September 29, 2025 • 54 mins
Ep 197: Your Life with Real Estate: From Mindset to Practical
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
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(00:42):
Hey there, and welcome to Money in You. I'm Michelle Perkins,
your host. My search for more fulfilling work led me
to career in business coaching, where I stumbled upon a
game changing discovery. Money issues often start with our mindset
and habits. You see, our relationship with money is the
key to overcoming those frustrating financial obstacles. As an entrepreneur, coach,
(01:04):
and problem solver, I'm passionate about helping you create a
great relationship with money, because turns out that's the foundation
for a limit free life. Each week on Money in You,
I speak with amazing guests about all things money, mindset,
practical tips, and everything in between. We're here to give
you new insights, education, and empowerment, so money can be
(01:25):
one of your favorite relationships. So join us for some
lively conversations and let's transform your financial life together. Hello, Hello,
and welcome to another great episode of the Money and
You Show. I'm Michelle Perkins, your host, and we are
talking real estate today. I know people love this topic
(01:46):
and you are going to love our guest. He is
so knowledgeable and seasoned and in all areas of real estate,
and he teaches about real estate and he has written
a terrific new book called Build Real State Wealth. And
I didn't say that quite well, build Real Estate Wealth.
There you go. His name is Joel Miller, and we're
(02:08):
really going to get into all kinds of aspects. I'm
hoping that this show will answer many of the questions
that you have, whether you're thinking about becoming a real
estate investor, or you're you know you're in the process,
or you you yourself are a seasoned real estate investor.
So without any more discussion before we bring Jolie and
(02:31):
I'm going to just tell you a little about him.
So Joel Miller has been investing in rental properties since
nineteen seventy eight and flipping houses since nineteen ninety one.
He served in numerous leadership roles in his professional and
personal circles, and he teaches real estate investing at both
the beginner and advanced levels. He's also a hard money
lender to other investors, as well as a trusted mentor
(02:54):
off their podcast, guest and benefactor to his community. For
all this, Joe arted out obtaining a BA in accounting.
So Joel, welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Thanks Michelle Man. That's a lot to live up there.
Did I really duel?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
You? Did it? And more? That was actually I think
too short and bio for you, But we'll get into
it and people will learn a lot more about how
savvy you are in this space. And I know you
and I had a call before the show, and I
was so impressed with you know how early you got
into this and how you got into it, and I'd
love for you to share a little of how you
(03:29):
became the expert that.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You are well, first of all, I guess we should
point out that although this book is in the real
estate genre, you know, build real estate wealth and enjoy
the journey of rental property investing, the book actually covers
more things than just that, which I think is how
you and I connected for your show, because the beginning
(03:52):
of the book deals a lot with mindset and getting education,
you know, before you even take your first steps. And
then once I'm done tea about how to buy and
maintain property and tenants, we get into a lot of
philosophical things in the book, like the relationship between riches
in wealth and other best practices that apply not only
(04:14):
to real estate investing, but to your life in general
or any sort of business that you're in. So, you know,
your listeners can be sure that to probably find something
that they can utilize here today, even though they don't
necessarily want to learn all about real estate. You know,
we'll talk about other stuff in that. But just to
(04:36):
answer your question, I like you.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I don't know if your listeners know this. I know this.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
You have a degree in accounting as well and have
worked as a CPA. I actually that's what my degree
is in. But there are two things that happened to
me in junior high school. Actually, that really set me
on the two main paths that I've been online. Number One,
an investor built to excuse me, four four unit apartment
buildings right along my paper route at the edge of
(05:05):
the sub division. Of course, I got all those new
tenants as customers on my paper route, you know. But
I have a distinct memory of it in about eighth grade,
kind of sitting down in my bedroom and doing the
map on what this whole rental property thing is all about,
you know, because we lived in the subdivision with our
parents and homes that they owned, single family homes, and
(05:26):
so these apartments that were kind of built at the
edge were they were the last lots that were.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Purchased in the subdivision.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And somebody put Renalds up instead. That was a little different.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Those people pay to live there and somebody makes money
on them doing that. So I remember that and I said,
you know, I want to do that someday, and I
kind of put that in my back. The other thing
that happened was one of the older kids in the
neighborhood built a pirate radio station in their basement with
the flag fall in the backyard as the antenna and
(06:00):
pirate is illegal, unlicensed radio station, you know, and very
low power, of course, but I got to hung out
there and that's when I decided I wanted to be
at disc jockey. So I did do radio production during
high school, and when I went away to college, I
made sure I went to a college and had a
really good college radio station. Actually I went to Grove
City College. I'm in Erie, Pennsylvani halfway between Cleveland and
(06:23):
Buffalo grow cities between US and Pittsburgh to the south.
Really good accounting department and really good radio station AM
and FM. And I got on the air there. It
was only freshman on and then I became program director
sophomore year and about halfway through college, then towards the
end of sophomore year, I got called to come back
and work at the big Top forty our FM, you
(06:47):
know radio station in our town. It's the weekend got
you know. So I finished college here in Erie, and
right about six weeks before I got out of college,
that weekend job went hold time. So I was finally
able to take the calls from the kids at schools
(07:07):
that one of the DJs at the station come out
and do you know sack ops or whatever you record
ops in the gym, And that changed my life. Michelle
went on and made seventy five dollars and quickly started
charging more than that and realized I could make more
money in one night that I could make all week
at the radio station on the air.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
And so I, actually, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
If I've told you this, but I ended up leaving radio.
I pioneered the mobile DJ business in this part of
the country, so I did. I was a mobile DJ
for thirty five years, five fifty seven appearance, fifty one appearances.
Excuse me, you don't want to be your own on
that h And I retired from.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
That in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But not long after I did my first mobile DJ parents.
I did buy my first rental property January of nineteen
seventy eight. And so although I also started an accounting
practice after college, I did sell that because the DJ
business was picking up and I was buying more rental property,
and so something had to give. And at that point
(08:17):
I started concentrating more on the DJ work and buying
more rental property and so on. And that's one of
the premises of my book, is that real estate does
not have to be an either or thing. You can
choose to add rental real estate to your life and
not give up something else you're passionate about. I really
(08:39):
wanted to be in our team, you know, and I
enjoyed doing.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
That for all that time. And so a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Are involved with things that they're passionate about it. It
might be a great job, or some sort of career
or some real heavy hobby involvement or something like that
that you know, they think, well, I can't invest in
real estate at time or whatever. But this is the
book that shows you how to do that so that
you can add to the income that you might have
(09:09):
from your passion that you are involved in. It's not
really providing you enough income or maybe no retirement because
certainly real estate is or retirement as well, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
And so.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
That is a good premise of the book. But it's
it's not just for beginners. It's for people that are
already established and are looking for some game changing info
that can kind of supercharge know what they've they've already
got going on. So, as I say, I embarked on
the DJ career and the rentals and in nineteen ninety one,
(09:45):
began flipping houses before flip was a real estate term,
you know, when all the heavy programs started using it
to flip does flip that or whatever, and so we
used to call it quick turn properties, you know. And
then in twenty eighteen, I became a hard money lender,
which is a private lender to other investors, and so
(10:08):
gives me a lot of pleasure to be involved in
the equation for the journeys of other investors earlier.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
On in their journey.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And then in twenty twenty started during COVID when we're
all sitting around the can't go out, you know, I
started making notes and took me four years, but I
wrote Build Real Estate Wealth, and it came out in
October twenty twenty four and it's become a bestseller. So
brings us to today doing all these podcasts and support
(10:41):
of the book.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
This is how you do a book toward those days.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, is that's true? Well, I love that and I
loved your story. I love the career that you were
passionate about and also an alternative way to generate income
that you were also interested in. But you know, I
love I think in today's world it feels like every show.
Now we got a little bit of a theme of
how much the world is changing and so you know
(11:06):
what used to work needs to possibly be tweaked a
little bit for the upcoming, you know, decades ahead. So
having you know, a second source of income I think
is more important now than it ever was. It was
always a great thing. I mean, my father in law
always told me from day one, you know, you got
(11:26):
to have real estate. He had commercial real estate, and
he had apartments and all kinds of things, and he
was a dentist and he made a fine living as
a dentist, but it was real estate that really.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, Oh I'm glad you said that this guy had
a dentist is considered a high paid profession, and yet
he feels he made his well in.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Real estate exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That's the thing is real estate has made more people
well being than any other single type of investment. You know,
lots of people, of course invent something, or they they
do fall into some really hye pain job and make
all on my head. But as far as something that
you can just plan out and do, there's nothing like
(12:10):
income producing real.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Estate, right, And I love the idea that you know
today where job security is less than it used to be.
It is very advantageous something that, you know, should you
get laid off, or should something change with your work,
you know, environment in some way that impacts you, you
have this to support you to focus on. I mean,
(12:34):
there's all kinds of reasons why it can be a
great addition to your life.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, And I'll tell you a little side story that
gives a little credence to what you're talking about there.
When I in twenty twenty when when I began writing this,
my son who is nineteen right now, he'll be twenty
in December twenty twenty five, it was becoming a parent
(12:59):
that he he had an interest in what he has
seen me doing, you know, over the years in our house.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
And so I kind of.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Wrote the book as though he might be the only
one who reads it, because it's like everything I need
him to know, because he was going to likely take
over the properties we had, you know, not just start from.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Zero, you know. And so.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Just skipping ahead, I can tell you he graduated from
high school in twenty twenty four and bought his first
round property about a week after he got out of
high school. And he's now in his sophomore year at
Penn State, although we have a branch campus of Penn
State and Yuie that has a really highly rated business
school here, and so he's in the business school. And
(13:50):
this means he can stay at home and live with
us while he's going through college and also acquire a
property here, you know, which would be hard to do
if he went to main campus obviously, but he bought
his second rental property about April of his freshman year.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Wow, and.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Is you know it's just beginning as we record this
of sophomore year.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
And this is what he wants to do. I told
him's still got to get an education in this sort.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Of stuff, you know, Michelle, I don't think it's going
to be accounting, sorry to say, but you know, if
you ask him right now, he would tell you his major, explaining, Yeah,
I'm not not as much of the numbers nerd as
you and I might be. I don't know if I
told you I've I've kept a record of everything I've
earned in Spence since.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I was eleven.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You did tell me that, which I thought was fascinating.
I mean, much nerdier than I, yem, I have not
done that.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
That's really so I'm trying to still what he needs
to know regarding record keeping to run the rental properties
and so on. But so he's already bought a nice
car for himself. I mean that I recommend you run
out and buy expensive things just because all of a
sudden you can qualify for the payment, which I'm sure
(15:07):
is a discussion for your podcast, you know, you talk
about stuff like that. But you know, with all these
properties he's got, he had enough to get a nice
car or use car, you know, twenty twenty two Mustang Turbo.
But he did it on his own using the cash
(15:32):
flow statements from the reund properties. He found the car
on his own a board dealership in Kentucky, went down
there and got it on his own, drove it home,
got the loan on his own based on his cash
flow from his round properties as a student without even
having a job. Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Okay, very interesting, very interesting for anyone listening. And I'm sure, okay,
so let's do this. Let's with him as an example.
If you were to tell, you know, a young person
that they should do this and they looked at you
and said, well, I can't, you know, I don't have
a job or whatever, what would you would you say.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
That, though, well, first of all, in order to do
anything like this, I think you agree.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
You have to develop discipline.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
You know, you have to develop the discipline to at
any given time be spending less than you make, so
that you are always putting money aside for not only
your obligations, but also saving for the next thing that
is hopefully not just another thing that depreciates after you
buy it, but another thing that makes money. In other words,
(16:54):
you gain wealth by acquiring assets that produce income, be
the real estate, copyrights, patents, whatever. Those are some quick examples,
you know. So you have to develop the discipline and
not commit yourself to things that are going to be
(17:16):
beyond your means and put yourself in trouble. Now, selfishly,
I was happy to see him get this because he's
off from my insurance policy because the insurance company thinks
he's driving one of our cars. Are insurance with a
teenager is much higher. But believe it or not, his
insurance on that newer model supports car is less than
(17:39):
the up charge for him to be on our policy
with a plain old Camray. It's older than that, you know, so,
but you know there's an Advantage series. He's a college
aged person who we're happy to out living at home,
and he certainly doesn't have the being expenses that many
(18:03):
people obviously have if they're already on own. And I
realized there are other challenges that you have to maintain
a home, you know, that are beyond what the college
student would have living at home.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point, and that is an
opportunity for kids that they have to say the certain areas.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah, but the key is is, Okay, it's discipline, like, Okay,
you live at home, you don't have these expenses, you
do have these this income from your properties. He did
work over the summer at a job I worked for
one of the other landlords on their crew W two job,
learning stuff that I wasn't going to be able to
teach him because we didn't have those sort of projects
(18:44):
going on at the moment, So he learned other things.
And but learning how to manage money, which I'm going
to say, and you're probably gonna agree with me, kind
of starts with being able to keep track of it,
(19:04):
you know, as an accountant. That's really what we're helping
people do is keep track of what they have earned.
And spent and make decisions based on the reports that
that generates.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
You know, I'm gonna just stop you there for a
second because it's such a great point, and you know,
there are a lot of sayings. I'm sure I won't
be able to conjure one up out of my brain
in the moment, but about you know what you track
multiplies and that's not the saying, but they're better ones
than that. But basically that's the gist. So you're focused
(19:41):
on it, you're tracking it. If you're trying to, you know,
earn more income and you're tracking your income, that's you know,
a pathway to manifesting more income. What I'm curious about
is when people hear the word tracking, they think of budgeting,
They think of boring, historic, old data that we're just
writing down and you know, for no reason. But there's
(20:03):
a huge rationale for doing us. And it's not just accounting,
it's you know, in many ways, it's it's looking toward
the future at the opportunities, uh that that you can
have as a result of what you know. So, you know,
I love that you bring that up, because tracking is
a bit of a it's people don't do it that's
(20:27):
all I can say. Uh, and and it's really really valuable.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And the other reason for for accounting, shall we say,
is for taxation preparation, I mean preparation of tax returns.
So really I talk about that a lot in the book.
That those are the two main reasons, you know, keeping
track so that you can make business decisions, and keeping
tracks so that you don't overpay your taxes or underpay
(20:54):
your taxes and get in trouble later. You know.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Well, and from a tax standpoint, real estate can be
extremely beneficial. So item you want to just speak to
how real estate can work in your favor.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, there's several really you know, favorable treatments of real
estate in the tax law. And I will say that
this is probably because so many members of Conger, some
on both sides of the aisle for generations, so many
of them actually are also landlorders, you know, they own
real estate as well, So I think they've made sure
(21:25):
to pass a lot of things that are favorable to
round property. But the most obvious thing everybody at least
knows the word, is depreciation, you know, which is a
write off each year of the improvement part of property
is shown you can't appreciate the land, but it's a
(21:48):
an expense that you you get to have without any
cash outflow, you know, to get that that year. So
you can perhaps even with you utilizing the depreciation launs
that allow you to accelerate depreciation.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
And those laws do change time to time.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
But instead of writing off a building on an even
amount every year for twenty seven a half years or whatever,
you might be able to take a lot more depreciation
in the earlier years, especially if you break out the
equipment that's in the building and not depreciate that along
with the building, to depreciate that on a faster schedule.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So you know, having said.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
That, I don't want to get too technical, but depreciation
can perhaps even create a loss even though you actually
have a positive cash flow right well last forever, because
eventually the depreciation will become so much smaller than it
was at the beginning, and now you do have you know,
more taxable income even though you still have the same
cash flow or maybe just a little bit more cash
(22:48):
right So yeah, depreciation. And another big thing is that
income from rental property rental real estate is considered passive
income as opposed to income that would be taxed like
your job, you know, and that means that although the
(23:09):
income from operating the rental property is included with your
other taxable income, you are excluded or that income income
is excluded from paying self employment tax, you know, now
self employment tax. They might say, well, what the heck
is that? If you if you only have ever had
a W two job? You notice how there's a deduction
(23:31):
for Social Security, you know, if I see, I guess
it's called But what you may not know is that
the employer is paying an equal amount. Well, let's say
it's seven and a half percent, Like you're going to
pay seven and a half percent a year paycheck and
the employer is going to pay seven and a half percent.
So all together, fifteen percent is paid on that income. Well,
if you're self employed, you pay the whole fifteen percent.
(23:55):
But if your income is you know, from rental property,
you're going to pay the income tax, but you're not
going to pay the self and plund tax. And then,
as you probably know and can elaborate on, with a
big beautiful bill, that made permanent the twenty percent right
(24:15):
off the top of income from businesses you know, before
your taxed. That's the Section one something nine of Gosh,
I wish I'd be a little better prepared to spit
that out, but that's the safe harbor thing, and that
just simply means like, if you have a business of
(24:38):
some sort, figure out what your net income is, take
twenty percent of that and don't pay tax on you know.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
And so at.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
First they weren't sure that real estate was included in
that because it's passive income. But it has been worked
out that yes, it's included once again thanks to our
lawmakers on both sides of the isle, go all in
real estate. So they did make it available to rental
(25:11):
property with a couple of caveats that are.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Not hard to meet.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
First of all, you have to have like at least
two hundred and fifty hours of work done on those
properties each year. And that doesn't all have to be
done by you. Everything that all the hours by contractors
that work for.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Your accounted air too, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
And the other thing is, and get back to record keeping,
you actually have to have a little log of the
hours you spent, you know, and just you don't have
to turn it in, you just keep it with your
tax prep docs so that if you're ever audited and
you're claiming the deduction. You can say, well, here's how
(25:52):
I qualified by the hours. Here's my log from that
year for doing that.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
You know, I'm thinking that because you out the book
in part for your son, that the book includes all
these ideas of what to track and and why.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, there's a whole section in there about the tax
implications of being in.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
The real estate business.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, okay, I mean it encompasses keeping track of your
mileage on your car. I just went over this with him.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
The other day. He had to go down to.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
One of the real properties from the house here, and
I said, and I was going to go with it,
so I said, where's your log, your mileage log? I said, okay,
let's let's have it be the in the mileage in
the in the gas purchase book, which you know, at
least he's good at right now when he buys gas.
(26:45):
You know what, the government allows you to set amount
per mile for business mileage. It changes every year, sometimes
in the middle of the year. And I said, okay,
let's use the you know, the booklet here and you
with the date, you put the location you're going to
in the general purpose and when you get back to
(27:06):
theas here. Look on your odometer there, tribometer, and see
how much how many miles down in the tenth with
mile you know, and write it, because here's the deal.
Your little LLC is going to be able to reimburse
you for your business miles based on that sense per
(27:28):
mile that the government gives. And it's an expense to
your LLC, which of course is an expense to you
you're the only member of the LLC. But it's not
income to you personally. It's not like it's a wash.
It's a deduction here and it's not an income over here.
It's just a deduction, right, No rancome.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
You know, Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay, so let's talk for
a minute about just that. I mean, you did this
right away, your son did it right away. But there
are a lot of people who have been waiting and
you know, are no longer nineteen or twenty and trying
(28:11):
to you know, still that's been an idea that they've
wanted to pursue but haven't done anything about it. I mean,
for those folks, you know, they're working, maybe they even
have a family. What is the advice as far as
how to put their mindset kind of the in the
right space to allow them to go forward. I know
(28:32):
a lot of people are always waiting until I'm waiting
until I have this much in the bank. I'm waiting
until you know I'm not so busy at work. I mean,
there's a lot and suddenly you know twenty years have
gone by in your story.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Wait while you're waiting.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
What you should be doing is educated yourself. And I
have it right in chapter one. It's part of the title.
It says gets some education, and the emphasis.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
On the word some.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Don't have to know everything before you take a step
into real estate or retail or you know, some profession
that you want you know. Because we're talking a little
more general here, you got to be careful about not
getting caught up in the paralysis of analysis. But using
(29:21):
real estate again as an example, you don't have to
know everything about it before you buy your first property.
But I recommend that you have some education. How do
you get that some education? Read a book like mine,
Join a local professional group that is comprised of like
(29:42):
minded people that are doing the same thing you're doing,
whether it's real estate or some other profession that you
want to be involved in. But particularly in real estate
because the deals are often made off market from one
investor to another. You know, everybody's at a different stage
of their investment journey, and like for example, at some
point you get to where you're selling stuff instead of
(30:05):
buying stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Well, you know, the easiest place to do that is.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
People that are earlier on in the journey and in
as buyers.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
You know, and so.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Educate yourself to the point that you can avoid big mistakes.
But you don't have to know everything because you're going
to learn once you get started by doing and if
you get with other people who are doing the same thing,
you're going to just learn from them or even learn
about a specific thing that comes up, a problem or
(30:40):
whatever that you'd have contact with other people in your
group that can answer specifically something that you need to
know about. And then as you go on, like in
the real estate journey, you might discover more types of investing.
More you know an intr seen it different types of
(31:01):
property than you started out with, and you will build
on what you already know. But don't think you need
to know it all before you take it first step.
A lot of people and I see them out there,
they think, oh, I just need to go to one more.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
I just need to go to this boot camp. I
just need to read this book.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Hopefully it's my book, you know, and then I'll be rich,
you know. And that's and they never do anything, you know.
They're always at the meetings and they're always talking about
how they're getting ready to, you know, buy something, and
then years go by and theyona do anything, you know,
because he just always trying to.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Learn about how to do it.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Meanwhile, people that started at the same time they did
and just jumped in and bought something and ask questions
when they didn't know they're already second, third, fourth property.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah, it's a great point. And I think with anything
you know, don't do it alone. It's one of the
big messages, you know, whether you're starting business or you're
buying real estate or you know, starting a family for
that matter. I mean, like you say, educate yourself, talk
to people. I think we get a lot of strength
from being in groups where other people are doing this
and talking about it and sharing their mistakes, because I
(32:14):
think some of the reasons that people put things off
is just that fear of you know, what if I
really messed this up and it you know, really hurts me.
So there are a few things to wrestle with in
your own mind about that may happen. I mean, I'm
sure you haven't had, you know, a home run with
every single thing you've done to this point in real estate,
(32:35):
it just doesn't seem like that would be.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I lost money on a few houses that we flipped,
although you gotta make lemonade for the lements. I had
a house fourteen years ago that I got done with
and just realized I had too much in it and
I wasn't going to hardly make anything in the market.
Wasn't that great for a real profitable thing. So I
actually sold it twice with a lease option, you know,
(33:01):
in other words, the people paid a fee for the right,
but not the obligation to buy the property within in
this case two years, and the first people walked away.
They had some come up and they gave up their
their lease ouption fee. The option expired. Second people, same thing.
I just ended up somehow renting it out regular rental
(33:23):
after that, and in fourteen years I had seven different
families in there. When the last ones moved out this
past June, it was time for an interior paint job.
I did that basically thinking I was preparing it to
rent it. And I got done, I said, hey, this
place is never going to look any better than this
market's good.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
I'm going to sell it.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
So that was a fourteen year flip.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Made one hundred and two thousand dollars on the sale,
not to mention probably about seventy or eight or more.
I didn't really calculate in net rental income over those
fourteen years. If I would have sold it fourteen years ago,
might have made five or tintos.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
See that's a great example, and it's also a great
example of sort of pivoting idea wise as you go.
And I think that's important for people to understand. You know,
it's a little bit of a game where things are
changing while you change your strategy, you know, and again
being around people who've had experiences like that and understand them,
and you know, without the experience, you don't under you
(34:27):
don't know what the options are. I mean, that whole
idea of the least buy option, that's not something that
everybody would think of until they get a little more educated.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
As you say, yeah, and then there are the people
that are looking externally for reasons why they can't take
their first step. Like there are some people, like we
were talking about the internally the field, they don't know enough.
And then the other people think, I know everything. But
market's terrible right now. Interest rates, so the stock market
house spread. You know what, I've been in this business
(34:56):
almost forty eight years. I've been through so many economic cycles.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I will tell you that a good deal is.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
A good deal in any given market. There's a way
to make deals.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
There are people that need to sell property and are
going to sell it at less and what it's worth,
and you know, you might have to change your techniques
of trying to acquire the property or you know, market
for the property.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
But like you said, you pivot, you adjust, and you
just keep going. Don't sit on the sidelines. When I
got into this business nineteen seventy eight, Jimmy Carter was
president Stargling. With inflation prime was twenty two and a
half percent. It's what seven now, you know, And when
it was three and a quarter for four or five
(35:45):
years recently, that's not normal, you know, that's not no,
it's more normal now with what it is, you know.
So I was a tenant still for the first five
years I was a landlord, and so in nineteen eighty
three when I bought my first personal residence, I was
pleased to get twelve and a half percent interest.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
It was great, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Now eventually refined that to a lower interest rate as
things went down, you know. And but the point is
that that.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
You you, you shouldn't use too much of this economic
conditions sort of argument to stand sidelines.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
And I can really only speak for real estate. I
do understand that there could certainly be certain areas of
other businesses like retail or or you know, whatever the
examples might be, who are very much more affected by
economic cycles, and there could be bad reasons to go
in at certain times. I get that, you know. But
(36:53):
as far as real estate, it's not going anywhere. They're
not making any more land, as Will Rogers said, and
and everybody's going to have a place to lit all
the time.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think there's a tangible quality
to real estate that makes it easier for people to understand.
We all live one way or another, whether we're renting
or outing, or we all you know, pretty much live
in a hall, and so it's something we understand. So
I think that makes it a more engaging investment to
(37:28):
some people.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
And now another thing about mindset, and this would apply
not only to real estate, but you have to get
rid of preconceptions that you have for entering a given industry.
I think every industry has, or a line of work,
you know, has certain preconceptions that go with it, either
(37:51):
to the good or to the bad. Real estate, you know,
one extreme is, oh, it's all bad tenants and broken toilets.
And the other extreme is is that, oh it's so
easy money, It's all rainbows and unicorns. You know, it's
somewhere in between. So when you talk about mindset, it's
it's you know, discipline and understanding yourself and taking an
(38:16):
assessment of your not only your personal financial situation but
your your your financial situation. And it's uh, you know,
becoming aware of preconception so that you understand what is
a false preconception and what is the truth.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
But not.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Like I say, thinking you got to know everything before
you take.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
A step, right, Yeah, thank you, that's great. And you
know there's also that mindset around debt because there are
a lot of people this is going to typically require,
you know, acquiring some debt and people do have a
lot of fear around that. I mean, some people don't,
but some people they've been brought up that, you know,
stay out of debt. So you have to get over
(39:01):
that a bit.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Well, yeah, and that's a preconception that I think that
you're right. You have to get over it because, especially
when it comes to real estate, which is something that
is securing the debt, you now can start to delineate
between good debt and bad debt.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Bad debt is.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
When you borrow money to go on vacation, you know,
or you borrow money to buy a depreciating asset that
isn't going to make you any money, you know, unless
you truly have the the.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
The disposable income.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Now, car is a depreciable asset, but it makes you
money because it gets you to your job, or it
gets you to your properties or whatever. So that's you know,
you know, I get that you're not going to sell
cars a profit, but for the most part. But on
the other hand, real estate is something that isn't going anywhere,
(40:02):
and it secures the loan, and assuming it's rental real estate,
the tenants are actually giving you the money to make
your payments. And when your payments are all done, they
still have to pay rent even though you don't have
a mortgage anymore, you know, and so you know, you
(40:23):
you have to be prepared to use leverage. And if
you come from a family that the mindset is truly
absolutely don't go into debt for anything, pay cash for
a well, you're going to have to change that thinking
to get somewhere in real estate, because real estate does
(40:44):
run on OPM, which stands for other People's money, and
that's you know, using leverage, in other words, using other
people's money to buy property that produces income and appreciates
in value that leverage. You know, that's how it's done
in this business, which gets back to the importance of
(41:07):
developing relationships with banks and being able to present your
financial position to the bank, which brings me to one
of the chapters in my book, which is a whole
chapter on preparing personal financial statements for lenders to increase
your your likelihood of getting your loan approved. You know,
(41:29):
I bring into that chapter so you probably know from
being an accountant that it's it's kind of coming from
that background. It combined with my own experience with applying
for a lot of loans, mortgages. You know, over the years,
you know how to present the information that is necessary
(41:52):
for these underwriters in the banks that are twenties and
thirty something, people that just can't wait till four o'clock,
that are checking boxes and making financial decisions about your future.
You know, you have to make it easy for them
to understand. Because they'll understand what you presented, it's more
(42:12):
likely that it is just going to be rejected. I mean,
you know, when you're don't understand something, you fear it,
and you you get away from.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, beautifully put. I love that, and I love that
that's in your book. I feel like that is you know,
it's it's all the preparation. And you talked about disciplined earlier.
This informs you, you know, in what areas do you
really need to be disciplined and how do you sort
of put that on display for people? But I and
(42:43):
you know, you mentioned that discipline in relation to younger people,
but it applies to everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I mean, now, the earlier you start being disciplined, the
easier it's going to be, because it's going to be a habit,
you know, going forward, instead of being thirty something and
say you know, I should really start getting disciplined with
my money and spend less than I make. And in
order to figure out whether I'm doing that or not,
I should probably keep track of a few things. Right.
(43:10):
That's tough.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, And and thirties still early. I mean I see
that in you know, people in their forties and fifties too,
living their lives. And you know, I mean I've seen
it in myself. I mean, discipline is a is a
universally important habit to develop, as you said, yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, that's right, and you know, developing those relationships not
only with lenders, but I will go go a little
step further. In real estate, a lot of times you
don't actually make mortage applications to just one bank at
a ton off your choosing you you may want to
(43:52):
use a mortgage broker, and the mortgage broker is somebody
that keeps track of what the appetites are for maybe
one hundred different banks or institutional lenders of some sort,
so that when you go to the broker with your
proposal for the particular property you went to buy and
your description of your financial situation, not only will the
(44:17):
broker help assemble that into a nice package but they
will know which lenders to approach so that you're not
wasting time, you know, like going to your favorite bank
locally that you maybe got a couple of loans from before,
not knowing that they have changed their appetites. You know,
(44:37):
their board had a meeting and all of a sudden,
they don't want a loan on you know, small residential
properties or something like that because they've got enough of
them in their portfolio right now. And you didn't know that,
and you find out a couple months later, after they've
been underwriting you for two months and then tell you, you
know what, actually, we can't do this loan, or we
(44:59):
can't give the same terms that you had before, or
that we told you we'd give you when we started
out here. Now you're two months down the road, and
maybe your buyer says or your seller you know, says, hey,
you obviously can't get along here. I'm moving on to
some other buyer.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
You know. That is such a good point. And I've
been through that multiple times with local banks, and I
find that so interesting. I sort of thought maybe it
was a fluke, but now that you're bringing it up,
because there was no reason they couldn't have just told
me this at the beginning and saved me all the
time and effort and and along the way. They're sort
of I mean, I guess it's a customer service thing,
(45:34):
but they're they're holding your hand in theory and telling
you it's going to be okay, and you know, we
just need to.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Keep asking you for more and more.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
And at the end you're just like, why didn't you
just tell me at day two that this wasn't gonna
work out? So thank you for bringing that up. And
I find the mortgage brokers are much I mean, you
will pay them.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
A little fee, but it's yeah, oh yeah, I forgot to. Yes,
there's a small fee that you will pay, but it's
what worth the.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Uh, it's well worth it.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yeah, no expense.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
So I'm afraid we're running out of time. I'm super
excited about your book. I think it sounds really really
valuable and too, like you said at the beginning, to
anybody at any stage of this, even even if you've
stumbled along and been successful, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Learning.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Learning is learning, you know, and there's always something new
you could think to do or you know a better
way of doing.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
So, yeah, the book has uh, we own it. On
the front page, it says the big book.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
I don't know if you noticed it when I was
up there, because it is thicker than a lot of
books in the genre, which are typically two or three
hundred pages. Mine is like four hundred and sixty pages.
But before somebody says, oh my gosh, wed he said
that because I'm not gonna buy it. I can't read
a book that big. What I did was I and
I'll hold it up. I don't know if this will
work for Tony or not, but I'll just open it. Yeah, yeah,
(46:57):
you can see. I have written it so that it's
chock full of bold type words, sentences, paragraphs, and so on,
so that if you did nothing but skip from bold
type to bold type, to bold type to bold type,
you blow through that book. You'll get the whole idea
what's going on, And if it's covering something that you
think you want to learn more about, just stop and
read all the words.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
You know. That's how it works.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
And what do you know what Ron Legrand is.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
He's a real estate guru.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
He's like the guru to a lot of Like if
you named a real estate guru that you did know
of right now, he would probably be their guru. Okay,
all right, So Ron got a copy of the book
and he actually reviewed it and said, I wish I
would have had his.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Book when I was getting started.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Oh it's become the go to resource. The reviewers are
for changing your life with real estate. The reviewers are
saying that this is not the kind of book that
you read and you say, oh, I read that for
it on your shelf. You know, this is kind of
book you read and you park on your desk because
(48:05):
you're going to refer to it now. It's and it
starts with it, Like I said before, everything from mindset
to it covers all the different types of entities that
you might want to choose to start a lot of
people think, oh, LLC, you got to do that, you know,
but no, maybe that's not right for you. But it
covers all the different formations, you know, business formations, and
(48:29):
then it covers finding, negotiating financing deals, and then it
gets into preparing a property to sell it or rent it,
and how to deal with the finding and managing tenants
like all the real you know me stuff with actual
round properties. But then we move into tax implications like
I was saying that are specific to the rental property business,
(48:50):
and then preparing financial statements for the bankers and private
lenders like myself. Sometimes we wouldn't see that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (48:59):
And then.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Understanding the difference between riches and wealth.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
There's a difference, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
It's like the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge as
you have the facts. Wisdom is you know how to
apply the facts to do good, you know. And with
riches that's having the money. But wealth is knowing what
to do with the money so that you're you're living
in full life and contributing to your community and and
(49:28):
doing well. You know, if I if I had a
choice between now losing all my money and losing all
my relationships, I would lose all my money in a heartbeat.
You now, because my relationships will will help me get.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
My money back.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Now, if I had a ton of money and no relationships,
I'd be really empty. So we talk about that and
then move into oh, here's a concluding statement there. Don't
make a withdrawal from a relationship just to make a
deposit in your bank account.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Well that's but.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Then we move into some other best practices for not
only business, but your personal life and so on. And
the reason why it's also an easy read is because
it's not just all words or text. You know, there's
like one hundred and fifty different checklists and like bullet
point checklists, which take up a lot of space, but
there aren't a lot of words on any flying, you know,
(50:24):
and it covers all, you know, all these things from
tennant screening questions to negotiation questions, due diligence questions, contractor questions,
even a list of the tools you're going to need,
you know, if you're just getting started. So you know,
(50:45):
my hope is that everybody who owns a copy of
Rich Dead or Day also gets this because it's sort
of a companion. You know, it gets in a little
bit more than Nuts and Bolts than Rich Dead Ports,
which is an awesome book that probably more haven't any
other book, and this is genre, you know, like Robert Kiyosaki.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. Wow, that's great. And I
do think the nuts and bolts in the checklists and
all those things is very very valuable. I mean, people
pay am a lot of money to take courses or
be in you know, large groups to require those kinds
of things. So well, we will have to wrap. But
you know they had the hard money lending was a
(51:25):
whole other topic that I would have loved to spend
some time on, so uh that that is also worth
people understand.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Oh we can, we can do that in another episode,
can drilled down deep on private lending being lending and yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
A little uh harder you know, to to find understanding
about out there in the world. So okay, well, Jill,
thank you so much. This has been so informative, and
so you know, I think people can definitely hear uh
your dedication to this and and you know, you've you've
(52:01):
got your son involved, and it's a parent that you
really believe in this as a way to enhance your life,
and you know, and you're talking about doing it for
the right reasons, and yeah, it just actually makes it
very appealing to everybody. I think.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
So thank you, Michelle.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
I'm glad we connected. Your podcast is a little outside
of the strictly real estate genre of podcasts that I do,
and so it's it's it's refreshing to you know, kind
of talk about some different things.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Okay, that's great. Yeah, and you know, I love it
because you I think you eliminated some of the intimidating
aspects you if you know, I think all you did
was get people to want to learn more, which they
can do with your books, So I think that's great.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
The website, I think, I don't know if you have
it up there, but it's very simple.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
It's just joelmillerbooks dot com.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
We've got that up and I'll put it in the
show notes, and yeah, I would you know. I hope
everybody is going to buy the book. I'm actually going
to buy one for my kids because I think, I mean,
I have at least one child who's extremely interested in
real estate, and I think this would be great. So
(53:14):
I just won't listen to me, but read your book
and listen to you.
Speaker 5 (53:17):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
All right, Okay, well, thank you, thank you again for
joining us. I really appreciate your time and really appreciate
everything you share. And thank you audience for showing up
for the money and you podcast. We love it when
you listen, we love it when you rate and review
the show, and please subscribe. Please share this show with
your friends, the ones who have been telling you how
they'd like to buy a property someday, or maybe they're
(53:40):
already doing it, So share the show and let them
in on Joel Miller's secrets and yeah, so thank you
so much. You can reach out to me, Michelle two l's.
Speaker 5 (53:51):
At libittfreelife dot com and we'll see you next week,
book
Speaker 4 (54:03):
Boo
Have you ever had a money or career question you
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at limitreelife dot com and let sip and sort it out.
(00:42):
Hey there, and welcome to Money in You. I'm Michelle Perkins,
your host. My search for more fulfilling work led me
to career in business coaching, where I stumbled upon a
game changing discovery. Money issues often start with our mindset
and habits. You see, our relationship with money is the
key to overcoming those frustrating financial obstacles. As an entrepreneur, coach,
(01:04):
and problem solver, I'm passionate about helping you create a
great relationship with money, because turns out that's the foundation
for a limit free life. Each week on Money in You,
I speak with amazing guests about all things money, mindset,
practical tips, and everything in between. We're here to give
you new insights, education, and empowerment, so money can be
(01:25):
one of your favorite relationships. So join us for some
lively conversations and let's transform your financial life together. Hello, Hello,
and welcome to another great episode of the Money and
You Show. I'm Michelle Perkins, your host, and we are
talking real estate today. I know people love this topic
(01:46):
and you are going to love our guest. He is
so knowledgeable and seasoned and in all areas of real estate,
and he teaches about real estate and he has written
a terrific new book called Build Real State Wealth. And
I didn't say that quite well, build Real Estate Wealth.
There you go. His name is Joel Miller, and we're
(02:08):
really going to get into all kinds of aspects. I'm
hoping that this show will answer many of the questions
that you have, whether you're thinking about becoming a real
estate investor, or you're you know you're in the process,
or you you yourself are a seasoned real estate investor.
So without any more discussion before we bring Jolie and
(02:31):
I'm going to just tell you a little about him.
So Joel Miller has been investing in rental properties since
nineteen seventy eight and flipping houses since nineteen ninety one.
He served in numerous leadership roles in his professional and
personal circles, and he teaches real estate investing at both
the beginner and advanced levels. He's also a hard money
lender to other investors, as well as a trusted mentor
(02:54):
off their podcast, guest and benefactor to his community. For
all this, Joe arted out obtaining a BA in accounting.
So Joel, welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Thanks Michelle Man. That's a lot to live up there.
Did I really duel?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
You? Did it? And more? That was actually I think
too short and bio for you, But we'll get into
it and people will learn a lot more about how
savvy you are in this space. And I know you
and I had a call before the show, and I
was so impressed with you know how early you got
into this and how you got into it, and I'd
love for you to share a little of how you
(03:29):
became the expert that.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You are well, first of all, I guess we should
point out that although this book is in the real
estate genre, you know, build real estate wealth and enjoy
the journey of rental property investing, the book actually covers
more things than just that, which I think is how
you and I connected for your show, because the beginning
(03:52):
of the book deals a lot with mindset and getting education,
you know, before you even take your first steps. And
then once I'm done tea about how to buy and
maintain property and tenants, we get into a lot of
philosophical things in the book, like the relationship between riches
in wealth and other best practices that apply not only
(04:14):
to real estate investing, but to your life in general
or any sort of business that you're in. So, you know,
your listeners can be sure that to probably find something
that they can utilize here today, even though they don't
necessarily want to learn all about real estate. You know,
we'll talk about other stuff in that. But just to
(04:36):
answer your question, I like you.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I don't know if your listeners know this. I know this.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
You have a degree in accounting as well and have
worked as a CPA. I actually that's what my degree
is in. But there are two things that happened to
me in junior high school. Actually, that really set me
on the two main paths that I've been online. Number One,
an investor built to excuse me, four four unit apartment
buildings right along my paper route at the edge of
(05:05):
the sub division. Of course, I got all those new
tenants as customers on my paper route, you know. But
I have a distinct memory of it in about eighth grade,
kind of sitting down in my bedroom and doing the
map on what this whole rental property thing is all about,
you know, because we lived in the subdivision with our
parents and homes that they owned, single family homes, and
(05:26):
so these apartments that were kind of built at the
edge were they were the last lots that were.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Purchased in the subdivision.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And somebody put Renalds up instead. That was a little different.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Those people pay to live there and somebody makes money
on them doing that. So I remember that and I said,
you know, I want to do that someday, and I
kind of put that in my back. The other thing
that happened was one of the older kids in the
neighborhood built a pirate radio station in their basement with
the flag fall in the backyard as the antenna and
(06:00):
pirate is illegal, unlicensed radio station, you know, and very
low power, of course, but I got to hung out
there and that's when I decided I wanted to be
at disc jockey. So I did do radio production during
high school, and when I went away to college, I
made sure I went to a college and had a
really good college radio station. Actually I went to Grove
City College. I'm in Erie, Pennsylvani halfway between Cleveland and
(06:23):
Buffalo grow cities between US and Pittsburgh to the south.
Really good accounting department and really good radio station AM
and FM. And I got on the air there. It
was only freshman on and then I became program director
sophomore year and about halfway through college, then towards the
end of sophomore year, I got called to come back
and work at the big Top forty our FM, you
(06:47):
know radio station in our town. It's the weekend got
you know. So I finished college here in Erie, and
right about six weeks before I got out of college,
that weekend job went hold time. So I was finally
able to take the calls from the kids at schools
(07:07):
that one of the DJs at the station come out
and do you know sack ops or whatever you record
ops in the gym, And that changed my life. Michelle
went on and made seventy five dollars and quickly started
charging more than that and realized I could make more
money in one night that I could make all week
at the radio station on the air.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
And so I, actually, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
If I've told you this, but I ended up leaving radio.
I pioneered the mobile DJ business in this part of
the country, so I did. I was a mobile DJ
for thirty five years, five fifty seven appearance, fifty one appearances.
Excuse me, you don't want to be your own on
that h And I retired from.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
That in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But not long after I did my first mobile DJ parents.
I did buy my first rental property January of nineteen
seventy eight. And so although I also started an accounting
practice after college, I did sell that because the DJ
business was picking up and I was buying more rental property,
and so something had to give. And at that point
(08:17):
I started concentrating more on the DJ work and buying
more rental property and so on. And that's one of
the premises of my book, is that real estate does
not have to be an either or thing. You can
choose to add rental real estate to your life and
not give up something else you're passionate about. I really
(08:39):
wanted to be in our team, you know, and I
enjoyed doing.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
That for all that time. And so a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Are involved with things that they're passionate about it. It
might be a great job, or some sort of career
or some real heavy hobby involvement or something like that
that you know, they think, well, I can't invest in
real estate at time or whatever. But this is the
book that shows you how to do that so that
you can add to the income that you might have
(09:09):
from your passion that you are involved in. It's not
really providing you enough income or maybe no retirement because
certainly real estate is or retirement as well, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
And so.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
That is a good premise of the book. But it's
it's not just for beginners. It's for people that are
already established and are looking for some game changing info
that can kind of supercharge know what they've they've already
got going on. So, as I say, I embarked on
the DJ career and the rentals and in nineteen ninety one,
(09:45):
began flipping houses before flip was a real estate term,
you know, when all the heavy programs started using it
to flip does flip that or whatever, and so we
used to call it quick turn properties, you know. And
then in twenty eighteen, I became a hard money lender,
which is a private lender to other investors, and so
(10:08):
gives me a lot of pleasure to be involved in
the equation for the journeys of other investors earlier.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
On in their journey.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And then in twenty twenty started during COVID when we're
all sitting around the can't go out, you know, I
started making notes and took me four years, but I
wrote Build Real Estate Wealth, and it came out in
October twenty twenty four and it's become a bestseller. So
brings us to today doing all these podcasts and support
(10:41):
of the book.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
This is how you do a book toward those days.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, is that's true? Well, I love that and I
loved your story. I love the career that you were
passionate about and also an alternative way to generate income
that you were also interested in. But you know, I
love I think in today's world it feels like every show.
Now we got a little bit of a theme of
how much the world is changing and so you know
(11:06):
what used to work needs to possibly be tweaked a
little bit for the upcoming, you know, decades ahead. So
having you know, a second source of income I think
is more important now than it ever was. It was
always a great thing. I mean, my father in law
always told me from day one, you know, you got
(11:26):
to have real estate. He had commercial real estate, and
he had apartments and all kinds of things, and he
was a dentist and he made a fine living as
a dentist, but it was real estate that really.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, Oh I'm glad you said that this guy had
a dentist is considered a high paid profession, and yet
he feels he made his well in.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Real estate exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That's the thing is real estate has made more people
well being than any other single type of investment. You know,
lots of people, of course invent something, or they they
do fall into some really hye pain job and make
all on my head. But as far as something that
you can just plan out and do, there's nothing like
(12:10):
income producing real.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Estate, right, And I love the idea that you know
today where job security is less than it used to be.
It is very advantageous something that, you know, should you
get laid off, or should something change with your work,
you know, environment in some way that impacts you, you
have this to support you to focus on. I mean,
(12:34):
there's all kinds of reasons why it can be a
great addition to your life.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, And I'll tell you a little side story that
gives a little credence to what you're talking about there.
When I in twenty twenty when when I began writing this,
my son who is nineteen right now, he'll be twenty
in December twenty twenty five, it was becoming a parent
(12:59):
that he he had an interest in what he has
seen me doing, you know, over the years in our house.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
And so I kind of.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Wrote the book as though he might be the only
one who reads it, because it's like everything I need
him to know, because he was going to likely take
over the properties we had, you know, not just start from.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Zero, you know. And so.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Just skipping ahead, I can tell you he graduated from
high school in twenty twenty four and bought his first
round property about a week after he got out of
high school. And he's now in his sophomore year at
Penn State, although we have a branch campus of Penn
State and Yuie that has a really highly rated business
school here, and so he's in the business school. And
(13:50):
this means he can stay at home and live with
us while he's going through college and also acquire a
property here, you know, which would be hard to do
if he went to main campus obviously, but he bought
his second rental property about April of his freshman year.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Wow, and.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Is you know it's just beginning as we record this
of sophomore year.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
And this is what he wants to do. I told
him's still got to get an education in this sort.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Of stuff, you know, Michelle, I don't think it's going
to be accounting, sorry to say, but you know, if
you ask him right now, he would tell you his major, explaining, Yeah,
I'm not not as much of the numbers nerd as
you and I might be. I don't know if I
told you I've I've kept a record of everything I've
earned in Spence since.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I was eleven.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You did tell me that, which I thought was fascinating.
I mean, much nerdier than I, yem, I have not
done that.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
That's really so I'm trying to still what he needs
to know regarding record keeping to run the rental properties
and so on. But so he's already bought a nice
car for himself. I mean that I recommend you run
out and buy expensive things just because all of a
sudden you can qualify for the payment, which I'm sure
(15:07):
is a discussion for your podcast, you know, you talk
about stuff like that. But you know, with all these
properties he's got, he had enough to get a nice
car or use car, you know, twenty twenty two Mustang Turbo.
But he did it on his own using the cash
(15:32):
flow statements from the reund properties. He found the car
on his own a board dealership in Kentucky, went down
there and got it on his own, drove it home,
got the loan on his own based on his cash
flow from his round properties as a student without even
having a job. Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Okay, very interesting, very interesting for anyone listening. And I'm sure, okay,
so let's do this. Let's with him as an example.
If you were to tell, you know, a young person
that they should do this and they looked at you
and said, well, I can't, you know, I don't have
a job or whatever, what would you would you say.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
That, though, well, first of all, in order to do
anything like this, I think you agree.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
You have to develop discipline.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
You know, you have to develop the discipline to at
any given time be spending less than you make, so
that you are always putting money aside for not only
your obligations, but also saving for the next thing that
is hopefully not just another thing that depreciates after you
buy it, but another thing that makes money. In other words,
(16:54):
you gain wealth by acquiring assets that produce income, be
the real estate, copyrights, patents, whatever. Those are some quick examples,
you know. So you have to develop the discipline and
not commit yourself to things that are going to be
(17:16):
beyond your means and put yourself in trouble. Now, selfishly,
I was happy to see him get this because he's
off from my insurance policy because the insurance company thinks
he's driving one of our cars. Are insurance with a
teenager is much higher. But believe it or not, his
insurance on that newer model supports car is less than
(17:39):
the up charge for him to be on our policy
with a plain old Camray. It's older than that, you know, so,
but you know there's an Advantage series. He's a college
aged person who we're happy to out living at home,
and he certainly doesn't have the being expenses that many
(18:03):
people obviously have if they're already on own. And I
realized there are other challenges that you have to maintain
a home, you know, that are beyond what the college
student would have living at home.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point, and that is an
opportunity for kids that they have to say the certain areas.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah, but the key is is, Okay, it's discipline, like, Okay,
you live at home, you don't have these expenses, you
do have these this income from your properties. He did
work over the summer at a job I worked for
one of the other landlords on their crew W two job,
learning stuff that I wasn't going to be able to
teach him because we didn't have those sort of projects
(18:44):
going on at the moment, So he learned other things.
And but learning how to manage money, which I'm going
to say, and you're probably gonna agree with me, kind
of starts with being able to keep track of it,
(19:04):
you know, as an accountant. That's really what we're helping
people do is keep track of what they have earned.
And spent and make decisions based on the reports that
that generates.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
You know, I'm gonna just stop you there for a
second because it's such a great point, and you know,
there are a lot of sayings. I'm sure I won't
be able to conjure one up out of my brain
in the moment, but about you know what you track
multiplies and that's not the saying, but they're better ones
than that. But basically that's the gist. So you're focused
(19:41):
on it, you're tracking it. If you're trying to, you know,
earn more income and you're tracking your income, that's you know,
a pathway to manifesting more income. What I'm curious about
is when people hear the word tracking, they think of budgeting,
They think of boring, historic, old data that we're just
writing down and you know, for no reason. But there's
(20:03):
a huge rationale for doing us. And it's not just accounting,
it's you know, in many ways, it's it's looking toward
the future at the opportunities, uh that that you can
have as a result of what you know. So, you know,
I love that you bring that up, because tracking is
a bit of a it's people don't do it that's
(20:27):
all I can say. Uh, and and it's really really valuable.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And the other reason for for accounting, shall we say,
is for taxation preparation, I mean preparation of tax returns.
So really I talk about that a lot in the book.
That those are the two main reasons, you know, keeping
track so that you can make business decisions, and keeping
tracks so that you don't overpay your taxes or underpay
(20:54):
your taxes and get in trouble later. You know.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Well, and from a tax standpoint, real estate can be
extremely beneficial. So item you want to just speak to
how real estate can work in your favor.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, there's several really you know, favorable treatments of real
estate in the tax law. And I will say that
this is probably because so many members of Conger, some
on both sides of the aisle for generations, so many
of them actually are also landlorders, you know, they own
real estate as well, So I think they've made sure
(21:25):
to pass a lot of things that are favorable to
round property. But the most obvious thing everybody at least
knows the word, is depreciation, you know, which is a
write off each year of the improvement part of property
is shown you can't appreciate the land, but it's a
(21:48):
an expense that you you get to have without any
cash outflow, you know, to get that that year. So
you can perhaps even with you utilizing the depreciation launs
that allow you to accelerate depreciation.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
And those laws do change time to time.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
But instead of writing off a building on an even
amount every year for twenty seven a half years or whatever,
you might be able to take a lot more depreciation
in the earlier years, especially if you break out the
equipment that's in the building and not depreciate that along
with the building, to depreciate that on a faster schedule.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So you know, having said.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
That, I don't want to get too technical, but depreciation
can perhaps even create a loss even though you actually
have a positive cash flow right well last forever, because
eventually the depreciation will become so much smaller than it
was at the beginning, and now you do have you know,
more taxable income even though you still have the same
cash flow or maybe just a little bit more cash
(22:48):
right So yeah, depreciation. And another big thing is that
income from rental property rental real estate is considered passive
income as opposed to income that would be taxed like
your job, you know, and that means that although the
(23:09):
income from operating the rental property is included with your
other taxable income, you are excluded or that income income
is excluded from paying self employment tax, you know, now
self employment tax. They might say, well, what the heck
is that? If you if you only have ever had
a W two job? You notice how there's a deduction
(23:31):
for Social Security, you know, if I see, I guess
it's called But what you may not know is that
the employer is paying an equal amount. Well, let's say
it's seven and a half percent, Like you're going to
pay seven and a half percent a year paycheck and
the employer is going to pay seven and a half percent.
So all together, fifteen percent is paid on that income. Well,
if you're self employed, you pay the whole fifteen percent.
(23:55):
But if your income is you know, from rental property,
you're going to pay the income tax, but you're not
going to pay the self and plund tax. And then,
as you probably know and can elaborate on, with a
big beautiful bill, that made permanent the twenty percent right
(24:15):
off the top of income from businesses you know, before
your taxed. That's the Section one something nine of Gosh,
I wish I'd be a little better prepared to spit
that out, but that's the safe harbor thing, and that
just simply means like, if you have a business of
(24:38):
some sort, figure out what your net income is, take
twenty percent of that and don't pay tax on you know.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
And so at.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
First they weren't sure that real estate was included in
that because it's passive income. But it has been worked
out that yes, it's included once again thanks to our
lawmakers on both sides of the isle, go all in
real estate. So they did make it available to rental
(25:11):
property with a couple of caveats that are.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Not hard to meet.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
First of all, you have to have like at least
two hundred and fifty hours of work done on those
properties each year. And that doesn't all have to be
done by you. Everything that all the hours by contractors
that work for.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Your accounted air too, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
And the other thing is, and get back to record keeping,
you actually have to have a little log of the
hours you spent, you know, and just you don't have
to turn it in, you just keep it with your
tax prep docs so that if you're ever audited and
you're claiming the deduction. You can say, well, here's how
(25:52):
I qualified by the hours. Here's my log from that
year for doing that.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
You know, I'm thinking that because you out the book
in part for your son, that the book includes all
these ideas of what to track and and why.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, there's a whole section in there about the tax
implications of being in.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
The real estate business.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, okay, I mean it encompasses keeping track of your
mileage on your car. I just went over this with him.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
The other day. He had to go down to.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
One of the real properties from the house here, and
I said, and I was going to go with it,
so I said, where's your log, your mileage log? I said, okay,
let's let's have it be the in the mileage in
the in the gas purchase book, which you know, at
least he's good at right now when he buys gas.
(26:45):
You know what, the government allows you to set amount
per mile for business mileage. It changes every year, sometimes
in the middle of the year. And I said, okay,
let's use the you know, the booklet here and you
with the date, you put the location you're going to
in the general purpose and when you get back to
(27:06):
theas here. Look on your odometer there, tribometer, and see
how much how many miles down in the tenth with
mile you know, and write it, because here's the deal.
Your little LLC is going to be able to reimburse
you for your business miles based on that sense per
(27:28):
mile that the government gives. And it's an expense to
your LLC, which of course is an expense to you
you're the only member of the LLC. But it's not
income to you personally. It's not like it's a wash.
It's a deduction here and it's not an income over here.
It's just a deduction, right, No rancome.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
You know, Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay, so let's talk for
a minute about just that. I mean, you did this
right away, your son did it right away. But there
are a lot of people who have been waiting and
you know, are no longer nineteen or twenty and trying
(28:11):
to you know, still that's been an idea that they've
wanted to pursue but haven't done anything about it. I mean,
for those folks, you know, they're working, maybe they even
have a family. What is the advice as far as
how to put their mindset kind of the in the
right space to allow them to go forward. I know
(28:32):
a lot of people are always waiting until I'm waiting
until I have this much in the bank. I'm waiting
until you know I'm not so busy at work. I mean,
there's a lot and suddenly you know twenty years have
gone by in your story.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Wait while you're waiting.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
What you should be doing is educated yourself. And I
have it right in chapter one. It's part of the title.
It says gets some education, and the emphasis.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
On the word some.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Don't have to know everything before you take a step
into real estate or retail or you know, some profession
that you want you know. Because we're talking a little
more general here, you got to be careful about not
getting caught up in the paralysis of analysis. But using
(29:21):
real estate again as an example, you don't have to
know everything about it before you buy your first property.
But I recommend that you have some education. How do
you get that some education? Read a book like mine,
Join a local professional group that is comprised of like
(29:42):
minded people that are doing the same thing you're doing,
whether it's real estate or some other profession that you
want to be involved in. But particularly in real estate
because the deals are often made off market from one
investor to another. You know, everybody's at a different stage
of their investment journey, and like for example, at some
point you get to where you're selling stuff instead of
(30:05):
buying stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Well, you know, the easiest place to do that is.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
People that are earlier on in the journey and in
as buyers.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
You know, and so.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Educate yourself to the point that you can avoid big mistakes.
But you don't have to know everything because you're going
to learn once you get started by doing and if
you get with other people who are doing the same thing,
you're going to just learn from them or even learn
about a specific thing that comes up, a problem or
(30:40):
whatever that you'd have contact with other people in your
group that can answer specifically something that you need to
know about. And then as you go on, like in
the real estate journey, you might discover more types of investing.
More you know an intr seen it different types of
(31:01):
property than you started out with, and you will build
on what you already know. But don't think you need
to know it all before you take it first step.
A lot of people and I see them out there,
they think, oh, I just need to go to one more.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
I just need to go to this boot camp. I
just need to read this book.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Hopefully it's my book, you know, and then I'll be rich,
you know. And that's and they never do anything, you know.
They're always at the meetings and they're always talking about
how they're getting ready to, you know, buy something, and
then years go by and theyona do anything, you know,
because he just always trying to.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Learn about how to do it.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Meanwhile, people that started at the same time they did
and just jumped in and bought something and ask questions
when they didn't know they're already second, third, fourth property.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah, it's a great point. And I think with anything
you know, don't do it alone. It's one of the
big messages, you know, whether you're starting business or you're
buying real estate or you know, starting a family for
that matter. I mean, like you say, educate yourself, talk
to people. I think we get a lot of strength
from being in groups where other people are doing this
and talking about it and sharing their mistakes, because I
(32:14):
think some of the reasons that people put things off
is just that fear of you know, what if I
really messed this up and it you know, really hurts me.
So there are a few things to wrestle with in
your own mind about that may happen. I mean, I'm
sure you haven't had, you know, a home run with
every single thing you've done to this point in real estate,
(32:35):
it just doesn't seem like that would be.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I lost money on a few houses that we flipped,
although you gotta make lemonade for the lements. I had
a house fourteen years ago that I got done with
and just realized I had too much in it and
I wasn't going to hardly make anything in the market.
Wasn't that great for a real profitable thing. So I
actually sold it twice with a lease option, you know,
(33:01):
in other words, the people paid a fee for the right,
but not the obligation to buy the property within in
this case two years, and the first people walked away.
They had some come up and they gave up their
their lease ouption fee. The option expired. Second people, same thing.
I just ended up somehow renting it out regular rental
(33:23):
after that, and in fourteen years I had seven different
families in there. When the last ones moved out this
past June, it was time for an interior paint job.
I did that basically thinking I was preparing it to
rent it. And I got done, I said, hey, this
place is never going to look any better than this
market's good.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
I'm going to sell it.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
So that was a fourteen year flip.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Made one hundred and two thousand dollars on the sale,
not to mention probably about seventy or eight or more.
I didn't really calculate in net rental income over those
fourteen years. If I would have sold it fourteen years ago,
might have made five or tintos.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
See that's a great example, and it's also a great
example of sort of pivoting idea wise as you go.
And I think that's important for people to understand. You know,
it's a little bit of a game where things are
changing while you change your strategy, you know, and again
being around people who've had experiences like that and understand them,
and you know, without the experience, you don't under you
(34:27):
don't know what the options are. I mean, that whole
idea of the least buy option, that's not something that
everybody would think of until they get a little more educated.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
As you say, yeah, and then there are the people
that are looking externally for reasons why they can't take
their first step. Like there are some people, like we
were talking about the internally the field, they don't know enough.
And then the other people think, I know everything. But
market's terrible right now. Interest rates, so the stock market
house spread. You know what, I've been in this business
(34:56):
almost forty eight years. I've been through so many economic cycles.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I will tell you that a good deal is.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
A good deal in any given market. There's a way
to make deals.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
There are people that need to sell property and are
going to sell it at less and what it's worth,
and you know, you might have to change your techniques
of trying to acquire the property or you know, market
for the property.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
But like you said, you pivot, you adjust, and you
just keep going. Don't sit on the sidelines. When I
got into this business nineteen seventy eight, Jimmy Carter was
president Stargling. With inflation prime was twenty two and a
half percent. It's what seven now, you know, And when
it was three and a quarter for four or five
(35:45):
years recently, that's not normal, you know, that's not no,
it's more normal now with what it is, you know.
So I was a tenant still for the first five
years I was a landlord, and so in nineteen eighty
three when I bought my first personal residence, I was
pleased to get twelve and a half percent interest.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
It was great, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Now eventually refined that to a lower interest rate as
things went down, you know. And but the point is
that that.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
You you, you shouldn't use too much of this economic
conditions sort of argument to stand sidelines.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
And I can really only speak for real estate. I
do understand that there could certainly be certain areas of
other businesses like retail or or you know, whatever the
examples might be, who are very much more affected by
economic cycles, and there could be bad reasons to go
in at certain times. I get that, you know. But
(36:53):
as far as real estate, it's not going anywhere. They're
not making any more land, as Will Rogers said, and
and everybody's going to have a place to lit all
the time.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think there's a tangible quality
to real estate that makes it easier for people to understand.
We all live one way or another, whether we're renting
or outing, or we all you know, pretty much live
in a hall, and so it's something we understand. So
I think that makes it a more engaging investment to
(37:28):
some people.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
And now another thing about mindset, and this would apply
not only to real estate, but you have to get
rid of preconceptions that you have for entering a given industry.
I think every industry has, or a line of work,
you know, has certain preconceptions that go with it, either
(37:51):
to the good or to the bad. Real estate, you know,
one extreme is, oh, it's all bad tenants and broken toilets.
And the other extreme is is that, oh it's so
easy money, It's all rainbows and unicorns. You know, it's
somewhere in between. So when you talk about mindset, it's
it's you know, discipline and understanding yourself and taking an
(38:16):
assessment of your not only your personal financial situation but
your your your financial situation. And it's uh, you know,
becoming aware of preconception so that you understand what is
a false preconception and what is the truth.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
But not.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Like I say, thinking you got to know everything before
you take.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
A step, right, Yeah, thank you, that's great. And you
know there's also that mindset around debt because there are
a lot of people this is going to typically require,
you know, acquiring some debt and people do have a
lot of fear around that. I mean, some people don't,
but some people they've been brought up that, you know,
stay out of debt. So you have to get over
(39:01):
that a bit.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Well, yeah, and that's a preconception that I think that
you're right. You have to get over it because, especially
when it comes to real estate, which is something that
is securing the debt, you now can start to delineate
between good debt and bad debt.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Bad debt is.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
When you borrow money to go on vacation, you know,
or you borrow money to buy a depreciating asset that
isn't going to make you any money, you know, unless
you truly have the the.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
The disposable income.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Now, car is a depreciable asset, but it makes you
money because it gets you to your job, or it
gets you to your properties or whatever. So that's you know,
you know, I get that you're not going to sell
cars a profit, but for the most part. But on
the other hand, real estate is something that isn't going anywhere,
(40:02):
and it secures the loan, and assuming it's rental real estate,
the tenants are actually giving you the money to make
your payments. And when your payments are all done, they
still have to pay rent even though you don't have
a mortgage anymore, you know, and so you know, you
(40:23):
you have to be prepared to use leverage. And if
you come from a family that the mindset is truly
absolutely don't go into debt for anything, pay cash for
a well, you're going to have to change that thinking
to get somewhere in real estate, because real estate does
(40:44):
run on OPM, which stands for other People's money, and
that's you know, using leverage, in other words, using other
people's money to buy property that produces income and appreciates
in value that leverage. You know, that's how it's done
in this business, which gets back to the importance of
(41:07):
developing relationships with banks and being able to present your
financial position to the bank, which brings me to one
of the chapters in my book, which is a whole
chapter on preparing personal financial statements for lenders to increase
your your likelihood of getting your loan approved. You know,
(41:29):
I bring into that chapter so you probably know from
being an accountant that it's it's kind of coming from
that background. It combined with my own experience with applying
for a lot of loans, mortgages. You know, over the years,
you know how to present the information that is necessary
(41:52):
for these underwriters in the banks that are twenties and
thirty something, people that just can't wait till four o'clock,
that are checking boxes and making financial decisions about your future.
You know, you have to make it easy for them
to understand. Because they'll understand what you presented, it's more
(42:12):
likely that it is just going to be rejected. I mean,
you know, when you're don't understand something, you fear it,
and you you get away from.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, beautifully put. I love that, and I love that
that's in your book. I feel like that is you know,
it's it's all the preparation. And you talked about disciplined earlier.
This informs you, you know, in what areas do you
really need to be disciplined and how do you sort
of put that on display for people? But I and
(42:43):
you know, you mentioned that discipline in relation to younger people,
but it applies to everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I mean, now, the earlier you start being disciplined, the
easier it's going to be, because it's going to be a habit,
you know, going forward, instead of being thirty something and
say you know, I should really start getting disciplined with
my money and spend less than I make. And in
order to figure out whether I'm doing that or not,
I should probably keep track of a few things. Right.
(43:10):
That's tough.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, And and thirties still early. I mean I see
that in you know, people in their forties and fifties too,
living their lives. And you know, I mean I've seen
it in myself. I mean, discipline is a is a
universally important habit to develop, as you said, yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, that's right, and you know, developing those relationships not
only with lenders, but I will go go a little
step further. In real estate, a lot of times you
don't actually make mortage applications to just one bank at
a ton off your choosing you you may want to
(43:52):
use a mortgage broker, and the mortgage broker is somebody
that keeps track of what the appetites are for maybe
one hundred different banks or institutional lenders of some sort,
so that when you go to the broker with your
proposal for the particular property you went to buy and
your description of your financial situation, not only will the
(44:17):
broker help assemble that into a nice package but they
will know which lenders to approach so that you're not
wasting time, you know, like going to your favorite bank
locally that you maybe got a couple of loans from before,
not knowing that they have changed their appetites. You know,
(44:37):
their board had a meeting and all of a sudden,
they don't want a loan on you know, small residential
properties or something like that because they've got enough of
them in their portfolio right now. And you didn't know that,
and you find out a couple months later, after they've
been underwriting you for two months and then tell you, you
know what, actually, we can't do this loan, or we
(44:59):
can't give the same terms that you had before, or
that we told you we'd give you when we started
out here. Now you're two months down the road, and
maybe your buyer says or your seller you know, says, hey,
you obviously can't get along here. I'm moving on to
some other buyer.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
You know. That is such a good point. And I've
been through that multiple times with local banks, and I
find that so interesting. I sort of thought maybe it
was a fluke, but now that you're bringing it up,
because there was no reason they couldn't have just told
me this at the beginning and saved me all the
time and effort and and along the way. They're sort
of I mean, I guess it's a customer service thing,
(45:34):
but they're they're holding your hand in theory and telling
you it's going to be okay, and you know, we
just need to.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Keep asking you for more and more.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
And at the end you're just like, why didn't you
just tell me at day two that this wasn't gonna
work out? So thank you for bringing that up. And
I find the mortgage brokers are much I mean, you
will pay them.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
A little fee, but it's yeah, oh yeah, I forgot to. Yes,
there's a small fee that you will pay, but it's
what worth the.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Uh, it's well worth it.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yeah, no expense.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
So I'm afraid we're running out of time. I'm super
excited about your book. I think it sounds really really
valuable and too, like you said at the beginning, to
anybody at any stage of this, even even if you've
stumbled along and been successful, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Learning.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Learning is learning, you know, and there's always something new
you could think to do or you know a better
way of doing.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
So, yeah, the book has uh, we own it. On
the front page, it says the big book.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
I don't know if you noticed it when I was
up there, because it is thicker than a lot of
books in the genre, which are typically two or three
hundred pages. Mine is like four hundred and sixty pages.
But before somebody says, oh my gosh, wed he said
that because I'm not gonna buy it. I can't read
a book that big. What I did was I and
I'll hold it up. I don't know if this will
work for Tony or not, but I'll just open it. Yeah, yeah,
(46:57):
you can see. I have written it so that it's
chock full of bold type words, sentences, paragraphs, and so on,
so that if you did nothing but skip from bold
type to bold type, to bold type to bold type,
you blow through that book. You'll get the whole idea
what's going on, And if it's covering something that you
think you want to learn more about, just stop and
read all the words.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
You know. That's how it works.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
And what do you know what Ron Legrand is.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
He's a real estate guru.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
He's like the guru to a lot of Like if
you named a real estate guru that you did know
of right now, he would probably be their guru. Okay,
all right, So Ron got a copy of the book
and he actually reviewed it and said, I wish I
would have had his.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Book when I was getting started.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Oh it's become the go to resource. The reviewers are
for changing your life with real estate. The reviewers are
saying that this is not the kind of book that
you read and you say, oh, I read that for
it on your shelf. You know, this is kind of
book you read and you park on your desk because
(48:05):
you're going to refer to it now. It's and it
starts with it, Like I said before, everything from mindset
to it covers all the different types of entities that
you might want to choose to start a lot of
people think, oh, LLC, you got to do that, you know,
but no, maybe that's not right for you. But it
covers all the different formations, you know, business formations, and
(48:29):
then it covers finding, negotiating financing deals, and then it
gets into preparing a property to sell it or rent it,
and how to deal with the finding and managing tenants
like all the real you know me stuff with actual
round properties. But then we move into tax implications like
I was saying that are specific to the rental property business,
(48:50):
and then preparing financial statements for the bankers and private
lenders like myself. Sometimes we wouldn't see that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (48:59):
And then.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Understanding the difference between riches and wealth.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
There's a difference, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
It's like the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge as
you have the facts. Wisdom is you know how to
apply the facts to do good, you know. And with
riches that's having the money. But wealth is knowing what
to do with the money so that you're you're living
in full life and contributing to your community and and
(49:28):
doing well. You know, if I if I had a
choice between now losing all my money and losing all
my relationships, I would lose all my money in a heartbeat.
You now, because my relationships will will help me get.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
My money back.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Now, if I had a ton of money and no relationships,
I'd be really empty. So we talk about that and
then move into oh, here's a concluding statement there. Don't
make a withdrawal from a relationship just to make a
deposit in your bank account.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Well that's but.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Then we move into some other best practices for not
only business, but your personal life and so on. And
the reason why it's also an easy read is because
it's not just all words or text. You know, there's
like one hundred and fifty different checklists and like bullet
point checklists, which take up a lot of space, but
there aren't a lot of words on any flying, you know,
(50:24):
and it covers all, you know, all these things from
tennant screening questions to negotiation questions, due diligence questions, contractor questions,
even a list of the tools you're going to need,
you know, if you're just getting started. So you know,
(50:45):
my hope is that everybody who owns a copy of
Rich Dead or Day also gets this because it's sort
of a companion. You know, it gets in a little
bit more than Nuts and Bolts than Rich Dead Ports,
which is an awesome book that probably more haven't any
other book, and this is genre, you know, like Robert Kiyosaki.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. Wow, that's great. And I
do think the nuts and bolts in the checklists and
all those things is very very valuable. I mean, people
pay am a lot of money to take courses or
be in you know, large groups to require those kinds
of things. So well, we will have to wrap. But
you know they had the hard money lending was a
(51:25):
whole other topic that I would have loved to spend
some time on, so uh that that is also worth
people understand.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Oh we can, we can do that in another episode,
can drilled down deep on private lending being lending and yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
A little uh harder you know, to to find understanding
about out there in the world. So okay, well, Jill,
thank you so much. This has been so informative, and
so you know, I think people can definitely hear uh
your dedication to this and and you know, you've you've
(52:01):
got your son involved, and it's a parent that you
really believe in this as a way to enhance your life,
and you know, and you're talking about doing it for
the right reasons, and yeah, it just actually makes it
very appealing to everybody. I think.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
So thank you, Michelle.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
I'm glad we connected. Your podcast is a little outside
of the strictly real estate genre of podcasts that I do,
and so it's it's it's refreshing to you know, kind
of talk about some different things.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Okay, that's great. Yeah, and you know, I love it
because you I think you eliminated some of the intimidating
aspects you if you know, I think all you did
was get people to want to learn more, which they
can do with your books, So I think that's great.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
The website, I think, I don't know if you have
it up there, but it's very simple.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
It's just joelmillerbooks dot com.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
We've got that up and I'll put it in the
show notes, and yeah, I would you know. I hope
everybody is going to buy the book. I'm actually going
to buy one for my kids because I think, I mean,
I have at least one child who's extremely interested in
real estate, and I think this would be great. So
(53:14):
I just won't listen to me, but read your book
and listen to you.
Speaker 5 (53:17):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
All right, Okay, well, thank you, thank you again for
joining us. I really appreciate your time and really appreciate
everything you share. And thank you audience for showing up
for the money and you podcast. We love it when
you listen, we love it when you rate and review
the show, and please subscribe. Please share this show with
your friends, the ones who have been telling you how
they'd like to buy a property someday, or maybe they're
(53:40):
already doing it, So share the show and let them
in on Joel Miller's secrets and yeah, so thank you
so much. You can reach out to me, Michelle two l's.
Speaker 5 (53:51):
At libittfreelife dot com and we'll see you next week,
book
Speaker 4 (54:03):
Boo
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