MI342: The Life of a Real Estate Maximalist w/ Alan Corey

22:19With my How to Get Started with Stocks course, you can master the principles of excellent lifelong investing with valuable insights for both beginners and pros. The course covers 10 different sections, beginning with the basics of what a stock actually is and how the stock markets work, to strategies to optimize your retirement savings, how to pick great companies for the long term, what to look for in ETFs, and how to monitor your investments, plus so much more. To begin getting smarter about investing, just visit theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks.

22:55And for a limited time, you can use code stocks15 for a 15 % discount at checkout. All right, back to the show. So were you doing a mix of buying properties for cash flow and keeping them as rentals, but also it sounds like you were doing flips. Did you continue with that strategy of kind of a mixed rentals for cashflow and flips for like a bigger payday, if you want to call it that? Yes. I would save my own money to buy rentals just for myself, but it was much easier to create partnerships for people who wanted that short-term return. Put some money in or a contractor that would work for free and then needed that equity because he's been working for free for six months or a year or whatever.

23:34So that little partnership, we did, I want to say two, maybe three more deals after that. And we were so successful. My contractor didn't need me anymore. He's like, I'm not splitting any more deals. I've got enough money. I don't need you, Alan, finding the deals. I don't need the girlfriend's dad. I ended up breaking up with the girlfriend. So I was like, I kind of felt bad asking her dad for more money, even though he was making money. And so that, yes, I became an opportunist. So I just started looking at things. Oh, what can I do with this property? And I like buying properties where I have options.

24:03So I'll go in every single property I buy and say, can I make money as a long-term rental? Because that's the path of least resistance. And if so, oh, okay, I'm excited. Can I turn this into a short-term rental? I mean, back then, short-term rentals didn't exist, but this is how I evaluate today. Yes, I can. Okay. And I can make more money. Okay, great. Now I have an option here. Can I flip this and make some money? Yes. And this is what it looks like. Can I rezone this? Can I add square footage to it? Can I house hack it? I just want options and if the other options don't work out, I can always go back to it being a long-term rental and profiting for me.

24:37So that's my lowest bar. It doesn't work as long-term rental. And I like to have options on top of that. I like that. I think about it the same way, kind of option A, B, C, and then worst case scenario is like, I move in and I'm generally doing a renovation. So it's like doing a good job on the renovation. It's like, that's not the end of the world if I have to move into the place. So yeah, I like the options of different strategies. And that's what's great about real estate is that there are so many different ways you can approach it and still make money. I want to get into the books behind you.

25:07There's three different books behind you. When did the idea of writing a book come about? Tell me a little about that. I'm very interested in the process of book writing and what gave you the confidence to do it? Well, I wanted to be a comedy writer, right? So it lended itself well. I was already writing jokes every day. And when I wasn't writing jokes, I was devouring personal finance books. And I was like, these are all boring. These are all textbook. And there is not a creative, there's not a funny you know, real estate investing book or an entertaining personal finance book. And so I was like, I want to write one.

25:41And actually I put it on my website that I was at a comedy website at the time, which was brand new, all in HTML. Wow. You know, exciting tech whiz that I was. And my bio, I said, Alan's currently writing a book about personal finance and real estate investing, which I put on my bio as sort of a goal as like, oh, I've put that out in the world. Now I got to follow through because I don't want to be a man of my work. And so when I was, there was a sort of synergy of events where I was on reality TV, Queer Eye just hit. I was in season one, I was made over. I was also on, which was like an hour long show of me being a real estate investor on the show and they're making me over.

26:20And then I was also at the exact same time on a show called The Restaurant with Rocco Dispireno, which was like a high-end restaurant where I was a waiter and they were both airing on Bravo TV. And so and they aired back to back. So you would see me on Queer Eye for an hour immediately after you would see me as a waiter. So I went from a real estate investor made over to back to being a waiter in a restaurant. And then the Barbara Corcoran thing hit the New York Times. And I was in like, everyone's like, who the hell is this guy? He's like a chameleon. And is he a waiter? Is he a real estate investor?

26:49Is he, you know? And so all those things, I was getting a lot of press all at once. And so luckily someone, a publisher, Random House, someone who editor worked there, was following this. And there was actually petitions to get me off reality TV. I was trying to do that. People were really upset because I ruined the illusion of reality TV for them. And she reached out to me and said, hey, I'd like to see your book that you're writing, that you talk about on your website. I was like, oh damn, I have not written that book. But I didn't say that. I was like, sure, let's meet in two weeks. And then I threw everything together in two weeks and I brought it to her.

27:20And she was quite honest and was like, this is shit, Alan. I was like, yeah, I agree. But she was like, I like your attitude. I like what you're doing. Let's work together. And that led to a book deal. And that first book was called A Million Bucks by 30. I became a millionaire by 30. Actually, it took me six years. I started at 22 when I bought my first property. When I was 28, I became a millionaire. And that book came out when I was 30. So it's step by step. And I made it funny. I tried to make it funny. And when I realized as I was writing it, it's really hard to make personal finance advice funny.

27:53And I was like, oh, I see why this doesn't exist. It's really difficult to do. So at what stage of the game did you leave your tech support job and you went a whole hog into real estate? How old were you at that point? So it was a combination of things where I realized that if I had a job, it was easier for me to get mortgages. And so then instead of the job wasn't a vehicle for me to live and pay for my food, I got enough of that from my real estate. I lived off my cashflow of my real estate. And then I only used my job as a way to get mortgages. And then, so that mind switch allowed me to tolerate going to a corporate job.

28:35Because then it was like, you think you're using me. I was like, no, I'm using you. I was still doing the same work. I was still a good employee. I occasionally get raises of a small bonus of$2 ,000,$5 ,000 each year or whatever, but enough to get, you know, appreciate it. But the crash, what happened is 2008, 2009, everyone got let off everywhere. Like it was, it was a tough time. Right. And so I lost my job and it was difficult for me to get mortgages, even if you had a job, because all the mortgage lenders were going under the time of like, you get a loan and you get a loan and you get a loan.

29:06And they were all, you know, paying the piper finally. So it was one of those things where I was bored and it was depressed. I couldn't do any deals. I'm a deal junkie, right? Real estate deal junkie. And so that actually led me to my second book idea where I was like, the most I'd ever made in the corporate world was I think$65 ,000 if you add up all my bonuses and stuff during those five or six years of some races. And I was like, you know what? I know I don't have the pedigree, but I want to be in the C-suite. How fast can I recreate myself to get$150 ,000 salary? I was like, I just like goals and I like timelines.

29:38And I was like, okay, I want to see if I can in five years create$150 ,000 salary from scratch. And so that's, if you want to get into my second book, the subversive job search. I assume you made the goal of 150 ,000. So what did you do to, what was your strategy? I'm interested to hear. Yes. So what I did was first, I went through all the job hunting sites at the time and copy and pasted all the job descriptions that I thought I could potentially turn into. Because I worked in tech support. I was like, I've got some experience. I don't want to do sex support, but so I was like, let's get something computer related, maybe customer service related, those sort of two things.

30:16I was also did some project management, which really loosely defined what project management was, but there was a little bit there. And so I took all the jobs that were sort of in the C-suite that were sort of in these industries, these roles, and I put them in a word cloud. And so just copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, and then press the button in the word cloud. What it does is the words that appear most frequently appear in a larger font kind of thing. And so then I was just reverse engineering what I needed in my resume. And I was like, okay, now I know if I want this job, I have to have all these big words in the word cloud in my resume.

30:52And so that was great. Now I had goals to reach and how fast could I get there? And quite often, many of them wanted an MBA, but a few of them, which I wasn't going to do and didn't have the money to do and didn't have the time to do. But I was like, Like, okay, they want an MBA that has this sort of expertise. And I would find like online certificates or courses that were like a three-week course or a six-week course that were similar. So I could check that, right? Like it wasn't an MBA, but I could go get a project management designation, which was like a six-week online course kind of thing.

31:26And so I just reversed engineered that way. I got really creative and would finesse what I was doing at tech support, right? I'm sure I was answering tech support, but also if someone was implementing their software rollout, I had to create a plan that says, okay, we're going to do this week and the next week we need to do this. And I'm like, oh, now I've got project management experience. Oh, I was talking again. I've got customer service. So I took my one job, which was tech support and made it into 10 different roles so I could go down different alleyways. And so one thing led to another. So I got a new job and because I didn't care about this job in that I knew I wasn't going to stay there, I had a goal.

32:04So I got a job offer at$65 ,000, which was what I was making before. And then I just spent my entire time at my desk when I wasn't doing anything, applying for other jobs. And I would just, I didn't care what it was as long as it was closer to$150 ,000. And what I realized is like people weren't fact-checking me. So when I'd go into an interview, I would be like, yeah, I make$85 ,000. and the checks and balances may be better now, but, or maybe I didn't get the jobs because they did do checks and balances, but I'll be like, I'm looking for a hundred thousand dollar job. Cause I make 85. And they're like, oh yeah, we understand that.

32:34And they're like, sorry, Alan, we can't pay you a hundred, but we can pay you$87 ,000. And I'm like, okay, I'll take it. And so I just kept doing that. And so I didn't want to stay at a job for two years. Cause I realized, and what I realized now as a business owner who has employees is that I have a budget, right? I can only pay my employees so much. Even if you're a rockstar superstar, there is a time where maybe I can't pay you what you're worth and I wish I could. And I understand you leaving because you are worth more than I can actually pay you. But if I do have it in my budget to pay you, then I will to keep you around.

33:06And so I would work really hard at my job and say, listen, I got an offer for 87 ,000 over here. Can you match it? Because I've been busting my ass. And sometimes they would, and sometimes they wouldn't. Then they'd be like, we get it, Alan. We understand. Go take the money. And so I wasn't like burning bridges or anything like that. And then once I got the$87 ,000 job, every free moment was, how can I get a$90 ,000 job? Because most people get a 3 % raise, 2 % raise, things like that. But it takes a whole year where that might happen. But I could get a$10 ,000 bump, a$15 ,000 bump in six months or in a year.

33:41That's so much better. And then what I realized is, or what I wanted, I was like, once I hit$100 ,000, then I can kind of pick the job that's close to my house or has the perks that I want. or something I'm interested in. Let me spend the next two, three years just getting up to the chain where now I can have options. But I think people get too picky about their jobs when they're early in their career. And I was just like, no, let's chase the dollar. Let's stay in the industry that I want to be in and get to the top. So spoiler alert, subversive job search. Yes, I eventually did it. I think it took me two and a half years to get up there.

34:17And so everything I did, I would have recruiters. I worked with multiple recruiters, which are great. Their job is to go get me a job. And I'd be like, don't call me unless you have a job that's$125 ,000. But I'm not paying them anything. It's like having a real estate agent. They get a commission if they can find me a job paid by the employer. And so I would utilize them. And I was just using every tactic that I could. Now that I'm older, if anyone really wants to go this route, what I realized is every company that I worked for, the salespeople, the best salesperson in every company made more than the CEO.

34:49And so, is that right? If you want to make a lot of money, because it's untapped commissions. Go sell our product. The more it was you sell, you're going to get a commission. And so go sell something expensive because Oregon and software, the people sell$100 ,000 software packages. I mean, they had boats and everything. And I was like, and they were dumb as rocks. All they did was go out drinking with people. And I was like, they sort of pivoted into sales at the end because I was like, I can be dumb and I can go drinking with people, but it seems so much easier and more fun than being a CEO somewhere.

35:19Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. Hey, it's Sean O'Malley, just popping in with a quick message. If you like this podcast, well, I've got great news for you. We've got a handful of other shows for you to explore, from learning about Bitcoin to embracing a richer, wiser, happier lifestyle. Just go into your podcast app and type in We Study Billionaires to find our collection of shows. We Study Billionaires is our flagship podcast, and we've made a name for ourselves over the years by interviewing the best investors in the world, including Ray Dalio, Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, and many, many more.

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38:37That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash T-I-P dash finance. All right, back to the show. That's funny. I like how you just gamified the whole process of job search and career advancement. It's pretty cool. So that one's called subversive job search? Yes. Yes. Cool. So I want to talk about the next one, Housefire. That I think is a brilliant name for a book. Talk to me, first of all, what FIRE is. There's some of our listeners that don't know that term that might be new to them. So get into that a little bit and then we'll get into the book after that. Sure. Yeah. And House FIRE, just like subversive job search, just like a million bucks by 30, meant to be entertaining and fun.

39:17But FIRE is an acronym and sort of a niche personal finance community that stands for financial independence and retire early. I didn't come up with FIRE. I would have come up with something way more creative than that, but it just doesn't really roll off the tongue. A financial independence retire early, but that's the FIRE movement that you may be seeing some press about or find some Reddit threads or whatever. And it's a strategy that is really how do it, when do you know you can retire? And this guy, the professor at Trinity University about 40 years ago, ran a bunch of Monte Carlo simulations and things and realized that if you have 25 times your annual expenses saved up in a stock portfolio, regardless of your timing, if you're right after the stock market crash, right before you put all your money in, as long as you withdraw 4 % of your stock portfolio of that 25X your annual expenses.

40:08So if you have$100 ,000, you're spending a year, 25X, is that 2.5 million? 2.5 million. Yeah. So if you have 2.5 million in stocks, it doesn't matter what's happening in the stock market. Historically, as long as you withdraw 4%, that's$100 ,000 and you can maintain your lifestyle. I didn't like that. I hated that because one, it was, yeah, of course I got to save 2.5 million. I have options. Like that number was so ludicrous to me. I was like, yeah, I got to work for 30 years to get there and live in the corporate life. Like that wasn't exciting. So I was like, but I understood like living below your means.

40:41And so like a lot of it was, okay, well don't live for a hundred thousand dollars, you know, walk everywhere or house hack so that your expenses are$80 ,000. And I didn't want to do that either because as I was growing older, I wanted a higher level of lifestyle. I think everyone does. No one wants to plateau or live below their means as they get older. Keep eating ramen noodles. You wanted to move on from that. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to start impressing girls finally. You know, they take them out on dates, you know, kind of thing. Have them visit me, that kind of thing. So I had a problem with the fire movement because of that.

41:14And then also you're on a constrained budget in retirement. You know, even with inflation, even though you're withdrawing that same 4%, whether it's$100 ,000 or whatever, it doesn't go as far. And so I just saw problems with it, but I felt like I was part of the FIRE community. So I was like, how can I make this real estate related? How can I improve this through real estate, which is the business of the book House Fire? And so what I realized is if you take their formula that they teach, that let's say I have an internet bill or phone bill combo that's$150 a month, a year of that, that's$1 ,800.

41:46So 25 times that is$45 ,000. So in their methods, save up$45 ,000 and you can have internet for life, right? Like they love going to Costco and everything. And I can't go to Costco and buy internet access for life. Like you can't buy that in bulk. You can't prepay that. So this was the bill that's going to follow me forever. And I was like, it's going to take me forever to save$45 ,000 just to pay$150 bill. And so I was like, let's take half of that. And that's$22 ,500. I know I can go buy a property for$100 ,000. That's back in the day, but even today, I'm still buying properties for$100 ,000.

42:23And with 20 % down on$100 ,000 property, get$80 ,000 mortgage, there's about$2 ,500 in closing costs. That's half of what I had saved for. If I do that, put in a property manager, put in tenants and budget for repairs, CapEx, vacancies, my cashflow typically is$150. And so all of a sudden that's sort of what the house fire switch where I was like, oh, all I need to do is save off for 22 ,500 and that house will pay for that bill. And then, so then I was like, what's the next bill I have in my life that I hate? Okay. I hate my utility bills. I can't get rid of those either. They're going to follow me for life.

42:59Let's add up the electric bill, the gas bill, all that. Okay. That water bill. Okay. That's about 150 bucks a month. Let me save another 22 ,500. So this is my house fire method. I bought a house for every single bill in my life. And then that also took about five to six properties. I just say, oh, my goal, Gamify, let me save up$22 ,500. Let me save$22 ,000. And it became easier and easier because I had a house that was paying my bill, a house paying my bill. So that loop to save up another 20, it became faster and faster. And so then I just started a house for every bill, the house for every bill.

43:35And then you retire much faster. And not only that, I live larger in retirement because what eventually happens is your rent goes up a little bit. So I make it a little bit more money. Eventually, let's say I had a house for a car note, a five-year car note. I want a Tesla. I could take$50 ,000 and go to the Tesla shop and hand it to the richest man in the world and say, let's exchange my money for your Tesla. And And so that works for me. I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. How much is it going to cost for like a five-year car note on a Tesla? I don't know. It was 500 bucks, for example, whatever it is.

44:11And I was like, okay, well, let me take my$50 ,000, go buy a house, put that as a down payment that kicks off 500 bucks. And that way I get to keep my$50 ,000. That house pays for my car note. That house pays the richest man in the world, not me. and then eventually in five years when that car note's paid off, I now have$500 to go somewhere else. That could go to my food bill or my vacation budget, right? So I had all these assets that would pay off my bills and then eventually the mortgage would be paid off or the note that what I earmarked it for was paid off and then I could allocate it to another expense in my life.

44:46And that's another way. Five years is really all it takes if you kind of take this approach. Most people, depending how large you live to kind of siphon off your little segment off, burn up those bills with the house fire method. And so that's sort of what I teach in the book as well. How many rentals would you say it takes on average to become financially independent, retire early? What would you say the number is? So there's not a catch all answer to that, but I would say roughly five. And so you don't have to be a mogul. You don't have to try to own a thousand properties. If anything, five is going to change your life and it's going to 5X your speed to retirement over the typical investing in stocks fire method.

45:27Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's, I did the same kind of strategy, got to, I don't know how many rentals I had, but I got to the point where I had enough income to meet my expenses. And at that point I said, I was going to do something that I loved, which ended up working here at TIP and doing the podcast. So it really just gives you optionality once you hit those rentals. And once those bills are paid for, it's like, you can then go do your comedy if you want to. You can pursue whatever dream that you want to do at that point. What do you think it is that keeps people or what do you see that keeps people back from doing this?

46:00I've got several buddies that are in the trades that they talk all the time about investing in real estate, but they never do. So what is it in your experience that just holds people back from all of this? A lot of it comes to analysis paralysis where they want it to chase everything. And it's tough because I say there's a million ways to make a million dollars in real estate. You can make a million dollars a year as a short-term rental host. You can make a million dollars as a long-term rental host. You can make a million dollars buying townhomes. You can make a million dollars as a flipper, as a wholesaler.

46:31So people are constantly learning all the different strategies. And they're like, which one should I do? And I'm like, it doesn't matter. Pick one and just focus on one. Buy anyone's book. Well, I don't even care if you buy my book or someone else's book, but the blueprint is in those books and they're not trying to lie to you. They're giving you the footprint. And it doesn't take away from me if you institute my strategies in your life, because there's so many deals around that even if you're my next door neighbor and you're doing the same thing, there's plenty of deals because I physically can't buy them all.

47:03I don't have the time or the energy or the money. And so I'm an open book, literally in the book. And so I don't care. Just pick one and stick to it. And because I think people want to divert, they're all worried about diversity, diversifying their profile. And I think that's not what you should do because you don't become an expert. If you've got a duplex, I'm looking at duplexes in Florida and I'm looking at a short-term rental in my hometown. And then someone will come to me like, I see an apartment building in Texas. They're like, which one should I buy? And I was like, well, have you looked at all the comps and everything?

47:36like, yeah, this is the best apartment building in Texas. This is the best one in my hometown. I was like, then buy them all because you found the best of that product. But I can't tell you what's one is better than the other, but you're going to scale and scale is going to make your life easier if you just focus on one. If you become known as the condo queen in Manhattan and only buy condos, what happens is the neighbors tell you, oh, you buy condos here. Oh, you know what? I heard my friend Susie at a happy hour buys condos and the deals start finding you once you sort of have that expertise and branded.

48:07And so I bought, I have like four quads on the same street and quadruplexes. And I bought one and then a real estate agent's like, Alan, I heard you bought a condo on that street. Do you want to buy this one? I'm about to list. Yeah. And then the neighbors are like, oh, you bought those too? Well, I'm going to sell mine. Do you want to buy mine? Sure. And then all of a sudden I didn't tell anyone, it just sort of happened where Alan buys quadruplexes in this zip code. And I ended up buying them all. Because they came, found me. And those deals are so much better than having to fight. And then once I also realized that it's easier to manage because I don't have to create different teams.

48:42Leveraging money is one thing to get wealthy, but leveraging teams is the other thing you have to do. And so my contractor on my luxury properties is not the same contractor I use on my section eight government housing properties. I could, but they don't know whether to buy linoleum floors. I've never had to do this before. They don't know how to install it. And so what I was trying to diversify, I had to recreate my contractors. I had to have different property managers because different property managers are in certain city limits and things like that. Now that I've scaled up and I've been doing this for 25 years, sure, diversify.

49:15But in your first five, if you're going for that one a year for five years for an early retirement, the house fire method, or even the million bucks by 30 method, then yes, I think you should focus on one area because then when you look at a property, you can be like, I can't rent a two bedroom for that because I own three, two bedrooms and I don't get that for rent. Or this is labeled incorrectly. You're going to recognize the deals and the flaws so much faster because that is only the lane that you swim in. And it's so much easier to be successful if you create that niche for yourself. Yeah, it's a really good point.

49:49There's a guy that I interviewed, Sean O'Dowd is his name, that he just focuses on one zip code. That's it, one zip code. And he knows, literally, he probably knows every house within that zip code. And he becomes the guy, exactly like you said. It's in a really expensive school district, really good schools. That's where he's focused. And now he's kind of become this guy that buys in this school district and does rentals for longer term, three years or four years for people that want to be in that school district for their kids for a good education. Yeah. And you're cutting out all the noise of anything that's not in that school district.

50:24And which is great is I'm the opposite of Sean. I would never invest in a good school district. So I'm like, okay, he found a way to make money. I teach not to buy a good school districts because you're paying a premium price and it's hard. You know, sure, you're going to get long-term tenants, but your cashflow is usually not as good. It's more expensive to buy the properties in a good school district. And then a 10 school district can only stay at 10 or go down. But if I buy in a seventh school district, it has the opportunity to go to eight or a nine, and I make a lot of money that way. So it doesn't mean don't do it.

50:53He found his strategy that works for him. I thought his strategy works for me. And when you have a niche yourself, you're going to find a strategy that works for you. Good points. I want to talk a little bit about what your portfolio looks like today. Where are you focused? Where are you concentrated? Where are you seeing opportunities? What are you focused on today? Yes. So I have only multifamily properties in Atlanta by myself, about 18 doors. mostly quads and triplexes and some duplexes. And then with some partners, we bought into a couple apartment complexes, another 350 doors. And those are all sort of in town Atlanta and in Huntsville, Alabama.

51:31And so I live here and I feel like I'm an expertise. My expertise is here, but I have invested in New York City. That's where I got started. Charleston, South Carolina. I love college towns. And it just happens that I've 1031 and sold properties and moved my portfolio closer to me. Too many frozen pipes happening in New York City. So I don't have to deal with that in Atlanta, but now I have to deal with termites. So I've just swapped one problem for another. But you liquidated all of your holdings in New York? Yes. And I mean, because when I moved on Murder Avenue, right? It was all 99 cent stores, bodegas in Brooklyn.

52:07I say every property that you buy comes with imaginary lottery tickets. So I buy every property for that, but the house fire method, just what bill will this pay for? And then Brooklyn changed over the 10 years that I owned there. The Brooklyn Nets came to town. The bodegas turned into Chipotle's, the 99 cent stores turned into Starbucks. And I sold my properties that no one wanted to live in 10 years later to celebrities. Christina Ritchie, the Wednesday, actress late Wednesday bought one of my properties. And the mayor's right-hand man became a tenant at another one of my properties. So really distinguished people started moving into the neighborhood and I didn't plan on that.

52:48But that's the imaginary lottery ticket that comes with real estate investing. You buy for the basics and you may get super lucky. And both those two of these townhomes I bought in Brooklyn, I sold for$2 million each. and I bought one for 450 and I bought one with a hundred percent financing for a million and sold it a couple of years later for 2 million. So I had 2 million, two$1 million payouts just because of these imaginary lottery tickets, but I bought them for the minuscule cashflow that would cover a bill in my life. Yeah. That's interesting. So you're, when you talk about the basics, you're primarily buying for the cashflow.

53:20And then if there's appreciation, that's just, you view it as just bonus upside, right? Yeah. Because I can't control that. That's the speculative. Everyone's like, oh, Alan got lucky, but I didn't try to get lucky. It wasn't like, let me lose money each month. Let me break even on my month because I think the property values are going to go up. I can't control that. So it doesn't even factor into when I'm purchasing a property. If I couldn't control that, it felt investing in stocks. I can't control that. So why even spend my time thinking about it? I wanted to talk a little bit about debt and leverage.

53:55I saw a tweet that you had that you said, never pay off long-term fixed rate debt. Talk to me a little bit about that and your thoughts on leverage. Yeah. So Dave Ramsey and I would probably have a really good debate on this if he would be open to it, but I see where he's coming from. But I am definitely anti-pay off your mortgage early. And as an example, what I realized now, I was in that mindset because I grew up on Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman and these talking heads, pay off your mortgage, pay off your mortgage. So I thought that was the goal to get a 15-year mortgage. And so I did that. And I learned every single time I did that, it was a mistake.

54:28So now if I have a paid off house, I can't sleep at night. And so some people are like, I want to pay off my mortgage so I can sleep at night. I was like, well, if you really understand how money works, you would not sleep at night. And the way I illustrate this is imagine that you pull into a gas station today and you find a dollar on the ground. You pick it up and you have two options. You listen to what Dave Ramsey says and pay off your mortgage early. Let me take that dollar and mail it into the bank and get a dollar off your principal. Or if you're sort of don't have those long-term goals, you're going to treat yourself and go into the gas station by a dollar Snickers bar, right?

55:01Pulling one of two camps. So you're going to be the prudent financial person or are you going to, you know, you might die tomorrow. So let's go get that Snickers bar today. So you do that, right? Now, let's say you didn't pick up that dollar and you came back to that gas station 15 years later, but that dollar was still there. So 15 years later, and you pull back in. No one's picked up that dollar yet. Fine. I'm going to get out of my car and pick up that dollar. We're in a cashless society. I'll find a way to spend this dollar. And so you have two options. You can go into the gas station, go get your Snickers bar, but hold up, you can't because that Snickers bar is$3 now, right?

55:34So that purchasing power is worthless in 15 years, but you can still mail that in to your bank and get a full dollar off your principal, right? So it's got triple the purchasing power of your mortgage because that is a fixed rate mortgage for 30 years expense. That's not going to change when everything around you is constantly changing. The price is always going to go up. It's called inflation. It's just, it's inevitable. Why would you get rid of that benefit? The best benefit you have is a 30 year expense. The largest expense of your life is your mortgage, most likely. Why would you get rid of that benefit, that's locked for 30 years.

56:12It doesn't make sense. Everything around you is going to get more expensive. Buy that now. Buy all the Snickers now because they're going to be more expensive. Hort Snickers. That's a better investment than paying off your mortgage. I want to hear a little bit. You focused obviously on real estate, but do you look outside into other asset classes for your portfolio at all? Or are you just strictly focused on real estate? Well, I call myself a real estate maximalist. I try to solve every problem with real estate. I try to do everything through real estate. I have at times bought individual stocks.

56:45I've done some mutual funds. I've done crypto. And then every single time I'm like, let me get into this. And I do all the research. I find a property that I can't buy unless I sell all my crypto and I sell all my stocks and my mutual funds to go buy real estate. So I get in the cycle where I try to, but I just get sucked back into real estate because that's my expertise. I love it. And it's treated me well for 25 years. And I now preach the gospel and I'm an evangelist. I'm trying to convert everyone, everyone else who's not doing real estate to do more real estate. My dad says something similar where he's like, you make money in your own business and you inevitably often lose it when you try to venture outside of your circle of competence.

57:25And that's totally my experience. Like focus on what you know, stay in your lane, focus on your circle of competence and won't deviate from your strategy. Yeah. I just don't have the patience to wait. I understand it works. I know historically it works, but if I have a day off, I can go improve my property. But if I have a day off, I can't improve my crypto. I can't improve my stocks. I just feel like I'm sitting idle and I'm like, I hope someone else is working extra on the weekend on the stock. It just drives me insane. I want to talk a little bit about House Money Media. It's a new venture that you've got going.

58:03Talk to me about it. Tell us about it and why you decided to partner up with Lauren from Adulting is Easy. Yeah. So I didn't have a real estate mentor. I didn't have any rich mentors, as I mentioned at the top of the podcast here. And so I wanted to be that. I wanted to create a company for that. And my niche is mostly small multifamilies, long-term rentals. I see other people online who are teaching short-term rentals and that's Lauren's niche. And so I was like, we're chasing the same audience. You want to teach these folks? You want to be a mentor? They have a lot of questions. I have some short-term rentals, but I don't have as many reps in as Lauren does.

58:39And so I was like, why don't we combine forces and be the mentors for these people and create. We've got courses. We've got podcasts, newsletters. I blog. I still get my creative writing, try to make them funny, try to make them entertaining, just like my books. This is all at housemoneymedia.com. and you can sign up and be in our private discord where you can post your deals. And Lauren and I will chime in, tell you our thoughts and bring you on the podcast or whatever it is. Try to change people's life. Typically, first generation real estate investor. I'm a first generation real estate investor.

59:10I had no one and I want to be the person to save someone having to read 50 books in the library. I've done that. Let me just regurgitate what I've learned and 25 years of experience and let me hold your hand and make your life easier and you'll be more successful so you can change your life like I have. I just try to give back at this point. That's awesome. That's what's so great about today is that there's so many resources out there that whereas like 25 years ago, you had to go to the library. There was nothing to listen to. There was no interviews to listen to. It's just like the times are so much better now in terms of learning what you want to learn.

59:50You guys are producing a ton of content. I mean, you said, you mentioned a newsletter, podcast courses. How do you guys manage all that? How there's a, it's tough to pump out that much content. Well, we all left our day jobs because of real estate. So when we're not looking at deals, we're not doing real estate deals. That's the, we create content. And honestly, it's just, it's like a diary entry. Like what did I do today? Okay. Well, this could be a learning lesson for someone. Let me put it out there. That's awesome. Alan, this has been a lot of fun. I really have enjoyed your time. It's fun to talk about the books that you've written and your journey to financial independence using real estate.

1:00:24How can our listeners find out more about you, find out about House Money Media, just all that you're up to? Yeah. Well, I'm on social media, Real Estate Maxi. I'll also go to housemoneymedia.com. That's where our blogs and podcasts, search up the House Money Media podcast. And you're going to find me talking about real estate. If you find me in the bar, I'm going to trap you and talk about real estate. The reason I have a podcast, the reason I write about real estate is everyone in my life is sick of me talking about real estate. So now I have to talk real estate to strangers. I love it. Alan, thanks a lot for your time.

1:00:53This has been a lot of fun. Thanks, Patrick. Okay, folks, that's all I had for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed the show and I'll see you back here real soon. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to follow Millennial Investing on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on our episodes. To access our show notes, transcripts, or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor's Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.