Build a 1,900-Unit Multifamily Portfolio: Gino Barbaro

How to Build a 1,900-Unit Multifamily Portfolio and a Lasting Family Legacy at the Same Time

Most real estate investors talk about units, returns, and exit strategies. Gino Barbaro talks about all of that — and then he talks about his wife saying yes in the laundry room, his kids asking about economic occupancy at the dinner table, and why a $329-a-month seller-finance note paid over 13 years might be the most powerful investing story you haven’t heard.

In this episode of The Real Estate Investing Club, host Gabe Petersen sits down with Gino Barbaro — co-founder of Jake & Gino and founder of Barbaro360.com — for a wide-ranging conversation about building a vertically integrated multifamily portfolio of 1,900 units in Knoxville, Tennessee, using creative financing, a buy-and-hold mindset, and one very important life philosophy: families with financial intelligence can change the world for the better.

Whether you’re still working a W-2, raising young kids, or trying to find your first off-market multifamily deal, this episode has something for you.

Quick Answer: How do you build a large multifamily portfolio while raising a family?
Start by getting your spouse aligned on the “why,” not the “how.” Then build equity quietly alongside your current income, use creative financing (especially hybrid seller financing + bank debt) to acquire assets, focus on hold-and-refinance over sell-and-move-on, and involve your kids in the financial conversations from day one. Gino Barbaro went from pizza restaurant owner to 1,900 multifamily units in under a decade using exactly this framework.

Who Is Gino Barbaro — and Why Should You Listen to Him?

Gino Barbaro is not a typical real estate guru. He spent over 20 years running a single pizza restaurant in New York before he ever closed his first multifamily deal. He’s the son of two immigrants. He got into real estate not because of passion — but because the great recession of 2008 showed him that trading hours for pizza dollars had a hard ceiling.

Teaming up with his business partner Jake Stenziano (a pharmaceutical rep turned investor), Gino moved operations to Knoxville, Tennessee — a market neither of them had ever heard of. Eighteen months of grinding later, they closed their first deal. Five years after that, they had nearly 800 units. Today, the Jake & Gino portfolio has transacted on over 2,400 units and currently owns 1,900 — all with their own capital, no syndications.

What makes Gino’s story worth studying is not just the scale, but the structure: a vertically integrated company where they manage their own assets, a family deeply involved in the business, and a philosophy built around financial intelligence, not financial hustle.

How Did Gino Go from One Pizza Restaurant to 1,900 Multifamily Units?

The short answer: 18 months of finding the right broker, one seller-financed deal, and then compounding.

Gino’s first deal came only after building a genuine relationship with a local Knoxville broker named Rick — someone who was willing to trust two New Yorkers with unusual last names in a Southern market. That relationship led to a deal. And on that deal, they used seller financing.

“Even on that very first deal, we use seller financing on that first deal. And that was the crazy part. I mean, I had all these beliefs around money. And on the very first deal, it’s like, holy crap, 10% of the money that we need is being financed from the seller.” — Gino Barbaro

That seller-financed note — just $60,000 — was finally paid off in 2024, more than 13 years later, at $329 per month. The seller, Brenda, called and said it was time to settle up. The remaining balance? $32,000. A small note. An enormous lesson.

From that first deal, Jake and Gino used a deceptively simple strategy: buy right, increase NOI, add value, refinance (don’t sell), and recycle capital into the next deal.

Within five years, they had nearly 800 units. Not by raising outside capital. Not by selling every asset and 1031-exchanging into the next. By holding, operating well, and letting compounding do its job.

For a deeper look at how to acquire multifamily properties from the ground up, check out our guide on multifamily development from value-add to ground-up and our breakdown of how to find underpriced multifamily deals in 2026.

What Is the Buy-Hold-Refinance Strategy — and Why Didn’t They Just Sell?

Most operators sell an asset after adding value and capturing the equity. Gino and Jake did the opposite — they refinanced and held, turning each asset into a permanent income machine.

The logic: if you sell, you capture the equity once. If you refinance and hold, you capture the equity now and keep an asset that produces cash flow indefinitely.

“A lot of operators would sell and move on to the next one. We just loved the deals that we were in. They were at a good basis. We added so much value. Why kill the golden goose?” — Gino Barbaro

This approach requires patience. It also requires being bought in at the right basis — which is why buying right matters more than buying fast. Gino was clear: the strategy only works when you acquire at a price where the asset cash flows on day one and has clear value-add runway.

The other key: while the restaurant income paid for his lifestyle, everything real estate generated went back into real estate. That separation of income streams is what allowed the compounding to work without lifestyle inflation eating the gains.

If you’re evaluating when to hold versus exit a property, see our guide on when to sell real estate. And for those who want to scale without relying on conventional bank financing, our post on how to scale real estate without banks is a strong complement to Gino’s approach.

How Does Hybrid Seller Financing Work — and How Did It Help Close Their Best Deal?

Hybrid seller financing pairs a conventional bank loan (covering 70–80% of the purchase) with seller-carried financing for the down payment or remaining equity. The result: a fully financed acquisition with less cash out of pocket and a motivated seller who benefits from structured payments.

Gino’s most memorable example: a 281-unit deal in February 2015 listed at $12.6 million.

The seller — a family dealing with internal ownership conflict — agreed to carry 20% as seller financing while a community bank handled the 80% loan. The bank was comfortable because the seller’s second position meant that if Jake and Gino couldn’t perform, the seller would take back the property. No risk to the bank. Win-win-win.

“We literally walked out of that deal with $100,000 at closing because of the prepaid rents and all. Title company was like, I’ve never seen this before.” — Gino Barbaro

The deal closed at $11 million (negotiated down from $12.6M). The property — now worth an estimated $30 million — has been refinanced once and is still in their portfolio. The seller’s down payment check? It went straight into the community bank as one of their largest deposits ever, delighting the banker and deepening the relationship.

Gabe added his own takeaway:

“I usually do seller financing and just get the seller to finance 60–80% of it and I bring 20%, but you can do it the other way — just get a bank to loan the vast majority and have the seller finance the rest. That’s a really good way to go about it.” — Gabe Petersen

For a full breakdown of how to structure these types of deals, see our guide on seller financing and creative deal structures and our post on using creative financing to build a real estate portfolio.

What’s the Biggest Mistake Multifamily Investors Make When Buying in a New Market?

Ignoring median income and crime data. No matter how well you renovate, a property’s ceiling is set by the residents who can afford it — and that ceiling is determined by the local economy around it.

Gino shared a costly lesson from 2019: a deal that checked every box — brick construction, separately metered utilities, good unit mix — but failed because they didn’t dig deep enough into local median income or the vintage of the plumbing infrastructure.

“We kept having a lot of issues with plumbing… We were fortunate that we bought it right and were still able to exit 18 months after we bought it because we just realized, hey, we made a big mistake here.” — Gino Barbaro

The takeaway: you can add value to a unit all you want, but you cannot add value to a neighborhood. If the resident base can’t support higher rents, you’re adding amenities for an audience that can’t pay for them.

Gabe echoed the lesson with his own experience buying a self storage facility in a market that looked great on population growth metrics — until the crime data revealed a different story.

Before entering any new market, run the full checklist: median household income, population growth trend, crime index, rent-to-income ratio, and vacancy trends. For investors considering markets with similar characteristics, see our post on building a recession-resilient real estate portfolio.

What’s Gino’s Sleeper Market Pick for Multifamily Investing in 2025–2026?

Omaha, Nebraska. Gino calls it a “slow grower” with low institutional presence, solid median income, genuine affordability, and consistent population growth — the kind of market that lets you cash flow and build equity simultaneously.

“I always loved Omaha, Nebraska. I don’t know why I was attracted to it at first. It’s one of those sleepers. I don’t think there’s a ton of institutional capital there. I think it’s underneath the radar, but it does have population growth. It has a nice affordability. Rents are still pretty low. It’s a nice place to live.” — Gino Barbaro

In over 600+ episodes of The Real Estate Investing Club, Omaha had never been mentioned as a top pick — which, for a contrarian investor, is exactly the point. Gino suggested checking Berkadia’s market metrics for a data-backed look at why Omaha deserves a closer look.

His primary market remains Knoxville, Tennessee — a city where Jake and Gino built deep operator relationships and vertical integration over more than a decade. The Southeast in general continues to offer strong fundamentals, and the Midwest is increasingly on his radar. See our breakdown of the best places to find underpriced multifamily deals in 2026 for a wider market comparison.

How Do You Balance Real Estate Investing with Raising a Family?

Get aligned with your spouse on the “why” before discussing the “how.” Then involve your kids early, treat money as a normal conversation topic, and build your financial life as a family project — not a solo hustle.

This section of the episode was unusually candid. Gabe opened up about his own situation — a two-and-a-half-year-old and a baby on the way — and asked Gino directly: how did you do this with five kids at home?

Gino’s answer started with a memory: coming home from the restaurant, smelling like garlic, 20 degrees outside, telling his wife Julia he needed out. She said yes in about three seconds. And that yes changed everything.

“I’m a male, I’m a man. I derive respect and love and significance by being able to provide for my family. And when she said yes, she gave me permission. But with that yes came a sh*t ton of responsibility and fear. And I’m like, if she’s giving me permission to risk everything, I need to go to work.” — Gino Barbaro

He calls it radical accountability and relentless execution — two principles that became the backbone of his commitment to making the transition work. He wasn’t willing to let his family down.

On communication with a spouse, Gino was direct: men often retreat into problem-solving mode when their partners want to be heard. He recommended Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by Dr. John Gray as a resource that finally helped him understand how he and Julia were wired differently around communication.

The deeper issue: they came from completely different money backgrounds. Julia grew up week-to-week, with a vague distrust of wealth. Gino grew up in an entrepreneurial household focused on goals. Those two money stories — unexamined — became the source of most of their early arguments.

“Sit down with your wife and ask, ‘What did you hear when you were growing up about money?’ And then start telling them about your fears, your anxieties. All of a sudden you start having empathy with the person. And then you can start having what we call financial intimacy.” — Gino Barbaro

The term financial intimacy — openness and transparency with your partner about money — is something Gino now coaches families on through Barbaro360. It’s the entry point for building shared financial goals.

For investors building wealth while working full-time and managing family obligations, see our detailed guide on building real estate wealth while working full time.

How Do You Teach Kids About Money and Real Estate from a Young Age?

Model enthusiasm first. Then start simple: the jar system (save, spend, give), cash for decisions, and letting them invest in real deals as they get older. The goal is to raise kids who are curious about money, not afraid of it.

Gino has six children. All of them have been raised inside a household where real estate is a normal dinner table topic. It didn’t start with sophisticated lessons — it started with Gino leaving the restaurant business and coming home with energy instead of exhaustion.

“I would come home as a grumpy prick. I didn’t want my kids to see me as a grumpy prick, because then they’d equate working hard with being unhappy. That was my biggest fear.” — Gino Barbaro

Once the kids saw his joy in real estate, the conversations followed naturally. As they got older, they started investing in Gino’s deals directly. Now the questions at home have shifted: “Why didn’t the owner draws pan out this month, Dad? What happened with economic occupancy?”

For younger kids, Gino recommends keeping it tactile and fun: use the jar system (separate jars for save, spend, and charity), pay them in cash so money feels real, and let them make small decisions with their own money without overriding their choices. Financial confidence is built through repetition, not lectures.

The overarching principle: legacy isn’t something you leave behind. It’s something you activate while you’re here.

What Is the Jake & Gino Framework — and What Would Gino Tell His Younger Self?

The Jake & Gino framework is: Buy Right, Manage Right, Finance Right. These three pillars — applied to every deal, every time — are what turned a pizza guy and a drug rep into owners of a 1,900-unit vertically integrated portfolio.

When Gabe asked Gino what advice he’d give his younger self, the answer was immediate:

“Surround yourself with like-minded individuals into what you’re trying to accomplish. I was only hanging around with other pizza guys that had one or two shops. That was my paradigm… I wish I would have taken action sooner.” — Gino Barbaro

The other education principle Gino shared: go to the basics before you go to scale. Build the foundation. Learn the framework. Make the reps in the learning zone before you try to perform.

He referenced Eduardo Briceño’s The Performance Paradox — the idea that there is a learning zone and a performance zone, and that most people underinvest in the learning zone. Gino made this mistake in his restaurant career (20 years, one location) and corrected it in real estate (5 years, 800 units).

Gabe added his own regret: not hiring a mentor sooner.

“I bought courses and kind of learned that way, but then everything else I just learned on my own, through mistakes. I could have cut that down a lot if I just hired a mentor.” — Gabe Petersen

If you’re looking for a mentor or education framework to accelerate your real estate journey, explore our guide on finding the right real estate mentor and our overview of how to scale a multifamily or syndication portfolio.

Additional reading for investors at various stages of the journey:

Key Takeaways from This Episode

Seller financing is your first creative tool. Even a 10% seller-carried note on your first deal can unlock an asset you otherwise couldn’t acquire.
Hybrid financing (bank + seller carry) is underused. Have the bank take first position and the seller carry the down payment. Both parties win.
Hold the golden goose. If you’re in a good asset at a great basis, refinancing beats selling — almost every time.
Market research is not optional. Median income and crime data can kill your deal even if the property itself looks perfect.
Family alignment comes before capital. Get your spouse on the same page with the “why” before you sign any deal.
Legacy is active, not passive. Teach your kids about money now. Involve them. Make financial literacy a household habit.
Build the foundation before you scale. Mistakes made at 10 units are manageable. Mistakes made at 500 units are not.

Where Can You Connect with Gino Barbaro?

Gino is now channeling his experience into Barbaro360.com — a platform built around money coaching, business behavioral archetype coaching, and family-focused financial education. His mission: “Families with financial intelligence can change the world for the better.”

If you’re a family trying to break generational financial patterns, or an investor who wants to align their business life with their home life, Barbaro360 is the place to start.

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