The Everyday Millionaire Show
Ryan Greenberg and Nick Kalfas are two Maryland based business owners and investors. Ryan and Nick discuss topics such as basics of financial literacy, building businesses, investing, and real estate. This podcast is for people looking to achieve financial freedom.
The Everyday Millionaire Show
The Truth About Money They Don’t Teach You (ft. Cory Jacobson)
Want the playbook for turning a modest house hack into a durable portfolio without losing your sanity or your weekends? We sit down with Cory Jacobson to unpack the moves that matter: buying smarter assets, documenting relentlessly, raising capital responsibly, and building a life you actually want to live.
Cory started in 2018 with a simple house hack and a promise to share the journey. That daily consistency built trust, opened doors to partnerships, and ultimately funded bigger, better projects.
If this hit home, follow, share with a friend who needs a push, and leave a quick review so more builders and investors can find the show. Your support helps us keep these conversations sharp and useful.
Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Show with Ryan Greenberg and Nick Galvest. What's up guys? We are here. It's just before 6 a.m. We have a new sponsor for the podcast, SUP Dog Supplements. They just sent us some pre-workout, some creatine. I've been taking this every day before the gym. About to do a about a mile and a quarter swim workout this morning and then chest and chest and biceps. This has always been a great pump for the last couple weeks. Hasn't been too jittery. A lot of pre-workouts I take gives me the jitters. This has been good. It's pretty tasty. I have the blue, blue raspberry. It's definitely strong tasting, but it's pretty delicious. And then we have our creatine here as well. So I'm gonna take one scoop of the creatine with my pre-workout. Unflavored creatine. I like it better that way. If you uh looking for new supplements, try something out. Stuff dog, they are local to Maryland, so they hooked us up and look forward to a long-term sponsorship with them. Alright, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Everyday Millionaire Show. We are here, Chase, Nick, and Corey Jacobson. What's up, Corey?
SPEAKER_03:Thanks for having me, guys. This is awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, thanks for coming down from uh Philly, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Philly.
SPEAKER_02:So give us a little bit of uh a background. So we met, I guess, just on Instagram, right? You just hit us up on Instagram.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've been trying to uh I've just been networking with people on IG and I saw, I think organically just saw your one of your posts, and I was like, this looks like a cool show, I'd love to be on. So that's how we met.
SPEAKER_02:Nice, cool. So yeah, give us like a little elevator pitch about what you do. Cool.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we'll break it down. Corey Jacobson just turned 34. Crazy. Let's go. Uh yeah. Um, from Philadelphia, uh, outside of Philadelphia, but live in Philadelphia, been there for like 15 years. My partner Ryan and I started investing in real estate in 2018. So we just bought a couple properties together and I started out house hacking, and um we started a podcast social media platform just to document our journey. Hopefully, people would follow along with our journey. I was listening to the bigger pockets, there was people with a thousand units. I was like, you know what, that's not relatable. Like, I can't figure out how I'm gonna get from A to B. There needs to be some steps or A to Z, and there needs to be some steps in between. So we just started documenting our journey and um started our social media. I posted every day for six and a half years, uh, pod one podcast a week. Now it's twice a week, just to share what we were doing. And six or seven years later, we now have a bunch of followers on social media and they get to you know, chat with cool people like yourself. So um, we've built a portfolio of just 90 or so units, and I'm mostly general partner, so I don't own those all myself, and I always like to say that to people because door counts, whatever. But um, yeah, so that's the story. That's the the high level.
SPEAKER_01:So you said six and a half years ago, 2019, 2020, around about?
SPEAKER_03:I guess so. You guys started? I guess it was six. I started investing in real estate in 2018, but then it took me, you know, how like when you buy your first, it's like okay, 18 months I buy my second, then it's nine months, then it's six months. I started then. The social media was literally April 2020, right when COVID hit. I was like, I'm not doing nothing, I can tell you that. So I we started our social and our podcast right then, just to be like, I'm I'm a guy with two units. Ryan was just living with his wife, and he's like, What? Who's gonna listen to us? And I'm like, you know what? I think people want to hear about the stupid decision I just made or the it's raining inside my house day one on this property that I bought. I made this this issue here. I think people will want to learn that. So it ended up being like right as COVID hit. So coming up on six years for the podcast and social but real estate investing for almost eight. Cool.
SPEAKER_00:I think that was really good. I was gonna say I thought that was a really good time to get started in that because you know, people were inside, didn't know what to do. And it was also a good time to you know show people what you're doing because interest rates were low, so a lot of people were engaging in real estate, whereas now you know I see some people pulling back, whether it's you know buying less uh flips, buying less buying holds as well. Um, what what month in 2018 did you get started?
SPEAKER_03:In 2018 it was June.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, because I I asked because I bought my first property in 2018, it was in April.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it sounds like we're like because I I'm the same age as you as well, and uh I have right around a hundred doors right now. Love it.
SPEAKER_03:So it seems like I'm so used to being on the other side of the mic, I'm about to just dive into some questions, but I'll go ahead. I'm just curious. I mean, are you by typically in this area? Is that your Yeah?
SPEAKER_00:So I'm in um Baltimore. I live in Baltimore County. I invest in Baltimore County, Baltimore City. We call him the king of Pigtown. Yeah, so there's a neighborhood called Pigtown, which is near, you know, MIT Bank Stadium where the Ravens play and Camden Yards, where the Orioles play. Cool. Um, and I've been investing in you know Baltimore, like I said, since 2018. And as you mentioned, you know, I I bought my first and then it was like um, you know, maybe three of my first year, and then it just started to snowball moving forward. Like I would buy, you know, the time period it would take to buy would shorten as time went by.
SPEAKER_03:I always say the first one's the hardest for people because they don't know what to do, they like they're scared, their analysis process. I talk to people that I have been looking at real estate for five years, and I'm like, when are you gonna just start to make some mistakes, like start to screw some stuff up? Um, and then once you get that first one, you're like, oh, I shouldn't do that. I should probably do that. And you know, I don't think you have to get 100 doors or 95 doors to be successful. I don't I only say that because we started buying larger multifamily as general partners. I that's the only reason I even mentioned 95 doors, but like my goal was one a year for 10 years, just because I was like, this will give me some level of security that I can be work optional when I'm 50. It's like okay, if I can do that, then I have not you know just relied on a 401k to try to get to retirement, if you will.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that um that was like the plan for us was just like buy a couple of units, and then it just it seems like when you get into it and you dive deep into it, and you like my issue was in the beginning to to bounce off what you said, I didn't have any issues. So I was buying houses with tenants in them. I wasn't doing the burst strategy yet. Like my first five or so houses, I think I bought, were none of them were there's no rehab. Same with me, by the way, for the first three. So I know exactly. There were tenants in there, yeah. And then for like a year, I didn't have like a single service call. I didn't have any issues, and I was like, this shit's easy. This is sign me up. Sign me up. So then I started managing, I started the property management company then um after I had like five doors and I was trying to I was selling to some people up in New York and managing for them.
SPEAKER_03:And uh and then I realized what property management like really was and started getting into the stankless, and I always respect property managers because like you know, it's it's one of those things where you're taking a percentage, you're getting yelled at by owners, and you're getting yelled at by tenants, and it's like no one loves you. But just yeah, you're literally just a punching bag for both parties.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and then if you do your job, base like baseline is like I collect the rent and I send it to the owner, that's it. But like I do like kitchen remodels and bathroom remodels and new constructions for people, like custom homes, and they're like, I love my house, I love my kitchen. Like they're so thankful. Property management, like haven't gotten a single thank you for the millions of dollars in rent I've sent to people. It's kind of like being an offensive lineman, you know.
SPEAKER_03:You like you gotta just do your job, and then like if you give up a sack, you suck. Or goalie. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I uh I respect it, and like our prop, this is the only reason I've been able to buy in other areas is because I've built a team and like I really trust my property manager. Our property manager invests in some of the deals we do, so we're like intertwined. And if you're just if you're not creating the the relationship and you're just you're yelling at them all the time and you're doing like that, that's you know, they're that's the it's like it's a relationship business like anything else. So I think it's great, and it's a hard job, yeah, really hard. And I'm sure you could get into that a thousand stories, right?
SPEAKER_02:Uh we've talked about it at nauseum to this in this podcast. It's a terrible job, terrible business. I actually just today got hit up by um a PE firm that I'm meeting with on Thursday. I don't think I'm gonna do anything with it, but like they they hit us up and they're like, look, they're wrapping up a bunch of property management firms. So we'll see. If I get a good if I get a number, there's a no there's a number in my head. Like, I don't think it would be worth it just yet to sell it with the amount of like volume that we're doing, but how many properties are under management right now? Like 200.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's a that so I have in New Jersey. I had a property manager working on our property that had like 800 to 1,000, and I was feeling like feeling like it was getting too big in a way. I only had a few doors with them, but like that 200 number is an interesting number because then you're you're able to get bought out, right? But it's like you're not you're not at 12 units where you're like just getting started.
SPEAKER_02:So the problem with property management that I found it with scaling, like I scaled a construction company with a lot of subcontractors. You can you have an unlimited amount of subcontractors with property management. There's a certain amount of like doors to to human capital that you need. Like in the I need my maintenance guy, I need my late, you know, the director of ops, the bookkeeper. Once you get past a certain number, then you need to hire a whole nother person. And until you get another 50 doors, that person doesn't pay for themselves.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:So it's like there's a scalability problem. Like, if I wanted to grow, I would have to grow by like 70 doors right now in order to hire, because I'm like basically at like the max point of like labor to properties. That's what's really hard about property management that I've found to be the most difficult thing. It's like, how many employees do we have versus how many doors and how much money are we bringing in?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I that's interesting because I started as anyone does when you start buying real estate, I'm like getting trying to get my hands on any property that I can. Like I'm trying to, you know, I bought in C plus class areas, C, C minus areas, and now we only buy in B, B plus A minus. Because of that exact reason, it's like your job's a lot easier when I got traveling nurses or I have people that are working at universities or tech that are paying$3,000 a month for a two-bed than you're trying to go physically collect rent because nobody wants to download an app or whatever. So it's like that's I think now if anybody's listening that's trying to get started, it doesn't matter. Just start to buy. You'll learn that you can go buy it's hard to buy A-class, just like it's hard to hire A-class talent when you're just getting started. Just go get your hands on a piece of real estate.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that that's where I'm mainly focused on like higher end stuff. Like I'm buying a duplex right now in right in this town for where we we own another duplex next door, but it's like a$1.2 million duplex. Yeah, but both sides are renting out for like$3,600 a month. And the tenants will they're not on three or four year leases on the one side. Um lawyers or something, probably like that level is the one guy in our unit is a doctor, like he just divorced recently divorced doctor. Um paying, I don't know how much he's paying, but it's a good bit. And I think up front, like when like where Nick invests and where where I started, the cash flow looks so good. But then when you like take a couple years of breakdown and you look at like what your turnover was, like we're doing I'm doing one that I I was having him sell one of my rentals that is a two it's like over 2,000 square feet. I don't know. But it's like ARV is like 220, maybe 230. So every time I have to turn it over, like the tenant, you know, my mortgage is like six hundred bucks, rents is sixteen hundred. So it looks on paper to be crushing. And then one turnover. Yeah, yeah. I have a month of vacancy and a turnover, yeah, all that money's gone. And the turnover, the ceilings are like 10 foot ceilings, so everything is just more paint, more drywall, more everything. So that's that's I think when you get into like what Nick and the volume that Nick and you are doing, you really need to look at like a five-year scope. What what did we pay out? Like, what did I do?
SPEAKER_03:All of our projects now, now that we're like on the general partnership side and we're raising capital, are all five to seven year like that. The goal is to rehab it as quickly as we can and refi, if we can refi. But if you bought something in 2023, which we have, we're not, we haven't been able to refi yet. So our goal is they're all five to seven year plays. Uh, but yeah, I think you know, in the beginning, my first property was a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollar duplex. So even if I'm getting three to five percent appreciation, I'm getting it on the hundred and twenty-five thousand. I sold that property three years later and bought a five hundred and fifty thousand dollar property. Okay, now I'm getting three to five percent, even just using baseline. Obviously, they're different markets and they appreciate differently. But not so it's like this monopoly game that we I've tried to play. And originally when I had one a year for 10 years as a goal, I was like, I'm gonna hold on to these for 30 years. But you realize like you just trim the headaches if you can and trade up. And I don't care about the amount of doors, it's like how much money are you making? And as a general partner, it sounds great to have 95 doors, but we're paying back all of our limited partners. I've been doing this in the last three to four years, so it's like my paydays are more so coming than have already come, you know what I mean? So I think I just always tell people like this game, you don't have to be a millionaire to start investing in real estate. And we were talking about this pre-recording, is like you if you've opportunity for a VA loan or 3.5% down FHA, like just buy real estate and wait. And I that that's so cliche to say, but it's proven over and over. I just sold a property that I bought in 2021 for$135,000 and I sold it for$350 on the 30th of uh December. And I'm like, man, like I can't save on average uh$67,000 a year in four years, right? So the store of value for us has been like, you know, you just trade up and over time I've just found it's been the best asset class.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, when I when I first started, I always heard people say that they regret selling and nobody regret held holding on to property. So like when I first started, I wasn't flipping, I didn't know a whole lot about real estate, and I'm like, I just want one property, and then after buying that property, it just became an addiction just to keep buying. And I was using you know hard money at the time. Well, I was using hard money at that time, now I use private money, which is slightly different, and uh I just kept growing from there. I it's funny because when I met my hard money lender at the property to to lend on, I didn't know that I didn't know what a construction loan was. So he's like, How much do you need? I told him you know the difference from what the purchase price was from what I had, and that's how much I needed, whatever that difference was. And he's like, Well, what about the construction? I said, I'll just rehab it over time with money that comes in. He's like, Oh, well, we can lend on that too. And I'm like, Oh, really? That's how like oblivious I was to what um you know hard money lending was and what you know real estate and buying, you know, and I did the Burr method, so I needed a construction loan. And once I figured out that, and I'm like, wow, I can just keep it.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I guess the key for you is like you just weren't afraid to go figure it out along the way. I think people get stuck in spreadsheets and just like, is this gonna work out? Is it gonna pencil out? And like I remember before even buying anything, I drove out to Cleveland, Ohio, because you know what was in Cleveland, Ohio? The numbers looked great in Cleveland, Ohio. And I was looking at$50,000 properties that were supposed to rent for$1,500 a month, and I drove down the neighborhood and I was like, I am not investing here. Like, I'm just not doing it. Now, I don't want anyone to take that the wrong way. You can invest in Cleveland, like there's people making money, but I you were not afraid to be like, all right, well, I guess I'll I I know this way to do it, and it's worked or it could work, maybe there's another way, and then you meet new people that bring you new ideas, and it's like in this evolution. I found that real estate investors are some of the most giving, like, hey, this is what worked for me. I'm gonna show you the way, type of people, you know. And I think that a lot of people don't think that's that's how people are when they're millionaires. I think I for me it's like I get I get more satisfaction out of helping somebody else grow their money almost than growing my own at this point, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean that's that's why we you know started the podcast and did all that. I was a teacher, like I wasn't I didn't have any money, I didn't come from any money. He he was the land owned a landscaping company, Chase was in the military, like none of us came from money. Um, but you just figure it out. And and I think the biggest thing is like being able to just pull the trigger and get over that analysis paralysis. Um, whether that's like hiring a mentor, like I have a client that did the five years of analyzing properties and never pulled the trigger, and then now I do some now I'm mainly doing like business coaching for him for his actual business. But within 30 days of him coming on with me, he bought his first property. And like we we analyzed it, I found the deal, we made a creative financing deal with a friend of ours that like owned the property, and we made it work, and you just you figure it out, and but you gotta be willing to pull the trigger.
SPEAKER_01:And there's levels to it, right? Like, I just went through the analysis paralysis again today after flipping you know multiple houses, but I was looking at a firehouse and I'd never I've never bought a firehouse, and so it was like, okay, well, now we got to figure out what all do we need for this this house because I mean there's so much fire damage, you need everything. And then what does insurance look like on the back end? And then I'm like, do I really want to do this or do I just do what I I know, right?
SPEAKER_03:And so, like, so it's a fine line, it's a hard line because I had a property, you know, the what's the worst thing that can happen when you buy real estate? Oh, your property catches fire. It happened to me. Like, I I that property was renting for$3,000 a month, and it my mortgage was$1,200. So I was making we were making good money, it was a great asset. We ended up doing, you know, you know how maybe you know how this works, but like we I have to pay capital gains on the gain that I got from the insurance because like it was a we won on this, and the neighbor's house caught fire was in a mess. But that process is I had a house that was half burned down, and I was like, am I gonna go fix this up? No, I don't know, I don't I want to play in this game. I sold it to a developer and we ended up you know making a bunch of money on it. And so yeah, it's like kind of picking your lane to figure out whether or not you want to do something, but at least you went into this with open like eyes wide open. Like you'll probably be able to figure it out if you figured out the last thing that you didn't think you were gonna be able to figure out at that time. And that's if you keep that mentality, I'm sure you could figure it out.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we submitted the offer, so it was like it was like we got it done and ended up like I was thinking the you know the ARV was one thing and the construction cost was gonna be like 200k, and then they started getting we started getting quotes, and it was like not even close to what I thought it was gonna be. And I was like, all right, let's do it. Fuck it. What's the worst that can happen? We lose you know our EMD of three thousand dollars, like okay.
SPEAKER_02:No, I could think of some worse things then than that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, sure. We lost some money flipping some houses before right, but like we were gonna do a a more in-depth inspection once we got it under contract, so like we would get way more quotes and kind of dial in our numbers. So I mean, at at the point in time I was in, three thousand dollars was the most that we could lose.
SPEAKER_02:Sure. So um your social your social media journey happened at the same time as like your real estate. Has one overtaken the other now to like for your time? Because you said you released two podcasts a week. We struggled to do one a week because of just time allocation to sitting here and filming content.
SPEAKER_03:The w the reason that it worked out so advantageous for us and the timing was so advantageous of April 2020, it's like this is a key thing. Here is that the world shut down, right? Obviously, depends where you live. And like I didn't I whether or not you followed those rules, that's a whole nother conversation. But the point is, is like I knew in order for me to organically network with people that were a few steps ahead of me, the way to do it was gonna be virtually for whatever period of time. So I started out was like, we're gonna do this one a week, we're gonna share our story. By get by episode 20, we had a guest on. All of a sudden, people are like, You guys are kind of good at this. Like, I took one person to be like, You guys are kind of good at this. And then we had Brandon Turner and David Green on, and they were like, You guys are kind of good at this. I'm like, okay, that's all I need to keep going. Now my time is honestly split in thirds, like third one third investor, one third agent, one third content creator. And I like it. I love the content creation, I love having conversations with people like you guys. I love just like trying to bring value to whatever you're doing, and we're not that far away. Maybe we can help each other, that type of stuff. But I we post on social media every single day. So it's either motivation that we're giving people that really need that to start, they need to start. See something that's motivating to get them to Press Go that's shareable, that'll get our brand out there, and or an educational thing where I'm showing a house hack or I'm I'm I'm walking through a listing that I have or I'm showing the numbers of something. So it's become like a third, a third, a third. I'm managing our investor relations, we're buying deals. I'm I'm I have listings of my own in Philadelphia. I sh I help people buy investment properties, their dream home, starter home, whatever it might be. And then the podcasts and socials become just like an arm of our business because now we have brand partnerships. I'm like, oh, okay. It not just this doesn't just support itself. It's like, I don't know how if you guys have seen the in like in I don't like to call myself an influencer, but like I kind of have become that. The amount of money and people we can help in that sphere is like it's unlimited, man.
SPEAKER_02:So speaking of that, SUPDog Supplements is a proud sponsor of today's podcast, Code Millionaire for 10% off. Um, yeah, that that's interesting. So with your social media, do you have anybody helping like edit and put this stuff out? Are you doing that yourself?
SPEAKER_03:So we have somebody, you mentioned like before we were recording, somebody clipping. We do some of that stuff uh like for YouTube, but we just recently started doing in-person episodes in a studio literally five minutes from my house. So I have a full team, like editing team, but they do it for a bunch of other podcasts, and we rent a studio. So the podcast is covered, editing, clipping, all that stuff. But the social is just me and Ryan. We run it. Like I am doing front-facing recording, uh, it's nothing fancy. What's working right now on Instagram is like just being yourself, being authentic, not trying to have flashy, like crazy uh edits and all that. Just be yourself and talk and be authentic. And that's why we started. So he posts motivational tweets and stuff like that that's shareable, and I post the real stuff that we're doing. So um, we don't have like a huge team there. It's just the consistency has what has helped us like grow our following and grow our reach. And now we teach people, our community, we teach people how to buy their first or next rental property because I know what it was like to find a mentor who was willing to give me the time. So obviously it's it's a paid thing. Like, I want to get paid for my time, but like watching somebody who didn't think that they could buy real estate because they didn't think they had it or didn't think they had enough money to actually like going and submitting offers and seeing their first checks come in, it's like, isn't that what this is really about? Like at the end of the day, like I just money's great, it's awesome. I want to make money, we all do. That's why we're doing it. But to be able to like support and like show people a new way that you don't have to like just invest in your 401k, like you don't have to just follow the rule book. I mean, that's been the coolest thing ever.
SPEAKER_00:And you guys were partnered up from the start.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I bought one house hack, a three-bed, two bath. I lived in one of the bedrooms, rented out the other two bedrooms, and I lived for free in 2018. And I was like, this is the thing I'm gonna so that was without Ryan. And then he saw I was doing that, and he was like, actually worked. I worked for the 76ers, so I worked there making a whopping$35,000 a year, and I was like, this isn't gonna last forever. It was so much fun. I loved it. They pay the players a lot more than they pay everyone else, which they should, but uh he saw that I was doing that and he was like, Oh, this is so cool. Let's partner up. And I was like, Well, if we're gonna do this, let's document it, let's talk about it. So I bought my first without him, I bought a duplex without him, and then he was like, All right, no, we're actually partnering up. So then we started to buy like duplexes and triplexes and stuff in South Jersey, and that's when the podcast and social. So you're in Philadelphia. I live in Philadelphia. But you were buying in New York. Philadelphia and South Jersey are the same thing. Okay, yeah, same thing. It's basically like uh right across the bridge. So I was buying properties that were like 30 minutes from my house. Okay. Philly's right on the border of Delaware and uh and Jersey. Um, my first property was in New Jersey. Uh I still have that property today, and then my next three or four were in South Jersey because you could get more like small multifamily in New Jersey. Taxes are crazy, but like the inventory was better for that. So that's why we started buying over.
SPEAKER_02:Um I would imagine is New Jersey a more tenant-friendly state than Pennsylvania is?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I would say like so. Now we buy in Vermont, New Hampshire. That's that's all we touch, five to thirty unit multifamily. And that was from somebody that we met through our podcast who was like, I have this infrastructure, I need capital. Can you guys help me underwrite deals? Can you guys help me with investor relations? And it was like a so I don't buy as much over there anymore. But yes, it was like Vermont, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania are very similar. They're very like teetering the line. It's kind of like half and half. It's not like Texas or Florida, which is landlord. Jersey's like unbelievably tenant-friendly, and that's fine. Like it's it, we you can still buy there, you can win in any state. But that was what started to take us away from it. Is uh we had some Section A tenants and they were like lying about stuff, and I'm like, I'll just replace the oven, it's not a big deal. Like I remember just going through the motions of being like, I think they're siding a lot more with tenants. Yeah, and I am a Maryland's kind of split too, right?
SPEAKER_00:Like tenant-friendly, tenant, yeah, 100% tenant-friendly.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you say that with a straight face, like I've had my fair share of yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing is, is you have to just find you have to have good tenants, you have to find good tenants. There are good tenants in not the best areas. You just have to wean through a ton of applications to find them. And you have to be strict and stitch and stay. The every time that I've been burned by a tenant, it was because I broke one of my own rules, which was like, if they have a fucked up credit score or they have criminal, and like, uh, this one's not that bad. It's just a 650, it's just one collections case. Let them go. I it's been vacant for three months, like I just want to get somebody in there. Those are the every like every single time I've broken one of those rules is when I have a default.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you when you say you broke your own rule, right? Yeah. Your criteria. Yeah, and that's to honestly, we have lucked out most of the time with tenants. Um, I inherited my second property, not the one I lived in, but my first duplex, I inherited tenants, and I did everything wrong in terms of I didn't even know you had to fix up properties, like you said. It needed fixing up, I just didn't know you had to do it, and I did it over time, and that's how I was able to create that spread and profit eventually. But I had tenants that I mean they were paying via uh like cashiers' checks, and I was going to pick them up, and then I'm like, this is not sustainable, and then they, you know, they pull on your heartstrings and all this stuff. Then COVID happened, and it was like you don't even have to pay. And I was like, oh man, this is gonna be rough. And they did actually, so I was like, you know what? I'm in a situation that most people I didn't get, they weren't as fortunate. Like some tenants just stopped paying for years, they're professional tenants, like, and you know the situation.
SPEAKER_02:We had a couple of them, we we actually did a lot uh when COVID hit, it was like I was like, it's over for us. Like the property management company, which at that time was probably doing most of the like bringing in most of the leads and the revenue, maybe not the revenue, but like most of the leads, and I was like, Oh, there like why would you pay? Like, why would you pay? Like, if you're somebody that's like living paycheck to paycheck, and they just announce on the television that you can't be evicted, what's making you pay? Uh, but we only had, I think we had like four tenants default during COVID, which is I think a really good number.
SPEAKER_03:Of the two, well, maybe you didn't have 200 doors back then, but like probably had like a over a hundred though, and that's a great number. Yeah, and you just realize that like I don't like the whole landlord versus tenant thing, you know. Like it makes it seem like like if I provide a really good service, and I always do, like, if something needs to be fixed, I fix it. Like, I'm not trying I want people to live in a place that they feel comfortable in. And like, I think that's the right way to do things, you know. Like, that's the way that you get people that are good people, good people find good people, and like so the fact that all those people paid, it's like they're good people everywhere, man, in all walks of life, you know.
SPEAKER_00:And even so, the people that didn't pay for me, there were so many rental assistance programs out there. I mean, granted, it did take maybe a few months to get paid, but they still paid up, you know, so the rents that were due.
SPEAKER_02:You're right. So there was more, but we we developed like a basically just a way to help the tenants figure out the rental assistance thing. So there would wait, there were more than that. I did that too. I remember that. The state of New Jersey helps. So we had we, I think at that time, I don't even know if we made a video or just made like a PDF um of how to get rental assistance. Like you, if you're in the city, you call this number, you do this, whatever. And my admin at the time would literally drive to the people's house and sit there with her computer and help them through the process.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and a lot of people, like full, like you know, a lot of tenants were like factory workers or something like that. They like legit lost their jobs. Like it wasn't in our situation, it was like they couldn't pay. Right. Right? When you weren't allowed to leave your house. Jersey was nuts, but like it was like that everywhere. I I so I think everyone thought it was all going to shit back then, and you know, we made it through.
SPEAKER_02:So but that error, like I we're never gonna see that again. I feel like that was like you couldn't lose. Okay, so I should say like the real estate portion of that, like you couldn't buy a bad deal. Like if you bought interest rates, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if you bought any deal, I feel like any deal back in 2020, if you look at it right now, it'd be profitable. Like any deal. But I don't know that we're gonna be able to say that in five years from now.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I don't think we I mean, look, if I had a crystal ball and I knew the answer to that question, like I'd have to be a lot more successful than I do.
SPEAKER_02:You probably wouldn't be on this podcast. Maybe I would.
SPEAKER_03:I don't know, but but I agree with you. And I like, you know, when when I started, that's part of this too, but like you kind of create your own luck in a way. Like I always tell people, I'm not special, like I just I did buy at the right time for sure. Like I had my refinanced to everything at three percent, like for sure, and that's part of it, but there are still deals out there today, and I it is a lot harder, but there's a lot I think there's less competition time of year wise in the winter, but also just like people think real estate's like done or or it's too late for them. And I wholeheartedly disagree. People in our community that I coach are buying live in New Jersey or live in California and are buying deals in Detroit, site not necessarily a sight on scene, they'll go there, but like out of state investing in Detroit, in Augusta, Georgia, in markets where you can still hit the 1% rule on the MLS. I think people just don't look hard enough. And are those the best deals in the world? No, wholesalers are are getting the best, or flippers or you guys are maybe getting the best deals, but there are deals out there for the common person who wants to create wealth in real estate still. And I think people are just like, ah, interest rates are too high. I totally disagree.
SPEAKER_00:So back back when you first started, you said you bought your first few uh conventional and you put what 20% down or so?
SPEAKER_03:Well, the my first property I I lived in, so I actually put 10% down. I didn't even need to, but I put 10. And then through the next three to five properties were all conventional, either 20%, 15%. I got a couple investment loans at 15% or 25% on a duplex. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So did you ever use hard money after those first?
SPEAKER_03:No, I didn't use hard money until I got to 10 10 units, uh, which was by like five deals or so. I didn't use any actually we we started raising capital. I haven't had a lot of transactions with hard money at all, even to this day, because we started raising capital for larger projects. I was bringing equity investors in and then going to the bank to finance the rest of our deals. So um, I don't have too much experience with hard money, and I kind of maybe like went over that stage or didn't really and what what did that process look like to get equity investors in? So this is the power of social media. Like, this is specifically why I say this is that because our goal was to document our journey and just share our story. This is I'm not trying to teach you now. I do some teaching, but I figure eight years in the game, like people want to, if you're at level one and there are people at level zero, you should you you're doing a disservice if you're not showing them how to do it, right? But now I feel confident in it. But we because we were sharing our story and people felt like we were being ourselves and being authentic, people started to gravitate towards us. Hey, how'd you buy this deal? Hey, I'm an accountant in this state, and I don't have time to go invest in real estate, but I have all this money sitting aside, kind of like we were talking about earlier. Like, people have money, they don't know where to put it. I have seen you do this project and this project and this project, and I've lost my own money. And I said, I'm way willing to lose my own money and test any of that stuff out before I go and search for investors. But then people started to come to us, and they're like, Once we started to say, okay, we can do bigger projects. Like, I my I'm better off instead of buying duplexes and triplexes 50-50 with me and my partner, I'm better off owning 25% of a 10 unit or 30% of a 15 unit. So that's how we started to grow. I own less of the property, but people were coming to us, friends, family. That's how it started organically. And then it was been like people through social. They're like, You guys seem like you know what you're doing enough to the point where I'm not gonna like go scour the internet to try to find the 29% IRR on this deal that I've never met anybody. And we started to create real genuine relationships, and that's how it hopefully that answered your question.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Can you talk about like when you were raising capital, what that process was like, or like when people were coming to you, like obviously I'm sure you didn't know, like, all right, you got to pay one point or you know, 12% or whatever. Like, how did how did that look for you? Like, tactical.
SPEAKER_03:This again, another tribute to social media because the person that we started buying deals with we had on our podcast, and he needed he had a need to fill. And we had like, well, we're good at marketing and we're good at investor relations, we're good at sales, like we we have people that are interested in real estate. All these people that follow us on social are interested in real estate, and he was the under, he like he knew how to find any deal anywhere. So he taught us how to do it, like how to do a 506B or how to do a 506C, which is SEC regulated, you know, whether you can raise from friends and family or you can't blast it out. Yeah, accredited investor. I mean, those are getting into some technical terms, but like he taught us how this worked, how this game worked. And it was a again, a person who was a couple stages ahead of us who was willing to invest in people who were like, hey, I can bring you part of your business that you're lacking. And that's the value exchange. I mean, that's the fun part. So I learned it all by doing it with him and looking at how he was underwriting deals and what deals were were he was getting deals brought to him by his property manager, by his lender. Like he was getting right to the deal before anything hit retail. And I was like, this is the way to find the best deals. So I learned through mentorship, inadvertent mentorship, and like we kind of went through it together. Um, so that's that's kind of how that organically happened.
SPEAKER_02:So now you're you're like buy boxes strictly multifamilies?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I I like we buy five to thirty unit in Vermont, New Hampshire, value add multifamily. And this is like Vermont, New Hampshire. I say this is like similar to PA in Jersey. They're right on the border of each other. So there's like um right near Dartmouth Health. So Dartmouth Health, Dartmouth College, there's a big tech scene up there. Um they're like B plus uh or A minus neighborhoods. So we buy that five to thirty unit because uh institutional money's not really touching those, and then they're a little bit too big for like anybody who's just looking for a duplex or triplex. So that's where you found a little bit of a competitive advantage.
SPEAKER_02:That's my theory with the new development that we're doing. Like we're buying one to four lot you know developments and we're building new houses, and it's too much.
SPEAKER_03:Are you building the rent or building a cell? Both. Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_02:Right now we're doing one in Annapolis that we're building. We're doing one in Annapolis, one in Glen Burney. You're doing two more in Glen Burning. Oh, yeah. I'm just but the yeah, so we're doing one two right now to rent and two to sell. And we have a couple more in the pipeline that'll probably be sales.
SPEAKER_03:People have asked me what the best strategy is, and it I don't like to answer that question like with just this is the best strategy, because it depends on your cash situation, depends on who you are, depends on your personality. But I don't have too much experience in ground-up development, but but that is where a lot of margins are right now because because of interest rates and like how you're able to for force appreciate. I think I love like that business model.
SPEAKER_02:And we're just too small. It's nice because like what you were kind of the same thing you were saying, like we're too small for like the Ryan homes and the big boys to come in and buy because they want to build a hundred plus houses where we can come in and build one or two, and it makes sense, but like building a new house is kind of too hard for that new investor flipper that's only done a couple of cosmetic reactions, whatever. That avatar looks different than somebody that's able to do a new in a way.
SPEAKER_03:You're doing kind of what we're doing in a just in like a slightly different field. It's like playing in that like well, institutional money's not buying it. Mentioned Ryan Holmes or Toll Brothers or whatever. Or yeah, if you're buying your third deal or your second deal, you're probably not building a ground up. I I I've been doing this for eight years. I wouldn't really know exactly what to do in that. So it's it's niche.
SPEAKER_01:Well, even seasoned investors, right? Like seasoned investors would have to hire a subcontractor who's gonna mark up 30% who just that kills the margin for them, right? So now you can't even make a profit.
SPEAKER_02:It's it is really hard to do what I'm doing if you're if I like wasn't the builder. It would be real it would be really thin to for me to make money as the builder and the developer. Like it those margins don't really make sense.
SPEAKER_03:I like the build to rent model too. I think that's interesting. Like, can you give me I'm I'm like digging here, but I'm curious on like the example.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so so this one, this deal specifically. Um shout out to Kyle Squires because uh he brought it to me. But the it was one house that was existing, and there were two attached lots to this single family. So this guy, Kyle, that we buy a lot of lots from, he's he basically does the development part where he finds the lots, gets them ready for permits. Um, some of them don't aren't ready for permits, some of them we do ourselves. But like he essentially gets them ready. So this house had two lots behind it. He bought the house, we're building the first house behind it. We bought that lot from him, he subdivided it. We're buying the second lot from him, and then as soon as we're done building the second house, we're buying the original house. So we'll have three in on one lot basically, three rentals. The one that's existing is bringing in$3,200 a month. It's a three-bed, two-bath. And then ironically, I didn't even tell you this, but the neighbor, we were taking a tree down the other day, and the neighbor came over, the direct neighbor. So there's it's like a lollipop driveway. So we drive between two houses in the back. There's like a shared little court or whatever. And the neighbor's like, I'm moving to California in February. I need to sell my house. And I saw you just bought this one, like it's literally behind her house. So I'm about to make her an offer next week when I meet with her. So I'll have four, we'll have four house single family houses all within like 500 feet of each other.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that when people are like, Oh, you have a buy box or you do certain things in real estate. I mentioned you asked me like how my time is divided. Like the investing side's like the future money. The agent for me is like my active income, right? And then social media is kind of a kind of both in a way, but for you, it's like you invest your money into whether you keep those properties, then you have the development or the building for the active income. Like, I think there's this misnomer out there that it's like, oh, you're gonna like buy 30 rental properties and like just live on a beach and like live off cash flow. And like, however, that may be possible, but I think that keeping the active income with the passive income passive in air quotes, keeping both of those and building it that way, I feel like is the best way to really build long-term wealth.
SPEAKER_02:I I feel like passive income in this industry doesn't isn't real, like it's a kind of a false nomad. Like you said, like Nick, he invests in real estate, but he's actively working to manage the portfolio. So it's a job, too. So like you can live off that cash flow, but you also need to realize that you are spending time, money, resources, manipulating.
SPEAKER_03:Passive income is like uh it does exist in real estate, and it this is I always tell people this is how it exists is if you're a limited partner in a syndication. Yep. And that's how we try to tell you hey, if you don't have the time and you're an accountant or you're Whatever, like you're an engineer and you're making a few hundred thousand dollars a year and you have a family and you're like, I'm not gonna go find deals. Like that's seems impossible. But you have fifty hundred, two hundred thousand dollars that you want to put to work, that would be the way that it becomes passive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, investing in a in a REIT or something like that would or a syndication. Yeah, that would be truly passive. But that's if you're buying rental properties, it's not yeah, buying buying rental properties and trying to hire a contractor, hiring a sub uh property manager and stuff. It's just it is a tough business. So I hate like I don't I don't want to like get people like, oh yeah, it's easy. Just go out there, you just buy one. Like it is it is hard, it is an active job to go out and buy it.
SPEAKER_03:It is, but you the fact that you've been doing it for as long as you have, you just learn so much. And like for me, my best wins are the projects I did the longest time ago because I just held on to them. So it's like the ones that I've decided to hold on to. But it's like it's so forgiving. Like, you if you do it long enough, you will have more freedom than working a job. Like, I'll put it to you that way, even if it's not fully passive, you will create more freedom for yourself.
SPEAKER_01:So it's I mean, I think it's the best way to build wealth. That's what I'm chatting about. Even just as an agent, you were talking about you just got your license, and I was like, be careful, right? But like, you know, as an agent, we were I have a team of 12 other agents, and um, between that and flipping houses and you know, building new houses and and all the things we're doing, I've worked more hours as a in the real estate industry than I've ever worked in the military, but I love it because it creates a lifestyle where tomorrow, if I wanted to pick up and go to Florida, I could go to Florida and I could still manage everything we're doing here. And so it's like this lifestyle that I just I love, and I think that like affords like Nick can do anything he wants. Like if he wants to go to Costa Rica next week, like you're going to Costa Rica when a couple weeks, yeah. And like Nick can go to Costa Rica if he wants and and go for a week.
SPEAKER_03:It's not about escaping the work. It's exactly what you're it's not about escaping the work, it's about doing it on your terms, yeah. Like, and and I I love that. I think that's so true. Like, I'm going to I once once January hits, I'm like, what am I doing living in the northeast? I always say that every year I'm like, what am I doing up here? I have a place in Tampa, so I'd go down there.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah? Yeah. Where at? Right by the like airport-ish West Tampa.
SPEAKER_03:I'm in South Tampa. Okay. Yeah. I I I bought it in 2023. It's an Airbnb. So I can't. Right up at McDill. Okay. Yeah. Very cool. I love we could get into Tampa. I love Tampa so much. Um, my fiance went to the University of Tampa. That's the only reason I know about it. But um, I mean not know about Tampa, but had the idea to buy down there, and like it's been such a great investment. But um, I forget where I was going with that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, now now I'm curious because I want to know. My wife, I met, so we met through TikTok, talk about the power of social media. Oh, cool. I met my wife through TikTok. She uh was going to school in West Palm on the other side of Florida, and I was up here and she came up here, but her parents live near the villages. Okay, yeah. Um, and we've talked a long time about going to Tampa. I get I have a guy that sends me deals in Clearwater, St. Pete, Tampa, all the time. Oh, I have a whole team down there. If you want to, I mean, I'm sure maybe you do too. But like he's like, yo, like Tampa, I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:I'm I'm good at it. It's hard to buy there now, but it's exploding. It's kind of like if you look at Phoenix or Austin, like Tampa's in that range where they're like, there's you're seeing a decline in like rents and stuff, but I still think long term it's such a great place. It's gotta be a great play long term.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I was yeah, I was just down there last week in St. Pete looking for stuff down there, mainly like short acres. It's an area that floods a lot, but I was interested in it because they're trying the city's trying to come up with a plan to stop it. They're not gonna prevent it entirely, but they're trying to come up with solutions.
SPEAKER_03:What part of St. Pete is that?
SPEAKER_00:Is that um it's like uh it's a little bit north of downtown St. Pete?
SPEAKER_03:Okay, yep, got it. So in I mean, 2023 was or 24 was like, and I don't know if your place survived.
SPEAKER_02:We bought our house in 21, I think. Have you ever talked about this deal on the podcast? My the Florida house? Yeah, maybe you should you should tell him how you bought it. So yeah, I was I think it was 21. It was aft I think it was like right when COVID was like starting to chill out in Florida was kind of like fuck it COVID.
SPEAKER_03:Florida never really dealt with COVID.
SPEAKER_02:They were like, yeah, COVID, whatever. Yeah, um, so I went down there to look at houses because I wanted to buy like a winter house and have an Airbnb type of situation. And we found the house that currently the house that we have, and it's it was perfect, like everything about it screamed perfect, like party house, Airbnb. Like it's like the bachelor's like bachelor pad, like pool. It had all outdoor kitchen, it had all the things that like a party house would need. And we made it, it was listed for like$8.75 at first, and we made an offer. I think it was like it was ridiculous. It dropped to$7.50. And then we made an offer at like$6.30 or$6.20 or something like that. Oh wow. And they were like, nah, we can't we can't do that. Um that was December. Three months later, fast forward to like March, the lady we called back the lady because we saw the house was still listed and it dropped to like$725. Or maybe it was like$700 or something. We made an offer, the same exact offer that we made before, and she's like, No, and then I pitched seller financing and she bit. And turns out like this lady was like one of the most wealthy Latino uh commercial real estate people in Tampa. And she was the agent or the person who owned the house? The person that owned the house. Oh, cool. And she actually owns the shopping center across the street from from the house. So I pitched her on seller financing, and she's like, Well, I don't know, because I still have a loan, but like let me see. And then I basically, not not me, but my agent down there, like walked her through the whole. I I was like, This is how I want to structure it. And he walked her through the whole process, and she ended up, we ended up getting it for$635, seller financing, six and a half percent interest rate, um, 10%, 10-year balloon, 30-year am. Wow. So pretty good. Pretty good.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's awesome. I um the the similarly, I mean, it was I just literally paid asking price for this house in Tampa, not similarly, but like just the fact that we're talking Tampa. Uh$550, three-bed, two bath, and it was beautiful, like the backyard was like an oasis. I walked out there and I was like, yes, this is the one, this is the one you're gonna see on Airbnb that you're gonna love to go to. And now it's like my favorite thing because I can go down whenever. It's like if it makes if it cash flows, great, because it does most of the time. But like if I send my parents down there and they're gonna get to enjoy the the winter in Florida, like I'm not too concerned of how much it cash flows. I just know that if you know Tampa, there's this project called the Isles of Tampa Bay, which has been on hold, but it's like quarter mile south of my of the house.
SPEAKER_02:And um so you know the new midtown development? Yeah, I live well, I don't live, but that my house is literally right behind that development.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so you've seen 2021 is a great example. You've seen Tampa do like it became unaffordable in four years, basically. Like, so anyway, I think the whole point of the what we were talking about is just being able to design that type of life where you can go to Tampa and that that uh being in the real estate game and buying a couple properties allows you to be like, once I wasn't managing my properties that were 30 minutes away, I was like, I can go buy properties that are a plane ride away. Like, holy shit, I can't believe that everyone wants to be close, and then those are the people that have pain on their jeans all the time. It's like you can create a business where you don't have to do all the work, and that was when Tampa came into play and like buying out of state. I'm like, man, this game is fun. Like it and you can do it as a lifestyle play too, and that's why I'm sure you're sure that probably makes money for you for sure.
SPEAKER_02:But like it does and it doesn't. I feel like um this year we were positive, I think, by a couple thousand K1 says like negative five thousand bucks or something like that. Um but it's getting paid down. I I haven't done we haven't like had to put money into it. Right. So it's kind of like a break-even, but it it appreciated like like shit, like the well you bought it super undervalued. The neighbor's house. So we we made an offer. The neighbor's house went up for sale. We did not know that it was on two lots, and we should have bought it. We made an offer on it, it was just under asking. They were asking like 500k, but it needed to be torn down, and I was running the numbers at like building one house, but whoever bought it, developed it, built two houses, and they each sold for like 1.2 million, and they're right next door to that.
SPEAKER_03:That's that is such a cool story because the the property that I bought when I bought for$550, it's probably worth I don't know,$615. Like nothing crazy in a couple years that it's appreciated because Tampa's been weird, but I renovated it. There are lots next, like the block over a few houses down because there was flooding. The developers are buying lots for$700,000. And I'm just a lot. I'm like, wow, like you know, I was thinking like, okay, maybe I hold on to this for 10-12 years and then knock my own house down and build a build uh something on stilts so that I don't have to worry about the storms because it's a it's a ranch. But the the only thing is the price you the price you pay to have a property in paradise, and that was what 2025 was great, dude. 2024, man. That was two hurricanes, right? It was I when I went down there, I was down there in between Helene and Milton, and my fan, my fiance and my friends wouldn't tell me that Milton was coming because I didn't know. I was like, we just got through this hurricane. My property was it's seven foot above grade. I didn't even know this at the time, and there's video of the whole neighborhood getting flooded out and my house somehow not getting flooded. Um, I don't know, you know, how that happened, but then Milton came, it wasn't as bad, but it's just like that's the thing that I worry about, don't you?
SPEAKER_02:And the insurance, like that's the I think that's the thing that kills us with the Airbnb models. It the you take.
SPEAKER_03:The I have flood, which is$450 a month.
SPEAKER_02:So we don't I don't think we have flood because we're like on a little hill and it's never like we there's never been any water issues, but we had the back, I think it was like the back door, something got like the wind blew in a door, like a chair or something, broke the back door, and then our fence got torn down or something, like the gate broke or whatever. But we kind of came unscathed. But during that same time, our insurance dropped us. We didn't even have a claim, but the insurance, like I think they just left Florida, so it left us with going to citizens insurance.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've heard of it. I'm with Man, I forget the name, but it's like one of the big ones down there. There's only a couple of things.
SPEAKER_02:There's only a couple, yeah. Um, but now we're with like the state-run insurance. So like I don't even know if we would get fucking paid down if the thing collapsed. Like, it's the state money. Like I I guess Florida does pr does have a pretty good balance sheet as far as like money goes, but it's insane the price that you pay for insurance and like between the pool heater and all the shit that we run all the time.
SPEAKER_03:I pool pest, whatever, yeah, uh like lawn care, all that stuff. So that's why it doesn't cash flow like on paper, it's like it should be three thousand dollars a month. But again, you you're buying it for the appreciation that you got on that property. It's just it's that's that's why I like this game. So you can go look at a place and be like, if um if I'm gonna break even on a property, am I gonna buy that for my first deal? Like, no, probably not. But if you're eight deals in, you can afford to do that if you have a vision for what this area is gonna look like, and that's why you don't bet on appreciation, but again, that's really how wealth is actually built, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I guess that was my next question because we've looked at buying um similar, like an Airbnb down there that we could just kind of snowbird to and you know rent out. Um, do you think now's like still a good time to buy down there?
SPEAKER_03:Or like what's your it depends what are your expectations? Like, if you're gonna like I know a guy, uh Mike Elefonta, you've probably seen him on social media, he runs like a short short-term rental, like he teaches people how to do it, and he was buying in the smokies, mountains, and destined floor, there's like spots where people buy Airbnbs. Um so if your goal is to cash flow three thousand dollars a month, like I would get that out of your head. But if your goal is to like have a property that you can go down to break-even-ish and be able to go down there, have it rented out, have it pay for itself, have it appreciate, I think you can still do it. I definitely think you can.
SPEAKER_02:To to bounce this off of you, because our issues are the house rents typically Thursday to Sunday, because it's always like a bachelor party or like it's like a people coming for the weekend. We tried to change it to like seven-day minimum to get like a week long rent.
SPEAKER_03:Are you in Tampa proper?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, technically that's what it's but yeah. It's literally next to midtown.
SPEAKER_03:Like it's right there. Oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sorry, you said it's so the yeah, so I I feel like that's the part of our problem is that Thursday to Sunday isn't sustainable because Monday through Thursday then is vacant always, and nobody's just coming in for a random Sunday to Thursday vacation. And then the other problem is like the fun the time that I want to go is when the rents are the or the rents or whatever the prices for the Airbnb are the highest. So I'm like, am I gonna go and turn down$750 a night to for me to stay in the house by myself when somebody does the same exact thought.
SPEAKER_03:Is something you know what's even funnier is that I'm going down for Gasparilla because my fiance loves it down there. We've been to Gasparilla the last couple years.
SPEAKER_02:It's the first year I'm not going.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, okay. I was there last year. Um, and last year was my first year going. I was like, this is first of all, the fact that it's 65 degrees in January, I'm just like, it was actually cold the couple days before, but then on Gasparilla was fun. It was like in the 60s. Um I forget what I was saying. God.
SPEAKER_02:Um did you go into Gasparilla like the whole thing, or did you did you do one like the property?
SPEAKER_03:I went into it, but um my point in saying this, oh, is I'm not even staying at my house. I'm going down there because it's being rented for 750 a night, and I have friends, and they're like, just stay with me. Like go check on the house, but stay with me.
SPEAKER_02:Um during Gasparilla. Oh no, last year at Gasparilla, we did keep our house, I think, but the two years ago, we all got hotel rooms because that we were getting so much for the house during that weekend. We're like, this is it's cheaper for us to use points, get hotel rooms, and let somebody else rent the house.
SPEAKER_03:What I do is I go down, this is when I use it mostly as I'll go down Monday to Thursday and work and do content and whatever because I can do that and then let it rent on the weekends. But I mean I block off a week in the winter for my parents to go down there and stuff, but I wanted to get it seasoned a little bit. Do you have somebody managing it for you? Yeah. If you need a good management company, he's a partner on the house. Oh, got it. Okay, so then tough to leave. But that's kind of make or break. That's what's made or break my year, is like you gotta have somebody who really gets it on the management side. Like really gets it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, gets good reviews. That's like crucial. That's why I I never really tried to scale the short-term thing. It's just you're based on everything's based on your review. If somebody's a dick or somebody has a bad experience, you it's like directly to like my construction business, other business, you sure there are reviews online, you know, good. People understand that. Yeah, but they understand that. In Airbnb, it's like if you're not five stars, the algorithm does not show you love.
SPEAKER_03:I just l transferred from a management company to another one because they were five 4.99, they've been doing it for three years. Superhost, everything's guest favorite. And I was 4.8, and there's it's not like I was a terri terrible, but my manager lost superhost for like six months to a year, and I it didn't crush me, but it like made a difference. I'm like, this property needs to be five stars, and yeah, that's the hard part with that business. I don't want to say it's not scalable, but it's not something that I want to take on to try to scale.
SPEAKER_02:No, we're doing some some stuff right now too. We're actually blocking off a couple weeks and doing, we're adding, we have this space on the side in the backyard, we're adding a pickleball court, like a professional blade pickleball court and a hot tub to just try to like gain more traction.
SPEAKER_03:I've heard I I've it's funny you say that because I have a heated pool and I was like, Well, my my new manager's like, you should put in a hot tub. I'm like, I got a heated pool. Why do I need a hot tub? He's like, just trust me. And then also make the garage a game room. I'm like, dude, I don't want to put$40,000.
SPEAKER_02:So we're probably we made the garage another room. Okay, that's a good idea. So that has a bed in it and some space to like hang out. And then yours is like kind of going for bachelor at bachelor type stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Dude, if I show, I'll show you. It's literally perfect. I'm trying to avoid that because I'm in a neighborhood, so it's like three bed, two baths, I have three king beds. It's like I want couples.
SPEAKER_01:Like I want where his property is like on the corner, you can walk across the street to the shopping center, get breakfast, come back. You know, it's or if you're drunk, you can go over there, get you know. Got it.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so you you're you're it's you haven't had any issues with neighbors or anything like that? No, because we're on like the main road, like the one neighbor on the the other neighbors, the new ones that just bought 1.2 million dollar houses are probably pissed. But the other side is a main road, it's McDill. Got it. Okay, yeah. Yeah, you said that's yeah. So that's just a bunch of noise, anyways. Yeah, a bunch of noise anyway. Um, but like we we specifically market to people that like throw parties. That's the uh and we've seen this beautiful, man. We've seen some shit on the cameras, like how many cars? Like, we'll we'll look on the ring camera. I'll get like a screenshot from Christian or something. There'll be like 17 cars in the driveway.
SPEAKER_03:No, this is literally you designed it and made it for that. And I I specifically tell my uh manager, I was like, I put the ring in your name. I don't want to look at it, man. Because but I'm like close to other homes. I've built this like little oasis in the backyard with the fence and all these trees, so you can't see them. But if people are allowed, like it's a problem. And the biggest problem with Airbnb for anybody that like is if you have a neighbor, like technically they can ruin your life. Like, you know, if they're if they don't like what you're doing, like so. I always try to be like, but you're in a good spot, you you don't have to worry about that. Yeah, this is the bed in the garage, yeah, in the garage, like just load more people in this house. It's cool.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, fill it up. I think the other thing about Airbnb is like you have to have a theme, you have to have a reason for people to come stay. I know, like when me and my friends go somewhere, like I'm probably gonna go out to Utah and ski for a bachelor party, but like the thing about it is is like you're looking for a place that you can either fit a bunch of people and have a bachelor party or take your family, you know, have like two uh joined families together in that house, and it like needs to be like Disney themed or sports themed or something, because other than that, you could probably just stay at the hotel for cheaper.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you'll hear people online saying Airbnb is dead, Airbnb is dead, like I which I totally disagree with. But I would say this if I'm going to a city with me and my fiance, it's the two of us, I'm gonna stay in a boutique hotel. But if I'm going with four to six people, I don't think you or more, I don't think you can beat Airbnb. No, I'm going to a bachelor's party in Scottsdale, we're playing golf. I'm paying$400 with 12 guys for a sick place. You can't do that at a hotel. Like, and that's for the whole time. That's not a night. That's$400. I just paid. It's nothing. So, or not nothing, but it's just like not a lot of money. So I think I love Airbnb for that reason. I think that it's got a place. I think that the the where people lose is that you do have to create an experience, and it has to be like the manager needs to be a front desk of a hotel because you are competing with hotels. So you need like if you would any time of night, you go down to the front desk of a hotel, you can get hot towels or whatever you need. It's not like if you get a maintenance request, you're like, oh, we'll handle it in two days. Like, that's the difference. If you create an experience, a four-star level experience, and you curate that, I think Airbnb is great.
SPEAKER_01:That's it. So if someone myself were to be looking in Tampa for just a vacation property that they could go to, send their family to, similar to what you're doing, put it on Airbnb. Hopefully it breaks even. Maybe you lose a little bit of money. Where would you buy? How would you do it? Has to have a pool. Prerequisite. Don't even think about it if it doesn't have a pool.
SPEAKER_00:Really quickly, so I I I mentioned I was there last week. I got a place with a pool. And it didn't have a hot tub, and I was specifically looking for a hot tub, and I was kind of upset that I didn't have one.
SPEAKER_03:So like Did you um hot well?
SPEAKER_00:So if for the last week was cold, it was it got a cold front came in like the 30th night into like the 31st.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, you were there for New Year's? Yeah. Okay, got it. Yeah. Um so heated pool. Like when I got my pool, it wasn't heated, and they were like, you need to pay the you know, six grand to get the pool heater. And I was like, all right, like so I put a pool heater in. So I would say hot tub if you don't have a pool, but definitely pool with a heater. Because the people that escape for like snowbirds, like I had somebody do a 90-day stay, which in hindsight was a mistake, but only because I could have got more rents. Uh, they did January, February, March of last year, and you know, it it was yeah, in the 50s at night and it was 60s, so you need a heated pool. Um, and I would say that I know Tampa now, like location-wise, and there are a few places I would stay away from. There's a few places I would go to, but I think if you're I don't like the one or two beds, I mean that's for a lot of reasons, but three bed plus with a pool, um, you're probably gonna be in the 500 to 800 range for buying a property. Now it's a you be but then you know once you buy it, it's like creating the it doesn't have to be Disney or themed rooms, but it has to be like, oh, the stop the scroll. That's the thing. Stop the scroll. It can't just be gray paint on the wall. No, it's gotta be like yours has that. It's like you have the angle of the pool shot, you have to stop the scroll, and if you do that, that unfortunately that'll get you enough to break even. I don't know. You can definitely make money on it, but um Yeah, I wouldn't look at it as a money-making opportunity.
SPEAKER_00:So like what neighborhood?
SPEAKER_03:Uh oh well, South Tampa, I love South Tampa. So you buy like the Gandhi? I'm north of Gandhi, like I'm at like um like Belmar Shores area. So like like right where I'm a block from the uh like the water. I can't get to the water because it's the bay, but um it's there are five million dollar homes like right near me. So South Tampa's amazing. Um where you're at's really nice. Uh there's like um I'm I'm drawing a blank on like neighborhoods, but uh there's the neighborhood that I'm thinking of. But it's anywhere South Tampa in like east east Tampa, near like this the actual city, you can do that too. And then St. Pete, it's just the problem with St. Pete is that technically it's supposed to be 30-day stays in St. Pete, and you can get Airbnb's people to do it, but that's where if you have a bad neighbor, like they could just go to the city and screw it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so we we purposely stayed as close to St. Pete because for the last couple of winters, I brought my boat down there and I would fly back and forth and spend like every other week there, and had my boat at a marina in St. Pete in Gulfport, technically, like, yeah. And um the Airbnb laws down there in St. Pete, like the incorporated corporated district or whatever. Um we purposely stayed away from that, but we wanted to be as close to St. Pete's. So our house, like literally right off the 275, like right before the bridge to get down there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I I mean, I think if you were to go into Airbnb right now and pull it up, you're gonna see hundreds of places in St. Pete that are not thir that you can stay for not 30 days. But like, I don't know, man, it's a fine line. I just I I don't like to play in that game because you just if you get the wrong neighbor, something happens, and like if it doesn't pencil out as a midterm rental, you're just in a situation where you have to like and nothing pencils out as a long-term rental down there, from what I've seen, what I've done. One of my best friends uh is a flipper and wholesaler down there, so and he hasn't kept a rental in I mean, a couple years because of that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he'll say he'll say he'll text me and be like, Do you think this will pencil out? I'm like, Yeah, if you want to make 300 bucks a month, but you can make 32 on a wholesale deal or 65 on a flip, like just flip it, right?
SPEAKER_01:Also, like what happens when that hurricane comes along? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean I don't know. Like it I think it's uh there's a whole thing with like they stopped geoengineering. I don't know if that had anything to do with like there was nothing this past year. That's a whole maybe conspiracy thing. Maybe we shouldn't get into that. But uh the the problem is, yeah, like that's always a threat. Um, I have I make sure I have the highest level of insurance, even if it cost me more to do it. But I'm technically in a flood zone, and that was the only thing that was like, should I buy this, should I not buy this? Um, but because we had that test that run, like where the hurricanes did come through and I lucked out, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna hold this for five years, maybe ten, and then either knock it down or renovate so I can make that below area like the garage type area, and maybe I'll live there at some point, or I can continue to rent it as an Airbnb, but I might be able to garner more.
SPEAKER_02:Do you know what you pay for insurance with flood?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I pay like eight fifty a month total homeowners and flood.
SPEAKER_02:What okay, what is that per year? That's like 10,000. Yeah, so I'm I'm like I think we're between like six and seven thousand, and that's to me is just crazy because here my house, I don't know, what do you think? 950 would probably something like that would be worth uh your house?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um yeah, you're probably like 800, yeah, the 800s.
SPEAKER_02:So I pay twelve hundred bucks a year for insurance.
SPEAKER_03:Same with me, yeah. In in Philly, like less than that, probably. Yeah. I mean, I think there's always this demand. It's not like Airbnb or the algorithms or whatnot. It's like there's always this demand for the people going there. So I think that of I think eventually it'll level out. I don't know though.
SPEAKER_02:I I it's I think one of the problems with Florida is like there was all those builders, more so than there were up here, that bought like there's builders that are just giving away lots right now. And they're like they were doing 100k price drops, now they're doing like 2% interest rate for three years, and so I think there was there's just a little overage of like around here, this area. I feel like probably Philly is the same thing, like it's so insulated with like government work and like Tampa's very transient. It's a lot of old retired people, and then a lot of young people that are like working in the industry, like servers, stuff like that. But there's not kind of an entrepreneur hub a little bit, too. Yeah, it is. Yeah, but there's no like it's not like the financial district of you know, or it's not DC where you have all the government contractors around it, like it's not that insulated. So all those developments are free state of Florida, man. It's anything goes. But there's just I think there's an over amount, like there's just a lot of inventory right now.
SPEAKER_03:There is, yeah. I think that when people talk like macroeconomically about the market, I I always kind of get frustrated because they're like, oh man, there's so many price there are all these price drops. But if you like zoom out what happened in like Austin or Tampa or Phoenix or whatever in the last like eight years, it's like completely unsustainable. It's unsustainable, but it's also up still 30% or 20 or 15% from what from so it averages out where it's still a place that can win, I think, long term. But yes, things are coming down 1050. It had to, yeah, like, or else it was completely unsustainable. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That and and I think it'll continue, especially Florida, I think will continue to come down a little bit because people are going back to work. Like I know a couple of people that have been called back to the office that are not no longer working from home.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like Eddie had to move to fucking Tennessee. Like he was working after COVID from wherever. Like he would be at our house in Florida, he'd be up here, he'd be all over the place. And then they called and like, no, you got to come back. And I think a lot of people are getting called.
SPEAKER_03:That's happening, I think, more in 25. I s like than they it kind of lasted a few more years than I thought it even would. And yeah, and that's the that's the why I advocate for going to buying real estate. Because like, even if you're not living on a beach and doing nothing, like you can have autonomy of your time and and geographical freedom, and that's the best part about the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01:How did you go about finding? I mean, you're buying in different states, right? Like, how did you go about finding specifically probably Tampa because you're syndicating more or less in?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, where where we buy right now, uh like my Tampa property is me personally, like it's a personal property, but the Vermont, New Hampshire is the is the where I'm a GP on all the uh like a 10 unit, 18 unit. We just bought a seven and another eight unit, and we have more in the pipeline. But what's your question about Tampa specifically?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, so I I would assume up there you already had kind of a set team, right? Yeah. Down in Tampa, you probably had to find your own people.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, not luck, but like I mentioned my best friend who's a wholesaler and flipper. The property came on the market and I was in Tampa. So I went to this property and I like part of it. I think people want to get like stuck in the spreadsheets, but part of it was like I just walked into this property and I was like, this is this is going to attract people, like or what I could curate from what this was. It was doubt outdated, but I walked in the backyard, they had this irrigation system set up, and it was like palm trees leaning over the pool, and I was like, This is I want to go, I want to stay here right now. And it's and it looks like it was from 1995. But if I paint and flooring and make and curate it, I don't want I shouldn't say it was luck, but the timing for me being down there, I was looking in Pinellas Park, and I was looking in areas where I was like, Oh, I really only want to buy something that's 400,000. And I was like, you know what? Like, I'm gonna spend a little bit more on this mortgage to buy in the area that I know. If people if you know Tampa, you want to be in this area. And I had a friend who was like ear to the ground, and he was like, sent sent me this. I went over, I made an offer that day. I just went at asking because I was like, I know what this is gonna happen, and then immediately they accepted the offer. So I think you have to have like some sort of a buy box when you go down there, but I wasn't afraid to overpay a little bit because I wasn't looking at it like I gotta get this 70% loan to value. I was just like, Right, yeah, I can see this place being like I retire my parents down here in 20 years, you know.
SPEAKER_00:And your buddy that you mentioned who lives, does he live down there or just wholesaling?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, he lives down there. Yeah, he's he's from Miami and has been in Tampa for 15 years, and he runs like a wholesaling and flipping business. So he was like, I have the not only the contracting team, but I have the person who will manage this for you. He's an agent, because you know, if you're a wholesale flipper, like that's another way for him to help his friends and family. He's like, I got the team for you, like you can do this. The biggest thing for me was like, all right, how am I gonna finance it? What's how's that gonna actually work? Um, and I got set up with again relationships, like so. If you want to look down there, I can set you up.
SPEAKER_00:And then I guess how much did you pay to uh renovate it before you put it on Airbnb?
SPEAKER_03:I like 40, 40 to 50. So it was um it was mostly paint, flooring, and then furnishing. The property was pretty well like designed, it didn't like move any walls or anything, and then the backyard was like already there, but I had to get the fire pit, I had to get the pool heater, I had to get the the uh new furniture and the TV outside and the bar and that stuff. But 40 to 50, and that I think that's where people make mistakes is that in 2021 you were able to just throw up iPhone photos of your grandma's house and like it was you know renting on Airbnb, but now it's like it's tightened. The professionals are winning.
SPEAKER_00:And how much did you have to put down?
SPEAKER_03:15%. 15%. Yeah. So it was$5.50. I had to put like, you know, it was all in for$120 or$130. It's funny.
SPEAKER_02:We were on ours, we were all in for$125 with down payment and per yeah, down payment and furnishing. We didn't really have to do any work to it, but down payment furnishing, we had to fix the pool heater. We had a heater, but it was broke, so that was like a grand or two. Um, but yeah, we were all in for$125.
SPEAKER_03:I didn't I think if anyone's listening to this podcast, that's like, that's I don't have$125 laying around. Neither did I. I had to sell a rental property to I was like, that was where I the example I shared of moving the$125,000 property into the$550. I sold that, pulled a hundred grand from that to fund most of this. So that's the monopoly game of like, okay, I this property that cash flows$300 a month, then I'm getting, you know, through a few thousand dollars a year in appreciation, I could get more by moving it into this. Did you 1031? No, I didn't. I didn't even do that. So like I it was because I decided I don't know. I didn't even know. I just didn't, I did I I probably should have probably should have done 31.
SPEAKER_01:And like the other option, right? Like if you're thinking like you don't have money, well, you add people as equity partners, right? Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:And there were some there would, or somebody who also, me and Ryan, we're gonna go buy the place, the two of us, and he's like, Well, I would love to send my family down here and do the same thing. And I was like, you know, just for an Airbnb, I don't like blocking off weekends. It just I didn't want business and friendship to like overlap, so I ended up buying it myself. But yeah, do it with a partner. Like, yeah, there are people out there that need what you have to offer. Like, there are people that either need the money or have the money, and you can have bring the hustle, and that's why the only reason that I say even we're at 95 doors is like I've partnered with people to get there, you know. Like, I I encourage partnerships, you have to trust this person explicitly, and that's even more important than anything. You have to build the trust.
SPEAKER_02:I've had partnerships that didn't work, but yeah, that's the the partners are partnerships are very difficult to manage, but are incredibly useful. Like, there's no way that I could possibly run my construction company without my business partner who's like boots on the ground, like in the field. He's acting not actively like swinging a hammer, but he's like with the guys that are swinging hammers.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and if I'm like the construction operations and you're like the marketing sales, or I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, he is the operations kind of guy. I mean, Ryan's still very much hands-on in that sense, but I think Ryan's more like client-facing, marketing, business back in, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Money keep making sure there's money in the account. Yeah, are you guys 50-50 partners? Yeah, yeah. That's kind of like me and my partner, and he my partner still maintains his full-time job through all this. So, like, I went all in like 18 months ago, and I told him, I was like, we'll figure out the profits, like, let me eat a little bit off this, and like he has a kid, I don't like I'm not at that stage yet. He's like, I don't really know if I should leave. I'm like, just keep it for now. Like, we're able to maintain this. And that's been difficult. That's a challenge because it's like I'm doing it, and he's Did you have a job 18 months ago? 18 months ago. So I did, I I bought I built this up. I was working in sales, actually, my family's business, but um they had to close the door. Long story, but they my family's business. I was doing like signage, selling signage for like hospitals, education institutions. My father and my uncle had to close the business down. Um, so I was doing that, and then in September, eight uh August 2024, I went full-time. So that's when license, you know, doing the real estate full-time and then the content creation full-time.
SPEAKER_02:So my business partner and I were both working full-time up until COVID. Well, before COVID, I went part-time. We were both teachers. Um, but that was one of the hardest things when we first quit our jobs, because we were kind of like living off of our own job money. Yeah. And the business was just doing business things. And then we quit our jobs, and we were like, okay, well, how do we have to pay ourselves something now? So we picked like a number, like a very moderate number. We were like, okay, we'll start with like 60 grand each. That's what we get per month, like 5,000 a month, and we'll put the rest of it stays in the business. And then, you know, that year after I quit, I in hindsight should have quit a long time ago. We doubled the business. Wow. That that next year after we quit our jobs. And it wouldn't it would still we would still be doing the same shit we were doing back then if we were both working, because we were like, I was paying my assistant basically what I was making at school at the school. Yeah. It was really nuts.
SPEAKER_03:And I I think for anyone that's like thinking about going all in on it, it's like I just knew I would figure it out somehow. Like I like I my business is not exactly where I want it to be today. Like, I of course we all want more, but I think that going all in on it has just it's it's freed up my mind to be like, okay, now I can really plan this and I don't have to shut one level of my brain off and turn it on at night. I'm working more hours, but I'm enjoying it.
SPEAKER_02:What the one thing I like that I tell people this all the time, it's like with the businesses and real estate and the difference between that and like being a school teacher is that real estate business directly pays to what you do. Teaching, like for just as an example, police officer, whatever, you go there and this is how much money you're making.
SPEAKER_03:You could be the best teacher, you could be the best world, influence all the kids, do all the things that you should do, and get paid as the same person that's just shutting it down. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The same as the shittiest teacher, and and it's like, why? That's so unmotivating. But I get it too. Like, there are people, some of our employees, that don't want to take that risk. They like one of my employees who's a good friend of mine, when I started this shit, he called me crazy. He's like, You're insane. Like he was working for another company then, but it's like you're insane, like you're taking on all this debt, like you're gonna just like you're gonna fail. Like, this is bad.
SPEAKER_03:It's nuts because um I think that there in the last 18 months I've realized that I understand the elements of somebody saying I'm gonna have a high-paying W-2 job, make$250,000 a year, and not have to worry about shit when I go home. Like, not have to think about it. Like, I've had plenty of nights where I'm like, what am I doing?
SPEAKER_02:Like, if I was making$250 a year too, I would I don't know that I would have the same thoughts that I did.
SPEAKER_03:Coming from a teacher, it's different. I was making$30 fucking thousand dollars a year. You can't do anything with that. No, exactly. But I'm saying, even if it's not that much, even if it's just a stable$100, whatever it is, like I understand that level, and they're and that's okay. I'm not, I would never be like, quit your job, you have to. But for me, the way that my brain is wired, I'm either gonna obsess over something, like something is gonna take up all my brain space. So I'm like, it might as well be m the thing that I'm trying to build, you know?
SPEAKER_01:And that's probably a therapy session that I'm countless nights having the same argument in my head of like, dude, all my coworkers got out of the military making 180, 200k, cybersecurity, it's a cushion job. Like you go in there, you mess around on YouTube for a couple hours a day, and then you drive home and you don't worry about shit.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um it's kind of like this thing, though. It's like, do you want to ride the train like this, or do you want to go dip underneath it and then have the potential to hockey stick? And that's where I was like, you know what? Like, I'm just gonna bet on my I have one life, dude. Like, whatever. Like, I'll figure it out, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'm I'm like you, my brain's wired. Like, I would I would have done that, and then I would have got home and I'd been like, okay, well, now I gotta do something else, so I'm gonna do this anyways. And it was like, that wasn't the life, like I didn't want to be in a skiff where I couldn't have my phone and I couldn't talk to friends, or like that's not the lifestyle I wanted. Yep, no, you'd have to ask for you know two weeks off in advance, and it's just like, no, I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_03:Part of it's like even the fact that I go to the gym at noon if I want, like, just that. I'm not like we're talking about Tampa, we're talking about vacations, cool, all that's cool. But like just the fact that I can like have breakfast with my fiance at 10 and go to the gym at noon, and like I'm drive down to Baltimore on a random two. Whatever, it might be I don't know what time it is. Yeah, so like just the fact that you that real estate has afforded me the ability to do that, and I still have to work. I have some level of financial freedom if I wanted to really like bare bones my expenses, that's cool.
SPEAKER_01:Like dude, one of my agents last week, he were you'll left. He doesn't wake up until 11 a.m. He goes to sleep at 4 a.m. He just made fifty thousand dollars last month off a wholesale deal, and he just that's his like that's but that's his lifestyle, and it's like yo, you have twenty four hours on a day, it doesn't matter when you're productive, it just matters that you are productive.
SPEAKER_03:I could not agree more. The whole like miracle morning thing, like everyone has their own like time frame of when they do stuff. Some people love getting up at 4 30 and going to the gym. Like, I'm a I'm up to midnight. Night every night. Like I and I'm working a lot of the times, but then I'm up at seven.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, like that's my thing. Like I some people are like 4 30, they're in bed before the sun goes down.
SPEAKER_02:It's like it's just it's that that also is me because of like nothing's wrong or right, by the way. I'm just saying, like if I don't go to the gym, like tomorrow we have a um a swim, a bike, and a lift. It's like two and a half hours. If I don't get there at six, by seven thirty, I have employees calling me. Like I have a huge team of people working for us. Like, we it is every year at our Christmas party, I look at them like holy fuck. There's a lot of people, like there is a lot of people. So they're always calling, and if I'm there and people are like this morning, somebody called about a drywall delivery, and I got like sucked into this drywall call. Like a call about fucking drywall for 10 minutes at the gym. So I have to go in the morning, or I just it's so distracting.
SPEAKER_03:It's totally I didn't say that, I didn't mean that as like right or wrong. It's just like depending on your lifestyle and the things that you do. Like for me, I'm more of like I don't want to say a solopreneur, but kind of. Like I don't have a big team. Like it's and I it's kind of by design because I'm like, I want to be able to I love people, but I don't know how much I love managing them. And like I, you know, so like I'm like, yeah. So I'm like, uh, all right, like if I could do this lean, then I feel like that would be the best way for me. And um stay that way as long as you can.
SPEAKER_02:Because once you go in the other way, it's like a machine that you have to feed. That's how I feel. Because I'm my overhead's like well in the six figures a week, like every week. Oh yeah, dude. So that's like salaries, subcontracted materials, like it's seven figures a week. So you're you got lives depending on you. And that's I wake up at night, dude, sometimes like sweating, like whole if I don't if this deal doesn't work or this doesn't happen, like these people will not get paid.
SPEAKER_03:Like that's yeah, that's intense. And I think people just need to figure out what your we all want to make more money, man. Like, I'm not here to say that you shouldn't want that, but like figure out what your where you feel like I I would be good here, and I can always strive for more, but like I don't need to make I really don't need to make that much money in my life. Like, I and I I don't necessarily if we want to talk numbers we can, but like I don't need put it to you this way, I don't need to make two million dollars a year. It if it doesn't I just don't think my hap if my goal is happiness and freedom, like I just don't think it's gonna get that much better from 500 grand to two million whatever it is. I just don't. I you couldn't convince me. I don't need to be on a private jet. I don't care. I really don't. I don't care. I drive a paid off car. Whatever.
SPEAKER_02:I think you're yeah, 100%. 100 houses, beach house, house on the water, no computer. No computer, yeah. No computer, no computer. Everything's worth in my hand. That is yeah, he can't even afford an iPhone, but he has a waterfront, waterfront property, waterfront condo, two boats.
SPEAKER_03:That's like uh who one of the actors I was listening to talk recently said they don't have a phone. I think it's like Woody Harrelson or something, doesn't even have a phone. Like, that's a whole nother level of like wealth. But yeah, that's different.
SPEAKER_02:That's but uh what I've found is like if you're if you make a million dollars a year, and I've met people at like this, I've that's kind of like where we're at right now, maybe a little bit more. That doesn't change your life more than like the time that you get to spend with your friends and your family. Like that's what really like molds your life. And what if you what if your friends are all stuck at jobs and you're making well that's the problem, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They're like you gotta start paying for their vacations.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's exactly what I and that's what I do. That's literally like when I want to go on my like annual fishing trip. Like I just pay, we just pay, and I just bring everybody and like that's so cool.
SPEAKER_03:That's gotta bring you some, forget it, ego, whatever it is, but like that's gotta bring you some joy to be like, you know what? Like, I can it's on me.
SPEAKER_02:Like that is um one of the like best feelings. Like when you get to a certain point, you're able to like give to people, uh, that's like way better than getting. And you people say that, and I feel I feel like when I was younger, I'd like fuck that, I'd much rather get a gift. I'd much rather have stuff given to me. Now it's like quite the opposite. Like, we go every year. I bring last year we brought a bunch of sales guys down to Cabo, rent a mansion, get a private chef, get a yacht, you know, get a boat, go fishing, do you were at that trip last year, right? Last year, not this year. Um, but yeah, just like we got it.
SPEAKER_03:Like the the quote that I heard that like makes the most sense to me about that is um uh having things isn't fun, getting things is fun. So like your pursuit of the thing is the fun part, you know? And then when you have it, it's a novelty that wears off. And don't get me wrong, like I know I like nice things, but I spend my money on experiences. Like, do I want a Porsche? Yeah, like I for sure, and I could probably buy one, but I'm just like delaying until I feel like I it doesn't mean like it it's not a big impact on me to get one, you know. So like, but I know that when I do, and Ryan talks about this all the time, my partner, because he wants a Lamborghini. I know that it's like getting the pursuit of getting the thing is gonna be fun, and then having it is only fun for the first two weeks. Yeah, whatever. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:I have a I have a race car. I I race BMWs. Okay, and that shit. If you love it, that shit never gets old. If you love it, that's like I was a car guy for two weeks before I bought this car. Like, I wasn't even a car guy. I still am not a car guy, but I went and like did this like track experience thing and like learned how to race like a road track, and holy shit, I got fucking hooked.
SPEAKER_03:So that's different eye though. It sounds like you have passion for that thing, but I I bet you could throw I could throw out something else that is deemed as like a Rolex, whatever that's deemed as like you need this to be wealthy, and then you get it, and you're like, oh man, it's just a watch, whatever. Or don't say that either. I'm just I'm just giving an example of like nice watching.
SPEAKER_02:What the fuck's the problem?
SPEAKER_03:I was gonna wear it today.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, maybe I'm throwing out that example, but uh for me No, no, it's not an important thing, like it's it's something that you like, a conversation starter. Yeah, it's a conversation starter. I don't have one, by the way. It's a store of value. So the watch thing, I could go on and on because I will defend that. I will stand on that and die on that hip the wrong topic. I picked the wrong topic. Okay, I got it. The watch, I mean, dude, we were at Boston, there's like a shopping district up there, and it has all the name brand watches. And they saw firsthand like the exclusivity of the watch world. And I get it.
SPEAKER_00:It's all sales tactic. You know, they say, oh, there's a waiting list, there's a waiting list.
SPEAKER_02:The guy at AP knew exactly what model my he wanted it more after they said it's a good one.
SPEAKER_00:He couldn't have over a year to get it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like, oh no, I can't sell you one.
SPEAKER_01:Like, there's no way it's like that girl in high school you could never get, like, she would play with you and then she'd be like, oh no, no, I don't want you anymore.
SPEAKER_03:But my my goal here isn't to say that you shouldn't want nice shit. Because I do, I I love that type of stuff too. I guess it's just it's to each their own thing that they have that they like. And it's like just spend money on the stuff that you really enjoy that you want to do. Yeah, not just a status symbol that doesn't actually mean anything to you because you want to keep up with the Joneses. I'm like very against that whole like just buy to buy, you know, like so. I don't want real estate to represent that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, just because Are you just talking about my wife now? No, no, I'm just saying, but like, you know, it's that part of like, hey, I'm gonna buy an article of clothing to impress other people who don't give a fuck about you. And I think Gary V says that all the time. He's like, why are you trying to impress people that don't care about you? Yeah. So I mean, I I get it.
SPEAKER_03:I'm the same way. I would just say, like, I like to look internally at a little bit more. It's like, all right, if my physical fitness is where I want it to be, then like I feel confident no matter what I'm wearing, or like, you know, like or what I'm yeah, what what's on my body. Like, I wear Nike and like I I like having nice stuff. I'm just saying, like, my whole thing is like I would rather spend my time, energy, and effort on like building my physique to look good in the things that I wear, as opposed to just like wearing a name brand to like well the name brand doesn't give you the uh the tone that you'd love to be.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. You could get the best shirt in the world, but if you're fat as fuck, you're still gonna look fat exactly. That's just what it is. Yeah, but I think also like mentioned physical fitness. I think that's a huge thing for business in general, just like mental acuity, like staying physically fit. Um, I went through like the last two years, well, two years ago, I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, I hate I hate what I see, or maybe a little more than two years ago now, and I was like, I fucking hate what I see. Like, I you have this business and everything's great, but you you hate what you look at in the mirror. Like you're I was I was like 210 pounds at the time, and I was like, I need to get my shit straight. And then as soon as I got like in real back in good shape, because I was an athlete growing up, I was in good shape, and then you stop playing sports and you get into business, and you you know, you know, things just happen and you're not working out as much, you're eating like shit. And now that I'm like in good shape again, we did like we do triathlons and Iron Man's like uh endurance events and stuff like that. You probably feel so much better. Oh my god, like mentally, like I had I had stomach issues, like my like the whole there was like 10 years of my life where I was having like gastric reflux and all like these issues that I was having, and then I finally like went to like a med spa and did like the whole thing and like got my blood work drawn and like found out some like shit that was not good for me and all that stuff. And now I'm like dialed in.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like that's my favorite stuff to talk about. Obviously, we don't have another hour, but like just the how the health and wealth ties in. You know, it's like you can have I I know a lot of people that are miserable that are billionaires, uh, that like have all the things that they say that they want, but if you like you look in the mirror, you don't like that's the most important thing. If you look in the mirror and hate what you see, it's like damn, like that's a whole nother level of like not you've you've there's a false summit, you just climb this mountain that you don't even want to climb. Right. Or you you know, you got to a point you don't even want to be at it because it's you know what's the point of having all the money if you're gonna if you're not gonna live to enjoy it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean it's there's literally like people that are worth millions of dollars end up killing themselves. Like that's not where we want to be. Yeah, but we've got to wrap this one up. Corey, you got anything else? No, Nick?
SPEAKER_00:Nope. I appreciate you coming on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. This is fun. Corey, so where can we find like where can our listeners find you?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the best place to find us is Instagram, me and my partner Ryan, wealth juice official on Instagram, and then um our podcast, the Wealth Juice Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, Apple, uh, Spotify, and then on YouTube as well. At uh I think it's wealth juice official on YouTube.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. All right, until next time. Thank you again, Corey.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks, guys.
