March 4, 2025 • 22 mins
Join Wyatt Reed in this episode of Ascend Your Success Podcast as he explores the fascinating journey of financial freedom through real estate with Michael Hoang, the host of the Be Someone podcast. Michael shares his personal story of transitioning from the corporate world into real estate, revealing the secrets to achieving financial independence while maintaining a fulfilling life.
Discover how Michael and his wife cleverly utilized house hacking to significantly reduce their living costs while building their rental portfolio. He unveils essential tips on setting realistic financial goals, discussing the importance of lifestyle choices that prioritize happiness over mere income expansion.
Throughout this conversational episode, we learn about Michael’s mentorship experiences and how valuable connections can help accelerate your journey toward success. By re-evaluating what true financial freedom means, listeners are encouraged to take meaningful steps towards creating their own paths.
Don't miss this opportunity to gain insights into real estate strategies that can transform your financial outlook. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or someone seeking to pivot careers, Michael’s story and advice offer powerful encouragement to pursue financial independence. Subscribe for more enriching discussions and take charge of your financial destiny today!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Ascend your Success podcast.
Whether you're just startingout or are a veteran looking to
grow your business, you're inthe right place.
Join us to learn how to achievefinancial freedom while working
and living life on your ownterms.
Hear valuable insights,strategies and interviews with
successful entrepreneurs.
(00:20):
Get ready to achieve thesuccess you've always dreamed of
.
Ready, let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What's going on, guys ?
My name is Wyatt Reed and thisis the Ascend your Success
podcast, and today I get tointerview my friend Michael with
Be Someone podcast.
We just got off of your podcasta couple of days ago and I was
like dude, I got to have you onmy podcast.
So, dude, welcome.
Thank you so much for being onhere.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself and a little bit about,
like, how you got started andeverything like that.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, thank you, wyatt, that was a fun podcast.
So my name is Michael Hong, I'min Houston, texas, and I got
started in real estate because Ihad a full-time corporate job
where every week I had to fly ordrive to another city I was
working in I think it was 38states, and that was a big
(01:08):
incentive for me to get intoreal estate, because my wife at
the time was in college, she wasin a master's program and she
said you can do whatever youwant, you know, while I'm in
school, but when school ends yougot to come home, you got to
find another job, you got to dosomething, and I had been
climbing the corporate ladderfor a little while now and it
(01:30):
wasn't looking like what Ithought it would be, and so I
was really, really pushed to getinto single family real estate,
specifically because I wastrying to build up enough cash
flow to replace my income and Ilearned that you don't need as
much cash flow as you think youdo, and me and my wife
engineered our life to kind ofbe more simple and so we could
(01:54):
retire faster.
I know people who need, you know, 50 houses to retire or 25
houses to retire, but it dependson what your standard of living
is.
But if you're really motivatedand you control the cost in your
life, it just takes a fewhouses to get to replace your
income and pay your bills likethat.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, for sure.
I think we talked about this onyour podcast too.
It was the fact that you reallyneed to set that goal and for
me, whenever I set it and I helpother people set it, like new
students that are just gettingin like the first goal is to
replace your income right.
That way, you've got yourincome coming in, you can still
pay the bills, you can live likeyou've been living regardless,
(02:35):
right.
And then take a step back andsay, okay, what's next?
Because if you just say I wantmore, I want more, I want more,
you're always going to bechasing money and you're never
going to be happy and you'renever going to have that true
freedom that you're talkingabout, where you wanted to be
home with the family and thingslike that.
Because I remember seeingpeople who I looked up to and
(02:56):
when I finally got in and seenwhat their lives looked like, it
wasn't the family that theywanted, it was they're out here
hustling, chasing money and thentheir family's being broken and
left to the side.
So you've got to set goals andonce you hit them, you've got to
step back and reevaluate.
But most people never step backand reevaluate.
They just keep rolling and tryto do more.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, that's right.
And when I was in the corporateworld, I always looked up to my
boss or maybe my boss's boss andI saw who that person was at my
last job.
I was there for seven or eightyears and the guy comes in at
the crack of dawn, is late, evenif there's really nothing to do
, and he was living paycheck topaycheck on.
(03:40):
I think he was making maybe aquarter million dollars a year
and he was miserable.
He had a rough family life.
He didn't get to be home everysingle holiday and I was
thinking to myself, like what amI doing, what am I building or
what am I striving to?
If I got to wait till I'm 60years old to be this guy and
then look at how his life is, Ifelt like I needed a change.
(04:01):
Yeah, and so our first deal Igot to give a lot of this credit
to my wife because when we metand we had not got married yet,
I told her what my plan was withreal estate before we even got
together, and she loved it and Isaid well, our first deal might
be a house hack, and so How'sthat conversation look?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Does that is that I mean you said at that time you
didn't have kids, or you didhave kids?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Did not have kids then, still don't have kids now.
God willing we'll be havingkids this year or next year.
And full disclosure, we don'teven know if we can have kids.
We've never tried, so we'llfigure that out coming soon.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Heck, yeah, heck, yeah.
Well, it's a lot easier to havethat conversation without kids,
for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, yes it is.
It's a whole different world,and so you know for those of you
who don't know there's two waysto house hack.
One you could buy a duplex,triplex or fourplex.
You live in one unit, rent outthe others.
Or you can buy a house and livein out of state, and she lived
in another city and so we werekind of in a rush to buy a place
(05:07):
so we could move her here andstart our life together.
So we ended up giving up on thetwo to four unit and what we
went for was a single familyhome and we were looking at
houses that kind of fit.
What we were looking for andthis was maybe 2018, I believe
so we're looking for houses thatfit what we were looking for,
where there's like the masterbedroom is far away from all the
other bedrooms and everyone'sgot their own bathroom and stuff
(05:30):
like that.
And so we ended up buying alarger house in an older
community and we rented out therooms.
And the original plan was, ifwe could have half of our
mortgage subsidized and I thinkat the time it would have been
like we were paying 600 bucks amonth or 700 bucks a month out
of our own pocket, we'd be happy.
But the miracle of real estateis the rents always come in
(05:51):
higher than you expected.
Property appreciates over time.
The mortgage pays down overtime.
So within a year we were livingrent free or mortgage free with
just a couple of roommates andwe loved it.
I was traveling for work, I wasgone all the time, my wife was
working part-time and then wasin a full-time college program
and we learned that you get whatyou ask for in marketing, and
(06:13):
so when we were findingroommates, we got people who
lived the life.
We were busy professionals weput like a desk and an office
chair in each room, and peoplethat just wanted a place to lay
their head at night, and theyweren't the party party kind of
people, and so it was a reallygreat experience for us.
House hacking More difficultwhen you have kids.
For sure, if you're married,have kids, it's probably best
(06:34):
that you go for the two to fourunit situation and live in one
of the units.
But we didn't have kids at thetime and my wife loved the
arrangement.
So fast forward, like we'relike going for looking for
financial freedom and we're like, once you have like no rent or
very little rent, or like nomortgage or very little mortgage
.
The amount of money you cansave is insane.
(06:57):
You don't realize most of yourincome.
People like to think like I'mgoing to get this six figure job
, we're going to make so muchmoney.
What I learned is your salary isset based on the cost of your
living.
They're not paying you whatyour labor is worth.
They're paying you just abovewhat it takes to have food,
shelter, housing and a car.
(07:17):
You know, that is it.
Everything else is like there'sa little bit of margin of play
money in there, and so if youwant to double your income at
your job, that's possible.
But it's a long, slow grind andthen what happens is your cost
of living increases with yoursalary, so you end up with the
same marginal amount of money.
But if you can kind of hack thesystem and you pay your cars off
(07:39):
and you have no car note andthen you live for free, my God,
I had more disposable incomeevery month than my boss, who
was making a quarter milliondollars a year and couldn't even
put money into his IRA.
And so we hit what, like laterlearned, was called level one,
financial freedom.
I heard someone talk about thisat a conference, so I'm
stealing it.
(07:59):
Level one financial freedom wasyour bills are paid.
But we didn't understand that atthe time.
We were just plowing money intoour savings account and we paid
off our cars quickly and wekind of always drive older cars
that are still functional andstill everything works on them
and you just replace a part hereand there, so we weren't trying
to elevate our lifestyle.
And then we started buyingsingle family homes.
(08:21):
So I started with direct mailand we were doing just the good
old traditional high equityabsentee out-of-state landlord
list.
You can pull a list from placeslike ListSource and lots of
other data providers.
And then we were sendingletters saying I buy houses cash
.
We learned this from a mentorthat I engaged with and it was
(08:41):
really important for me to get amentor.
I did the house hacking thingwithout a mentor and that was
fine.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I was going to ask you where did you learn about
the house hacking thing?
Was that like a bigger pocketsthing?
I know they're huge in househacking.
You know, brandon.
Turner back in the day was hugeon that.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
And so I started by listeningto bigger pockets.
Probably I don't know what wasit 2014, 2015, 2016.
I don't know when it was,whenever the podcast was still
just Josh Jorkin and BrandonTurner Good old days yeah, good
old days, for sure, and it'stotally different now.
(09:17):
You know, they were still tryingto figure out this whole
BiggerPockets podcasting thingand no one really knew what they
were doing.
It was very organic, it wasvery authentic.
I loved it back then.
And so that was kind of like mymaster's degree in real estate,
because they came out with anepisode once a week and then at
the end of that episode theguest would recommend a book and
what I would do is I couldn'twait for the next week's episode
(09:39):
, so I would read or listen onAudible to the book the whole
week and try to finish it beforethe next BiggerPockets episode.
So I did that for four or five,six years.
And so one of my privatelenders told me and I stole that
from him he said that was yourmaster's degree in real estate,
was doing that for many years.
And then they have books onhouse hacking, there's blogs you
can read, and so house hackingis not that hard to figure out.
(10:02):
There are people that canmentor you on it and people that
have models for, like,complicated markets like
California or ADUs or somethinglike that, but we figured that
out on our own.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, I think it's important to figure out what you
need to figure out to get yourfirst deal done.
That was best for you andeasiest for you, and then you
hired a mentor right after.
I think that's to take it tothe next level.
And I always tell people thatare listening I say this
probably on every podcast butwe're not telling you to do
(10:32):
anything we don't do ourselves.
Like me and you are both inmasterminds.
We got a couple of things we dotogether, like we hire mentors,
like thousands and thousands ofdollars for mentors,
mentorships and you know eventsthat we go to and things that we
do to go and learn and bearound people who are doing
bigger and better things than us.
(10:53):
So, like I think it's soimportant that you it just
slingshots you, like, to thenext level.
You don't have to think aboutwhat you're doing.
They tell you exactly what youneed to be focused on.
So you cut out a lot of thatlearning curve by hiring a
mentor.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, that's right, and, if I'm remembering
correctly, I've had four mentorsthat I've paid good money for
in my life and then, as my lifeevolved, I've needed different
mentors.
I've had a single family mentor, a multifamily mentor now,
which is something I'm gettinginto, and so as you, as your
business rise, you're going tohit these plateaus and you're
(11:28):
not going to know what to donext.
Instead of you waste a bunch ofmoney and figure out the wrong
way, how to do things, you cango to someone and get their
blueprint or get their expertiseon it.
But I wanted to get back to thesingle family stuff.
So when we started buyingproperties for ourselves on the
single family side, we're livingin a house hack in an older
community, in an older home, inwhat some people might describe
(11:50):
a rougher part of town.
We might've heard fireworks attimes a year when there wasn't
fireworks, if you know what Imean.
And we were buying, we weredoing direct mail and we found
the zip codes we liked, pricepoints we liked, and we're
sending direct mail and I'mbuying houses in the suburbs on
the west side of Houston and Ithought it was ironic that we're
driving 10-year-old cars.
We're living in an older homein a rougher community, and then
(12:13):
I'm driving to my rentalproperties outside the city, in
the suburbs, where my renters,my tenants at BMWs and Mercedes
and they lived in a nicer housethan me, in a nicer school
district than me, in a nicercommunity than me and then I
would turn on the news or Iwould turn on YouTube and I
would see these mean oldlandlords that are a ruin in the
(12:34):
country and that are justtaking advantage of people and
my tenants would have nicerfurniture than me and nicer cars
than me and a worse credit thanme and no liquidity and no
savings compared to me, likewhen we would pull their credit
reports and everything, and sothat really impacted what I
understood the American dream tobe Like.
It's not a, it's not a nicehouse on the hill and a nice car
(12:56):
on that salary, it's.
You got to kind of put thehorse before the cart.
And so I feel like my wife and Idid the right way, because we
were buying houses in thesuburbs and then this house I'm
in right now was one of themthat we were going to be a
rental on, and I did the mathand I told her.
I said, hey, babe, are you readyto no longer have roommates,
because we can move into thisthat we were going to make a
(13:18):
rental, make it our primaryresidence and then rent out our
current home to a long-termtenant and then now we're going
to be living for free.
So we started by living for freewith roommates and then we
transitioned to living for freein our own home, in a smaller
home, a newer home in thesuburbs, in a nicer part of town
, and so I feel like we kind ofclimbed out, climbed up the hill
(13:43):
the right way, whereas mycoworkers, my friends, even my
neighbors in this neighborhood,their mortgage is twice what
mine is, because I bought myhouse for 50 cents on the dollar
off market, doing it the rightway, I use private money to
rehab it and to buy it and I putin a long-term mortgage in my
own name.
The amount of effort I have toexert to live my life is half
that of the people around me.
(14:04):
Everyone around me still hasnicer cars than me.
I know their mortgage paymentis higher than me and they are
just grinding to get somewherethat they need to go, and all
they know is to work harder formarginal increases in their
salary, and me and my wife chosea different path.
Reed yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, I love that, I love that.
So you house hacked, you hireda mentor.
After that you started gettinginto single family and you
talked a little bit aboutmultifamily.
So that transition what do youforesee your real estate journey
looking like in the next five,10 years?
What does that look like to you?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
So when we start, every time we buy a house, we
tell ourself we're going to keepit forever, we're going to pay
this mortgage off, this thing'sgoing to double, triple,
quadruple in value.
And then what I learned is liketo buy three houses, like to
buy a house a year is great, tobuy two or three houses a year
(15:04):
is awesome, but what happens atleast when I look at it is you
get to a point where if you'regoing to buy, rehab and rent out
and do the BRRRR method on 10houses a year, it's less effort
for you to go buy a 30-unitapartment complex or a 50-unit
apartment complex.
And so multifamily is appealingto me.
The economies of scale aregreat.
The cost of labor and materialsgoes down, the margin on the
(15:25):
rent goes up and it's the sametransaction, it's the same
paperwork, it's just with morezeros.
And so for the last year or soI've been in mentorship for
multifamily.
I haven't made my firstpurchase yet.
I have passively invested insome multifamily in the past,
but I think I would feel reallygreat about.
In the Houston area where Ilive, somewhere between 10 and
(15:48):
30 units is going to be my firstmultifamily deal and I have
partners that I can raisecapital with and funding is not
an issue to me and I have peoplethat can help me get the loan
and everything like that.
So if you're in the Houstonarea and you have a small
multifamily deal, reach out tome on Instagram at Michael B
someone single family as well.
Just, it has to be in andaround the Houston area.
(16:10):
I'm not an out-of-stateinvestor yet.
Maybe with Wyatt's help I can.
I can get over that hurdlethere and I can start remotely
investing in other markets thatthat are more appealing to me.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I'll buy some in Texas and you can buy some in
Tennessee and Alabama.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Let's do it, man.
We were talking on the lastpodcast my, my, my.
I have family in NorthernAlabama, which is not far from
where you're from, and Iactually did a year of high
school out there and live withfamily out there.
So I love it out there, man.
So I would love to learn moreabout investing in Northern
Alabama.
I love it, man, I love it Wellcome on out, Let me.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Let me ask you this what do you credit a lot of your
success?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
to today.
You know there's I get askedthis a lot and there's a lot of
things that I could I couldpoint to, but probably the
number one thing was stayingengaged with content Listening
to.
At one point I had 12 podcastsa week I was listening to.
I was crushing one to two booksa week.
This is when I wasn't reallydoing real estate.
This is when I was preparingfor it.
(17:12):
When you're doing real estate,you don't need that much content
.
There's a lot going on.
But I, you know, as a kid Ialways wondered whenever we
would go to Sunday school orchurch.
I'm like, why are people read?
The Bible hasn't changed inhowever many years?
Like, why do people read thesame Bible every week?
Like we all know it, we're alltold the stories as a kid and
then when I got into real estate, I realized why I will read
(17:36):
Rich Dad, poor Dad once a year.
So I read lots of new books,but there's a few books I put on
rotation every year.
I need to reach, need to rereadit, because words in the Rich
Dad, poor Dad never change, butI do.
I change and I'm at a differentpart of my journey and
different words in that bookspeak to me.
So probably what kept me awayfrom materialism and spending
(17:58):
all of my money and not stayingon this path was the fact that I
was engaged.
I was going to local meetups.
Free local meetups are allaround you.
Go to meetupcom, go to Facebookgroups.
There are free groupseverywhere.
There's a local RIA.
Bigger Pockets has a directorywhere you can find local groups.
I was going to free local groupsmeeting people that were higher
on the hill that I wanted toaspire to be one day I was
(18:23):
watching Instagram reels andYouTube podcasts.
I was listening to audio books.
I was buying books.
I have a top shelf behind me.
I was on a quest to collect allof the signatures.
My top shelf is all the booksof authors that have signatures.
Inside of there.
I was going to conferencescollecting signatures and that
kind of kept me on the straightand narrow and focused where,
like, I don't watch Netflixanymore, I didn't watch any
(18:45):
other kind of entertainment orshow.
That was my entertainment.
Because the market is alwayschanging.
You can only consume so muchcontent.
I consume less content todaybecause I'm in the business, but
the market is always changingand the best way to stay
connected to that is going toyour local meetups.
Go to masterminds, connect withpeople and then keep consuming
content, because I'm seven oreight years into it now and it's
(19:08):
been a long like there's been alot of distractions on the way,
but just stay engaged with thecommunity and make new friends
my top five friends before Istarted in real estate.
That's what my podcast isreally about.
The Be Someone podcast withMichael Hong is that I learned
the secret along the way and Isay this in the intro of my
podcast is that the secret on myjourney to be someone is
(19:31):
friends, people around you,people you surround yourself
with, because before I startedin real estate, my top five
friends didn't have a lot goingon.
Fast forward, seven or eightyears later, my top five friends
have way more going on than Ido, or way smarter, way richer
than me, and text me to check inwith me all the time, send me
links to upcoming events andinvite me into masterminds, and
(19:52):
so the probably consumingcontent one and surrounding
yourself with the right peopleis two.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, I love that.
Uh, besides Rich, since you'reon the book besides Rich Dad,
poor Dad, what do you recommendfor these guys?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
The big one for me Rich Dad, poor Dad, is a great
mindset book.
We all start there.
Some people call it the purpleBible.
I love that.
I stole that from Jerry Nortonand I love Jerry Norton, by the
way.
And the big one for me afterthat has got to be who, not how.
Every problem in your businessyou shouldn't ask how to do it,
you should ask who can do it foryou.
Uh, for me that's been my, whohas been mentors, and then my
(20:30):
other who has been VAs.
Those have been huge for me andI learned that from the book.
Who not?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
how computer right now.
So it's a good, good book forsure, for sure, well cool, well,
tell us, tell us, we're comingup on time.
How can people get ahold of you?
How can they learn?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
more from you.
Tell us how to work with you.
Yeah, follow my podcast.
It's the Be Someone podcastwith Michael Hong.
It's on Spotify.
It's on Apple podcast.
You can also follow my YouTubechannel.
We post the whole podcast thereMichael Hong on YouTube at
Michael Be Someone.
You can also follow my YouTubechannel.
We post the whole podcast thereMichael Hong on YouTube at
Michael B someone.
You can also message me onInstagram Michael B someone on
the IG.
And then I give my cell phonenumber away because I haven't
(21:11):
regretted this yet.
So, guys, don't make me regretthis.
It is 832-301.
Please text me.
Don't call me.
I get a thousand spam calls aday.
I won't answer it.
Just shoot me a text If youhave any questions.
Um, and if you're in theHouston area.
You have a deal you want tosend me.
Please send it my way and Iwould just love to follow.
I follow people back and I'dlove to follow your real estate
(21:31):
journey as well.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Heck yeah, man.
Thank you so much for being on.
Thank you for providing value.
I feel like we need to do apart two to this because there's
so much more we didn't get into.
So we'll schedule that and getanother marketing conversation
going on too.
But thank you so much for beingon, man.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Yeah, I love it.
Let's do another one where wetalk just about marketing and
closing deals and getting intoseller mindset.
I would love that.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Well, hey guys, if you heard anything that you like
or you're like man, I'd love toget into that or be a part of
that community that they weretalking about.
Go to ascendersuccesscom.
Fill out the form.
I'd love to have.
I have a conversation withevery single person personally
that fills out a form, so youtalk to me and, whether you're
in or out, we'll see you on thenext one.
Welcome to the Ascend your Success podcast.
Whether you're just startingout or are a veteran looking to
grow your business, you're inthe right place.
Join us to learn how to achievefinancial freedom while working
and living life on your ownterms.
Hear valuable insights,strategies and interviews with
successful entrepreneurs.
(00:20):
Get ready to achieve thesuccess you've always dreamed of
.
Ready, let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What's going on, guys ?
My name is Wyatt Reed and thisis the Ascend your Success
podcast, and today I get tointerview my friend Michael with
Be Someone podcast.
We just got off of your podcasta couple of days ago and I was
like dude, I got to have you onmy podcast.
So, dude, welcome.
Thank you so much for being onhere.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself and a little bit about,
like, how you got started andeverything like that.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, thank you, wyatt, that was a fun podcast.
So my name is Michael Hong, I'min Houston, texas, and I got
started in real estate because Ihad a full-time corporate job
where every week I had to fly ordrive to another city I was
working in I think it was 38states, and that was a big
(01:08):
incentive for me to get intoreal estate, because my wife at
the time was in college, she wasin a master's program and she
said you can do whatever youwant, you know, while I'm in
school, but when school ends yougot to come home, you got to
find another job, you got to dosomething, and I had been
climbing the corporate ladderfor a little while now and it
(01:30):
wasn't looking like what Ithought it would be, and so I
was really, really pushed to getinto single family real estate,
specifically because I wastrying to build up enough cash
flow to replace my income and Ilearned that you don't need as
much cash flow as you think youdo, and me and my wife
engineered our life to kind ofbe more simple and so we could
(01:54):
retire faster.
I know people who need, you know, 50 houses to retire or 25
houses to retire, but it dependson what your standard of living
is.
But if you're really motivatedand you control the cost in your
life, it just takes a fewhouses to get to replace your
income and pay your bills likethat.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, for sure.
I think we talked about this onyour podcast too.
It was the fact that you reallyneed to set that goal and for
me, whenever I set it and I helpother people set it, like new
students that are just gettingin like the first goal is to
replace your income right.
That way, you've got yourincome coming in, you can still
pay the bills, you can live likeyou've been living regardless,
(02:35):
right.
And then take a step back andsay, okay, what's next?
Because if you just say I wantmore, I want more, I want more,
you're always going to bechasing money and you're never
going to be happy and you'renever going to have that true
freedom that you're talkingabout, where you wanted to be
home with the family and thingslike that.
Because I remember seeingpeople who I looked up to and
(02:56):
when I finally got in and seenwhat their lives looked like, it
wasn't the family that theywanted, it was they're out here
hustling, chasing money and thentheir family's being broken and
left to the side.
So you've got to set goals andonce you hit them, you've got to
step back and reevaluate.
But most people never step backand reevaluate.
They just keep rolling and tryto do more.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, that's right.
And when I was in the corporateworld, I always looked up to my
boss or maybe my boss's boss andI saw who that person was at my
last job.
I was there for seven or eightyears and the guy comes in at
the crack of dawn, is late, evenif there's really nothing to do
, and he was living paycheck topaycheck on.
(03:40):
I think he was making maybe aquarter million dollars a year
and he was miserable.
He had a rough family life.
He didn't get to be home everysingle holiday and I was
thinking to myself, like what amI doing, what am I building or
what am I striving to?
If I got to wait till I'm 60years old to be this guy and
then look at how his life is, Ifelt like I needed a change.
(04:01):
Yeah, and so our first deal Igot to give a lot of this credit
to my wife because when we metand we had not got married yet,
I told her what my plan was withreal estate before we even got
together, and she loved it and Isaid well, our first deal might
be a house hack, and so How'sthat conversation look?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Does that is that I mean you said at that time you
didn't have kids, or you didhave kids?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Did not have kids then, still don't have kids now.
God willing we'll be havingkids this year or next year.
And full disclosure, we don'teven know if we can have kids.
We've never tried, so we'llfigure that out coming soon.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Heck, yeah, heck, yeah.
Well, it's a lot easier to havethat conversation without kids,
for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, yes it is.
It's a whole different world,and so you know for those of you
who don't know there's two waysto house hack.
One you could buy a duplex,triplex or fourplex.
You live in one unit, rent outthe others.
Or you can buy a house and livein out of state, and she lived
in another city and so we werekind of in a rush to buy a place
(05:07):
so we could move her here andstart our life together.
So we ended up giving up on thetwo to four unit and what we
went for was a single familyhome and we were looking at
houses that kind of fit.
What we were looking for andthis was maybe 2018, I believe
so we're looking for houses thatfit what we were looking for,
where there's like the masterbedroom is far away from all the
other bedrooms and everyone'sgot their own bathroom and stuff
(05:30):
like that.
And so we ended up buying alarger house in an older
community and we rented out therooms.
And the original plan was, ifwe could have half of our
mortgage subsidized and I thinkat the time it would have been
like we were paying 600 bucks amonth or 700 bucks a month out
of our own pocket, we'd be happy.
But the miracle of real estateis the rents always come in
(05:51):
higher than you expected.
Property appreciates over time.
The mortgage pays down overtime.
So within a year we were livingrent free or mortgage free with
just a couple of roommates andwe loved it.
I was traveling for work, I wasgone all the time, my wife was
working part-time and then wasin a full-time college program
and we learned that you get whatyou ask for in marketing, and
(06:13):
so when we were findingroommates, we got people who
lived the life.
We were busy professionals weput like a desk and an office
chair in each room, and peoplethat just wanted a place to lay
their head at night, and theyweren't the party party kind of
people, and so it was a reallygreat experience for us.
House hacking More difficultwhen you have kids.
For sure, if you're married,have kids, it's probably best
(06:34):
that you go for the two to fourunit situation and live in one
of the units.
But we didn't have kids at thetime and my wife loved the
arrangement.
So fast forward, like we'relike going for looking for
financial freedom and we're like, once you have like no rent or
very little rent, or like nomortgage or very little mortgage
.
The amount of money you cansave is insane.
(06:57):
You don't realize most of yourincome.
People like to think like I'mgoing to get this six figure job
, we're going to make so muchmoney.
What I learned is your salary isset based on the cost of your
living.
They're not paying you whatyour labor is worth.
They're paying you just abovewhat it takes to have food,
shelter, housing and a car.
(07:17):
You know, that is it.
Everything else is like there'sa little bit of margin of play
money in there, and so if youwant to double your income at
your job, that's possible.
But it's a long, slow grind andthen what happens is your cost
of living increases with yoursalary, so you end up with the
same marginal amount of money.
But if you can kind of hack thesystem and you pay your cars off
(07:39):
and you have no car note andthen you live for free, my God,
I had more disposable incomeevery month than my boss, who
was making a quarter milliondollars a year and couldn't even
put money into his IRA.
And so we hit what, like laterlearned, was called level one,
financial freedom.
I heard someone talk about thisat a conference, so I'm
stealing it.
(07:59):
Level one financial freedom wasyour bills are paid.
But we didn't understand that atthe time.
We were just plowing money intoour savings account and we paid
off our cars quickly and wekind of always drive older cars
that are still functional andstill everything works on them
and you just replace a part hereand there, so we weren't trying
to elevate our lifestyle.
And then we started buyingsingle family homes.
(08:21):
So I started with direct mailand we were doing just the good
old traditional high equityabsentee out-of-state landlord
list.
You can pull a list from placeslike ListSource and lots of
other data providers.
And then we were sendingletters saying I buy houses cash
.
We learned this from a mentorthat I engaged with and it was
(08:41):
really important for me to get amentor.
I did the house hacking thingwithout a mentor and that was
fine.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I was going to ask you where did you learn about
the house hacking thing?
Was that like a bigger pocketsthing?
I know they're huge in househacking.
You know, brandon.
Turner back in the day was hugeon that.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
And so I started by listeningto bigger pockets.
Probably I don't know what wasit 2014, 2015, 2016.
I don't know when it was,whenever the podcast was still
just Josh Jorkin and BrandonTurner Good old days yeah, good
old days, for sure, and it'stotally different now.
(09:17):
You know, they were still tryingto figure out this whole
BiggerPockets podcasting thingand no one really knew what they
were doing.
It was very organic, it wasvery authentic.
I loved it back then.
And so that was kind of like mymaster's degree in real estate,
because they came out with anepisode once a week and then at
the end of that episode theguest would recommend a book and
what I would do is I couldn'twait for the next week's episode
(09:39):
, so I would read or listen onAudible to the book the whole
week and try to finish it beforethe next BiggerPockets episode.
So I did that for four or five,six years.
And so one of my privatelenders told me and I stole that
from him he said that was yourmaster's degree in real estate,
was doing that for many years.
And then they have books onhouse hacking, there's blogs you
can read, and so house hackingis not that hard to figure out.
(10:02):
There are people that canmentor you on it and people that
have models for, like,complicated markets like
California or ADUs or somethinglike that, but we figured that
out on our own.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, I think it's important to figure out what you
need to figure out to get yourfirst deal done.
That was best for you andeasiest for you, and then you
hired a mentor right after.
I think that's to take it tothe next level.
And I always tell people thatare listening I say this
probably on every podcast butwe're not telling you to do
(10:32):
anything we don't do ourselves.
Like me and you are both inmasterminds.
We got a couple of things we dotogether, like we hire mentors,
like thousands and thousands ofdollars for mentors,
mentorships and you know eventsthat we go to and things that we
do to go and learn and bearound people who are doing
bigger and better things than us.
(10:53):
So, like I think it's soimportant that you it just
slingshots you, like, to thenext level.
You don't have to think aboutwhat you're doing.
They tell you exactly what youneed to be focused on.
So you cut out a lot of thatlearning curve by hiring a
mentor.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, that's right, and, if I'm remembering
correctly, I've had four mentorsthat I've paid good money for
in my life and then, as my lifeevolved, I've needed different
mentors.
I've had a single family mentor, a multifamily mentor now,
which is something I'm gettinginto, and so as you, as your
business rise, you're going tohit these plateaus and you're
(11:28):
not going to know what to donext.
Instead of you waste a bunch ofmoney and figure out the wrong
way, how to do things, you cango to someone and get their
blueprint or get their expertiseon it.
But I wanted to get back to thesingle family stuff.
So when we started buyingproperties for ourselves on the
single family side, we're livingin a house hack in an older
community, in an older home, inwhat some people might describe
(11:50):
a rougher part of town.
We might've heard fireworks attimes a year when there wasn't
fireworks, if you know what Imean.
And we were buying, we weredoing direct mail and we found
the zip codes we liked, pricepoints we liked, and we're
sending direct mail and I'mbuying houses in the suburbs on
the west side of Houston and Ithought it was ironic that we're
driving 10-year-old cars.
We're living in an older homein a rougher community, and then
(12:13):
I'm driving to my rentalproperties outside the city, in
the suburbs, where my renters,my tenants at BMWs and Mercedes
and they lived in a nicer housethan me, in a nicer school
district than me, in a nicercommunity than me and then I
would turn on the news or Iwould turn on YouTube and I
would see these mean oldlandlords that are a ruin in the
(12:34):
country and that are justtaking advantage of people and
my tenants would have nicerfurniture than me and nicer cars
than me and a worse credit thanme and no liquidity and no
savings compared to me, likewhen we would pull their credit
reports and everything, and sothat really impacted what I
understood the American dream tobe Like.
It's not a, it's not a nicehouse on the hill and a nice car
(12:56):
on that salary, it's.
You got to kind of put thehorse before the cart.
And so I feel like my wife and Idid the right way, because we
were buying houses in thesuburbs and then this house I'm
in right now was one of themthat we were going to be a
rental on, and I did the mathand I told her.
I said, hey, babe, are you readyto no longer have roommates,
because we can move into thisthat we were going to make a
(13:18):
rental, make it our primaryresidence and then rent out our
current home to a long-termtenant and then now we're going
to be living for free.
So we started by living for freewith roommates and then we
transitioned to living for freein our own home, in a smaller
home, a newer home in thesuburbs, in a nicer part of town
, and so I feel like we kind ofclimbed out, climbed up the hill
(13:43):
the right way, whereas mycoworkers, my friends, even my
neighbors in this neighborhood,their mortgage is twice what
mine is, because I bought myhouse for 50 cents on the dollar
off market, doing it the rightway, I use private money to
rehab it and to buy it and I putin a long-term mortgage in my
own name.
The amount of effort I have toexert to live my life is half
that of the people around me.
(14:04):
Everyone around me still hasnicer cars than me.
I know their mortgage paymentis higher than me and they are
just grinding to get somewherethat they need to go, and all
they know is to work harder formarginal increases in their
salary, and me and my wife chosea different path.
Reed yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, I love that, I love that.
So you house hacked, you hireda mentor.
After that you started gettinginto single family and you
talked a little bit aboutmultifamily.
So that transition what do youforesee your real estate journey
looking like in the next five,10 years?
What does that look like to you?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
So when we start, every time we buy a house, we
tell ourself we're going to keepit forever, we're going to pay
this mortgage off, this thing'sgoing to double, triple,
quadruple in value.
And then what I learned is liketo buy three houses, like to
buy a house a year is great, tobuy two or three houses a year
(15:04):
is awesome, but what happens atleast when I look at it is you
get to a point where if you'regoing to buy, rehab and rent out
and do the BRRRR method on 10houses a year, it's less effort
for you to go buy a 30-unitapartment complex or a 50-unit
apartment complex.
And so multifamily is appealingto me.
The economies of scale aregreat.
The cost of labor and materialsgoes down, the margin on the
(15:25):
rent goes up and it's the sametransaction, it's the same
paperwork, it's just with morezeros.
And so for the last year or soI've been in mentorship for
multifamily.
I haven't made my firstpurchase yet.
I have passively invested insome multifamily in the past,
but I think I would feel reallygreat about.
In the Houston area where Ilive, somewhere between 10 and
(15:48):
30 units is going to be my firstmultifamily deal and I have
partners that I can raisecapital with and funding is not
an issue to me and I have peoplethat can help me get the loan
and everything like that.
So if you're in the Houstonarea and you have a small
multifamily deal, reach out tome on Instagram at Michael B
someone single family as well.
Just, it has to be in andaround the Houston area.
(16:10):
I'm not an out-of-stateinvestor yet.
Maybe with Wyatt's help I can.
I can get over that hurdlethere and I can start remotely
investing in other markets thatthat are more appealing to me.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I'll buy some in Texas and you can buy some in
Tennessee and Alabama.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Let's do it, man.
We were talking on the lastpodcast my, my, my.
I have family in NorthernAlabama, which is not far from
where you're from, and Iactually did a year of high
school out there and live withfamily out there.
So I love it out there, man.
So I would love to learn moreabout investing in Northern
Alabama.
I love it, man, I love it Wellcome on out, Let me.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Let me ask you this what do you credit a lot of your
success?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
to today.
You know there's I get askedthis a lot and there's a lot of
things that I could I couldpoint to, but probably the
number one thing was stayingengaged with content Listening
to.
At one point I had 12 podcastsa week I was listening to.
I was crushing one to two booksa week.
This is when I wasn't reallydoing real estate.
This is when I was preparingfor it.
(17:12):
When you're doing real estate,you don't need that much content
.
There's a lot going on.
But I, you know, as a kid Ialways wondered whenever we
would go to Sunday school orchurch.
I'm like, why are people read?
The Bible hasn't changed inhowever many years?
Like, why do people read thesame Bible every week?
Like we all know it, we're alltold the stories as a kid and
then when I got into real estate, I realized why I will read
(17:36):
Rich Dad, poor Dad once a year.
So I read lots of new books,but there's a few books I put on
rotation every year.
I need to reach, need to rereadit, because words in the Rich
Dad, poor Dad never change, butI do.
I change and I'm at a differentpart of my journey and
different words in that bookspeak to me.
So probably what kept me awayfrom materialism and spending
(17:58):
all of my money and not stayingon this path was the fact that I
was engaged.
I was going to local meetups.
Free local meetups are allaround you.
Go to meetupcom, go to Facebookgroups.
There are free groupseverywhere.
There's a local RIA.
Bigger Pockets has a directorywhere you can find local groups.
I was going to free local groupsmeeting people that were higher
on the hill that I wanted toaspire to be one day I was
(18:23):
watching Instagram reels andYouTube podcasts.
I was listening to audio books.
I was buying books.
I have a top shelf behind me.
I was on a quest to collect allof the signatures.
My top shelf is all the booksof authors that have signatures.
Inside of there.
I was going to conferencescollecting signatures and that
kind of kept me on the straightand narrow and focused where,
like, I don't watch Netflixanymore, I didn't watch any
(18:45):
other kind of entertainment orshow.
That was my entertainment.
Because the market is alwayschanging.
You can only consume so muchcontent.
I consume less content todaybecause I'm in the business, but
the market is always changingand the best way to stay
connected to that is going toyour local meetups.
Go to masterminds, connect withpeople and then keep consuming
content, because I'm seven oreight years into it now and it's
(19:08):
been a long like there's been alot of distractions on the way,
but just stay engaged with thecommunity and make new friends
my top five friends before Istarted in real estate.
That's what my podcast isreally about.
The Be Someone podcast withMichael Hong is that I learned
the secret along the way and Isay this in the intro of my
podcast is that the secret on myjourney to be someone is
(19:31):
friends, people around you,people you surround yourself
with, because before I startedin real estate, my top five
friends didn't have a lot goingon.
Fast forward, seven or eightyears later, my top five friends
have way more going on than Ido, or way smarter, way richer
than me, and text me to check inwith me all the time, send me
links to upcoming events andinvite me into masterminds, and
(19:52):
so the probably consumingcontent one and surrounding
yourself with the right peopleis two.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, I love that.
Uh, besides Rich, since you'reon the book besides Rich Dad,
poor Dad, what do you recommendfor these guys?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
The big one for me Rich Dad, poor Dad, is a great
mindset book.
We all start there.
Some people call it the purpleBible.
I love that.
I stole that from Jerry Nortonand I love Jerry Norton, by the
way.
And the big one for me afterthat has got to be who, not how.
Every problem in your businessyou shouldn't ask how to do it,
you should ask who can do it foryou.
Uh, for me that's been my, whohas been mentors, and then my
(20:30):
other who has been VAs.
Those have been huge for me andI learned that from the book.
Who not?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
how computer right now.
So it's a good, good book forsure, for sure, well cool, well,
tell us, tell us, we're comingup on time.
How can people get ahold of you?
How can they learn?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
more from you.
Tell us how to work with you.
Yeah, follow my podcast.
It's the Be Someone podcastwith Michael Hong.
It's on Spotify.
It's on Apple podcast.
You can also follow my YouTubechannel.
We post the whole podcast thereMichael Hong on YouTube at
Michael Be Someone.
You can also follow my YouTubechannel.
We post the whole podcast thereMichael Hong on YouTube at
Michael B someone.
You can also message me onInstagram Michael B someone on
the IG.
And then I give my cell phonenumber away because I haven't
(21:11):
regretted this yet.
So, guys, don't make me regretthis.
It is 832-301.
Please text me.
Don't call me.
I get a thousand spam calls aday.
I won't answer it.
Just shoot me a text If youhave any questions.
Um, and if you're in theHouston area.
You have a deal you want tosend me.
Please send it my way and Iwould just love to follow.
I follow people back and I'dlove to follow your real estate
(21:31):
journey as well.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Heck yeah, man.
Thank you so much for being on.
Thank you for providing value.
I feel like we need to do apart two to this because there's
so much more we didn't get into.
So we'll schedule that and getanother marketing conversation
going on too.
But thank you so much for beingon, man.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Yeah, I love it.
Let's do another one where wetalk just about marketing and
closing deals and getting intoseller mindset.
I would love that.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Well, hey guys, if you heard anything that you like
or you're like man, I'd love toget into that or be a part of
that community that they weretalking about.
Go to ascendersuccesscom.
Fill out the form.
I'd love to have.
I have a conversation withevery single person personally
that fills out a form, so youtalk to me and, whether you're
in or out, we'll see you on thenext one.
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