Q&A: Foreign Market ETFs, $140K / Yr in Retirement & Cashing in on AVGO

0:00Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Rich Habits Podcast brought to you by Public.com, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify. These are our Thursday episodes where every Thursday, Robert and I come back to the microphone to answer your questions. You can ask us questions via Instagram at richhabitspodcast or via email at richhabitspodcast at gmail.com. You can send us a little DM. You can send us a little email. Nine times out of 10, we're going to see it. One time out of 10, we're going to answer it. Let's be real, Robert. We get 10 ,000 plus questions on a weekly basis. It's pretty intense.

0:34But we try and come back here and answer as many as we possibly can, which makes this a great reminder if you want to ask Robert and I a question directly on Zoom via a live stream every single Tuesday night inside of the Rich Habits Network. That is what you can expect. Right now we're filming this on a Monday, which means tomorrow night, Robert, we're going to be right back in front of these cameras on Zoom talking about 400 people inside the Rich Habits Network. It's a blast over there. So if you are really a big fan of the show and you want more questions answered, more clarity, more access to Robert and myself, consider joining the Rich Habits Network.

1:10There's going to be a link in the show notes below. And you, of course, can do it via that seven-day free trial. Yeah, I love the network. We've built such a cool thing between the podcast, the newsletter, and now the network. And I think it's just the ultimate hack. Everyone wants the hack on how to build wealth and financial freedom and get in the mix. Well, the Rich Habits Network is definitely the way to go. And check out that seven-day free trial because that gives you a little insight. You can kick the tires before you actually have to pay us a dime so you can see what it's all about and see what everyone's raving about.

1:44Yeah, everyone includes over 860 people right now inside the Rich Habits Network, which is just super incredible to think about. All right, Robert, now before we answer our first question here on the Rich Habits Podcast question and answer edition, we have to give a shout out to public.com, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. We talk about investing all the time. So if you want to start taking your investing seriously in 2026, public is how you do it. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea, any idea you possibly could come up with into an investable index using AI.

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3:08That's public.com forward slash rich habits. You all know we love public and definitely generated assets. You have to check it out. Paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosure in the podcast description. All right, Robert. So this first question, weirdly enough, was a comment left inside of Spotify. We normally don't answer comments on Spotify like that on the show. So like, don't think that you're going to get your question answered differently if you do that. But we thought this was such a good question. Had to snag it and answer it on this episode. So this comment comes from Victoria on Spotify.

3:41She says, I loved this episode, talking about last week's Q &A episode. She said, can you guys please say more about the systems you use to operate multifamily rentals, property management systems, finding maintenance professionals, reserves to replace appliances, etc. And finally, why separate LLCs for each property versus a series LLC? So Robert, you've been investing in real estate your whole life. if you just closed a cool deal over in Ohio right now. Nice little flip. Super excited to hear about that later. Ooh, actually, we're going to get a little sneak peek of that, I'm sure, tomorrow inside the Rich Habits Network.

4:16So consider joining just for that. But regardless, I want to get your thoughts here on Victoria's question. What systems have you used in the past when it comes to property management, when you were finding maintenance professionals? How do you, like, tactically speaking, how are you sort of, bird's eye view, like building out everything to ensure that a multifamily rental is profitable and it's running like clockwork. Yeah, this is a great series of questions around multifamily and owning a real estate portfolio. So let me do my best to get all of it covered. Number one, let's talk about the systems and the apps we use.

4:53We only use two because we're not a huge portfolio yet. So we We use Buildium and they're really, really good with their accounting and their dashboard. And it's very all-in-one, full-encompassing. It's called the Buildium app is really good. Now, if you're just getting started, maybe you just bought your first multifamily and you're getting up and running and you want something really intuitive and simple, check out Doorloop. It's really mobile focused and it's great for smaller portfolios or people looking to save a little money that want something simple and easy to get up and running and using.

5:27And if you're really just getting started, something that's kind of a little hack that we like to use is we also use Waves app. You can go into Waves app and it's really good for just keeping track of tasks, keeping track of invoicing and all of that. And that's actually free. So those are the three that I would say out of the box work the best from beginner to mid-level to a pretty good size portfolio. But then when we talk about other things, you just wanna make sure probably you're going to want to use a Google Drive to make sure you're keeping track of all the day-to-day stuff. You're probably going to want to look at QuickBooks online.

6:04That's a really good program you can use for all of your small business stuff that we like to use as well. And then how do we find people? I think this is a great part of this question, series of questions, is how do we find maintenance professionals, landscape professionals? I don't have a hack for that technology-wise, But what I do is if we're new to an area or we're really focusing on an area, I always take pictures of and stop by and get business cards of everyone that I see working in those areas by us. Because that way I can put them into a database, call them up when I have a job and make sure that I'm staying on top of who's working in the area.

6:46because you don't want to use Google as much for that because you might see St. Petersburg, Florida landscaping, but they're 45 minutes away and it's going to just be more difficult to get them in the loop. So I like to find localized contractors that I can get really quickly, get them out and they know the neighborhood and they know what goes on because that's going to save you time and money as well because they know where the stores are, they know where the tile shops are and it just makes it a lot easier. To answer the part about the series LLC, I don't do this and I'm going to explain why.

7:20I always worry that with a series LLC, and there are some benefits to it, so it's not all bad, but I always worry that if I combine a bunch of different real estate projects in one series LLC, you don't want to bring the whole house down if one of those projects goes awry. And you have to look at it this way. You're basically taking one LLC and you're breaking all the projects down within that LLC. So you might have five, six, seven projects in one series LLC, which is totally fine. Some people do it. But if you don't keep meticulous records and you don't keep everything fully layered and separated, you will get yourself in legal trouble because you might be perfect on five projects and have two where someone commingled funds or funds were misappropriated.

8:08Those two are going to bring the whole series LLC down. So just make sure you understand what you're getting yourself into when considering a series LLC. It does save some accounting dollars and some time, but you really have to be careful. You don't want the entire company coming down because of one bad project. So I know what an LLC is. What is a series LLC? What is Victoria talking about with that? Yeah, it's basically an LLC similar to a holding company where you would then have multiple projects within it. So you'd have like different divisions. I think that's the easiest way to explain it within one LLC.

8:45I don't like doing this. Some people that are big in real estate do. I just like the separation and the clarity of each project because a lot of people don't talk about this, but when you're doing these projects, you have five, six, seven contractors. You have all the other people helping. You have the subs. You have random people that might be in-house staff. Everyone is running around. Everyone's working on different bids and different material lists and picking up product and all this stuff. It's really hard to keep it tracked on a daily basis. I like the separation so that way there's no spillover if you get bad contractors or someone that's misappropriating funds.

9:28So I like to have that isolation in each project. It takes a little more time, but I'll tell you what, it's worked well for me over the last 30 years. And then to wrap up Victoria's question about reserves to replace appliances, etc. Walk us through, you know, let's say like percentage wise, right? Let's say you got a multifamily, right? And let's say that it brings in all the rent. That number is 100%. How much of that 100 % figure in a perfect scenario should go to mortgage, should go to staffing, should go to reserves, should go to taxes, like stuff like that? For me, I think to answer this question specifically about the reserves to replace appliances, the general practice is around$250 per year.

10:10That's what Freddie Mac and HUD require. I don't generally do this on larger apartments. If it's a new one, we're going to have a budget, obviously, for the initial appliances. But in general, if I'm doing a duplex or triplex or a quadplex, I know what they cost. and I don't really have to have a yearly budget for them because we're gonna be planning ahead. Let's say we have to replace them every five to seven years and we're gonna know what that cost is. So it is going to be in the budget, but I don't do it per annum, but the general rule of thumb is$250 per door. Now, a hack that I will put in on top of this question is make sure you're careful what appliance packages you buy because a lot of people buy them based on what they think is a cool brand.

10:53You want to buy U.S. manufacturers that carry U.S. parts regionally and locally because that'll keep you out of the mess when something breaks down and you need something from a Samsung or a LEG or something like that where they don't have parts locally. So keep that in mind. That's why we like GE and some of the more localized U.S. manufacturers, because you don't want to have these doors where a refrigerator or a washer or dryer is down for weeks and you end up having to replace them over a part that you should be able to get within 24 hours. So Austin, to answer your part of this question, I look at more of the net operating income.

11:34What is the end result we desire for ourselves and our investors? And that can range depending on project, but we generally look to a 16 to 24 % return if achievable. And that's how we place a desired outcome to present to our investors and our internal group to make sure we can achieve the goals we want from a profitability standpoint. And so when it comes to the net operating income, I'm not a real estate expert. Is that the pre-tax? Like that's like you made this money before like taxes and stuff. It's like this is your net operating income. Like that's like the number. Net operating income is taking all of your income minus all of your expenses to come up with your NOI.

12:17Then after that, you can calculate what the return is. Remember, we talked about that desired return, what your return is on that particular project. And then after that, you make your distribution to your investors. And then from there, they will still obviously owe whatever taxes they owe, depending on how they structure. their investments. Remember, all of my investments do not come from me personally in real estate. They come through a holding company and an LLC. So that way you have to understand the differences so you know what tax liabilities you would have given your situation. That makes sense.

12:51Yeah. I think a lot of people listening probably are doing this themselves, although I'm sure some of them are part of some real estate syndications and stuff and realizing some of that. But yes, if you're doing it yourself, I'd imagine you would probably owe normal taxes and stuff on that NOI that makes sense, which is a great reminder, hey, if you're doing this stuff, definitely work with a CPA, not just listen to a couple guys on the internet, because I'm sure a CPA is going to help you figure out things that you could write off, things that you could, you know, just, it's always a good idea to work with a certified public accountant.

13:23And that's exactly where I was going next. This is a great series of questions from Victoria is there are other benefits besides the NOI and the percentage of return you get because you do have write-offs. We just had a situation where we had a property that we didn't sell in 2025, but then it sold in the first week of 2026. So there are tax advantages there in 2025 if you invested in 2025 that you can utilize to gain yourself more reasons to want to get involved in the real estate market. I love these breakdowns, Robert, and shout out, Victoria. We hope. I know, I mean, this one took a little bit, but I just, I think it's really important, right?

14:01I think it's really important to go into the weeds here and help people understand how you and your 30 years of real estate experience, and you're able to sort of how you approach these situations. Now, our next question comes from Christian C. Christian says, Hey guys, I love the show. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences. My name is Chris. I'm 26 years old living in Tampa, Florida. I take home about$80 ,000 in after-tax income from my 9-5. I have $20 ,000 invested into a taxable brokerage account, into the ETFs you guys talk about, $30 ,000 invested in crypto,$20 ,000 in Bitcoin, and$10 ,000 in XRP.

14:36I have$3 ,000 in my emergency fund, and I only hold about$1 ,000 to$2 ,000 in my checking account at all times. I've got$7 ,000 in an outstanding auto loan with a$229 monthly payment. My rent is$1 ,700 a month, which I know is above my means, but I do live downtown by my office, so I walk to work and I don't have to put miles on my car. I invest$600 a month in stocks and crypto, $100 a month goes into my emergency fund, and I put 7 % of my salary into a Roth 401k that's got over$35 ,000 in it. Shout out to my employer for the 4 % match. I don't have any credit card debt. I cover my expenses well enough to keep that$1 ,000 to$2 ,000 a month cushion in my checking.

15:16But here's the fun stuff. I'm about to get a bonus of$10 ,000 and I don't know what to do with it. Maybe I pay off a large portion of my auto loan. Maybe I'm using it as a down payment on a rental property or maybe buying a small business or I just keep investing in stocks and crypto. I'm not sure yet what to do. Curious to get your thoughts. Robert, what a cool situation our friend Chris here is in. Chris, you've done a great job at 25, man. 20 ,000 in a bridge account, 35 ,000 in a 401k, 30 ,000 in crypto. Here's the one thing that stuck out to me like a sore thumb. And Chris, I really want to encourage you to do this, even though you might not want to, because it seems like your risk tolerance is really risk on considering how much crypto you have in relation to your entire net worth here.

15:59I would put all$10 ,000 into your high yield savings account and treat it like an emergency fund, right? Your fully funded emergency fund should be anywhere between three to six months of expenses. Now, I'm not positive what your monthly expenses are. I would imagine somewhere around$4 ,000, maybe$5 ,000 a month is what you're spending. So if you slap a three against that five, you now need to have$15 ,000 in your high yield savings account for this emergency fund, right? You've only got$3 ,000. And essentially what you're doing by not fully funding your emergency fund, what happens if If you have a medical emergency and you now need to come up with$10 ,000 out of pocket to cover this medical emergency and all you have is three.

16:46But instead of funding your emergency fund with more money right now, you're investing it in crypto. You're investing it in stocks, right? You are essentially saying, I'm going to try and out invest high interest credit card debt because you got to go into high interest credit card debt to make up the difference on that medical emergency's$10 ,000 versus the only$3 ,000 you have in your savings. So if I were you, at least bump it up to$10 ,000 in that emergency fund,$15 ,000 if you can do it. I'd be really comfortable with that. Now you're 25, you've got$15 ,000 in this emergency fund. You've got$30 ,000 in some crypto,$20 ,000 in some ETFs and stocks.

17:22You've got another$35 ,000 in your 401k. Like now you're really rocking and rolling. And if you end up getting into investing in real estate like we just did a great job breaking down, you're coming to it from a place of strength, from a place of authority, from a place of decision-making, not a place of, oh man, I've only got 3K. What happens if this or, you know, whatever's going on there? That's my perspective, Chris, on what I would do with your $10 ,000 bonus. Robert, what's your perspective? Yeah, I like all of that, Austin. I think it's a great breakdown. I just want to add two things. Number one, I wouldn't pay off the car unless the interest rate is above 6%.

17:58If it's anything six and below, I would just keep rocking and rolling, and pay those low payments, let it ride. A car's a depreciating asset, that's it. Number two, I don't see anything in here unless I missed it for a Roth IRA. And what struck me was I'm investing$600 a month in stocks, but I don't see anything for a Roth IRA at 25. And I think that is absolutely critical that you get that Roth IRA up and running. So if you just didn't mention that it's a Roth, I only saw a taxable brokerage account, I would consider pivoting some of that money, not necessarily from the bonus, but the invested capital to get the Roth IRA maxed out every single month.

18:38If you can, that's$625 a month. And that's what I would do. That's the only change I would make. That is a great suggestion, Robert. So our next question comes from Braxton T. Braxton says, Hi, Austin and Robert. My name is Braxton. I've been listening to your podcast for over a year and I really enjoy it. I'm hoping you can help me understand when a bridge account makes the most sense for my situation. My wife and I are 26 years old and combined we earn$120 ,000 a year. We are completely debt-free. We own our home outright, no mortgage. It's worth$115 ,000. I have$10 ,000 in an emergency fund and we have$75 ,000 in CDs earmarked for a new home build in 2027 along with some proceeds from selling our current home.

19:24We project paying off our forever home that we plan to build next year over about a 10-year period of time. For retirement, our projections show that about$140 ,000 a year in income from our Roth IRAs and my employer's 401k is attainable, and it will last 40 years while still leaving a million dollars to our kids, assuming about 8 % growth and average inflation. I contribute enough to my 401k to get the full match, and the rest goes to my Roth IRA, which I expect to continue to max out for the next several years. My wife already maxes out her Roth IRA annually, but she does not have a 401k. Given our strong retirement outlook and minimal debt, both before and during retirement age, should we consider opening a bridge account now?

20:09And if so, do you have recommendations on where to open one? Well, answer that second one. Yes, public.com. Go get your 1 % match on anything you move over, regardless, generated assets, all the fun, cool public stuff. So yeah, go use public, public.com slash rich habits. But this is a good question. So let me see if I'm understanding this right, Robert. They're earning about 120k a year. They plan to build their forever home next year. They've got about 115 ,000 plus the 70. So let's call it a$200 ,000 forever home. And it'll be paid off, which like, cool, if that's what you're into. Personally, unless the interest rates like six, seven, 8%, I wouldn't but like, hey, you do you with your money.

20:47And their retirement projections are just showing and now let me like make sure we're on the same page. They are essentially saying, hey, I'm 26 when I'm 66. So in 40 years, my investment portfolio will be so much that between my Roth IRA and my employer's 401k, I will be able to generate$140 ,000 a year of income. Where if we use the 4 % rule to back into how they did that, they're essentially saying they'll have$3.5 million in their Roth IRAs and employer 401ks in 40 years from now. And so now they're saying, listen, if we're going to have all that money, just doing what we're doing right now, like why even open a bridge account?

21:31Why even do more? That's how I understand your question, Braxton. To answer your question, you don't have to. I mean, I think you're doing great, dude. If you want to have$3.5 million at 65 years old and have a great income and leave a ton of money for your kids and like all that stuff, dude, rock and roll. I think that's awesome. The only purpose of a bridge account is to bridge the gap between access to your retirement funds at 59 and a half and where you are when you want to retire early. So for example, I've got hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement accounts that will grow into millions of dollars over the next 30 years of my life.

22:09But I also have millions of dollars invested in taxable brokerage accounts, bridge accounts, right, that will allow me at 35, 40, 45, be able to look and make that decision of, hey, I want to retire, or I want to I want to stop working, I want to live off this portfolio income, right. But that's the flexibility that I want to have at that age with that money in my bridge account, right. So like, you don't need a bridge account if you plan to work and do your thing until you're 59 and a half when you can touch this three and a half million dollars, you don't have to do any of that. But if you want to retire early and have some flexibility, then yeah maybe having a bridge account in your situation is a good idea and earning 120 ,000 pre tax you mentioned a lot of stuff here that you're already doing with your money which is incredible i would imagine that there's still probably two to five hundred dollars a month somewhere in your budget if you wanted to start contributing to that bridge account and if you were doing that don't get fancy just toss it in the s &p or maybe 50 50 s &p nasdaq or 33 33 33 s &p nasdaq dow jones if you want to do some like, you know, little chiller out stuff with the Dow.

23:13But that's how I'd approach it. Robert, what do you think about Braxton, like not knowing to have a bridge account? When do you think is the right time for someone to open a bridge account, if at all? Given this scenario, I think you broke it down in the nice way. I think Braxton absolutely needs the bridge account because we see so many people in our DMs, In our private lives that talk about how they have this big 401k and they have all this equity in their house, but they can't remodel a bathroom without going and getting a HELOC. They can't go buy the little boat that they want for the lake because they have to put it on credit cards.

23:51That's because they don't have a bridge account. You don't have access to the money because it's in all of these other accounts that are for retirement. retirement. So that is why we like to see the bridge account right along in tow with your 401k, with your Roth and with the equity in your properties, because that way you have access to capital without penalties along the way. So I think you should get the bridge account right away. I agree totally with Austin. Start putting that couple hundred bucks a month, even if it's only a couple hundred bucks away, because it will grow without any worries of penalty or anything else if you need it along the way.

24:29Because remember, life and plans like this don't always go as you project, but I appreciate the fact that you are doing that. Yeah, just want to reiterate what Robert was talking about, right? So like there are people out there who are 52 and they've got a million six in their 401k because they did it and it was right and we're proud of them. And they've got 700 ,000 of equity and a paid off home because they've lived there for the last 22 years. They paid it off a couple of years early and they're excited, right? So now they've got, call it a net worth of$2 or$2.5 million at 52 years old. And theoretically, yeah, dude, you're a net worth millionaire.

25:02Congratulations. You deserve to kind of coast in the rest of your 50s. You did everything right. But you can't because all your money is locked up in a 401k that you can't touch without taking a 10 % penalty on it. Or all the money that's equity in your home you can't touch without either borrowing against it at a 7 % to 10 % interest rate depending on your credit. Or you've got to sell the home. Like having a bridge account, I think is super useful. It gives you a lot of flexibility, the ability to make some decisions in the moment that you might not have been able to make if it was all tied up in these other places.

25:35So really good question, Braxton. One hundred percent have the bridge account. It gives you flexibility, peace of mind without giving money back in penalties because you didn't listen to us. So our next question comes from Amber C. Amber says, after raising kids, I'm finally going back to work. The plan is to invest almost all of my pay into retirement accounts and college funds. My kids still have six to eight years until college. Amber says, how do we maximize extra retirement investments? My job is in renewable contract work, so I do not have a 401k. We will easily max out my husband and my own IRAs.