May 22, 2025 • 42 mins
Episode Overview
In this episode, John Kitchens sits down with seasoned investor Mark Zawaideh and strategic partner Curt Shewell to unpack what every real estate agent must understand about wealth, leverage, and building a portfolio that will lead you to true financial freedom. Mark shares how he scaled from broke agent to owning over 40 properties—and how one key mindset shift turned $600K in equity into $30M in assets. Together, they break down the dangerous myths agents believe about wealth, why owning a team is not a retirement plan, and how to start thinking like an investor starting today.
Key Topics Covered
The Scarcity Trap vs. Investor Mindset
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How Mark’s early money beliefs kept him stuck (and how he broke free).
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The critical difference between “saving” and “scaling” through leverage.
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Why paying off properties early can actually kill your momentum.
Using Real Estate As a Wealth Vehicle
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Why selling more homes won’t build lasting wealth—and what will.
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How Mark scaled from 1 house to 43 rentals in under 10 years.
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Turning equity into cash flow: the power of 1031 exchanges and strategic refinancing.
How to Make the Shift from Agent to Owner to Owning $100M Portfolio
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The real risk: owning just 1-2 rental properties and no game plan.
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Why scaling to 30, 50, or 100+ doors creates less risk, not more.
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How to use your real estate business to find deals, not just earn commissions.
Building Wealth Through Depreciation & Tax Strategy
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Why depreciation alone could be worth six figures in tax savings.
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How Mark paid zero in taxes—and got a refund—while earning 7 figures.
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The difference between earning more… and keeping more.
Scaling Beyond Single-Family into Commercial & Multifamily
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How Mark turned four homes into a 48-unit apartment complex.
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The mindset shift from “buy and hold” to “scale and grow.”
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Multifamily vs. single-family: pros, cons, and what most agents miss.
Why Real Estate Teams Are Not an Exit Strategy
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The hard truth about brokerage valuations and “team” exits.
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Why most teams become burdens, not assets, without investment income.
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Using your team to unlock opportunity—not just production.
The Investor Mastermind & What’s Coming Next
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How Mark and Curt are creating a community for agents ready to build wealth.
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Why most agents don’t lack opportunity—they lack strategy and proximity.
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What to expect from their upcoming course, community, and coaching framework.
Resources Mentioned
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Seven figure success starts whenyou start thinking like a CEO.
Welcome to the JohnKitchens Coach podcast.
Experience is your host John Kitchens.
Get ready to think bigger andtransform your business into
a path to lasting freedom.
What is, uh, honey Imagination man.
Thank you guys.
(00:21):
Uh, tuning into another episodeof Export Mentors Live, and
we're in for a super treat today.
You know, I, um.
One of the best presentations that I'veever sat in when it comes into, you
know, from, from the real estate space.
I, um, I remember sitting in there, youguys put on a world class event, Kurt,
(00:41):
you know, you took it to a whole notherlevel and, and really taking the whole
build, build event and, and, um, you know,location, just the overall experience.
The, the event was, was world class.
I've really fallen into this belief overthe last, you know, 18, 24 months that
the only reason that you should have anytype of real estate, you know, business.
(01:04):
And utilizing this business as avehicle to be in pursuit of freedom
to unlock opportunities and not onlyopportunities in, um, in the real estate
space, but also in in other businesses.
And so, you know, sitting therelistening to you, mark, kind of go
through your presentation and stay sick.
And I were sitting there right besideeach other and I started elbowing 'em
(01:26):
every little nugget you were dropping.
And, um, I hadn't reallyshared this belief with him
or, or very much anybody else.
And he is like, yes, yes.
And, and he's like, you know,we, we all think back, right?
You look back over, um, you know,the course of time it's right.
It's always easier to connect the dots.
Looking back and, you know, I 20 yearswith kinder, um, this, this past October,
(01:47):
and, you know, thinking as a coach, whatwould I do to go back and coach us to
27-year-old knuckleheads differently?
And I, I would've coached us on in pursuitof freedom instead of pursuit of status.
And, you know, at that time, you know,I mean, mark, we, you know, we're, we're
running and growing and building and.
It's like, man, we wanna be number one.
(02:08):
We wanna have the biggest market share.
We want all of these accolades.
You know, we're fightingPam and Barry every day.
We wanna beat them, we wannastomp on 'em, we wanna beat 'em.
But what I would've, what I would'vecoached us a little bit differently
on have been like, boys, listen, youneed to be utilizing this business
to unlock opportunities and build,build additional revenue streams that
you're not trading time for dollars.
Because guess what, you guys will close50 deals this month, but guess what?
(02:30):
You get to start allover again next month.
And, and you know, when you were walkingthrough your, your presentation, not
only do, did, did you change the mindsetof, you know, we hear residential real
estate, single family homes, but the, theprogression that you talked about in, in,
in multifamily, then into the commercialand, and everything that you've done to
(02:52):
be able to go from seven to a hundred.
It, it's, it's inspiring and it's,it's so possible to, to be able to
just step back and like, okay, I'mgonna use this to help me go get that.
And you just articulated, laid it out.
Well, I'm, I'm just super excited tohave you on to kind of walk through
that and, and, and really share.
(03:13):
With the rest of the Honey Badger Nation,you know, that that was not able to be
present in, in, in Detroit with you guys.
But you know, mark, well done.
It was one of the best presentations fromstage that I've seen in a long, long time.
I. Thank you, John.
I appreciate it.
Um, you know, when I think back at mycareer, gosh, it's been, uh, almost 25
years now, um, you know, I was, uh, Ilook back and, you know, obviously, uh,
(03:36):
luck has a lot to play with everything.
Uh, you know, timing, you know, timinghas a lot to do with whether you're
successful, I think in real estate or not.
You know, the stars really have to align.
Um, you have to be able to float for awhile as you're building this business.
You know, you're a new entrepreneur.
Um, and, uh, there's a, there's a lotof weight on your, on your shoulders.
Um, you know, I got into the industry.
(03:57):
Um, I didn't know anything about anything.
I got into it, quite frankly,'cause I didn't have any money.
My parents didn't have any money.
I didn't know what to do with my life.
And, uh, you know, getting into realestate, it was real estate or mortgages.
They're both free to, basically toget into, you take a, a week, two week
long course and, and you're a realtor.
So I got in with that mindsetthat, um, you know, the
barrier of entry was nothing.
(04:18):
Right.
Um.
Real estate took off forme, you know, right away.
I mean, the first year I made 70 grand.
But we're talking about, keep in mind, 25years ago, 70 grand was a lot of money.
You know, I never mademore than 25 grand a year.
Um, so, you know, and then from70 grand I made a hundred grand.
So I seen early success in real estate.
(04:40):
However, in the back of my mind, I alwaysfelt like this is too good to be true,
and I don't know how I'm gonna be ableto do this again, let alone do more.
So that was a mindset I always had, andthat's what got me into, into investing.
Um, I remember, uh, you know, my,uh, my, I think it was my second
or third year into real estate.
(05:00):
Um, I realized I gotta startbuilding some passive income.
And the only way I knew how to buildpassive income was to buy real estate.
But then again, I had,uh, I had a money problem.
I didn't have money, so I neededto borrow money, um, from somebody.
My aunts, uh, and one of my uncleseach chipped in 18,000 each.
(05:22):
I remember, um, they were kind enough togive me 36,000, which allowed me to buy my
first house, uh, my first rental property.
Um, it was 180,000.
I put 20% down.
Mortgage rates at the time were 8%.
Um, so the mortgage was $1,400 amonth and my rent was $1,400 a month.
(05:43):
There was like no cash flow, right?
Did it really even make sense?
Probably not.
Looking back.
Um.
You know, I did it in the intentionof, hey, one day I'm gonna pay this
off and then I'm gonna be making,you know, after my tax insurance, I'm
gonna make a thousand dollars a month.
That was the mindset I had, you know,but I was building equity and uh, you
know, the property was going up in value.
(06:05):
Um, but I just knew I had to createsome other source of income because I
don't know that I'm gonna be able todo what I did last year in real estate.
I always felt like thisis too good to be true.
This is crazy.
Um, you know, the money I was making.
So that's what got me into real estate.
Um, that's what got me into investing.
Um, and then I remember, you know,after I had the one property, it starts
to become addicting because, you know,you're seeing this money start to come in.
(06:29):
I wasn't cash flowing, but Iwas paying down The mortgage
property values were going up.
And so a year later, um,I bought another property.
It was 115,000.
It was in a city called RoyalOak, Michigan, which was,
uh, you know, a growing city.
Um.
And this one, you know, it was 115,000.
So I needed, you know, 22 grand.
I saved up 22 grand,you know, a year later.
(06:51):
And on, on this one I was cashflowing, 300 bucks a month.
So that was pretty exciting to me.
You know, three month in passiveincome, you know, at the time.
I mean, I look backnow and think, awesome.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know whatI was thinking at the time.
Um, then five years goes by and that'swhen the light bulb went off that.
That this was, this was something huge.
(07:13):
This was gonna be huge.
'cause five years goes by thosevalues of those houses that I bought.
Um, you know, at that time, five yearslater, I accumulated five houses.
Uh, within five years I was takingeverything I was making, I was saving it.
And I was buying anotherhouse, buying another house.
I accumulated five houses, five years.
(07:35):
Each one had about $20,000 in equitybecause they were going up in value,
you know, two, three, 4% a year.
So in five years I pulled outa hundred thousand dollars.
And for me, that was a lot of money.
Um, mind you, the, the real,uh, cool part is that a hundred
thousand is tax free because you'repulling out equity in the property.
(07:57):
So I pulled out ahundred thousand dollars.
I thought I was rich at the time.
Um, but it was all tax freeand it was rinse and repeat.
I bought another five houseswith that 200 thou, or with
that a hundred thousand dollars.
So now I'm sitting on 10 homes fiveyears later, you know, so now we're
(08:18):
talking about, you know, 10 years.
I do that same event again.
And I'm pulling out $200,000.
Now mind you, these houses are going up invalue, um, cash flowing, two, three, $400
from each one, and life's looking great.
Then 2008 rolls around the market crashes.
(08:39):
When I say crash, I mean it crasheslike values go, you know, 50%.
Some are 70, 80% like values just plummet.
Were y'all the worst hit mark?
Yeah.
Worst hit ever.
Yeah.
Worst hit ever.
Um, little did I know though.
It was a blessing in disguise.
Um, ended up being the best thing ever.
And here I am, uh, you know,what are we, 15, 16 years later?
(09:03):
And I pray for this same thing tohappen again, but I don't know that,
I don't know if that's gonna happen.
Yeah, I don't, I. Um, you know, peoplegot way too much equity, uh, today,
but in oh eight nobody had equity.
You know, there's a whole appraisal kindof scam thing going on where people were
just, you know, buying homes, inflatingappraisals, and, you know, we had that
(09:25):
financial crisis that, again, it, it'scrazy, but anybody that has money now
and now that you see what happenedin oh eight com and where we are now.
If you have money, you should, you shouldbe very excited about a market crash if we
were to ever get that opportunity again.
I don't know if we will, maybe sometimein our lifetime history has a way of
repeating itself, so yes, it does.
(09:45):
I have a feeling that one daywe'll see it, it'll probably
be when we're not expecting it.
Um, that's usually when, you know,the biggest opportunities arise.
But, um, every disaster, you know, inmy life, what I realize now is anytime
there's a disaster in the world,it's a huge opportunity for somebody.
Maybe not for that person, but forsomebody it's a huge opportunity.
(10:08):
It's a huge opportunity.
So Mark, I wanna pause right there'cause I want you to touch on this,
'cause this is, you know, you know,the whole mindset and the, and
the mental aspect around things.
You know, one thing I wantedto ask you, you know, too.
You know, the relationship with moneyand the, the, you know, struggle that
some people have and some people don't.
And you know, for you, you know,what was that relationship?
(10:30):
Was it learned?
Was there a mentor that kind of showedyou the way and how to, you know, how
to use, how to use money Because youknow, we're sitting here, we're talking
about this and everybody knows, yeahman, that's great, but they just don't
have the action or they don't have, um.
Their, their scarcity mindsetwhen it comes to money versus
abundance mindset with it andunderstand how money really works.
(10:51):
Can you kind of, you know, for you, just,just kind of real quick, what was that
process, that learning process for youand, and what money meant to you before
getting to this point in your life?
I, I grew up with, uh, you know, myparents always had money problems.
Um, you know, I, I, we never had money.
So, um, it was always thatscarcity mindset protected.
(11:13):
I grew up, you know, with themindset, save, save, save, you
know, uh, you know, my dad wasalways, you know, very conservative.
Save your money for a rainy day.
Um, you know, don't get a lot of, andwe're gonna talk about this, but you know,
you don't wanna over-leverage yourself.
You don't want have a lot of loans,pay the loans off as soon as possible.
That's what I grew up with.
Um, and that was my mindset.
(11:34):
You know, when I startedbuying these houses, I was, you
know, trying to pay them down.
It was just complete oppositemindset that you should have.
But I didn't know any better.
Um, but like I said, I, I just feltlike the industry in general, you
know, was just too good to be true.
So I had to create some otherincome source was my goal.
I didn't really know what I wasdoing or what I was creating.
All I knew was I needed tocreate something else in case.
(11:56):
I don't sell any more homes next year.
I always had this mindset like, I'mnot gonna be able to do this again.
This is crazy.
You know, I, I just made ahundred grand, I made 150 grand,
I made 200 grand and 300 grand.
It was like, this isnever gonna happen again.
You know?
I mean, but that's the mindset I had.
Um, so like I said, that that crashhappens in oh eight and little did I
(12:16):
know, I accumulated between 2008 and 2013.
Or 2008.
2012. 43 houses.
Mm.
43 houses.
But mind you, these houses thatwere at one time, okay, $200,000
(12:37):
are now going for 30, 40, $50,000.
So I'm going all in.
I mean, these houses that Ipaid, you know, 150 to $200,000
are on sale now for $50,000.
Yeah.
60, $70,000. So I'm trying to buyeverything I can during the that.
But you know, I only have so much money.
(12:58):
I can only get so many mortgages.
You know, you're onlyallowed 10 mortgages.
So I'm buying some cash, I'mpulling mortgages on some,
I'm refinancing what I have.
I'm just going all in because I didn'treally care about the value of the house.
People always say, um, when I compare itto the stock market, you know, and I say,
you know, stocks go up and down and youget no residual income from the stocks.
(13:19):
Um, people try to compare that toreal estate and they say, well,
you know, the houses could godown in value just like a stock.
Yeah.
But when you're in the rental game,you don't care about the value.
Right.
You still get the same rent, meaningrent doesn't go down because the
price of the house got cut in half.
The two don't go hand in hand.
Yeah, so my values did go down onmy houses, you know, 50% the ones
(13:39):
that I bought, but my rent didn't.
In fact, my rent went up becausepeople couldn't buy homes at the
time, so they were renting, so peoplewere lined up to buy the property.
More demand rental properties that I had.
Yeah, so the value of theproperty, it didn't matter.
That was the eye-opener in 2008,was these values have went down,
but rent's the same, if not up.
This is foolproof, meaning I don't carewhat happens to the value of these homes.
(14:04):
If they go up, great.
But for my game, which wascashflow, it didn't matter.
So I accumulate in in 2008, 2012, 43houses, and again, at this point I
still don't really know what I'm doing.
Okay.
You know, I, I said, uh, you know,save your money for a rainy day.
That's the mentality that I grew up.
(14:25):
However, it's completely,you know, the wrong mindset.
Every dollar.
Like now, today's world, youknow, I got, I got money sitting
around and I'm calling brokers.
I mean, all I'm trying to do isput that money to work, you know?
Um, you know, cash is trash.
You've heard that saying it.
It's so true, man.
Just, it's just sitting around doingabsolutely nothing except losing money.
(14:45):
I mean, the value of thedollar just keeps going down.
So if your money is justsitting in the bank.
Um, you, you're actually losing money.
In fact, during this, uh, during thelast four or five years, we learned, uh,
you know, during one of the biggest ininflationary periods in all time history,
what I learned was my wealth quadrupled.
(15:05):
While people who have cash sitting inthe bank, they actually lost money.
Because what happens is think aboutthe, the, the two different scenarios.
You've got $5 million sitting in the bank.
Everything that you normally buy justdoubled or tripled in value, which means
if you needed 300,000 a year to live,it now costs you 600,000 a year to live,
(15:28):
and you've got this money that's sittingin the bank that you're now dipping
more into than you ever had before.
'cause things cost twice asmuch versus the position I'm in.
All of my real estate thatI have, which is the most
expensive product in the world.
As inflation kept going up thelast four or five years, my real
estate also doubled and tripled.
(15:50):
And what happened to houses?
Houses went up, you know,a hundred, 200, 300%.
So during big inflationary periods,real estate gurus are sitting
back just licking their chops.
They're loving this.
I mean, they want inflationto just go through the roof.
It's, it's great because the productsthat they're holding is going up.
You know, if you're holding a$300,000 product and it went up 20%.
(16:12):
You're sitting pretty compared to maybeyou have to pay 30% more for an apple,
you know, or for a, a steak knife.
Okay.
Big deal.
You're, you're, the biggest product youhave has gone up 30% on a $200,000 asset.
So imagine the people who are sitting onmillions of dollars worth of that asset.
It's huge.
(16:33):
Yeah.
Right here, and, and I think thisis what you're talking about is,
is from a mindset perspective in.
Where, where was the shift for you?
Right?
You grew up with the, you know,save all your money for a rainy
day and, and typically, um.
I, I typically, you know, peoplethat, you know, wrestle with this
and the relationship with money,um, you know, Morgan Household's
(16:53):
book, um, is, is really good, right?
And, and he talks about that.
He said, man, he said, listen, you,first you gotta understand is that
your relationship with money can betied directly to when you were born.
And, you know, were you born in, youknow, in a recession or not, right?
And I was always joke about my dad,you know, my dad would drive across
(17:14):
town to save 4 cents a gallon of gas.
And, and whereas, you know, Inever cared about it, right?
He says, I need need gas.
I need gas.
I don't even look at it.
I just fill up and keep going.
But that could all directly be tied back.
You know, to that.
And so, you know, you, your, your parentsare pouring into you Save your money.
Save your money.
Where was the mental shift?
(17:35):
Like what was that for you?
The mental shift, uh, came yearslater when I learned that, you
know, good debt is your friend.
Um, I was, uh, lucky enough to besurrounded by some, some real estate
mentors who, who taught me the way andtook my portfolio from, uh, from where I
was, uh, where I was at, and we doubledand quadrupled it, uh, within two,
(17:58):
three years only because, like I said,I built this, but I honestly didn't
know what I was building at the time.
I accumulated the 43 homes.
Um, I was on vacation with a buddyof mine who's been in the real
estate game for a lot longer than me.
I remember like yesterday, we were sittingaround at the pool and, um, you know,
his circle is all real estate gurus.
(18:18):
Mine wasn't at the time.
Um, so the light bulb went off?
Mm-hmm.
What, what what happened was he starteddigging into, you know, what do you got?
What do you own?
I told him about the 43 houses I hadthat at the time, um, were all paid off.
Um, what I was doing was taking the cashflow and, and paying down the mortgages.
Everything I was making, I wastrying to pay down the mortgages
(18:40):
like my dad taught me, right?
Yeah.
You know, you don't want a lot of debt.
You want to be safe.
Um, you don't pay everything off.
You never know what happens.
Um, so I was trying to payeverything off as soon as possible.
I got him paid off.
I thought I was king of the hill.
I told my buddy, um, youknow, his name was Dwayne.
I told Dwayne, I said.
Man, I, I'm good, bro.
I don't need to do anything else.
(19:00):
I'm, I'm pretty much set for life.
I think I got, you know, 43 houses.
They're all paid off.
I'm making like, you know,clear like 35, 40 grand a month.
He said, he goes, what?
They're sitting on 43 houses.
He goes, what are those houses worth?
I said, man, they gotta be worthlike, I don't know, at least.
Probably six, 7 million I would think.
(19:23):
You know?
He's like, so you're sitting, hegoes, lemme get this straight.
You're sitting on six, $7million of equity and you're not
doing anything with that money.
I said, what do you mean?
He said, mark, if you took thatsix, 7 million and came into my
world where I take my money and Ileverage it with the bank's money.
(19:44):
Six, 7 million.
You could buy anything you wantin the world with 20 to 25% down.
Meaning you could take that six,seven, 8 million and go buy 30, $40
million worth of real estate tomorrow.
You could either refinance, takethat money out, or you could
sell those properties and 1031 them so you don't pay taxes.
(20:06):
But you could literally take thatsix, $7 million portfolio and turn
it into a 30, $40 million portfolio.
Yeah.
It was at that time thatmy life basically changed.
I, I, I was on a mission at that pointto take that money, take that equity,
and use the bank's money, use someoneelse's money, uh, and then someone
(20:28):
would say, oh, that's really risky.
No.
What's really risky is sitting withone house or two houses that's really
risky because you lose a tenant andnow you're paying outta your pocket.
That's right.
When you have, you know, 30, 40, 50properties, that's actually a lot less
riskier than the guy who's sitting with,you know, the one or two properties.
(20:50):
You, you're basically, you,you're very vulnerable, sitting
with a lot less than, a lot more.
So what I did was I sold four houses.
I, 10 31 them, and bought a 48 unitcomplex, uh, multi-family complex
for $3 million, you know, 600,000.
I sold the four houses at 600,000.
(21:10):
Um, which I, I, I kind ofregret selling those houses.
I probably should have refinancedlooking back because those four houses
for 600,000 are now worth 1.2 million.
That's the beauty, and that's a wholenother subject, um, that we'll get into.
You know, the, you know, shouldyou, uh, should you buy multifamily?
Should you buy single family homes?
There's a, there's abig debate between that.
(21:32):
Um.
That's a whole nother subject.
You know which one is better, but Itook the four houses, I sold those.
I bought a 48 unitcomplex worth 3 million.
So I took my 600,000 and boughtsomething worth 3 million.
Now how long would it take beforethose four houses are worth 3 million?
Uh, maybe a long time, right?
Yeah.
That 3 million is probably gonna be,you know, four or five, 6 million.
(21:56):
It's gonna leverage and it'sgonna grow a lot faster than
sitting on those four houses.
So I took those residentialhouses, um, that I just showed you.
And, uh, this is, uh, this is a picture ofa couple of the complexes that I bought.
You know, the 48 units, um, one's 48.
The one on the right is, uh, a 56 unit.
Um, but, uh, I, I leveraged the money.
(22:18):
I started to learn touse other people's money.
Um, then I learned aboutdepreciation after I bought my.
My first one, you know, when you'rebuying houses, uh, it's on a smaller
scale depreciation, but, uh, you know,as realtors, we pay a lot of taxes.
Um, when I bought that, that $3million property, I realized that I
saved about, uh, about 350 to $400,000in taxes that year, meaning money
(22:45):
that I would've paid the governmentI I didn't pay, which was huge.
If, if you think aboutit, think about this.
If you saved $300,000 in taxes thatyou would've had to pay, that's like
you earning another 800,000 in income.
Because on 800,000, at 40%,you're gonna pay 320,000 in taxes.
(23:09):
Yeah.
I saved that money.
So, you know, people like, you know,we, we heard Trump, you know, when
they were going through that wholeinvestigation, you know, the American
public was in uproar that he onlypaid, you know, a few thousand dollars
in taxes and the guy's a billionaire,they're like, he's committing fraud.
Was going, no, he's takingadvantage of depreciation.
That's it.
Depreciation, it's, I, and it's, it ishard to explain, but, but basically,
(23:35):
uh, your real estate, because of thevalue, you get to depreciate it, it
turns into a tax, a, a tax shelter, atax credit every single year, and it
saves money on, on taxes in a big way.
So even if you weren't cash flowingon real estate, I would still
argue you're better off buyinga property that isn't even cash
(23:56):
flowing just to get the depreciation.
Yeah, it's, you know, you know, asrealtors you only have so many write-offs.
You know, if you're making a milliondollars a year selling real estate,
you're paying $400,000 in taxes.
I did that for a number of yearsand my wife was always, you
know, crawling down my throat.
Oh, there's gotta be a way.
There's gotta be, I can't believe thesepeople are paying this much taxes.
I. What do you want?
(24:17):
Do you know?
I used to cry to my dad.
You know, I pay for, my dad wouldtell me, okay, so, you know, in
his accent, you know, because he's,uh, he's from the old country.
Okay, mark, don't make so much money,then that's what you, that was his answer.
Alternative, stop making so much money,then you don't have to pay taxes.
I'm like, yeah, dad,that's not the answer.
So, you know, we're back to, youknow, getting off the hamster wheel.
(24:39):
You've gotta create, uh, income Realestate was really just a vehicle
for me that allowed me to go outand create some passive income.
Um, and it turned, uh, it turned outto be huge between the depreciation
that I was saving every year.
So, you know, my, my tax bracket, um,this year is the first year, I should
say for or 2023, is the first year I paidzero taxes and actually got a refund.
(25:04):
And, uh, and it's not becauseI didn't make money, right.
Made a lot of money.
Lot of money.
Yeah, a lot of money.
Um, multiple, uh, seven figure, uh, incomeand paid nothing and actually got money
back, um, in the tunes of, I think itwas a little over $300,000 I got back.
(25:25):
That's, uh, that was crazy.
Um, but my tax bracket in general, eventhe years before that, I was paying,
uh, you know, I don't know, anywherefrom five to 15% overall of my taxes
just because of all the depreciation.
Um, so this says, I, I didn'tbuild wealth, you know,
massive wealth selling houses.
(25:46):
Um, had I not bought, bought real estate,even if I made a million dollars a year,
um, you know, my lifestyle is probably,uh, you know, four or $500,000 a year.
Uh, there's no way, you know,in a million dollars a year.
Keep in mind, after you pay taxes, ifyou're not buying real estate, you're
paying taxes is really 600,000 take home.
So you go from a million dollars a yearto 600,000 a year just like that, because.
(26:12):
Otherwise, I've been down this path too.
I mean, everything you canimagine, I've been through.
I've been down the years where Ididn't save my tax money, and now
not only do I owe the government,you know, 400,000, I owe them 800,000
because the government says, okay,you didn't pay your taxes last year.
It's kinda like taxes,like property taxes.
You didn't pay your tax last year.
Now we're worried about you.
(26:32):
So now we want you to pay quarterlyand we want you to pay double.
We want you to pay last year, andwe want you to prepay this year.
So imagine that now you go fromowing 400,000 to I owe 800,000.
Imagine that.
Yeah.
That choked the hell outta me.
I know a lot of realtorsare in that position.
They don't pay last year, so nowthey owe last year's and this year's.
(26:52):
Mm-hmm.
So now that's coming out of everychat and you get choked real fast.
Um, that happened to me, so I lived there.
Um, so it, it is just impossible to createthe wealth that I know everybody wants.
While you're on that hamster wheel andyou think that you just need to sell more
homes in order to make more money, youdon't need to sell more homes, you need
(27:14):
to buy more real estate so you can payless taxes and create passive income.
That's it.
Absolutely.
No, I mean it, and that's whatyou have to use the vehicle for.
Right?
Right.
And this is what I was, you know,alluding to at the, at the beginning
of the call and what Al and I wewere talking about, I was like.
When you have the, your real estatebusiness and it does grow and, and you
(27:39):
know, you are going down and, and having,you know, a team or, or some, some type
of team with leverage or a mega team orwhatever it is, you have to look at that
as, you're not going to, like you said,build any type of wealth with the team,
but what you want to use and leverage yourteam for is to find you the opportunities
that would not be as easily available.
(28:03):
If you didn't have the team, and not only,not only, you know, with real estate,
but it also unlocks other opportunities.
There's other business ventures thatyou can, you know, you can tap into.
You know, there's, you know, if you,if you have, you know the right people,
I mean, you can own GC companies,you can own trade companies, you can
own these other things because you'redoing the amount of, uh, of production.
(28:25):
And what you control, and this is whatI always tell, tell people, is that
you, you control customer acquisition.
You're finding opportunities that nobodyelse can find, and you're finding things
that before, you know, by the timethey hit the market, it's already done.
Right.
It's been passed over.
Nobody even wants it from an investmentstandpoint for the most part.
You're finding them right at the core.
(28:45):
And, and that's to me is the reasonwhy and, and how you should use and
look and think about your real estatebusiness moving into the future.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
That's, uh, well.
So Mark, you know, I know you and Kurthave been working on, um, a project
excited about getting into, into the newyear, really focused around helping real
(29:09):
estate agents because, like I said, andyou know, asked you a little bit earlier.
It all sounds good, right?
But how do I actually do it?
Like what's, what's the,like, what's the next step?
What do, what do I, whatdo I, how do I do this?
Like what's the how to?
I hear you, mark.
I'm bought in, like I wanna do this, butI. Man, how do I start, how do I do this?
(29:31):
And I think that's, um, you know,kind of where the direction that,
that you and Kurt are going with.
And I think it's, I think it's amazing.
But I would love to hear from you,you know, like where do you start?
Like what?
Like blank slate.
I get it.
What do I do next?
Yeah.
Hopefully we're gonna savepeople, uh, a lot of time.
(29:52):
Uh, we're going to, I think next yearand I. We're going to next year, uh,
first quarter of next year, we're goingto release a course, um, uh, an investor
mastermind, uh, where we're gonna walkpeople through, um, from start to finish.
I mean, it took me 25 years to.
(30:12):
To learn what I'm gonna teach peoplein, uh, in literally months, we're
gonna show them how to analyzea deal, where to find a deal.
Um, you know, a lot of the stuffthat I buy now is, is off market.
You know, where do youget off market deals?
Deals that don't even hit the market.
Yeah.
Um, how do you analyze adeal once you find a deal?
I feel like there's this, there'sthis need out there, um, for, uh,
(30:35):
a group of like-minded individuals.
People who want to get in the investinggame, don't know where to start.
Don't know if they, if they find aproperty that they think is great,
who do they bounce that off of?
Who do they run that by?
There's nobody.
Um, you know, like I said, I'mfortunate enough that I, that I have
a group of people that, you know,we can bounce ideas off each other.
(30:56):
Um, we run deals by each other toget, you know, a second opinion.
Um, even till today, I mean,I've been doing this 25 years.
When I get an opportunity, Istill run it by, you know, the
group of guys that, that, uh.
That we mastermind togetherwith about, uh, about investing.
I still run deals by them to gettheir opinion, to see what they're
seeing that maybe I didn't see.
(31:16):
Um, because you know, when, when,when you buy an investment, you
are always wondering, you know,why, why is that person selling?
He's an investor.
Why is he offloading?
It doesn't mean necessarily there'ssomething wrong with the property.
You know?
Um, I've sold some propertiesbecause they were too small, right?
They were great at one time for me, butnow they're too small in my portfolio.
They're more of a headache for me.
(31:37):
You know, one person's trashis another person's treasure.
Doesn't mean that there'ssomething wrong with that property.
We have to be able to analyze,um, you know, is this something
that I want to get into?
Um, you know, with the amountof properties I have, I have
some that, you know, just didn'tperform the way that I thought.
I look back and think I probablyshould not have bought that property.
So hopefully we can, you know, savepeople from buying the wrong property.
(31:59):
'cause the wrong property couldhurt, especially if you buy it
early in your career and youdon't have, you know, backup.
Um, we're gonna show peoplehow to analyze deals.
How do you figure out, you know, cap rate?
How do you, how do you, uh, howdo you figure out, you know,
your, your net operating income?
Uh, how do you analyze, uh,a profit and loss statement?
Um, you know, where, where,where do you go for a lender?
(32:21):
How do you find, uh, how do you findlenders who are gonna finance these deals?
Um, how do you build relationshipswith the brokers who have these deals?
Because the commercial worldis, is completely different
than the residential world.
Uh, there's not, uh, sort of say,uh, an MLS where these brokers, you
know, have to put these properties.
They've got investors that they canunload these properties to at all times.
(32:44):
So.
We're gonna, we're gonna gothrough beginning to the end,
and it's gonna be ongoing.
We're always gonna be there, um,you know, for them, uh, throughout
their investment journey.
And I think there's a huge need for that.
I, I would agree wholeheartedly.
And I think, you know, one ofthe biggest things that, that
I, I know you could do for.
For the individuals that get into thiscircle and get into this program with
(33:07):
you guys, is, is changed the way theythink and, and going into every situation
with your investor hat on first, right?
If, if you have a, a, an agent, right,that is, is focused on motivated
sellers, motivated seller data,motivated seller offers, then you
know all those opportunities theyneed to be able to quickly, you know,
quickly look for themselves first.
(33:29):
Hey, is this, is this an opportunity?
Then if it's not an opportunity for me,is it an opportunity for somebody I know
before I look at bringing it to market?
I think if, if they can juststart thinking that way, they can,
they can accelerate the process.
And then I had whistle onhere maybe, um, a little over.
A little over.
It was the beginning ofLA it was the end of last.
(33:50):
So over a year ago.
Yeah.
And, um, he said, listen, man, hesaid the biggest thing that I see with
real estate agent when it comes toopportunities like this is that they
don't think that they could have anyskin in that game because they don't
have the resources to be able to do it.
He said, listen, you got the opportunity.
The money's out there.
I think if, you know, getting, justif, if somebody invests and spends
(34:13):
time with you and you can change theirmind and how to look and think that
way, it's 10 x of what the investmentwould be just to change their mindset.
Mm-hmm.
And that's why I was kind of pickingat you a little bit earlier about,
you know, your relationship tomoney and how it changed because
just that little distinction, thatslight distinction could unlock.
(34:33):
Unlocked the whole world for them.
And it was just like you sharingyour example, you, I mean, you're
high, you're high on the hog,feet are kicked back 7 million.
I'm good bro.
Right?
And then he is like, what are you doing?
And, and it's just that, it's that moment.
It's like, shit, okay.
I, I'm not thinkingabout this the right way.
And, and just what you guys are doingand what you have, and this is why I
(34:54):
said, you know, your presentation was soimportant for anybody out there because.
The reality is you can't builda real estate business that
that's worth anything to sell.
Like, I mean, you know, all the accoladesthat we had out of Lotton, Oklahoma
top in the world for Coldwell Banker.
Yeah.
You would laugh if I told you,like I'm embarrassed to tell
you what we sold that for.
(35:15):
You would laugh at us and um, I'm shocked.
Well, you know, there's, there's,there's a great line in the hard
thing about hard things with, uh, BenHorowitz book and, um, if you remember
the line in there, um, basicallytelling him you always have a move.
(35:37):
I. Yeah.
And, uh, literally no money in thebank account and payroll's due.
We had to make a move.
Yeah.
And so, um, it's either shut thedoor or make a move and you always
have a move unless you give up.
And, and so no, for us, you know, it wasthe right progression for Stacey Reedy.
It was, you know, they, they had rodethrough us through everything and,
(35:59):
and you know, we really turned that.
That brokerage into the test.
The test bunny, which was NAE, becameNAEA that ultimately became, um,
everything, you know, that, that itwas, that they parlayed into exp.
So it was the right move for them.
It was taking care of the rightpeople, doing the right thing for them.
I. But my point is up.
John, though, one of the thingsin that, like the market was kind
(36:21):
of going surprising that you couldsell it because it was becoming
a burden and becoming for you.
So you had to unload a dog.
And I think what people don't understand,because I had people that have talked
to me for years, which is why whenwe started talking about this, the.
Idea of creating a communityand doing this was kind of
like, we really need to do this.
There's just too many people that don'thave the answers to these questions.
(36:44):
And I was one of them, right?
I had the, I had theaccess to Mark, right?
I work with him every day.
So I was constantly, he's like,you know, are you doing this right?
And, and he started coming tome going, all right, come here.
I, I heard you, right?
Because that's what he needed,somebody to there, but he
was doing it hustling in the.
Thought he had it, but there's alwaysthese properties that have to go and he's
(37:06):
Kurt, you gotta get rid of this, and we'rebuying another property doing this one.
Absolutely not.
And then I said, why I, I'mlooking at it like this, right?
'cause I want it to be good.
So I'm looking at the glass half fullpart, and he's like, that's great.
However, this is your problem.
It's going to cost you money.
You're gonna lose on this.
So it was a really great lesson.
(37:28):
But again, I have this mentorto go, okay, you're wrong.
So then I've got people, and then he'slistening to me telling others, I'm like,
look, here's what you're looking for.
Here's what he's like.
That was good advice.
You gotta be looking at it this way.
So you start finding it.
But you have theseproperties that are dogs.
There is somebody to buy every property.
And, and, and I love what Mark was saying.
What you're saying is that you neverknow they could be unloading the property
(37:50):
to make a, make another move on abigger, on a bigger opportunity for 'em.
You just never know.
It's not a dog for them.
That's the thing is it's a dog for youbecause of what you're doing with it.
Somebody else can use it for adifferent purpose, different, different
reasons, and then you can turn it.
Great point.
And it's, it's really amazing.
And that's probably the best part I'velearned in my, you know, seven years doing
this with Mark that, okay, now I knowhow to do this a lot better than I did.
(38:13):
But again, you need directionand you need guides, and you need
people around you that can do it.
And when he started creating that biggerteam around him, then it was really easy.
It's like.
Bounce this off, theseguys listen to them.
Because sometimes he wanted prove apoint to me because like anybody, you
know, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
And he is like, okay them.
And then as soon as I do, they'relike, okay, boom, boom, boom.
You're like, yeah.
(38:34):
It's like anything,anything in real estate.
Well, it's the proximity rule, right?
You're too close to Mark.
And so the, you know, the thingthat I, that, that, um, just kind of
listening in, in what you said rightthere at the beginning of that was,
and it made me think of Rogan, right?
You know, Rogan.
Had to set up comedy in Austin, Texas.
(38:56):
He had to do it.
He, because he could.
Right.
It was, it was, it was one of thosethings that like if anybody was
gonna do it, he had to do it right.
And, and so I think that'skind of where you guys are at.
You, you have to do it like these agentsneed an out and building a real estate
brokerage or built real estate team isnot an out, it is not an out at all.
(39:17):
You'll just give up,you'll just quit someday.
You won't have anything of value.
And so I think you guys are at a pointin your career and in all of the things
that you've been able to do and prove andlike you're kind of obligated to do this.
And, um, I'm excited what you guysare putting together and, um, you
know, getting this message out becauseman, it's, I think it's, I think it's
absolutely critical for, for agents inthis profession to, to build something
(39:40):
to, to truly find their freedom.
Yeah, I think that one of the thingsare the keys, John, is in this
community that we're, we're creating,that we're gonna open this up for
everybody here in the next few weeks.
Um, it's gonna be really fun,but it's not for everybody.
And I think that needs to be important.
It's for the people who say, lookit, I do have a little bit of money
and I want to invest something.
(40:01):
I want to do this.
I just dunno how, or, Hey,I'm doing it at this level.
Kind of what Mark was doing.
Right.
They may be at a pretty good clip anda pretty good level compared to who
they're surrounded by, but the problemis they need to be surrounded by people
with bigger, bigger portfolios who cansay, okay, now it's time for you to take
your portfolio and turn it into this.
Mark said he had properties that wereincome, income earners that were really
(40:22):
good for him when he started, but thenthe problem was he elevated his game and
once you get to another, another level,you, these become, like you said, a drag.
So when you're dragging behind,you need to cut those ones
loose and it's hard for people.
Me, I was one of those same people andhe's been really, really instrumental
and getting these others to go,okay, look at the bigger picture.
It was no different than when I evenjoined the brokerage with Mark or where
(40:44):
we came from to do something together.
I had to learn how to leverageand that's what he, that's what
he really literally taught me.
If I said, you know, what didI learn more than anything?
It was that if I leveraged,now you can scale by scale.
Now you can.
Now you can.
Yeah.
It was really cool.
It was really cool what you said, mark.
So think about your situation.
If you had this community and youwere looking at, instead of selling
those four properties in justlike, no, mark, hang on to those.
(41:07):
And let's do it this wayand still go buy that.
Like, think about that, right?
Like if you had that community to bouncethat off of, you know, what, you know,
what that could have done for you in, in,in a different timeline and everything.
So it's just really, really cool.
And like I said, I mean,you guys have to do this.
You just, you absolutely have to.
Yeah.
We're excited about it.
(41:28):
Yeah.
Cool guys, so I, I really appreciateyou, mark, jumping in here and, um, you
know, re you know, unpacking and sharingyour story again, like I said, it was,
it was definitely, you know, inspiring.
Um, one of the best presentationsin a real estate conference
I've, I've, I've ever seen.
(41:49):
And it's so, so important.
And I think too, it's.
Sometimes you just don'tknow what you don't know.
And we had been through thisand maybe I was in just such a
reflective state thinking back overthe last, you know, two decades.
But it was, it was definitely timely.
And, and it is, uh, it's extremelytimely for, for agents in this
profession moving into the future.
So I'm excited for youguys to get this launched.
(42:10):
I know, um, we will, um, you know,reshare this, this conversation
out to, out to everybody.
And then as soon as we're,we're live with where we can.
Uh, you know, point people to, we'llget that, we'll get the promotion out to
everybody that we possibly can becauseI mean, I'm, I'm just like, I just,
I, I just wanna shake people and like,guys, you, you, you have to do this.
(42:30):
Um, if, if you're ready, right.
Like you said, like yousaid Kurt, if you're ready.
Appreciate it.
Pleasure brother.
Thank you for having us.
Alright guys, we'll catch you next time.
Alright guys.
Thanks.
That's a wrap for today.
I hope you got somethingvaluable from this episode.
If you did, hit follow andvisit John kitchens.coach for
(42:51):
more ways we can work together.
See you on the next episode.
Seven figure success starts whenyou start thinking like a CEO.
Welcome to the JohnKitchens Coach podcast.
Experience is your host John Kitchens.
Get ready to think bigger andtransform your business into
a path to lasting freedom.
What is, uh, honey Imagination man.
Thank you guys.
(00:21):
Uh, tuning into another episodeof Export Mentors Live, and
we're in for a super treat today.
You know, I, um.
One of the best presentations that I'veever sat in when it comes into, you
know, from, from the real estate space.
I, um, I remember sitting in there, youguys put on a world class event, Kurt,
(00:41):
you know, you took it to a whole notherlevel and, and really taking the whole
build, build event and, and, um, you know,location, just the overall experience.
The, the event was, was world class.
I've really fallen into this belief overthe last, you know, 18, 24 months that
the only reason that you should have anytype of real estate, you know, business.
(01:04):
And utilizing this business as avehicle to be in pursuit of freedom
to unlock opportunities and not onlyopportunities in, um, in the real estate
space, but also in in other businesses.
And so, you know, sitting therelistening to you, mark, kind of go
through your presentation and stay sick.
And I were sitting there right besideeach other and I started elbowing 'em
(01:26):
every little nugget you were dropping.
And, um, I hadn't reallyshared this belief with him
or, or very much anybody else.
And he is like, yes, yes.
And, and he's like, you know,we, we all think back, right?
You look back over, um, you know,the course of time it's right.
It's always easier to connect the dots.
Looking back and, you know, I 20 yearswith kinder, um, this, this past October,
(01:47):
and, you know, thinking as a coach, whatwould I do to go back and coach us to
27-year-old knuckleheads differently?
And I, I would've coached us on in pursuitof freedom instead of pursuit of status.
And, you know, at that time, you know,I mean, mark, we, you know, we're, we're
running and growing and building and.
It's like, man, we wanna be number one.
(02:08):
We wanna have the biggest market share.
We want all of these accolades.
You know, we're fightingPam and Barry every day.
We wanna beat them, we wannastomp on 'em, we wanna beat 'em.
But what I would've, what I would'vecoached us a little bit differently
on have been like, boys, listen, youneed to be utilizing this business
to unlock opportunities and build,build additional revenue streams that
you're not trading time for dollars.
Because guess what, you guys will close50 deals this month, but guess what?
(02:30):
You get to start allover again next month.
And, and you know, when you were walkingthrough your, your presentation, not
only do, did, did you change the mindsetof, you know, we hear residential real
estate, single family homes, but the, theprogression that you talked about in, in,
in multifamily, then into the commercialand, and everything that you've done to
(02:52):
be able to go from seven to a hundred.
It, it's, it's inspiring and it's,it's so possible to, to be able to
just step back and like, okay, I'mgonna use this to help me go get that.
And you just articulated, laid it out.
Well, I'm, I'm just super excited tohave you on to kind of walk through
that and, and, and really share.
(03:13):
With the rest of the Honey Badger Nation,you know, that that was not able to be
present in, in, in Detroit with you guys.
But you know, mark, well done.
It was one of the best presentations fromstage that I've seen in a long, long time.
I. Thank you, John.
I appreciate it.
Um, you know, when I think back at mycareer, gosh, it's been, uh, almost 25
years now, um, you know, I was, uh, Ilook back and, you know, obviously, uh,
(03:36):
luck has a lot to play with everything.
Uh, you know, timing, you know, timinghas a lot to do with whether you're
successful, I think in real estate or not.
You know, the stars really have to align.
Um, you have to be able to float for awhile as you're building this business.
You know, you're a new entrepreneur.
Um, and, uh, there's a, there's a lotof weight on your, on your shoulders.
Um, you know, I got into the industry.
(03:57):
Um, I didn't know anything about anything.
I got into it, quite frankly,'cause I didn't have any money.
My parents didn't have any money.
I didn't know what to do with my life.
And, uh, you know, getting into realestate, it was real estate or mortgages.
They're both free to, basically toget into, you take a, a week, two week
long course and, and you're a realtor.
So I got in with that mindsetthat, um, you know, the
barrier of entry was nothing.
(04:18):
Right.
Um.
Real estate took off forme, you know, right away.
I mean, the first year I made 70 grand.
But we're talking about, keep in mind, 25years ago, 70 grand was a lot of money.
You know, I never mademore than 25 grand a year.
Um, so, you know, and then from70 grand I made a hundred grand.
So I seen early success in real estate.
(04:40):
However, in the back of my mind, I alwaysfelt like this is too good to be true,
and I don't know how I'm gonna be ableto do this again, let alone do more.
So that was a mindset I always had, andthat's what got me into, into investing.
Um, I remember, uh, you know, my,uh, my, I think it was my second
or third year into real estate.
(05:00):
Um, I realized I gotta startbuilding some passive income.
And the only way I knew how to buildpassive income was to buy real estate.
But then again, I had,uh, I had a money problem.
I didn't have money, so I neededto borrow money, um, from somebody.
My aunts, uh, and one of my uncleseach chipped in 18,000 each.
(05:22):
I remember, um, they were kind enough togive me 36,000, which allowed me to buy my
first house, uh, my first rental property.
Um, it was 180,000.
I put 20% down.
Mortgage rates at the time were 8%.
Um, so the mortgage was $1,400 amonth and my rent was $1,400 a month.
(05:43):
There was like no cash flow, right?
Did it really even make sense?
Probably not.
Looking back.
Um.
You know, I did it in the intentionof, hey, one day I'm gonna pay this
off and then I'm gonna be making,you know, after my tax insurance, I'm
gonna make a thousand dollars a month.
That was the mindset I had, you know,but I was building equity and uh, you
know, the property was going up in value.
(06:05):
Um, but I just knew I had to createsome other source of income because I
don't know that I'm gonna be able todo what I did last year in real estate.
I always felt like thisis too good to be true.
This is crazy.
Um, you know, the money I was making.
So that's what got me into real estate.
Um, that's what got me into investing.
Um, and then I remember, you know,after I had the one property, it starts
to become addicting because, you know,you're seeing this money start to come in.
(06:29):
I wasn't cash flowing, but Iwas paying down The mortgage
property values were going up.
And so a year later, um,I bought another property.
It was 115,000.
It was in a city called RoyalOak, Michigan, which was,
uh, you know, a growing city.
Um.
And this one, you know, it was 115,000.
So I needed, you know, 22 grand.
I saved up 22 grand,you know, a year later.
(06:51):
And on, on this one I was cashflowing, 300 bucks a month.
So that was pretty exciting to me.
You know, three month in passiveincome, you know, at the time.
I mean, I look backnow and think, awesome.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know whatI was thinking at the time.
Um, then five years goes by and that'swhen the light bulb went off that.
That this was, this was something huge.
(07:13):
This was gonna be huge.
'cause five years goes by thosevalues of those houses that I bought.
Um, you know, at that time, five yearslater, I accumulated five houses.
Uh, within five years I was takingeverything I was making, I was saving it.
And I was buying anotherhouse, buying another house.
I accumulated five houses, five years.
(07:35):
Each one had about $20,000 in equitybecause they were going up in value,
you know, two, three, 4% a year.
So in five years I pulled outa hundred thousand dollars.
And for me, that was a lot of money.
Um, mind you, the, the real,uh, cool part is that a hundred
thousand is tax free because you'repulling out equity in the property.
(07:57):
So I pulled out ahundred thousand dollars.
I thought I was rich at the time.
Um, but it was all tax freeand it was rinse and repeat.
I bought another five houseswith that 200 thou, or with
that a hundred thousand dollars.
So now I'm sitting on 10 homes fiveyears later, you know, so now we're
(08:18):
talking about, you know, 10 years.
I do that same event again.
And I'm pulling out $200,000.
Now mind you, these houses are going up invalue, um, cash flowing, two, three, $400
from each one, and life's looking great.
Then 2008 rolls around the market crashes.
(08:39):
When I say crash, I mean it crasheslike values go, you know, 50%.
Some are 70, 80% like values just plummet.
Were y'all the worst hit mark?
Yeah.
Worst hit ever.
Yeah.
Worst hit ever.
Um, little did I know though.
It was a blessing in disguise.
Um, ended up being the best thing ever.
And here I am, uh, you know,what are we, 15, 16 years later?
(09:03):
And I pray for this same thing tohappen again, but I don't know that,
I don't know if that's gonna happen.
Yeah, I don't, I. Um, you know, peoplegot way too much equity, uh, today,
but in oh eight nobody had equity.
You know, there's a whole appraisal kindof scam thing going on where people were
just, you know, buying homes, inflatingappraisals, and, you know, we had that
(09:25):
financial crisis that, again, it, it'scrazy, but anybody that has money now
and now that you see what happenedin oh eight com and where we are now.
If you have money, you should, you shouldbe very excited about a market crash if we
were to ever get that opportunity again.
I don't know if we will, maybe sometimein our lifetime history has a way of
repeating itself, so yes, it does.
(09:45):
I have a feeling that one daywe'll see it, it'll probably
be when we're not expecting it.
Um, that's usually when, you know,the biggest opportunities arise.
But, um, every disaster, you know, inmy life, what I realize now is anytime
there's a disaster in the world,it's a huge opportunity for somebody.
Maybe not for that person, but forsomebody it's a huge opportunity.
(10:08):
It's a huge opportunity.
So Mark, I wanna pause right there'cause I want you to touch on this,
'cause this is, you know, you know,the whole mindset and the, and
the mental aspect around things.
You know, one thing I wantedto ask you, you know, too.
You know, the relationship with moneyand the, the, you know, struggle that
some people have and some people don't.
And you know, for you, you know,what was that relationship?
(10:30):
Was it learned?
Was there a mentor that kind of showedyou the way and how to, you know, how
to use, how to use money Because youknow, we're sitting here, we're talking
about this and everybody knows, yeahman, that's great, but they just don't
have the action or they don't have, um.
Their, their scarcity mindsetwhen it comes to money versus
abundance mindset with it andunderstand how money really works.
(10:51):
Can you kind of, you know, for you, just,just kind of real quick, what was that
process, that learning process for youand, and what money meant to you before
getting to this point in your life?
I, I grew up with, uh, you know, myparents always had money problems.
Um, you know, I, I, we never had money.
So, um, it was always thatscarcity mindset protected.
(11:13):
I grew up, you know, with themindset, save, save, save, you
know, uh, you know, my dad wasalways, you know, very conservative.
Save your money for a rainy day.
Um, you know, don't get a lot of, andwe're gonna talk about this, but you know,
you don't wanna over-leverage yourself.
You don't want have a lot of loans,pay the loans off as soon as possible.
That's what I grew up with.
Um, and that was my mindset.
(11:34):
You know, when I startedbuying these houses, I was, you
know, trying to pay them down.
It was just complete oppositemindset that you should have.
But I didn't know any better.
Um, but like I said, I, I just feltlike the industry in general, you
know, was just too good to be true.
So I had to create some otherincome source was my goal.
I didn't really know what I wasdoing or what I was creating.
All I knew was I needed tocreate something else in case.
(11:56):
I don't sell any more homes next year.
I always had this mindset like, I'mnot gonna be able to do this again.
This is crazy.
You know, I, I just made ahundred grand, I made 150 grand,
I made 200 grand and 300 grand.
It was like, this isnever gonna happen again.
You know?
I mean, but that's the mindset I had.
Um, so like I said, that that crashhappens in oh eight and little did I
(12:16):
know, I accumulated between 2008 and 2013.
Or 2008.
2012. 43 houses.
Mm.
43 houses.
But mind you, these houses thatwere at one time, okay, $200,000
(12:37):
are now going for 30, 40, $50,000.
So I'm going all in.
I mean, these houses that Ipaid, you know, 150 to $200,000
are on sale now for $50,000.
Yeah.
60, $70,000. So I'm trying to buyeverything I can during the that.
But you know, I only have so much money.
(12:58):
I can only get so many mortgages.
You know, you're onlyallowed 10 mortgages.
So I'm buying some cash, I'mpulling mortgages on some,
I'm refinancing what I have.
I'm just going all in because I didn'treally care about the value of the house.
People always say, um, when I compare itto the stock market, you know, and I say,
you know, stocks go up and down and youget no residual income from the stocks.
(13:19):
Um, people try to compare that toreal estate and they say, well,
you know, the houses could godown in value just like a stock.
Yeah.
But when you're in the rental game,you don't care about the value.
Right.
You still get the same rent, meaningrent doesn't go down because the
price of the house got cut in half.
The two don't go hand in hand.
Yeah, so my values did go down onmy houses, you know, 50% the ones
(13:39):
that I bought, but my rent didn't.
In fact, my rent went up becausepeople couldn't buy homes at the
time, so they were renting, so peoplewere lined up to buy the property.
More demand rental properties that I had.
Yeah, so the value of theproperty, it didn't matter.
That was the eye-opener in 2008,was these values have went down,
but rent's the same, if not up.
This is foolproof, meaning I don't carewhat happens to the value of these homes.
(14:04):
If they go up, great.
But for my game, which wascashflow, it didn't matter.
So I accumulate in in 2008, 2012, 43houses, and again, at this point I
still don't really know what I'm doing.
Okay.
You know, I, I said, uh, you know,save your money for a rainy day.
That's the mentality that I grew up.
(14:25):
However, it's completely,you know, the wrong mindset.
Every dollar.
Like now, today's world, youknow, I got, I got money sitting
around and I'm calling brokers.
I mean, all I'm trying to do isput that money to work, you know?
Um, you know, cash is trash.
You've heard that saying it.
It's so true, man.
Just, it's just sitting around doingabsolutely nothing except losing money.
(14:45):
I mean, the value of thedollar just keeps going down.
So if your money is justsitting in the bank.
Um, you, you're actually losing money.
In fact, during this, uh, during thelast four or five years, we learned, uh,
you know, during one of the biggest ininflationary periods in all time history,
what I learned was my wealth quadrupled.
(15:05):
While people who have cash sitting inthe bank, they actually lost money.
Because what happens is think aboutthe, the, the two different scenarios.
You've got $5 million sitting in the bank.
Everything that you normally buy justdoubled or tripled in value, which means
if you needed 300,000 a year to live,it now costs you 600,000 a year to live,
(15:28):
and you've got this money that's sittingin the bank that you're now dipping
more into than you ever had before.
'cause things cost twice asmuch versus the position I'm in.
All of my real estate thatI have, which is the most
expensive product in the world.
As inflation kept going up thelast four or five years, my real
estate also doubled and tripled.
(15:50):
And what happened to houses?
Houses went up, you know,a hundred, 200, 300%.
So during big inflationary periods,real estate gurus are sitting
back just licking their chops.
They're loving this.
I mean, they want inflationto just go through the roof.
It's, it's great because the productsthat they're holding is going up.
You know, if you're holding a$300,000 product and it went up 20%.
(16:12):
You're sitting pretty compared to maybeyou have to pay 30% more for an apple,
you know, or for a, a steak knife.
Okay.
Big deal.
You're, you're, the biggest product youhave has gone up 30% on a $200,000 asset.
So imagine the people who are sitting onmillions of dollars worth of that asset.
It's huge.
(16:33):
Yeah.
Right here, and, and I think thisis what you're talking about is,
is from a mindset perspective in.
Where, where was the shift for you?
Right?
You grew up with the, you know,save all your money for a rainy
day and, and typically, um.
I, I typically, you know, peoplethat, you know, wrestle with this
and the relationship with money,um, you know, Morgan Household's
(16:53):
book, um, is, is really good, right?
And, and he talks about that.
He said, man, he said, listen, you,first you gotta understand is that
your relationship with money can betied directly to when you were born.
And, you know, were you born in, youknow, in a recession or not, right?
And I was always joke about my dad,you know, my dad would drive across
(17:14):
town to save 4 cents a gallon of gas.
And, and whereas, you know, Inever cared about it, right?
He says, I need need gas.
I need gas.
I don't even look at it.
I just fill up and keep going.
But that could all directly be tied back.
You know, to that.
And so, you know, you, your, your parentsare pouring into you Save your money.
Save your money.
Where was the mental shift?
(17:35):
Like what was that for you?
The mental shift, uh, came yearslater when I learned that, you
know, good debt is your friend.
Um, I was, uh, lucky enough to besurrounded by some, some real estate
mentors who, who taught me the way andtook my portfolio from, uh, from where I
was, uh, where I was at, and we doubledand quadrupled it, uh, within two,
(17:58):
three years only because, like I said,I built this, but I honestly didn't
know what I was building at the time.
I accumulated the 43 homes.
Um, I was on vacation with a buddyof mine who's been in the real
estate game for a lot longer than me.
I remember like yesterday, we were sittingaround at the pool and, um, you know,
his circle is all real estate gurus.
(18:18):
Mine wasn't at the time.
Um, so the light bulb went off?
Mm-hmm.
What, what what happened was he starteddigging into, you know, what do you got?
What do you own?
I told him about the 43 houses I hadthat at the time, um, were all paid off.
Um, what I was doing was taking the cashflow and, and paying down the mortgages.
Everything I was making, I wastrying to pay down the mortgages
(18:40):
like my dad taught me, right?
Yeah.
You know, you don't want a lot of debt.
You want to be safe.
Um, you don't pay everything off.
You never know what happens.
Um, so I was trying to payeverything off as soon as possible.
I got him paid off.
I thought I was king of the hill.
I told my buddy, um, youknow, his name was Dwayne.
I told Dwayne, I said.
Man, I, I'm good, bro.
I don't need to do anything else.
(19:00):
I'm, I'm pretty much set for life.
I think I got, you know, 43 houses.
They're all paid off.
I'm making like, you know,clear like 35, 40 grand a month.
He said, he goes, what?
They're sitting on 43 houses.
He goes, what are those houses worth?
I said, man, they gotta be worthlike, I don't know, at least.
Probably six, 7 million I would think.
(19:23):
You know?
He's like, so you're sitting, hegoes, lemme get this straight.
You're sitting on six, $7million of equity and you're not
doing anything with that money.
I said, what do you mean?
He said, mark, if you took thatsix, 7 million and came into my
world where I take my money and Ileverage it with the bank's money.
(19:44):
Six, 7 million.
You could buy anything you wantin the world with 20 to 25% down.
Meaning you could take that six,seven, 8 million and go buy 30, $40
million worth of real estate tomorrow.
You could either refinance, takethat money out, or you could
sell those properties and 1031 them so you don't pay taxes.
(20:06):
But you could literally take thatsix, $7 million portfolio and turn
it into a 30, $40 million portfolio.
Yeah.
It was at that time thatmy life basically changed.
I, I, I was on a mission at that pointto take that money, take that equity,
and use the bank's money, use someoneelse's money, uh, and then someone
(20:28):
would say, oh, that's really risky.
No.
What's really risky is sitting withone house or two houses that's really
risky because you lose a tenant andnow you're paying outta your pocket.
That's right.
When you have, you know, 30, 40, 50properties, that's actually a lot less
riskier than the guy who's sitting with,you know, the one or two properties.
(20:50):
You, you're basically, you,you're very vulnerable, sitting
with a lot less than, a lot more.
So what I did was I sold four houses.
I, 10 31 them, and bought a 48 unitcomplex, uh, multi-family complex
for $3 million, you know, 600,000.
I sold the four houses at 600,000.
(21:10):
Um, which I, I, I kind ofregret selling those houses.
I probably should have refinancedlooking back because those four houses
for 600,000 are now worth 1.2 million.
That's the beauty, and that's a wholenother subject, um, that we'll get into.
You know, the, you know, shouldyou, uh, should you buy multifamily?
Should you buy single family homes?
There's a, there's abig debate between that.
(21:32):
Um.
That's a whole nother subject.
You know which one is better, but Itook the four houses, I sold those.
I bought a 48 unitcomplex worth 3 million.
So I took my 600,000 and boughtsomething worth 3 million.
Now how long would it take beforethose four houses are worth 3 million?
Uh, maybe a long time, right?
Yeah.
That 3 million is probably gonna be,you know, four or five, 6 million.
(21:56):
It's gonna leverage and it'sgonna grow a lot faster than
sitting on those four houses.
So I took those residentialhouses, um, that I just showed you.
And, uh, this is, uh, this is a picture ofa couple of the complexes that I bought.
You know, the 48 units, um, one's 48.
The one on the right is, uh, a 56 unit.
Um, but, uh, I, I leveraged the money.
(22:18):
I started to learn touse other people's money.
Um, then I learned aboutdepreciation after I bought my.
My first one, you know, when you'rebuying houses, uh, it's on a smaller
scale depreciation, but, uh, you know,as realtors, we pay a lot of taxes.
Um, when I bought that, that $3million property, I realized that I
saved about, uh, about 350 to $400,000in taxes that year, meaning money
(22:45):
that I would've paid the governmentI I didn't pay, which was huge.
If, if you think aboutit, think about this.
If you saved $300,000 in taxes thatyou would've had to pay, that's like
you earning another 800,000 in income.
Because on 800,000, at 40%,you're gonna pay 320,000 in taxes.
(23:09):
Yeah.
I saved that money.
So, you know, people like, you know,we, we heard Trump, you know, when
they were going through that wholeinvestigation, you know, the American
public was in uproar that he onlypaid, you know, a few thousand dollars
in taxes and the guy's a billionaire,they're like, he's committing fraud.
Was going, no, he's takingadvantage of depreciation.
That's it.
Depreciation, it's, I, and it's, it ishard to explain, but, but basically,
(23:35):
uh, your real estate, because of thevalue, you get to depreciate it, it
turns into a tax, a, a tax shelter, atax credit every single year, and it
saves money on, on taxes in a big way.
So even if you weren't cash flowingon real estate, I would still
argue you're better off buyinga property that isn't even cash
(23:56):
flowing just to get the depreciation.
Yeah, it's, you know, you know, asrealtors you only have so many write-offs.
You know, if you're making a milliondollars a year selling real estate,
you're paying $400,000 in taxes.
I did that for a number of yearsand my wife was always, you
know, crawling down my throat.
Oh, there's gotta be a way.
There's gotta be, I can't believe thesepeople are paying this much taxes.
I. What do you want?
(24:17):
Do you know?
I used to cry to my dad.
You know, I pay for, my dad wouldtell me, okay, so, you know, in
his accent, you know, because he's,uh, he's from the old country.
Okay, mark, don't make so much money,then that's what you, that was his answer.
Alternative, stop making so much money,then you don't have to pay taxes.
I'm like, yeah, dad,that's not the answer.
So, you know, we're back to, youknow, getting off the hamster wheel.
(24:39):
You've gotta create, uh, income Realestate was really just a vehicle
for me that allowed me to go outand create some passive income.
Um, and it turned, uh, it turned outto be huge between the depreciation
that I was saving every year.
So, you know, my, my tax bracket, um,this year is the first year, I should
say for or 2023, is the first year I paidzero taxes and actually got a refund.
(25:04):
And, uh, and it's not becauseI didn't make money, right.
Made a lot of money.
Lot of money.
Yeah, a lot of money.
Um, multiple, uh, seven figure, uh, incomeand paid nothing and actually got money
back, um, in the tunes of, I think itwas a little over $300,000 I got back.
(25:25):
That's, uh, that was crazy.
Um, but my tax bracket in general, eventhe years before that, I was paying,
uh, you know, I don't know, anywherefrom five to 15% overall of my taxes
just because of all the depreciation.
Um, so this says, I, I didn'tbuild wealth, you know,
massive wealth selling houses.
(25:46):
Um, had I not bought, bought real estate,even if I made a million dollars a year,
um, you know, my lifestyle is probably,uh, you know, four or $500,000 a year.
Uh, there's no way, you know,in a million dollars a year.
Keep in mind, after you pay taxes, ifyou're not buying real estate, you're
paying taxes is really 600,000 take home.
So you go from a million dollars a yearto 600,000 a year just like that, because.
(26:12):
Otherwise, I've been down this path too.
I mean, everything you canimagine, I've been through.
I've been down the years where Ididn't save my tax money, and now
not only do I owe the government,you know, 400,000, I owe them 800,000
because the government says, okay,you didn't pay your taxes last year.
It's kinda like taxes,like property taxes.
You didn't pay your tax last year.
Now we're worried about you.
(26:32):
So now we want you to pay quarterlyand we want you to pay double.
We want you to pay last year, andwe want you to prepay this year.
So imagine that now you go fromowing 400,000 to I owe 800,000.
Imagine that.
Yeah.
That choked the hell outta me.
I know a lot of realtorsare in that position.
They don't pay last year, so nowthey owe last year's and this year's.
(26:52):
Mm-hmm.
So now that's coming out of everychat and you get choked real fast.
Um, that happened to me, so I lived there.
Um, so it, it is just impossible to createthe wealth that I know everybody wants.
While you're on that hamster wheel andyou think that you just need to sell more
homes in order to make more money, youdon't need to sell more homes, you need
(27:14):
to buy more real estate so you can payless taxes and create passive income.
That's it.
Absolutely.
No, I mean it, and that's whatyou have to use the vehicle for.
Right?
Right.
And this is what I was, you know,alluding to at the, at the beginning
of the call and what Al and I wewere talking about, I was like.
When you have the, your real estatebusiness and it does grow and, and you
(27:39):
know, you are going down and, and having,you know, a team or, or some, some type
of team with leverage or a mega team orwhatever it is, you have to look at that
as, you're not going to, like you said,build any type of wealth with the team,
but what you want to use and leverage yourteam for is to find you the opportunities
that would not be as easily available.
(28:03):
If you didn't have the team, and not only,not only, you know, with real estate,
but it also unlocks other opportunities.
There's other business ventures thatyou can, you know, you can tap into.
You know, there's, you know, if you,if you have, you know the right people,
I mean, you can own GC companies,you can own trade companies, you can
own these other things because you'redoing the amount of, uh, of production.
(28:25):
And what you control, and this is whatI always tell, tell people, is that
you, you control customer acquisition.
You're finding opportunities that nobodyelse can find, and you're finding things
that before, you know, by the timethey hit the market, it's already done.
Right.
It's been passed over.
Nobody even wants it from an investmentstandpoint for the most part.
You're finding them right at the core.
(28:45):
And, and that's to me is the reasonwhy and, and how you should use and
look and think about your real estatebusiness moving into the future.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
That's, uh, well.
So Mark, you know, I know you and Kurthave been working on, um, a project
excited about getting into, into the newyear, really focused around helping real
(29:09):
estate agents because, like I said, andyou know, asked you a little bit earlier.
It all sounds good, right?
But how do I actually do it?
Like what's, what's the,like, what's the next step?
What do, what do I, whatdo I, how do I do this?
Like what's the how to?
I hear you, mark.
I'm bought in, like I wanna do this, butI. Man, how do I start, how do I do this?
(29:31):
And I think that's, um, you know,kind of where the direction that,
that you and Kurt are going with.
And I think it's, I think it's amazing.
But I would love to hear from you,you know, like where do you start?
Like what?
Like blank slate.
I get it.
What do I do next?
Yeah.
Hopefully we're gonna savepeople, uh, a lot of time.
(29:52):
Uh, we're going to, I think next yearand I. We're going to next year, uh,
first quarter of next year, we're goingto release a course, um, uh, an investor
mastermind, uh, where we're gonna walkpeople through, um, from start to finish.
I mean, it took me 25 years to.
(30:12):
To learn what I'm gonna teach peoplein, uh, in literally months, we're
gonna show them how to analyzea deal, where to find a deal.
Um, you know, a lot of the stuffthat I buy now is, is off market.
You know, where do youget off market deals?
Deals that don't even hit the market.
Yeah.
Um, how do you analyze adeal once you find a deal?
I feel like there's this, there'sthis need out there, um, for, uh,
(30:35):
a group of like-minded individuals.
People who want to get in the investinggame, don't know where to start.
Don't know if they, if they find aproperty that they think is great,
who do they bounce that off of?
Who do they run that by?
There's nobody.
Um, you know, like I said, I'mfortunate enough that I, that I have
a group of people that, you know,we can bounce ideas off each other.
(30:56):
Um, we run deals by each other toget, you know, a second opinion.
Um, even till today, I mean,I've been doing this 25 years.
When I get an opportunity, Istill run it by, you know, the
group of guys that, that, uh.
That we mastermind togetherwith about, uh, about investing.
I still run deals by them to gettheir opinion, to see what they're
seeing that maybe I didn't see.
(31:16):
Um, because you know, when, when,when you buy an investment, you
are always wondering, you know,why, why is that person selling?
He's an investor.
Why is he offloading?
It doesn't mean necessarily there'ssomething wrong with the property.
You know?
Um, I've sold some propertiesbecause they were too small, right?
They were great at one time for me, butnow they're too small in my portfolio.
They're more of a headache for me.
(31:37):
You know, one person's trashis another person's treasure.
Doesn't mean that there'ssomething wrong with that property.
We have to be able to analyze,um, you know, is this something
that I want to get into?
Um, you know, with the amountof properties I have, I have
some that, you know, just didn'tperform the way that I thought.
I look back and think I probablyshould not have bought that property.
So hopefully we can, you know, savepeople from buying the wrong property.
(31:59):
'cause the wrong property couldhurt, especially if you buy it
early in your career and youdon't have, you know, backup.
Um, we're gonna show peoplehow to analyze deals.
How do you figure out, you know, cap rate?
How do you, how do you, uh, howdo you figure out, you know,
your, your net operating income?
Uh, how do you analyze, uh,a profit and loss statement?
Um, you know, where, where,where do you go for a lender?
(32:21):
How do you find, uh, how do you findlenders who are gonna finance these deals?
Um, how do you build relationshipswith the brokers who have these deals?
Because the commercial worldis, is completely different
than the residential world.
Uh, there's not, uh, sort of say,uh, an MLS where these brokers, you
know, have to put these properties.
They've got investors that they canunload these properties to at all times.
(32:44):
So.
We're gonna, we're gonna gothrough beginning to the end,
and it's gonna be ongoing.
We're always gonna be there, um,you know, for them, uh, throughout
their investment journey.
And I think there's a huge need for that.
I, I would agree wholeheartedly.
And I think, you know, one ofthe biggest things that, that
I, I know you could do for.
For the individuals that get into thiscircle and get into this program with
(33:07):
you guys, is, is changed the way theythink and, and going into every situation
with your investor hat on first, right?
If, if you have a, a, an agent, right,that is, is focused on motivated
sellers, motivated seller data,motivated seller offers, then you
know all those opportunities theyneed to be able to quickly, you know,
quickly look for themselves first.
(33:29):
Hey, is this, is this an opportunity?
Then if it's not an opportunity for me,is it an opportunity for somebody I know
before I look at bringing it to market?
I think if, if they can juststart thinking that way, they can,
they can accelerate the process.
And then I had whistle onhere maybe, um, a little over.
A little over.
It was the beginning ofLA it was the end of last.
(33:50):
So over a year ago.
Yeah.
And, um, he said, listen, man, hesaid the biggest thing that I see with
real estate agent when it comes toopportunities like this is that they
don't think that they could have anyskin in that game because they don't
have the resources to be able to do it.
He said, listen, you got the opportunity.
The money's out there.
I think if, you know, getting, justif, if somebody invests and spends
(34:13):
time with you and you can change theirmind and how to look and think that
way, it's 10 x of what the investmentwould be just to change their mindset.
Mm-hmm.
And that's why I was kind of pickingat you a little bit earlier about,
you know, your relationship tomoney and how it changed because
just that little distinction, thatslight distinction could unlock.
(34:33):
Unlocked the whole world for them.
And it was just like you sharingyour example, you, I mean, you're
high, you're high on the hog,feet are kicked back 7 million.
I'm good bro.
Right?
And then he is like, what are you doing?
And, and it's just that, it's that moment.
It's like, shit, okay.
I, I'm not thinkingabout this the right way.
And, and just what you guys are doingand what you have, and this is why I
(34:54):
said, you know, your presentation was soimportant for anybody out there because.
The reality is you can't builda real estate business that
that's worth anything to sell.
Like, I mean, you know, all the accoladesthat we had out of Lotton, Oklahoma
top in the world for Coldwell Banker.
Yeah.
You would laugh if I told you,like I'm embarrassed to tell
you what we sold that for.
(35:15):
You would laugh at us and um, I'm shocked.
Well, you know, there's, there's,there's a great line in the hard
thing about hard things with, uh, BenHorowitz book and, um, if you remember
the line in there, um, basicallytelling him you always have a move.
(35:37):
I. Yeah.
And, uh, literally no money in thebank account and payroll's due.
We had to make a move.
Yeah.
And so, um, it's either shut thedoor or make a move and you always
have a move unless you give up.
And, and so no, for us, you know, it wasthe right progression for Stacey Reedy.
It was, you know, they, they had rodethrough us through everything and,
(35:59):
and you know, we really turned that.
That brokerage into the test.
The test bunny, which was NAE, becameNAEA that ultimately became, um,
everything, you know, that, that itwas, that they parlayed into exp.
So it was the right move for them.
It was taking care of the rightpeople, doing the right thing for them.
I. But my point is up.
John, though, one of the thingsin that, like the market was kind
(36:21):
of going surprising that you couldsell it because it was becoming
a burden and becoming for you.
So you had to unload a dog.
And I think what people don't understand,because I had people that have talked
to me for years, which is why whenwe started talking about this, the.
Idea of creating a communityand doing this was kind of
like, we really need to do this.
There's just too many people that don'thave the answers to these questions.
(36:44):
And I was one of them, right?
I had the, I had theaccess to Mark, right?
I work with him every day.
So I was constantly, he's like,you know, are you doing this right?
And, and he started coming tome going, all right, come here.
I, I heard you, right?
Because that's what he needed,somebody to there, but he
was doing it hustling in the.
Thought he had it, but there's alwaysthese properties that have to go and he's
(37:06):
Kurt, you gotta get rid of this, and we'rebuying another property doing this one.
Absolutely not.
And then I said, why I, I'mlooking at it like this, right?
'cause I want it to be good.
So I'm looking at the glass half fullpart, and he's like, that's great.
However, this is your problem.
It's going to cost you money.
You're gonna lose on this.
So it was a really great lesson.
(37:28):
But again, I have this mentorto go, okay, you're wrong.
So then I've got people, and then he'slistening to me telling others, I'm like,
look, here's what you're looking for.
Here's what he's like.
That was good advice.
You gotta be looking at it this way.
So you start finding it.
But you have theseproperties that are dogs.
There is somebody to buy every property.
And, and, and I love what Mark was saying.
What you're saying is that you neverknow they could be unloading the property
(37:50):
to make a, make another move on abigger, on a bigger opportunity for 'em.
You just never know.
It's not a dog for them.
That's the thing is it's a dog for youbecause of what you're doing with it.
Somebody else can use it for adifferent purpose, different, different
reasons, and then you can turn it.
Great point.
And it's, it's really amazing.
And that's probably the best part I'velearned in my, you know, seven years doing
this with Mark that, okay, now I knowhow to do this a lot better than I did.
(38:13):
But again, you need directionand you need guides, and you need
people around you that can do it.
And when he started creating that biggerteam around him, then it was really easy.
It's like.
Bounce this off, theseguys listen to them.
Because sometimes he wanted prove apoint to me because like anybody, you
know, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
And he is like, okay them.
And then as soon as I do, they'relike, okay, boom, boom, boom.
You're like, yeah.
(38:34):
It's like anything,anything in real estate.
Well, it's the proximity rule, right?
You're too close to Mark.
And so the, you know, the thingthat I, that, that, um, just kind of
listening in, in what you said rightthere at the beginning of that was,
and it made me think of Rogan, right?
You know, Rogan.
Had to set up comedy in Austin, Texas.
(38:56):
He had to do it.
He, because he could.
Right.
It was, it was, it was one of thosethings that like if anybody was
gonna do it, he had to do it right.
And, and so I think that'skind of where you guys are at.
You, you have to do it like these agentsneed an out and building a real estate
brokerage or built real estate team isnot an out, it is not an out at all.
(39:17):
You'll just give up,you'll just quit someday.
You won't have anything of value.
And so I think you guys are at a pointin your career and in all of the things
that you've been able to do and prove andlike you're kind of obligated to do this.
And, um, I'm excited what you guysare putting together and, um, you
know, getting this message out becauseman, it's, I think it's, I think it's
absolutely critical for, for agents inthis profession to, to build something
(39:40):
to, to truly find their freedom.
Yeah, I think that one of the thingsare the keys, John, is in this
community that we're, we're creating,that we're gonna open this up for
everybody here in the next few weeks.
Um, it's gonna be really fun,but it's not for everybody.
And I think that needs to be important.
It's for the people who say, lookit, I do have a little bit of money
and I want to invest something.
(40:01):
I want to do this.
I just dunno how, or, Hey,I'm doing it at this level.
Kind of what Mark was doing.
Right.
They may be at a pretty good clip anda pretty good level compared to who
they're surrounded by, but the problemis they need to be surrounded by people
with bigger, bigger portfolios who cansay, okay, now it's time for you to take
your portfolio and turn it into this.
Mark said he had properties that wereincome, income earners that were really
(40:22):
good for him when he started, but thenthe problem was he elevated his game and
once you get to another, another level,you, these become, like you said, a drag.
So when you're dragging behind,you need to cut those ones
loose and it's hard for people.
Me, I was one of those same people andhe's been really, really instrumental
and getting these others to go,okay, look at the bigger picture.
It was no different than when I evenjoined the brokerage with Mark or where
(40:44):
we came from to do something together.
I had to learn how to leverageand that's what he, that's what
he really literally taught me.
If I said, you know, what didI learn more than anything?
It was that if I leveraged,now you can scale by scale.
Now you can.
Now you can.
Yeah.
It was really cool.
It was really cool what you said, mark.
So think about your situation.
If you had this community and youwere looking at, instead of selling
those four properties in justlike, no, mark, hang on to those.
(41:07):
And let's do it this wayand still go buy that.
Like, think about that, right?
Like if you had that community to bouncethat off of, you know, what, you know,
what that could have done for you in, in,in a different timeline and everything.
So it's just really, really cool.
And like I said, I mean,you guys have to do this.
You just, you absolutely have to.
Yeah.
We're excited about it.
(41:28):
Yeah.
Cool guys, so I, I really appreciateyou, mark, jumping in here and, um, you
know, re you know, unpacking and sharingyour story again, like I said, it was,
it was definitely, you know, inspiring.
Um, one of the best presentationsin a real estate conference
I've, I've, I've ever seen.
(41:49):
And it's so, so important.
And I think too, it's.
Sometimes you just don'tknow what you don't know.
And we had been through thisand maybe I was in just such a
reflective state thinking back overthe last, you know, two decades.
But it was, it was definitely timely.
And, and it is, uh, it's extremelytimely for, for agents in this
profession moving into the future.
So I'm excited for youguys to get this launched.
(42:10):
I know, um, we will, um, you know,reshare this, this conversation
out to, out to everybody.
And then as soon as we're,we're live with where we can.
Uh, you know, point people to, we'llget that, we'll get the promotion out to
everybody that we possibly can becauseI mean, I'm, I'm just like, I just,
I, I just wanna shake people and like,guys, you, you, you have to do this.
(42:30):
Um, if, if you're ready, right.
Like you said, like yousaid Kurt, if you're ready.
Appreciate it.
Pleasure brother.
Thank you for having us.
Alright guys, we'll catch you next time.
Alright guys.
Thanks.
That's a wrap for today.
I hope you got somethingvaluable from this episode.
If you did, hit follow andvisit John kitchens.coach for
(42:51):
more ways we can work together.
See you on the next episode.
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