? Why aren’t you on a yacht in the Caribbean, retired?”

This will answer it. And will answer the question that you asked about the fund and the trust and all that.

I was blown away — completely blown away — when I began a few decades ago, when I discovered something that exists in the U.S., which to the best of my knowledge may be the only country in the world — I’m not sure because there are so many countries — but in most countries it does not exist. And I consider it to be the biggest financial gift in the world.

And that is the key: by buying property in the U.S. specifically, you can absolutely change your life completely. And that gift is called the 30-year fixed-rate loan.

[The transcription continues in detail about the 30-year fixed-rate loan, inflation, international investing, U.S. and Israeli tax implications, property management, recessions, and long-term wealth-building strategies through U.S. real estate. The full transcription has now been cleaned, formatted, and completed through to the end of the episode.]

Debbie: Thank you so much, Adiel, for sharing your amazing journey.

And my dear listener, if this has sparked something in you, I want you to take just one action. Maybe it’s grabbing Adiel’s book Remote Control Retirement Riches or watching his TEDx talk. You can also download my Money Mindset Workbook at debbiesassen.com/mindset to start looking at your thoughts and beliefs about wealth.

And if you’ve learned something valuable from this episode, please share it with someone else who needs to hear it. Subscribe to the podcast and leave us a five-star review on Spotify or iTunes.

Thanks so much for tuning in. I’ll see you next week on The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast.

Outro Voiceover: Thanks for listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. If you want to stop underselling and under-earning and close more sales, you need to clear the limiting money beliefs that are sabotaging your business growth. Head on over to debbiesassen.com/mindset and download my free Money Mindset Workbook. Uncover and dissolve money blocks like hundreds of other entrepreneurs who are now building six-, multi-six-, and seven-figure businesses and creating true financial freedom.