Q&A: A $30K Promotion Near FI, Learning Put Options, and Scaling a 16-Unit Portfolio

25:25Paula Pant:Right, your feelings about the responsibility. Yeah, exactly. Because sometimes having increased responsibilities is liberating because sometimes with increased responsibility comes increased freedom. With great responsibility comes great freedom, right? Did you just coin that? And when that happens, yeah. Someone much wiser said it before me, although it was the reversal of that. But with great freedom comes great responsibility and vice versa. With great responsibility comes great freedom. And with that freedom, that freedom is a synonym for autonomy. And if that's the case, then you're actually more likely to enjoy it, not less.

26:05Paula Pant:Regardless, I think she's in an enviable position. Yeah. Being able to make this decision is a fantastic place to be. Absolutely. Congratulations, Melanie. And please call us back and let us know what you decide to do. We're going to take a moment to hear from the sponsors who make this show possible and allow us to bring you this at no cost to you. When we return, we're going to hear from someone who is worried about scammers online. How do you know who you're learning from? Because choosing your teachers is incredibly important. And then at the end of today's episode, we're going to hear a success story from a caller who went from four units to 16 units and now wants to continue growing.

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30:49Welcome back. Our next question comes from Amy. Hi, Paula. I really enjoy your show and I've learned a lot. And I wanted to ask a question about something I heard you talking about in the interview we did last February with Colin Roche. You had mentioned something about people investing on their own versus taking courses or classes. And that's exactly what I have been trying to do. I am having a hard time figuring out what information or courses that there might be scams and what isn't. And I was hoping that you would mention some names of some courses or classes or even instructors that you might recommend.

31:30Specifically, what I'm looking to learn about is understanding puts, how they work, knowing when to apply them, what to look for, all of that. And it's really hard to find people who will share that information about how they learned it or where would be a good place to learn. And I don't mind paying for a real legit comprehensive training course where I can ask questions and get information back. And I know that I can Google some of this stuff and I have, but it's just not the same as talking to somebody who will give you a better understanding of things and also give you information that you don't even know to ask about.

32:09Thank you so much for your help.

32:12Paula Pant:Amy, thank you so much for the question. And before we handle it, there's one thing at the end I really want to shine a light on, Paula, which I learned way too late in my career. I've mentioned it in the past, but this is Amy doing the thing that I learned too late, which is I did a Google search on it, but I thought it was better to ask someone. Yeah, I love that. I noticed that line too. And I actually, I was thinking, I'm like, man, I want to write that line down because that is so important. The actual line that I learned, the way I learned it was ask who not how. Right. Yeah. You've said that many times.

32:53In fact, I read the book, who not how, after I heard you say that line so many times.

32:59Paula Pant:It is a fantastic lesson that I learned way too late. And Amy, I love the fact that you called in with this because while we don't know you, it's actually better to ask someone that you know who's an expert in the area. Paula and I certainly know a lot of the right people that we can shine a light on. We can tell you more about it. We can give you context based on the fact that you're in the Afford Anything community. So while it's not the, we're not your best who, we're a much, much, much better who than Google. Right. Far better who than Google. Right. And Amy, you said it well when you talked about how sometimes there are questions that you don't even know to ask.

33:44You have unknown unknowns. And that, you know, the benefit of a great teacher is that they can make you aware of those unknown unknowns. So let's talk about some of the unknown unknowns, Paul. So I will say options trading is not my thing, but I do know Rose Hahn, who is a previous guest on this show. Rose Hahn teaches a course on options trading. Calls, puts, all of that is in her course. I have not taken the course personally. I am also not an expert on options, so I cannot personally vouch for the course itself. but I do know Rose. She's been on the show. I've met her several times. She is well-respected within the personal finance community.

34:33That is the one specific name and course that I can give you.

34:38Paula Pant:And to everyone who's wondering the same, should I be interested in options? The issue when you get into options trading is that while options can be used in a very conservative way to make your portfolio less volatile. You can use them as insurance. So I often don't agree with people going, ooh, options, that's risky. Options can make your portfolio a lot less risky if you use them in a way where they are locking in gains or they are insurance in case your portfolio goes down. You're going to pay for those. Options are not free, but you can use them like an insurance policy. So they can actually be very, very conservative.

35:21But on the other side, it gets into the area of gambling a lot.

35:27Paula Pant:And when I see a lot of the courses out there on options, and I'm sure Amy's already seen this, which is why she called in, you get these options traders who are using options more like a gambling tool than they're using them to make your portfolio safer. I'm glad you brought that up, Joe, because to broaden this out and make this applicable, not just to Amy, who wants to learn about options, but to anyone listening who wants to learn about anything, how do you determine who's going to be a good teacher? Well, these days, anyone who is teaching courses online is going to have a lot of free information online.

36:08And so the first thing that you want to do is recognize, A, not all teachers are created equal. They're not all the same, both in terms of their style and more importantly, in terms of their philosophy, their approach. You know, there are some people like Joe, to your point, some people who use options to make your portfolio safer and others who use it to make it riskier and to gamble. And so how do you separate that out? I would start by looking at their free material. And every person who teaches this online is going to have free material. Now, some people present their material in different formats.

36:46Some people are better at text. So they've got a newsletter or a sub stack. Some people are better at video. So they've got a thriving YouTube channel. Some people like me are better at audio. So while this podcast is also on YouTube, our real strength and history is as an audio podcast. So you'll find us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. You know, so not everybody presents information through the same mediums, but find the people who teach the thing and then listen to them and see if you jive with their approach and their philosophy. I can tell you for real estate investing, one of the ways that I stand out is that I teach a path of real estate investing that emphasizes the valuation of the underlying asset as opposed to emphasizing the cash on cash return, which is the leveraged return that that asset provides.

37:48And while that might sound like splitting hairs, I assure you, once you go down that road, you understand why that is so essential and why that approach, the philosophy that I have, is so unusual because the vast majority of people who teach rental property investing, specifically residential investing, have really drunk the cash on cash Kool-Aid. and I haven't. And I actually caution against that. And that makes me different in the world of people who teach residential rental investing, but my students have an approach that emphasizes cap rate.

38:25Paula Pant:Well, and it's interesting because you can take that back to options, which is there are two ways to look at real estate. There is protect your downside and make sure that this is at the very least an investment that's going to do no harm, right? Which I believe is your approach versus the gambling aspect, which is, hey, real estate, they're making more real estate, Paula. So we're going to - Well, I hope they're making more. Jeez. Well, they're not making more land. Yeah. They're not making more fast enough. That is true. There's no more land coming around though. Oh, there is. Look at Singapore.

38:59Look at Dubai. They are making more land.

39:01Paula Pant:Okay. All right. They're making artificial land now. I need to back off that. So now that they're not making more oceans, I don't know. What do you do? But you know my point, they're selling the potential upside. They're selling the dream, and the dream is great. The dream is fine. But at the very least, you're talking about do no harm. And I think when you learn about options specifically, learning how you can use them as a defense mechanism is a fantastic place to start with options. And then you see not Not only the opportunity of using them as a way to make more money faster, you also, once you understand using them as a defensive mechanism, you also understand then the inherent risk of using them as a weapon to make more money faster.

39:53Paula Pant:I don't know Rose at all, by the way. I know her reputation in the community, which seems to be very solid, very conservative, and very thorough, which is good. but I've never interacted with Rose. She's great. We met in person. She came out to New York and came to our studios. We did a face-to-face interview. She's exactly like, if you watch her YouTube videos, she's exactly like you would imagine from her YouTube videos. Very genuine. That's great. Specifically for, again, and I have not taken her options trading course, so I cannot speak to it from any kind of, I do not have any personal experience with it.

40:33but watch our interview with her. We will link to that in the show notes and check out not just for her, but for anyone who you're thinking about learning from, check out their free material online, do a deep dive into their free stuff. And if you like their philosophy, their approach, their way of thinking, you know, once you get, once you ingest enough free material from someone, you understand the framework through which they view the world, their decision-making matrix. You know, some people like this show because we're all about nuance. We're all about questioning the premise of questions.

41:13We're all about peeling back the layers of the onion and exploring things and looking at issues through a prism. There are some people who love our show, Afford Anything, because we do that. There are others who say, you know what, I don't want that. Just tell me what to do. And for the people who want something that is prescriptive, this is not the show for them because we don't give quick black and white prescriptive advice is the type of thing that you're looking for. Then this is not the brand for you. And that's for anybody who's thinking about learning from us. If what you're looking for is prescriptive, you know, this is good.

41:49This is bad. I am the authority and everyone must listen to what I say. Wait a minute, I'm not doing that? There are other voices out there that do that. That's not what you're going to find at Afford Anything. And once you listen to just a few of our podcast episodes, that becomes pretty apparent. So check out the free material and kudos to you for asking who not how. We are going to take one final break to hear from the sponsors who make the show possible. When we return, we're going to hear from someone who originally called in in February of 2020, and he has called back with an update. We're going to hear that next.

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43:51Again, grab the Ava app and use my promo code, Paula, so they know you heard it from me. And you'll get 20 % off any plan for up to a year. That's promo code, Paula. Thanks to Ava. Now go get yourself good credit.

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45:48Welcome back. Our final question today comes from Ben. Hey, Paul and Joe. This is Ben from Cincinnati. And I was inspired to write in with an update. You answered my question on episode 243. I've been listening since it was a money show. and I've bragged to family and friends how I was on my favorite celebrity show. I had asked how to grow from four units to 20 units. When I last wrote in, you suggested a path for me was to level up quickly. I'm now at 16 units. I managed seven units and hired a property manager for nine units and in town an hour away. I've used the Burr method on each property.

46:23Portfolio value of$1.75 million, loans at$1 million, equity at$670 ,000, portfolio gross rents at$217 ,000, NOI at$138 ,000, net rents at$68 ,000, cap rate at 8%, retirement funds, my Roth IRA at$143 ,000. Question one, how do I grow my portfolio? Should I do the fast route and sell off all 16 units as a down payment and reserves for a larger multifamily of like a 40 unit? Or should I keep going and try to pick up a 4 unit or 10 unit each year? Or should I try to use a portfolio to pay down current debts? Issues. I have a loan at 2.75 % on my four unit. It's hard to find a large multifamily or four unit at a discounted price.

47:08I haven't reached my FI number. Question two. How do I get the funds for my down payment for my next properties? Leveraging up last year emptied my reserves. I could take out additional cash at my six unit refi, but I'm hesitant to eat away at the cash flow. I think I could refill my reserves by starting another business. I could take the cash generated as a down payment for my next multifamily. One idea is starting a wholesaling business. My goal would be to do one house per month and net 10K. One benefit is I could pick the cream of the crop of the single families to add to my portfolio. My problem is finding cash on unlendable properties.

47:44I also have a friend who has a cactus business that nets 250K and he's open to bring me in on it, but it's not quite my wheelhouse nor does it synergize with my other business. I can also sell furnaces. I have a wholesaler who sells them at$780, and I can charge 3 to 6K installed. Unfortunately, I'd need to find an HVAC tech to do the installs while I handle the business side. Question three. How do I get institutional money? I was close to getting a traditional bank and local semi-government agency to lend me money for my purchase on my six unit, but they didn't like how much money I showed on my tax returns.

48:18I ended up using a hard money lender at four points and 12 % because I couldn't find another lender in time to close the deal. Ouch. Should I continue with private money and hard money lenders, try to find an institutional bank, or take on a silent partner? Thank you guys for all that you do. I've been listening to you since I was a handyman with no money or properties. I can't wait to write back to you with an update when I'm at 40 units. He just set the next bar, Paula. Wow. Ben, I am so impressed. That progress, Ben, that you've made, starting from a handyman with no properties to an investor with four units, which was your position at the last time that you called in, in February of 2020.

49:03Today, 16 units. Oh my goodness. Wow. Huge congratulations. I am so proud of your progress. It's so amazing. Can we just take a moment to appreciate? Ben, when you called in, this was in episode 243, can we climb into the time machine and reflect back on the question that you asked. Five years ago, there was a home invasion. I had a gun pulled on me and went off inches away from my head. My life flashed before my eyes and realized I was not happy with what I was doing, which was property management for a nationwide company. Kind of reoriented myself. Long story short, bought a fourplex for$48 ,000.

49:55Put$100 ,000 into it. Did all the work myself. Rehabbed it. Got a cash out refi for$266 ,000. So I got$200 ,000 out of that. And now I'm level five financially independent. Have investors and looking to repeat the process with my second property here. And if you got any tips on growing a real estate investment business from four units to 20, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks so much. and what I love Ben is you asked about how to grow from four units to 20 and you are now you've grown from four to 16 you are right there six years later you're doing the thing that you set

50:37Paula Pant:out to do I like you calling that out Paula because I feel like in most of our lives we spend the majority of our time chasing the horizon and the horizon continually moves and we don't reflect on as we're chasing the ground that we've covered. Right. And when you truly take just a second and you look at how far up whatever mountain you've climbed, like this incredible mountain of adding all these units and gaining all this knowledge over this time, it's phenomenal. And now staking out the next mountain is great. Yeah. I am so proud of everything that you've done. And tremendous, tremendous congratulations to you for all of that work.

51:21I know it's been a tough road. I know many things have changed in the last six years. And that persistence and dedication and work that you've put in, it's incredible. So let's address your questions. You've proposed a lot of ideas. Let me start by eliminating the things that I like the least. Number one, the cactus business. it's outside of your primary wheelhouse. I believe this would just be a distraction. I guess I am getting prescriptive here because that is a hard no.

51:57Paula Pant:We don't do prescription except when we do. Except for when we do.

52:05A cactus business is great for someone who is focused in that area. I believe that for you, this would just be a distraction. That's number one. Number two, you talked about the possibility of wholesaling and you mentioned two benefits to that. Benefit number one is that you would make money. You talked about making about$10 ,000 per deal. Benefit number two is that you would get first position prime access to deals. Now those are two very different benefits. And I think benefit number two, being in a position in which you are accessing deals, you're looking at everything that comes across your desk and you're spotting the best ones.

52:52I think that is a compelling reason to do so. I think the other benefit,$10 ,000 per deal at one deal a month, that's actually a huge workload for a wholesaler. One deal a month is a lot. It's just, especially when you're also managing properties, one deal a month is a lot to be able to pull off.

53:16Paula Pant:That's funny because while I'm not an expert in this area, I know from a base level how to advise people on whether to even get involved and help them find the right who's. my son is deeply involved in real estate and I get a front row seed to see his empire grow, which is very close to the same size Benz's. It is very similar. This could have been a call from my son. And he's done some wholesaling work. And I'll just tell you as a close observer, Paula, the very first thing I felt when I heard him talk about that, it just felt like a job, like another job. And I'll tell you that Nick, my son has wholesaled some properties, but he sees it more as side hustle income that happens when it happens.

54:07Paula Pant:If he finds a deal and he finds a person, it's an easy way for him to bring in a few extra bucks or sometimes a lot of extra bucks, right? With frankly, not a lot of work. And he's more focused on what you're focused on, which is the opportunity to see lots and lots and lots of deals and to pick from a wider basket for himself. That I think is the power much more than giving yourself another J-O-B. Yeah, I a thousand percent agree. Ben, I think if you want to go into wholesaling, do it only for the purpose of finding deals. Don't do it for the purpose of making money, do it for the purpose of finding deals.

54:49And rather than one deal per month, if you do one or two deals per year, but you're looking at deals constantly, which means that you can close on the gems, because necessarily if you're looking at a ton of deals, there's going to be a bell curve, right? And when there's a bell curve distribution, that means that when those beautiful outliers come around, you're going to be positioned to see the outliers. And that's the reason to do it. So cool. If you close one deal a year at 10K, awesome. Two deals a year, you make$20 ,000 a year doing this. Cool. But the only reason to actually do it is to find those outlier deals for yourself.

55:35So cactus, no. Wholesale, only if you do it for the right reason. And furnace business, maybe. I'm open to hearing more about the furnace business. I won't discard it outright the way I would with the cactus business. The issue with the furnace business is that you soon get to scheduling technicians and drawing up invoices and making sure you have good processes and good operations. And while I like that the business is aligned along the supply chain, it also is a completely separate business. I guess to summarize, cactus, no. Furnace, maybe. But it might end up being a distraction. And wholesale, yes.

56:27but in a much more modified manner and for a completely different purpose and not for the purpose of making money, making money on the wholesale deal, I should say, not for the purpose of the immediate payout. I want to turn to the hard money loans that you're getting. You said you're borrowing money at 12 % and four points. That is a very expensive cost of capital. And you have 16 units under your belt, so you have a very, very solid track record. I think with the experience you have with the 16 units, with all of that real estate that can secure loans, rather than spending your time trying to wholesale or run a furnace business, I would spend your time building relationships with commercial bankers.

57:15I think you can get much better capital. You're an experienced real estate investor. You're an experienced multifamily operator. You're going to be a repeat customer, a repeat borrower. So I would spend your time doing that. I would also, I'm open to the idea of you finding a partner because if you do want to scale from 16 to 40, bringing in the right partner who can provide more down payment funds could accelerate that. so rather than spending your time in the J-O-B just over broke of trading your time for money I'd build the commercial banking relationships I'd look for potential partners but not be wedded to necessarily getting a partner because you don't want to get the wrong one getting the wrong partner is worse than having no partner at all so only bring on a partner if you are sure that this is going to be a great fit But otherwise, keep the 2.75 mortgages, right?

58:18Keep the existing properties. Start building relationships with bankers. Start looking for partners. And then rebuild your cash reserves. That's the other piece of it. I want to see you having reserves for at least 12 months or more.

58:35Paula Pant:We keep bordering on things that I actually know something about. and the commercial banking and going for a loan with commercial banking is an area that I do know a lot about and can speak to, which is that the right relationship is out there, but you're going to have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find it. It is going to be incredibly difficult. I have friends that are working with operations that are far bigger than yours. And the commercial banks really want from you information and protection against you failing that it might be hard, really, really hard to swallow. I have a friend who is the CFO for organization that owns 28 dental centers.

59:27Paula Pant:So a lot of dentists, Paula, work for this conglomerate. They're in the conglomerate. And as they've been building them up, the founder, the entrepreneur, the CEO, his reason for bringing on my friend, a CFO, was specifically to get his personal assets untied from the operation so that he could get money without having him personally go down with the ship if things go poorly. And you would think that with the tens of millions, close to hundreds of millions of dollars that they are bringing in, that that wouldn't be a problem. It's a huge problem. It's a huge thing. And no banker wants to be the banker that signs off on that.

1:00:15Paula Pant:and talking to other people who are entrepreneurs in real estate, finding that, just finding that commercial bank. I think you've got to start with smaller banks over large banks. I would look for community banks versus a huge bank with a name that you've seen on television ads. I would look for bankers that have a little bit more autonomy in the community than ones that frankly have none. And their job is to just get you to fill out the application. They send it to an algorithm in Manhattan. Yeah, there are a lot of those fill out the application people. There are too many of those. There's just far too many of those.

1:00:58Paula Pant:The whole system has really gotten that way where it's too algorithmic. I have a lot of friends because my wife is in healthcare who work here locally. And there's one local bank that will do loans for doctors in the community because of the fact, Paula, they are a community bank and they know the community. They know the doctor's position in the community. So the people that work in these clinics can get much easier loans because of the fact that these people. But the fact that I don't see that anywhere makes this bank almost a unicorn. but in every community, there's some bank that's trying to do this.

1:01:44Paula Pant:That's trying to get the local edge, which is why, because of the fact that I think that's going to be a long, grueling process, what you advise, Paula, which I think is the right way to go, begin building relationships with bankers. Don't begin with the big boys. Eliminate all those immediately because this is already going to be a long process. I think you're going to shorten your path to success by starting with small banks. Yeah, and start with the people you can meet in person, especially in a world of remote meetings, in-person relationships are stronger. I realized I got so caught up in the cactus furnace wholesale question.

1:02:24I didn't address your first question out of the gate, which is for this portfolio of 16 units that you have, do you cash them out or not? my recommendation is keep them. Number one, these units are an eight cap, right? That eight caps are hard to find, as you know. Number two, you already have a strong sense of the condition of every single one of these units. You already have a very strong sense of how much longer the water heaters are going to last, how much longer the roof is going to last. I mean, you can learn all of that about new units, but you know, because you've owned and operated these units for many years now, you know the decisions that have been made.

1:03:08You know the condition that it's currently in. If there are surprises, you've caught those surprises by now. So there is a certain level of risk that is mitigated when you so deeply know your properties. And when you've transitioned out of that and switched to new properties, there's higher variants. There's more room for surprises. And that's okay. You can have higher variants if the potential higher returns are worth it. But I mean, are you going to find something significantly better than an eight cap? I don't know. I think an eight cap sounds pretty darn good. I guess depending on the risk profile of where these are located in, but it sounds as though you're happy with what you are already holding and your only reason for wanting to trade them in is to provide fuel to grow.

1:03:56And if that's the primary driver, I think you can provide that growth fuel in other ways without getting rid of what you currently have. Plus, as you mentioned, four out of those 16 units have a 2.75 % mortgage. Hold that one. That is gold in today's market. You asked if you should continue using hard money lenders. Only if you have to. I think they're fine as a last resort. If you can find a good private lender that will give you something slightly longer term with a more friendly rate, that would be better. And then commercial banking and or a partnership, a silent partner would be, I think, the best.

1:04:42So yeah, I feel like a broken record a little bit, but focus there.

1:04:46Paula Pant:Well, can we talk about hard money for just a moment? because my son has dealt with this as well and other people, but it's easier for me to reference what Nick is doing than other people that I know. I would treat the hard lender relationship the same way that I would treat the commercial banking relationship, Paula. When I heard the hard money numbers that he's working with, my son is working with hard money lenders as well, but his numbers are more equitable. They're still ugly, but they're more equitable than the numbers that Ben's working with. So I would be pursuing hard money lending at more agreeable terms as well.

1:05:27Because if you're stuck with hard money lending, I heard that number and I thought, oh, wow,

1:05:33Paula Pant:that's a lot. And it's always going to be a lot, but I think there's hard money lenders out there that will loan you money for less of a profit in their pocket. They're still going to make a lot of money, no matter what you do, but it doesn't have to be the situation that you're in now. What am I saying, Paul? Am I saying make your hard money softer? I suppose you are. I think I am. It doesn't have to be granite.

1:06:01You know, I feel like we could unpack this for hours because there are so many questions inside of this, but the overarching strategy, if I could unify everything that we've talked about is focus. It's keep your eye on the objective, which is number one, preserve what you've already built. You know, first do no harm. And number two, in the context of that, then continue to grow from 16 to 40. But even before you get to 40, you know, before you can get to 40, you need to first get to 20. And after you get to 20, you then need to get to 30. I would focus on first getting to 20 or 30.

1:06:44Paula Pant:Well, and I like what you're saying about focus overall, because let's talk about the natural progression of getting good at something and getting into the thing. People are afraid to go through a door because they feel like it closes other opportunities, but the power is always stepping through the door. Because now that Ben has stepped through several doors and gained a lot of knowledge, look at what's happened. All of a sudden now he sees wholesaling might be an option. He's explored hard money lending. He's looking at graduating to a whole different type of unit structure than he has now. Like he has graduated to a whole host of new opportunities.

1:07:25Paula Pant:And now the problem then goes to Paula. And it's funny how we can circle this back to the beginning of this episode. the problem goes back to making sure you don't say yes to things that are not along the path that really is in the case of in the case of Melanie it was saying yes to things that might not light you up is a mistake in the case of Ben it's the fact that Ben now is seeing and is becoming more conversant with and potentially even becoming a semi-expert in all these different areas that it gets more difficult because you start seeing low hanging fruit on lots of different trees that end up just being shiny objects that distract you.

1:08:12Paula Pant:So the further down the rabbit hole you go, the more opportunities you actually get. And people are always afraid to go down the rabbit hole at all because they see all of these opportunities. And you know what's going to happen is he says no to the shiny objects, that's going to unlock more opportunities that are much more in his wheelhouse than wholesaling, which you and I both think is a distraction. Well, to be clear, trying to earn$120 ,000 a year as a wholesaler,$10 ,000 a month. Yeah. Correct. I think trying to earn$120 ,000 a year as a wholesaler is a distraction. But I think having those deals come across your desk is great.

1:09:00Well, then it's a tool. Yeah, yeah, then it's a tool. And I also don't mean to discourage you from it because I think what I'm trying to say with the wholesaling bit is don't get discouraged if the annual income from the job component isn't$120 ,000 a year because that's not the true value of it. If it happens that you actually end up making good money from it, great icing on the cake, but the true value is the deal flow. Joe, you and I, when we were talking off camera, you used an expression that I really liked. You talked about doing the thing you love versus doing things that you like and how we all face these choices around doing things we like, but that if we crowd out our schedule with too much of doing things we like, it then ends up coming at the expense of doing the thing you love.

1:09:55And I think there's a bit of that happening in this question.

1:09:59Paula Pant:I think the danger point for all of us is when we get to that 70 % on an activity where it doesn't suck. It's 70 % great. And so we keep doing it because it's not egregiously bad. So we don't eliminate it. And I'm finding more and more that either notching up those 70 % pieces of my life to make them 100 % or eliminating those. is where I'm able to find the time for the things that I really love. So look at that. There was actually a through line between Melanie's question and Ben's question, and it comes back to the allocation of time, right? And the allocation of energy. That's funny. I didn't think there was going to be a through line when I was first looking at these questions, but there - No, you did.

1:10:49Paula Pant:We knew all along, Ben. And she's trying to be modest. We had this plan from the beginning. This is how the pros do it. We've got it. And Ben, congratulations once again on everything that you've built. I can't wait to hear from you when you reach, let's not even wait until 40. When you reach 25, call us back. Or 24, if you get two fourplexes. Call us at 24. Or 23. Well, no, I'm just thinking you get two fourplexes. Cool. That's eight more. That's a normal number. There aren't a whole lot of five units out there. Four or less, you're residential. And then at five or more, you're commercial. And once you're commercial, why would you stop at five?

1:11:35You'd have six or eight or 10 units in that building. How's he going to get to 25? Two fourplexes and a single family home? That's unlikely. So call us when you hit 24. Well, Joe, I think we did it again.

1:11:51Paula Pant:It is funny how it truly became a circle, even though they were completely different questions, but there was a through line. For more of your circular logic, Joe, where can people find you if they'd like to hear more of that? Well, it's funny that Amy talked about courses because we just reopened the waiting list for our course that actually doesn't go off till the start of next year, but it's a closed small cohort of people. We call it the Stack Success Sessions, where I guide you through not options, but building your financial plan over 10 lessons that we use my book, Stack, that I wrote just a few years ago that is very evergreen to walk you through step one, step two, step three.

1:12:37Paula Pant:So I was a financial planner for 16 years. And if you want to learn how to build your own financial plan, even if you're using professionals, which we even talk about how to choose the right professionals as part of that course. Dive into the waiting list because we'll take names from the top of the waiting list first before the bottom when we reach out to people in late November, early December, and then the classes start in January. So it's stackingbedjamins.com slash success. Wow. You are lining this up for 2027. How about that? Get in early because every year we have a great cohort of people and it's super fun, but I feel like the more we do it, the more the thirst is there for it, which is good to see.

1:13:21Incredible. Excellent. Well, thank you to everyone for tuning into episode 700. 700. I can't believe you. Why did you wait for the end? I know. I know. To tell people that. Well, people can read it in their favorite podcast playing app. I'm not a reader.

1:13:42Paula Pant:I didn't read it. Joe, it's written literally in our Google Calendar invite. We're recording episode 700. Like I said, not a reader. That's so awesome, Paula. Oh, yes. Thank you to everyone who has been part of this journey along the way. To Ben, who was on episode 243 and is now part of episode 700. Can you imagine? Repeat customers. Wow. Repeat customers. Thanks to all of you who have been part of the 700 episode journey. And here is to the next 700 ahead. And if you've enjoyed this journey, please subscribe to our newsletter, affordanything.com slash newsletter. Please open your favorite podcast playing app.

1:14:24I learned an interesting stat, which is about one out of every five of you who are listening do not follow us in any podcast playing app. You are not following one out of five of you. do not follow us in Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Pandora. So please open up every app that you use to listen to podcasts and hit the follow button because one out of five of you has not done that. And the other four out of five of you have. So big thanks to you if you have done that. And if you have done it, please open that app again and leave us up to a five-star review. Thank you for being part of this 700th episode.

1:15:06I'm Paula Pant. I'm Joe Solcihai. And we will meet you in the next episode in 701. No, actually, Joe, you're going to be on 702. So you and I will meet them at 702.