May 1, 2025 • 49 mins
Summary
In this conversation, Nicholas Miller reflects on his past property investment experiences, emphasizing the emotional relief of letting go of a bad investment despite the financial loss. He shares insights on the psychological aspects of financial decisions and the importance of prioritizing mental well-being over monetary gains.
Takeaways
I'm on a dog walk or something, man, I'm so glad that I don't have that property anymore.
I don't really care about the a hundred thousand dollars.
It still stings, but that's how bad that property was.
I'm comfortable with saying out loud that I lost over better than having that property in my hands.
$100,000 loss can offset $100,000 Gain. - Silver lining to losing so much money in real estate.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Real Estate Investing
54:02 Nick's Journey into Photography and Real Estate
57:00 Transitioning from Day Job to Full-Time Photography
01:00:05 First Rental Property Experience
01:03:01 Expanding into Out-of-State Rentals
01:05:54 Challenges with Commercial Real Estate Investment
01:09:06 Lessons Learned from Real Estate Failures
01:12:05 Advice for Aspiring Investors
01:19:43 The Cost of Real Estate Mistakes
01:21:38 Exploring Creative Investment Strategies
01:24:33 Traveling While Earning: The Airbnb Experience
01:26:26 Venturing into Glamping: A Unique Investment
01:30:30 The Adventure of Off-Grid Living
01:32:03 Shifting Investment Strategies: A Conservative Approach
01:37:12 Simplifying Investments for a Better Future
01:41:47 New Chapter
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I still like to this day like I'm on a dog walk or something.
Like, man, I'm so glad that I don't have that property
anymore. I don't, I don't really care
about the $100,000. Not that I'm swimming in money.
It was, it's a lot of money and it, it still stings.
But that's how bad that propertywas.
What that I'm comfortable with saying out loud that I lost over
(00:21):
$100,000, It's better than having that property in my
hands. Welcome to the Real Prop Pro
podcast, where strategy, innovation, and wealth converge
to redefine real estate investing.
(00:43):
Hello and welcome to the RPP Podcast.
I'm your host, Ian Detler, real estate investor based in
Sacramento, CA. This show is where we talk about
real estate strategies with realpeople who are actually doing
the work. At Realprop Pro, we train new
and growing investors in fix andflips, rentals, tax lien, tax
(01:07):
lien investing, creative financing and so much more.
Check out some of our upcoming trainings at realproppro.com.
Today's guest is Nick Miller, a real estate investor and real
estate marketer who has found creative ways to mix and
investing income and adventure. Through his company, Miller
(01:28):
Photo, he has been helping agents and investors showcase
properties since 2015. But behind the lens, Nick has
also built a portfolio that includes duplexes, out of state
rentals, fix and flips, A6 Plex in Cleveland, land in Tahoe, and
Airbnb Experiences. All of this while living on his
(01:51):
own terms. Nick, welcome to the show.
Thank you. All right, so let's let's get
right into it. Nick, can you talk a little bit
about where you're from and where you were raised?
Born in San Jose, moved to Rocklin, CA when I was one year
old and grew up there and I've had a brief year or two in
(02:15):
Florida. I kind of followed my dad's
career and then moved back to Carmichael. 4th grade, grew up
there kind of been went to high school, that's how you and I
know each other and kind of got reacquainted in the real estate
investing world years later. But in college or college, I
(02:37):
jumped around from Sierra up in Truckee and then Santa Barbara
and Chico and I, I never finished, but I'm kind of happy
I didn't finish. I decided to start a photography
business instead. And I, I just, I got to a point
where I didn't really want to waste my parents money or my, my
time and getting a degree and something I wasn't going to use.
(03:00):
So looking back, maybe I'd be like, maybe I should have got a
business degree. But I think All in all, I, I
learned better from doing and making mistakes and, and just
learning from other people. Right about that time when I did
drop out of college, I say drop out, but it's, it was junior
college. So I don't even know if you can
drop out of junior college, start YouTube.
(03:24):
It was becoming like really popular.
It was around 2008. So I just started searching
things and, and YouTube and realizing like, oh wow, there's
some legitimate information here.
It's not. And it's in a less formal
platform than call it like reading books and taking tests
and stuff. And that's how my brain learns
(03:46):
better. And so, yeah, from there I just
started teaching myself photography techniques and
worked, you know, 16 hours a dayat two different hotel jobs to
make as much money as I can, payoff a bunch of credit card debt
and then save up thousands of thousands of dollars to, to buy
my first round of photography equipment and just to see what
(04:09):
would happen. And from there I just would, I
did a couple weddings for free. I did pet portraits.
I did my cousin and his friends were all skateboarding down in
Venice Beach where we, where we lived.
So I was, I was kind of just shooting anything I could to
learn and then, you know, see what would come out and see
what, when it luckily I've, it was around 2010 when I brought
(04:30):
my first camera. So it was in the digital age.
So I I can mess up as much as I wanted to without wasting a
bunch of money on film. And then I kind of just wanted
to do everything as far as photography.
But then I found my niche when my cousin who was a realtor, he
still is a realtor, Kevin McDonald, he asked me to
(04:51):
photograph a listing for him. And so I went in there with the
fisheye lens and the, the makingthe panoramas like I've had done
with landscaping, skateboarding.And the photos were awful, but
they were usable. But luckily he for my first
couple years, he was patient enough to give me a constructive
feedback and and deal with a lotof crappy photos.
(05:11):
Obviously there were better photos than he could have done
with his phone at the time. But yeah, so I got better and
better with with him and and then he would refer me out.
And then it just the business kind of snowballed to I
realized, oh, I could do more than one shoot a day.
And then so if I was making a couple 100 bucks on one shoot,
(05:34):
I'm like, maybe I could do 2 shoots and then I did 4 shoots
one day. I'm like, oh, wow, this is this
could be, this could be big. And so I realized too that I
liked the niche of real estate photography because there is no
humans involved and there is no like babies crying and you know,
because I've done family portraits before and weddings,
(05:55):
there's no drunk groomsmen. Like making a, you know, it's,
it's a lot less variables to deal with, unpredictable
variables to deal with in real estate photography and at the
like simultaneously becoming interested in real estate all
together. So I think like the investing
and real estate photography kindof started growing at the at the
(06:18):
same time. And I was able to take the
knowledge of real estate and apply it to my photography.
Like what do I need to capture? What do I need to photograph to
showcase the property as opposedto a lot of other photographers
that were just taking pretty pictures.
They would come from the landscape world or, you know,
(06:39):
art, more artsy world and just the pictures were great, But
there were they're not like proper real estate photos that
that the the realtor wants to market the property.
And so that's where I think I stood out and, and people ended
up choosing me over my competitors is my ability to do
that. But yeah, that's, I quit my day
(06:59):
job 10 years ago next month. So in 2000, May of 2015, I was a
truck driver for Alhambra just delivering those big water jugs.
So I was able to quit that. And then my goal was to, you
know, make a little bit more that I was making there the
first year. And then I ended up doubling
(07:20):
that, which was awesome. And so I think I knew right
there I made the right choice. Another reason why I liked real
estate is you would get residualbusiness.
So as opposed to a wedding or a lot of other forms of
photography, that's like 1 you, you get a customer and you get
one job. As opposed to real estate with a
(07:41):
realtor likes you, they're goingto call you every single
listing, whether they shoot 2, whether they list 2 houses a
year or fifty. So that was really cool.
I, I felt like, oh, I don't haveto do as much prospecting Once
you get that client base and then the referrals again, keep
snowballing and you could eventually you could kind of
(08:01):
pick and choose who you want to work with and, and you know who
you don't. So back to my day job as a truck
driver. My wife had bought a house.
Like I say, we bought a house, but she had bought a house
because she actually had a good steady job and income.
And so we lived in that house. And then I used my work status
(08:25):
at the truck driving job to get qualified for a loan for a
second home. And so basically right after I
closed escrow because I've been at the truck driving job for
almost 2 years, right after I closed escrow on that property,
I quit, you know, because I, I use the study because if I would
have quit before and then started my own business, the
(08:47):
banks want it like that. And they're like, well, how do
we know you're going to make enough money?
And you need like a track record.
So I use that track record, eventhough it was very modest.
I think I pulled in a whopping $37,000 a year at the truck
driving job, but that was enoughto buy a $90,000 house in Oak
Park, CA. It's like for those of you who
(09:09):
don't know the area, it's it's in South Sacramento kind of up
and coming and very affordable back then.
And so I was able to close escrow on that and then quit the
day job. And then, yeah, just took it
from there. So was that your first rental
and was that in 2015 when you purchased that one?
(09:30):
Yeah. So that was the first rental
that we still lived in the in our primary in Fair Oaks.
And then from there we we were getting kind of bored out in
Fair Oaks. We're 20 in our late 20s or mid
late 20s at the time. So it and our friends in
Carmichael, we're getting kind of bored in their neighborhood.
(09:50):
It is just too suburban and you know, not much to do.
We want to be closer to downtownSacramento and midtown.
All the excitement. They sold their house and
Carmichael. We sold our house in Fair Oaks.
We were thinking about renting it out at the time, but we
needed to pay off the weddings. We decided to sell.
(10:10):
So each party, my wife and I andthen our friends both sold our
houses. Then we bought, we took that
money. We bought a duplex near SAC,
Sacramento City College. So it's, you know, 10 minutes,
5-10 minutes South of downtown and it was there.
We definitely downsize. We both went from three twos
(10:31):
TO11 on each side, about 700 square feet.
But our mortgage was like $900 on each.
So that was really cool and it was cool to downsize.
And I think your first home, youaccumulate a bunch of crap like
everyone in your family gives you like, oh, you need some, a
bunch of tool like that you'll never use.
(10:51):
And just kind of like, I feel like a lot of people just dump
their excess stuff on you just thinking they're going to help
you out, but you end up with waymore stuff that you don't need.
And so it was cool downsizing and just living a more modest
wife with one bedroom and, and one bathroom.
And we did that for almost 4 years and our friends even had
their first kid on the other side and we made it work and it,
(11:15):
we made it cute. We made it, you know, it wasn't,
it's not that great of an area. But again, you get what you pay
for. And we were able to save a lot
of money by only having, you know, minimal expenses.
So, you know, four years later, we, we each move out like we now
I'm in the homeless area back inA32 like a normal house and
(11:36):
they're in West Roseville. But we still own the duplex and
we've been renting it out ever since.
I think we, we moved out in 2020.
We moved out so almost five years now.
And over that course of time we've bought an out of state and
(11:57):
Kansas City, MO for, we bought the house for $17,000, sold it
for 20. Didn't make a huge profit there,
but it's just kind of dipping our toes into different markets
and and trying to diversify, just trying to get creative ways
and in the real estate investingworld.
And we did a single family in Akron, OH, which is a suburb
(12:20):
like South of Cleveland that didpretty well.
Did about like 10% / 4 years. We bought it for $60,000.
Is five bedroom 2 bath house. Sold it.
I have can't think we sold for 80, but we we made a steady
income as far as like cash flow rental cash flow.
(12:41):
So those like All in all those ventures went fairly well, like
break even or like the Akron onemade, made some decent money.
But what I realized is it's it'sreal estate investing is not
super passive. I think I got really lucky with
the Oak Park house. The first rental just had
(13:03):
perfect tenants, never asked foranything, paid the rent on time
and just for four years straight, just no problems.
And I, I hit the jackpot with them.
And so I, I kind of like sets your expectations high for other
properties and maybe clouds yourjudgment a little bit.
But I wanted to eventually I hadthree mortgages out personally.
(13:31):
So I wanted to go commercial, which is 5 units or above.
And because they qualify that more on the income of the
property, not your personal income.
So I was looking around the whole country and I found, you
know, I was looking in Arkansas and stuff.
And then I would, you know, scroll through the pictures and
(13:51):
see tornado shelters and like, oh, maybe that's not the best
idea, even though the, the properties that were like very
affordable. So I kind of had my, my filter
set on an 8% cap rate and 5 units are above and I think like
a maximum price of $300,000 because I had 60 grand saved up.
(14:13):
So I found this property in EastCleveland, which is a pretty bad
area of Cleveland. But the, the return on
investment was going to be 20,000, sorry 20%.
So I, I put that 60 grand down on a six unit apartment building
that was at the time fully occupied.
And, and then I got a referral from the listing agent for a
(14:37):
good property manager and got the insurance all squared away.
And yeah, I got, I found a loan.The loan was like 8%.
So it was, it was a lot back then.
Now it seems like a good deal, but back then, you know,
mortgages were going sub 3. So, but whatever it it's still
(14:59):
like get penciled out and and mywife who's in finance and a lot
smarter than me, like the, the, the, the, the numbers and
approved. And so, yeah, put 60 grand down.
We closed and for the like the first six months it it did well,
(15:21):
it made like $1000 a month. So it was returning 20%.
Everything was hunky Dory. And then COVID started getting
worse. So the property management
quality started to suffer and started to be compromised
because the, the main guy, Sam, he would have these employees
that would just be out sick for COVID or he would, he would lose
(15:43):
people not, not die, but they would, they would quit or
whatever. So slowly but surely it just
like the, the deposit started getting lower and lower it to
the, and then to the point whereI'm like, OK, now the deposits
aren't even covering the mortgage, which was $1600 or
$1800 a month. So then I start, I started
(16:06):
getting a little worried and then you know what's going on,
what's going on. And then from from there I just,
it started getting worse and worse.
People would stop paying rent and then he was those property
manager was outsourcing the likeevictions to evict and then turn
over the unit and then get a newtenant in the vacant unit.
(16:29):
And that whole process, which was fairly quick because it was
Ohio. It's not like California where
you like tenants have more rights.
But so we were able to get them out of there quick, but it was
still costly. It was still like $5000.
So I kept trying, you know, I, I, I went with another property
manager and that didn't help. I, I flew out there and kind of,
(16:54):
I, I think like my, my boots on the ground kind of helped and,
and direct things, but just the,the area would keep getting
worse and worse. It was on the street.
So it was a bad neighborhood to begin with, but it was a street
that like houses keep buildings kept getting abandoned like 1
after the other to the point where we're like, we're the only
(17:15):
one, the only ones that is actually occupied.
And then meanwhile the city of East Cleveland was getting more
and more corrupt. There is like the mayor was
getting indicted and the police officers were getting arrested,
you know, for fraudulent. It was just, it was just messy.
(17:37):
It was it was super. There was a couple shootings at
the property, like 1 bullets went through the door and broke
glass and then the other bulletswent into a transformer.
And then the power was out on the building and it was 100 year
old building. So it like the sewer would
erupt, not erupt, but like back up and fill the basement and
(17:59):
there's tenants being prostitutes out of the unit.
So Fast forward and the, and themain reason I want, I kind of
was like funneling into this is because real estate investing
can be like super cool, but I, Ifeel like a lot of people on
social media don't, that's all about like the, how easy it is
(18:23):
and stuff. And all the people don't talk
about the failures. And I feel like you could learn
a lot more from the failures. And I would like to like when
you asked me to do this podcast,I wanted to share this because I
want people to, to learn the gnarly stuff and, and learn from
my mistakes. So yeah, so, so kind of talk
(18:44):
about that. What are some of the, what are
some of the main things that youtook away from it?
Like if, if you were able to start all over, you know, with
the, the vision you have now, what would you have done
differently? Where could you have avoided
some of these problems? I think just pump the brakes a
little bit on. I was, it was 2021.
(19:06):
I was like, I was making great money and I just wanted to put
that to use right away. I wanted to make an instant
return instead of just like putting it away and setting
myself up with the four O 1K andputting up something
conservative. We had already had, we already
had property. So I, I could have just let that
simmer and, you know, let the more conservative cash flow flow
(19:30):
come in instead of leverage, leverage, leverage like high,
let's, let's do higher returns. And I was, you know, you're like
eating a, a plate of delicious food and you're like, now I'm
getting kind of full. I, I should probably stop, but
then you just keep eating and then you end up feeling way too
full. But if you would have just
stopped and just let it settle, then you're like, OK, I'm good.
(19:52):
I think that's what I did with properties and I feel like that
$60,000 that I'd saved up was like burning a hole to my pocket
and I should just put it in something more conservative and
then it's still liquid. But and then just thought about
it. But I think this example is like
anything is the Murphy's life oranything that can happen will
(20:14):
happen. So I, I don't feel stupid like,
like we've made a bunch of mistakes again, My, my super
smart. Wealth advisor wife like checked
out all the numbers and and everything did check out.
But you know, we, we didn't count on as much evictions.
We didn't count on the property management company completely
(20:37):
dropping the ball. And it's not like if you own
property here, you could, you know, oh, the property
management company sucks. I'll just go over there and take
care of it myself. No, it's a $700.00 at flight and
eight hour and you just got to, you know, it's a three day thing
just to and I went out there once, but you can't do that.
It'll just it cuts in your profit margins.
(20:57):
So going back through the research we did, we did call a a
property management company thatwe're using for the Akron
property and they are like, yeah, we don't work in that
area. So that should have been like a
first red flag and we thought like, oh, it's probably because
they're based in Akron. But like, you know, you just ask
(21:18):
questions, poke people like, youknow, be, be annoying.
I feel like you don't be afraid to be annoying and ask like,
well, why don't you work there and, and just get more
information than you need? So the first, the property
management company that was referred to me.
Cool, they work in that area. Great.
But like still, I should maybe should have called a couple more
(21:40):
and I would have found out that no, like no other property
management company works in thatzip code.
Because when I was trying to find a new property management
company after I fired that one years later, I did find that out
that no one worked in that area.I was then I started asking why
(22:00):
I'm like, oh, it's just, it's, it's too much.
Crime area is notorious for people not paying rent and high
turnovers and it just doesn't make sense for us and our
vendors don't feel safe working there because their vans get
robbed when they're in, you know, working on the plumbing.
So and then another thing is property tax and insurance.
(22:24):
So when you get your mortgage quote, you're like, great,
that's going to stay like that forever.
And that's not the case. So I got the number $1800 a
month. Cool.
It grosses 6. Sorry, it grosses $3500 a month.
Sweet. So after expenses and and
(22:44):
utilities and everything, it'll cash flow $1000 a month.
Great. But I didn't account for
insurance going up every year. So as the zip code gets worse
and worse and the crime rates goup and and blah blah blah, and
the vacancy rates go up, insurance goes up as well at the
(23:05):
same time property tax goes up. So Ohio, one of the reasons why
we did choose Ohio to invest in this because the low property
tax, I think it's like a 1 1/2%,so comparable to California, but
it's not like Texas where it's over 2% or Illinois had some
really cheap properties too, butit's almost 3%.
But there's an additional property tax per zip code just
(23:29):
like if you go to Chipotle in this county or Chipotle in this,
like they're the little taxes different.
So we didn't know that or we didn't even think to research
that. Property tax ended up going up
to like over 3%, maybe, maybe close to 4%.
(23:51):
So the mortgage ended up going from $1800 to $2000 a month to
$2200 a month and then shot up to $4400 a month.
And people ask me was it was it an adjustable rate?
No, it absolutely not. It wasn't.
It was a, it was a fixed rate. But what happened was the escrow
(24:14):
account got so low because of all the taxes and insurance that
they had to raise it. They had to like double it
almost to get that escrow account filled back up.
So I'd I've called the bank obviously and like this can't
work and of course it was auto withdrawing my account.
(24:34):
So I see the $4400 charge like this, this is not right.
So we negotiate it down to like 3300.
But still at that point the properties even with increased
rents, the property is grossing 4 grand a month.
So after utilities and everything, it's just breaking
even. That's when we're like, OK, we
(24:58):
need, we need to sell. I can't like this is not Even so
other than the financial aspect,it's it was like I was losing
sleep. I was stressing.
There's nothing in my life that was stressful except that.
So I, you know, you'd wake up stressing about you'd dream
(25:19):
about it. You would go to bed just
fretting about it. So that's, that's not a healthy
way to live. So made the decision to sell it.
I called several brokers, no onewould touch it.
Called several Realtors. No one would return my call.
And I even, I left out that it was East Cleveland because I
(25:40):
didn't want to spook people. But you, you realized, and we
realized this like the first time we went out there, the
professionalism and that state, and I can't speak for
everywhere, but from our experience, the professionalism,
that state was way less than California.
I feel like if you call a realtor in California, they
(26:01):
don't answer. They'll call you 30 seconds
later. Like people in from our
experience, they're hungry, they're they want to make money.
But that wasn't the case in Ohioanyways.
So I just called the the guy that I bought it from who was
the listing agent to and like, hey, can you list this property
of, you know, all these things are happening.
(26:22):
Great list it and it it didn't no action on it for six months.
We did price reductions. We went from 300 grand to 275 or
285-270-5260. And then, yeah, and it just it
nothing. So after six months, our listing
(26:44):
agreement was expired. So I just decided to like start,
I was going to forfeit it to thebank, but I was waffling whether
whether to do it because again, it was this.
I was at the point where like I didn't care about losing my
$60,000 investment and whatever I had put into it.
And I, I listed on Facebook Marketplace as like a last
(27:06):
resort and get bombarded with wholesalers and, and Fast
forward, I, I finally end up selling it a year later, like 13
months later after the making the initial decision to sell it,
meanwhile having to pay the mortgage, making a little bit of
rent, but nowhere like just nowhere near even breaking even.
(27:29):
And then one thing after the other, like the roof, putting so
much work into the roof just because it snows in Cleveland
and people are getting that I was taking care of the tenants,
you know, as best as I could because they would get water
leaking in their units and this and that.
So I was like, what I want to doright by being a landlord.
(27:52):
So I would, I would, I came out of pocket a lot just like making
those repairs and, and the the sewer would back up and this and
that. So anyways, and we could get
more into the specifics of that,but bought it for 260 in 2021
and ended up selling it for 180.Yeah.
(28:20):
So I had to come out of pocket like $17,000 at the close of
escrow because of taxes. So I lost like over $100,000 on
that deal and I still like to this day like I'm on a dog walk
or something like man, I'm so glad that I don't have that
property anymore. I don't, I don't really care
(28:41):
about the $100,000. Not that I swimming in money.
It was, it's a lot of money and it kind of, it still stings, but
that's how bad that property wasthat I'm comfortable with saying
out loud that I lost over $100,000 cumulatively over three
years. But it's better than having that
(29:02):
property in my hands. Yeah.
You just had this stress, like lifted off your shoulders all of
a sudden just to get this thing out of your portfolio,
basically. It sounds like.
Yeah, so. And it's.
Yeah, it's, I think about it every day, just not having it.
Yeah. Well, you know, I'm glad you
(29:24):
were able to kind of relieve that stress of having that
thing. Very sorry about the loss, but
can you talk about some, some, some wins?
I, I know that you guys do some other more like creative
investing. Can you talk about some of those
different channels that you and your wife invest in that are
more fun, adventurous and like, you know, hopefully profitable,
(29:48):
not super depressing like losing6 figures on the Super.
No, I, I'm with you though, I think it's great.
I think it's great for people tosee the real side of this
industry because it isn't all just wins and, and tons of money
and like you said, hands off, you know, easy cash flow
investing. That's not the full picture.
So I think it is super importantthat you came on the show today
(30:10):
to really talk about this East Cleveland deal and, and really
make people aware of some of thethings to avoid and, you know,
try to help people by sharing your mistakes so they can learn
not to do them. Yeah, like I said, you know,
let's let's discuss some of these other different ways that
(30:31):
you guys invest because after talking with you and some of
these real estate meetups, I sawthat you and your wife are just
doing some like really kind of out-of-the-box stuff that I
think is great. So can you share some of those
different strategies that you guys are implementing?
Yeah, absolutely. I guess one thing to close out
the depressing part is with realestate, just be careful because
(30:57):
it could end up costing way morethan your initial investment.
So if I would have taken that $60,000 and put it in the stock
market, it could easily go to 0,not easily, but there's there's
a possibility it could go to 0. I'm out 60 grand.
That sucks. But with real estate, especially
if you leverage and you you get out of mortgage and everything
(31:17):
that's $60,000 potential loss can turn into it could keep
taking a like bam, the, the HVAC's out, bam, the roofs out
the foundation like so it could keep the stock market is not
going to do that. Or a lot of like like passive
real estate investments is not, is not going to do that.
But I would yeah. That's why you need to just like
(31:40):
be extra careful and ask way more questions.
And yeah, just, and I didn't know that's like that.
I think the biggest take away that I, I learned from this deal
is like real estate could you could potentially make a lot
more you, but you could also lose a lot more.
So, but yeah, on a, on a, on a happier note, around 2021 that
(32:10):
we decided we wanted to take, I guess a little sabbatical.
So we, we decided let's go, let's travel for three months
and, and my business and real estate photography and
everything that's usually prettyslow in December, January and
February. So we decided, OK, let's do
those months. So we decided to go to Sri
(32:30):
Lanka, little island country offthe coast of India.
So we did a month there. But so we knew we were going to
be gone for three months. We got the dogs that are taken
care of, but we also we wanted to minimize our expenses while
traveling. So we were able to get, we list
our house on Airbnb. So obviously I took the, the,
(32:50):
the pictures and the marketing material and then put, put it up
and we're able to get a long term renter or sorry, long term
guest, short term renter. So for 60 days, we put up for 60
day minimum. And we got this family that
they're moving from North Carolina to California and they,
(33:12):
they didn't want to sign a year lease for a rental that, but
while they're looking for a house to buy.
So there's again, something I never really would have thought
of, you know, instead of moving all your stuff to California and
put it in storage and sign a year lease and then starting the
OR, or buying a house sight unseen.
It just, it's, it was way less stressful for them just to, to
(33:33):
go on Airbnb. Hey, is there a house that our
family of four could fit in and and live in while we find a
house? Yes, so that that was our house.
And and so it's like in this market that I never even knew
existed. So they were able to, they
rented our house for two months while we were gone.
We we rented out for way more than the mortgage because it was
(33:54):
fully furnished. So while we were gone, we didn't
have to pay the mortgage the additional month that we were
gone, we had a couple other Airbnb guests and that, that was
good and we got all of our expenses covered.
So I, I was pretty proud of thatjust because it's, you know,
you're spending all this money on traveling, traveling the
(34:17):
world and you, you don't want tohave to pay your mortgage or
utility bills. So all that was covered.
You guys also do some glamping sites.
Is that correct? So we bought a back to the the
Oak Park property that I bought in 2015 that has more than
tripled in values while the 2021by 22 mortgage rates were super
(34:45):
low and maybe that we'll never see again.
But I refinance that property ended up getting a lower rate.
So like sub 3% on on that property and then I pulled out
$100,000 out of it because that's how much it appreciates,
(35:06):
appreciated. And we bought 3 1/2 acres up
near right adjacent to Tahoe National Forest off the Blue
Canyon exit. Oh, it had already been graded.
It has, it has a well, no septicor anything or electricity, but
(35:26):
we are kind of getting into the like off grid Airbnb, off grid
glamping, so glamorous camping. So we, we, we wanted to do that
and we bought the property, did a bunch of work like chipped,
grinded a bunch of trees and made a bunch of wood chips
everywhere. We bought 2 porta potties on a
(35:47):
trailer and wheeled those up there and set it up.
And then we, we bought a, a big canvas tent with a mini
fireplace and a nice queen size bed and just made it super cute.
Well, I could send you some pictures too, But and then we
rented out on Airbnb and I was going for like 150 a $175 a
(36:10):
night and people loved it. And I think people just wanted
that like remote experience. And it's a still trendy, but it
was like definitely extra trendyback then.
I found a guy up, a local guy upthere that would service it
(36:31):
every time. He would kind of do the
turnover, change the sheets and stuff.
Real nice guy, Jose. So yeah, ended up being pretty
fun. It was profitable.
And now it's the weather's kind of unpredictable.
So we've shifted from having thecanvas tent.
So now I just rent out the dirt,which is is pretty cool.
(36:53):
Just like it's $50 a night. I think I'm going to raise it to
like 75. But people just pull their
trailers or their own tents on it and just can't when all the
other campgrounds around our other real campgrounds are are
are fully booked and everything.And it's kind of cool that they
could just go to our our site and we have a great view and
(37:16):
it's super pretty up there. And it's not super high up.
It's about 5000 feet. So it's not too high up where it
gets really cold. Yeah.
But it's just been, it's been pretty fun that to have that and
just learn that like if I just like saying like this, you're
(37:36):
renting out the dirt, it's kind of cool.
And there's no, the, there's less variables that you have to
deal with the traditional rentallike toilets and, and I don't
know, roofs and stuff like that that I've experienced with other
properties. Now, have you had a chance to
stay on the site yourself and kind of camp out there, you
(37:58):
know, you, your wife or some? Yeah, we do.
Definitely had some friends up there.
We did a whole friends giving upthere, just brought tables and
decorations and kind of made heated everything up over the
fire and and it was it was really enjoyable and it still
is. I was just up there on Saturday
(38:19):
a couple days ago and just cleaning it up and doing some
burning and it's just, it's really cool just just to have
that very peaceful. But now I think my wife and I,
they we just, we want like new experiences.
So there's a California is very Northern California is just
(38:42):
overwhelming with how many cool places there are to explore.
And and we have a little Jeep Wrangler and go off road
camping. So kind of like want to explore
new places all the time. So that's that's one take away
from that property too, is I don't think I'll ever be the
person that that like wants a cabin because then you're just
(39:05):
obliged to go to that one spot over and over again.
As opposed to like exploring newareas as, as you've mentioned
before, like the the whole denture part of our lives.
I think we're always checking off different boxes of, of
locations and cool lakes, Alpinelakes and cool mountains to
climb and places to go. So that's, that's yeah,
(39:29):
definitely like higher dopamine rushes when you're just like
looking at new places. Yeah.
You guys are always out doing awesome stuff.
I love it. I love the active and outdoor
adventurous lifestyle. My wife and I would try to get
out and hike as much as we can. But, you know, there's only so
much time and only, you know, still got to work during the
(39:51):
week and then we can try to escape on weekends and stuff
like that. And you know, we have road trips
and stuff planned, but you know,nothing too crazy.
Can you kind of talk a little bit about where you see your
investments, your investment strategy going like what's what,
(40:14):
what's the next five years look like for you or what would you
like it to look like is maybe a better question.
I think just. Being a little bit more
conservative or sorry, a lot more conservative, listening to
more like Dave Ramsey these days.
And, and I, the younger me, justlike Dave, you're, you don't
(40:37):
know what you're talking about because he's all about buying
stuff in cash. And it's like that's not
attainable for normal people that you have to leverage
everything. And now I kind of get it like
what he's trying to say. He's trying to save people from
doing what I did and over leveraging themselves and
getting themselves into trouble.That being said, it's not very
(40:58):
possible for someone, especiallyin California to save up, you
know, 3400 grand minimum to buy their first property.
That's just not realistic. But right now we're selling the
duplex that I talked about earlier that our friends and us
lived in and we've rented out for the last five years like
we're selling that now. So we're kind of downsizing our
(41:23):
our rental portfolio. We are up to 9 doors.
So now that I've gotten rid of the six Plex and that was a huge
loss. But now I'm able or we're able
to take that loss and it goes against our gain.
So we're able to take sell the duplex and all the, all the
that's appreciated the money saywe'll make $100,000 just to make
(41:48):
math easy. But out of the duplex we'll take
that out and instead of getting taxed on that $100,000, we won't
get taxed on it because we lost $100,000 over here.
So there's, there is a silver lining from losing money on
investing, but the, between thatand our, our partners having
three kids and just like we don't really want to be, it's
(42:12):
just a good time to exit that property just for those reasons
I just stated. And then I, I think from there,
just like now my wife is a wealth, A wealth advisor.
So finding kind of other ways toalternative ways to where to put
our money. And there's, she's working a lot
(42:37):
with Megan, my wife, she's working a lot with 1031
exchanges and, and helping people take money out of the,
their properties and putting it into what are called Delaware
statutory trust. And so you can kind of, instead
of rolling the profits into another property, you roll it
into this trust, which is, you know, these big, big buckets of
money that they invest in biggercommercial projects.
(43:00):
And it's completely hands off. Again, nothing's guaranteed, but
they're, they have a very good track record on, you know, 8-9,
ten, 12% and you get dividends too, but that is completely
hands off. Like you don't, you don't have
to manage anything. Your money, you're just a,
you're a silent investor. So that that sounds a little
(43:22):
more appealing after being a landlord and, and having the
second job of, of taking care ofeverything.
That sounds a little more appealing just to let your money
work and, and, and you can, I like I could focus on my
business and what I'm really good at like and producing money
(43:45):
producing income. I I think is Dave Ramsey says
your income is your biggest wealth building tool.
I think the younger me thought like I just leverage, leverage,
invest and like that's like put,that's how you make money.
But I, I think if you double down on what you're good at and
focus on that, focus on one thing, you know, you can't chase
(44:06):
multiple rabbits. Like the fox who chases 2
rabbits catches no rabbits. So I've, I've kind of like with
my business coach, I've kind of decided on what I want to focus
on and having pretty bad ADD it,it helps to like eliminate the
(44:27):
distractions. So, yeah, so I guess that's
where simplify like, oh, that's like our word of the year, a
word of last year too. It was just like make things
simple, make things less distracting.
And and that goes for everythingthat goes what like how we plan
our recreation and then also howwe are planning our our
(44:49):
investment strategies. And just like instead of a bunch
of other bunch of things, we need to a bunch of spinning
plates like just OK, let's even if the return slightly lower,
let's let's simmer down and and simplify.
So it sounds like you're doing less active real estate
investing, trying to get a little bit more into some of the
(45:10):
safer, more hands off bets like ADST and also and also trying to
really focus in on your photography business.
Is that correct? I still would like to get back
into it. I just, I feel like I need a
little time out. I still photograph a lot of
(45:32):
apartment buildings and I meet these investors.
Some are young, some are like super old and they're, you know,
these 12 million dollar 300 unitapartment complexes and it's
really cool. Like I still love the real
estate investing world. I love how it's, it's a lot.
It's fairly modest. Like you'll, you'll meet these
(45:54):
property owners and they're justthese old dudes that pull up in
their Toyota Camrys and, and like you're worth $20 million.
What? And so and I just like, yeah.
And then going to meetings, you know, like with you and, and,
and just learning a lot of new things.
(46:16):
I, I still love the world, but yeah, I'm just kind of just
taking a little, a little breather.
It's also like made I'm more as I get older, I'm definitely more
weary of shiny objects. You know, I get a lot of a lot
of people in the last year or two, I've been super in the Adu
(46:37):
space and like, oh, you have youhave extra piece of land on your
rental property, like put an AD unit and finance that.
And that's kind of where I was ayear and a half ago.
Like I want to take the rentals that we have and put ADS on them
just to get extra units. And now I'm like, that sounds
risky. I don't want I don't want more
(46:58):
debt. It was like more work and more
tenants and more headaches. Exactly.
And if I if I did, if I didn't have the photo business, I, I
think I would be more inclined to do that be if that was, you
know, my job job, but I've I'm not built to do to work 2 jobs.
Real estate investing is a is a second job.
(47:21):
Absolutely. I love that you are aware of.
Your strengths and weaknesses, That's that's a very, very
important thing to understand. OK, well, we've gotten to the
point every week we do a free book giveaway.
And so for our listeners, we have a couple books here that we
(47:41):
give away. Do any of these stand out to
you, Nick? Scoot it over a little.
Well, that one thing was one thing's great.
Yeah, I think I heard you talking about that one already.
That's kind of what helped me. Yeah.
Have you read the have you read the E myth?
(48:04):
That's a great one, especially for businesses.
That one's more geared towards businesses.
So, so, yeah, for listeners, we we have a couple books to give
away. All you have to do is like this
episode and add a comment as to which book you'd like and five
days after the air date, we'll pick a one lucky winner and send
(48:26):
them a free book. So with that being said, I just
wanted to say thank you Nick fortaking the time to come on here
and kind of talk about some of the things that you've been
through on your journey on real estate investing and the
challenges that you faced and basically how you would do
(48:47):
things differently in the in thefuture.
So Nick's story shows us that real estate isn't A1 size fits
all. Whether it's house hacking,
Airbnb in your own home, or renting out forest lands, you
can still design A life that's flexible and fulfilling to you
and gives the things that you want.
(49:08):
The key is to start, stay curious and build with
intention. Real estate is the tool you get
to define what success looks like.
Thank you all for listening, andwe'll catch you on the next
episode. Thanks again, Nick.
Thanks, Anna.
I still like to this day like I'm on a dog walk or something.
Like, man, I'm so glad that I don't have that property
anymore. I don't, I don't really care
about the $100,000. Not that I'm swimming in money.
It was, it's a lot of money and it, it still stings.
But that's how bad that propertywas.
What that I'm comfortable with saying out loud that I lost over
(00:21):
$100,000, It's better than having that property in my
hands. Welcome to the Real Prop Pro
podcast, where strategy, innovation, and wealth converge
to redefine real estate investing.
(00:43):
Hello and welcome to the RPP Podcast.
I'm your host, Ian Detler, real estate investor based in
Sacramento, CA. This show is where we talk about
real estate strategies with realpeople who are actually doing
the work. At Realprop Pro, we train new
and growing investors in fix andflips, rentals, tax lien, tax
(01:07):
lien investing, creative financing and so much more.
Check out some of our upcoming trainings at realproppro.com.
Today's guest is Nick Miller, a real estate investor and real
estate marketer who has found creative ways to mix and
investing income and adventure. Through his company, Miller
(01:28):
Photo, he has been helping agents and investors showcase
properties since 2015. But behind the lens, Nick has
also built a portfolio that includes duplexes, out of state
rentals, fix and flips, A6 Plex in Cleveland, land in Tahoe, and
Airbnb Experiences. All of this while living on his
(01:51):
own terms. Nick, welcome to the show.
Thank you. All right, so let's let's get
right into it. Nick, can you talk a little bit
about where you're from and where you were raised?
Born in San Jose, moved to Rocklin, CA when I was one year
old and grew up there and I've had a brief year or two in
(02:15):
Florida. I kind of followed my dad's
career and then moved back to Carmichael. 4th grade, grew up
there kind of been went to high school, that's how you and I
know each other and kind of got reacquainted in the real estate
investing world years later. But in college or college, I
(02:37):
jumped around from Sierra up in Truckee and then Santa Barbara
and Chico and I, I never finished, but I'm kind of happy
I didn't finish. I decided to start a photography
business instead. And I, I just, I got to a point
where I didn't really want to waste my parents money or my, my
time and getting a degree and something I wasn't going to use.
(03:00):
So looking back, maybe I'd be like, maybe I should have got a
business degree. But I think All in all, I, I
learned better from doing and making mistakes and, and just
learning from other people. Right about that time when I did
drop out of college, I say drop out, but it's, it was junior
college. So I don't even know if you can
drop out of junior college, start YouTube.
(03:24):
It was becoming like really popular.
It was around 2008. So I just started searching
things and, and YouTube and realizing like, oh wow, there's
some legitimate information here.
It's not. And it's in a less formal
platform than call it like reading books and taking tests
and stuff. And that's how my brain learns
(03:46):
better. And so, yeah, from there I just
started teaching myself photography techniques and
worked, you know, 16 hours a dayat two different hotel jobs to
make as much money as I can, payoff a bunch of credit card debt
and then save up thousands of thousands of dollars to, to buy
my first round of photography equipment and just to see what
(04:09):
would happen. And from there I just would, I
did a couple weddings for free. I did pet portraits.
I did my cousin and his friends were all skateboarding down in
Venice Beach where we, where we lived.
So I was, I was kind of just shooting anything I could to
learn and then, you know, see what would come out and see
what, when it luckily I've, it was around 2010 when I brought
(04:30):
my first camera. So it was in the digital age.
So I I can mess up as much as I wanted to without wasting a
bunch of money on film. And then I kind of just wanted
to do everything as far as photography.
But then I found my niche when my cousin who was a realtor, he
still is a realtor, Kevin McDonald, he asked me to
(04:51):
photograph a listing for him. And so I went in there with the
fisheye lens and the, the makingthe panoramas like I've had done
with landscaping, skateboarding.And the photos were awful, but
they were usable. But luckily he for my first
couple years, he was patient enough to give me a constructive
feedback and and deal with a lotof crappy photos.
(05:11):
Obviously there were better photos than he could have done
with his phone at the time. But yeah, so I got better and
better with with him and and then he would refer me out.
And then it just the business kind of snowballed to I
realized, oh, I could do more than one shoot a day.
And then so if I was making a couple 100 bucks on one shoot,
(05:34):
I'm like, maybe I could do 2 shoots and then I did 4 shoots
one day. I'm like, oh, wow, this is this
could be, this could be big. And so I realized too that I
liked the niche of real estate photography because there is no
humans involved and there is no like babies crying and you know,
because I've done family portraits before and weddings,
(05:55):
there's no drunk groomsmen. Like making a, you know, it's,
it's a lot less variables to deal with, unpredictable
variables to deal with in real estate photography and at the
like simultaneously becoming interested in real estate all
together. So I think like the investing
and real estate photography kindof started growing at the at the
(06:18):
same time. And I was able to take the
knowledge of real estate and apply it to my photography.
Like what do I need to capture? What do I need to photograph to
showcase the property as opposedto a lot of other photographers
that were just taking pretty pictures.
They would come from the landscape world or, you know,
(06:39):
art, more artsy world and just the pictures were great, But
there were they're not like proper real estate photos that
that the the realtor wants to market the property.
And so that's where I think I stood out and, and people ended
up choosing me over my competitors is my ability to do
that. But yeah, that's, I quit my day
(06:59):
job 10 years ago next month. So in 2000, May of 2015, I was a
truck driver for Alhambra just delivering those big water jugs.
So I was able to quit that. And then my goal was to, you
know, make a little bit more that I was making there the
first year. And then I ended up doubling
(07:20):
that, which was awesome. And so I think I knew right
there I made the right choice. Another reason why I liked real
estate is you would get residualbusiness.
So as opposed to a wedding or a lot of other forms of
photography, that's like 1 you, you get a customer and you get
one job. As opposed to real estate with a
(07:41):
realtor likes you, they're goingto call you every single
listing, whether they shoot 2, whether they list 2 houses a
year or fifty. So that was really cool.
I, I felt like, oh, I don't haveto do as much prospecting Once
you get that client base and then the referrals again, keep
snowballing and you could eventually you could kind of
(08:01):
pick and choose who you want to work with and, and you know who
you don't. So back to my day job as a truck
driver. My wife had bought a house.
Like I say, we bought a house, but she had bought a house
because she actually had a good steady job and income.
And so we lived in that house. And then I used my work status
(08:25):
at the truck driving job to get qualified for a loan for a
second home. And so basically right after I
closed escrow because I've been at the truck driving job for
almost 2 years, right after I closed escrow on that property,
I quit, you know, because I, I use the study because if I would
have quit before and then started my own business, the
(08:47):
banks want it like that. And they're like, well, how do
we know you're going to make enough money?
And you need like a track record.
So I use that track record, eventhough it was very modest.
I think I pulled in a whopping $37,000 a year at the truck
driving job, but that was enoughto buy a $90,000 house in Oak
Park, CA. It's like for those of you who
(09:09):
don't know the area, it's it's in South Sacramento kind of up
and coming and very affordable back then.
And so I was able to close escrow on that and then quit the
day job. And then, yeah, just took it
from there. So was that your first rental
and was that in 2015 when you purchased that one?
(09:30):
Yeah. So that was the first rental
that we still lived in the in our primary in Fair Oaks.
And then from there we we were getting kind of bored out in
Fair Oaks. We're 20 in our late 20s or mid
late 20s at the time. So it and our friends in
Carmichael, we're getting kind of bored in their neighborhood.
(09:50):
It is just too suburban and you know, not much to do.
We want to be closer to downtownSacramento and midtown.
All the excitement. They sold their house and
Carmichael. We sold our house in Fair Oaks.
We were thinking about renting it out at the time, but we
needed to pay off the weddings. We decided to sell.
(10:10):
So each party, my wife and I andthen our friends both sold our
houses. Then we bought, we took that
money. We bought a duplex near SAC,
Sacramento City College. So it's, you know, 10 minutes,
5-10 minutes South of downtown and it was there.
We definitely downsize. We both went from three twos
(10:31):
TO11 on each side, about 700 square feet.
But our mortgage was like $900 on each.
So that was really cool and it was cool to downsize.
And I think your first home, youaccumulate a bunch of crap like
everyone in your family gives you like, oh, you need some, a
bunch of tool like that you'll never use.
(10:51):
And just kind of like, I feel like a lot of people just dump
their excess stuff on you just thinking they're going to help
you out, but you end up with waymore stuff that you don't need.
And so it was cool downsizing and just living a more modest
wife with one bedroom and, and one bathroom.
And we did that for almost 4 years and our friends even had
their first kid on the other side and we made it work and it,
(11:15):
we made it cute. We made it, you know, it wasn't,
it's not that great of an area. But again, you get what you pay
for. And we were able to save a lot
of money by only having, you know, minimal expenses.
So, you know, four years later, we, we each move out like we now
I'm in the homeless area back inA32 like a normal house and
(11:36):
they're in West Roseville. But we still own the duplex and
we've been renting it out ever since.
I think we, we moved out in 2020.
We moved out so almost five years now.
And over that course of time we've bought an out of state and
(11:57):
Kansas City, MO for, we bought the house for $17,000, sold it
for 20. Didn't make a huge profit there,
but it's just kind of dipping our toes into different markets
and and trying to diversify, just trying to get creative ways
and in the real estate investingworld.
And we did a single family in Akron, OH, which is a suburb
(12:20):
like South of Cleveland that didpretty well.
Did about like 10% / 4 years. We bought it for $60,000.
Is five bedroom 2 bath house. Sold it.
I have can't think we sold for 80, but we we made a steady
income as far as like cash flow rental cash flow.
(12:41):
So those like All in all those ventures went fairly well, like
break even or like the Akron onemade, made some decent money.
But what I realized is it's it'sreal estate investing is not
super passive. I think I got really lucky with
the Oak Park house. The first rental just had
(13:03):
perfect tenants, never asked foranything, paid the rent on time
and just for four years straight, just no problems.
And I, I hit the jackpot with them.
And so I, I kind of like sets your expectations high for other
properties and maybe clouds yourjudgment a little bit.
But I wanted to eventually I hadthree mortgages out personally.
(13:31):
So I wanted to go commercial, which is 5 units or above.
And because they qualify that more on the income of the
property, not your personal income.
So I was looking around the whole country and I found, you
know, I was looking in Arkansas and stuff.
And then I would, you know, scroll through the pictures and
(13:51):
see tornado shelters and like, oh, maybe that's not the best
idea, even though the, the properties that were like very
affordable. So I kind of had my, my filter
set on an 8% cap rate and 5 units are above and I think like
a maximum price of $300,000 because I had 60 grand saved up.
(14:13):
So I found this property in EastCleveland, which is a pretty bad
area of Cleveland. But the, the return on
investment was going to be 20,000, sorry 20%.
So I, I put that 60 grand down on a six unit apartment building
that was at the time fully occupied.
And, and then I got a referral from the listing agent for a
(14:37):
good property manager and got the insurance all squared away.
And yeah, I got, I found a loan.The loan was like 8%.
So it was, it was a lot back then.
Now it seems like a good deal, but back then, you know,
mortgages were going sub 3. So, but whatever it it's still
(14:59):
like get penciled out and and mywife who's in finance and a lot
smarter than me, like the, the, the, the, the numbers and
approved. And so, yeah, put 60 grand down.
We closed and for the like the first six months it it did well,
(15:21):
it made like $1000 a month. So it was returning 20%.
Everything was hunky Dory. And then COVID started getting
worse. So the property management
quality started to suffer and started to be compromised
because the, the main guy, Sam, he would have these employees
that would just be out sick for COVID or he would, he would lose
(15:43):
people not, not die, but they would, they would quit or
whatever. So slowly but surely it just
like the, the deposit started getting lower and lower it to
the, and then to the point whereI'm like, OK, now the deposits
aren't even covering the mortgage, which was $1600 or
$1800 a month. So then I start, I started
(16:06):
getting a little worried and then you know what's going on,
what's going on. And then from from there I just,
it started getting worse and worse.
People would stop paying rent and then he was those property
manager was outsourcing the likeevictions to evict and then turn
over the unit and then get a newtenant in the vacant unit.
(16:29):
And that whole process, which was fairly quick because it was
Ohio. It's not like California where
you like tenants have more rights.
But so we were able to get them out of there quick, but it was
still costly. It was still like $5000.
So I kept trying, you know, I, I, I went with another property
manager and that didn't help. I, I flew out there and kind of,
(16:54):
I, I think like my, my boots on the ground kind of helped and,
and direct things, but just the,the area would keep getting
worse and worse. It was on the street.
So it was a bad neighborhood to begin with, but it was a street
that like houses keep buildings kept getting abandoned like 1
after the other to the point where we're like, we're the only
(17:15):
one, the only ones that is actually occupied.
And then meanwhile the city of East Cleveland was getting more
and more corrupt. There is like the mayor was
getting indicted and the police officers were getting arrested,
you know, for fraudulent. It was just, it was just messy.
(17:37):
It was it was super. There was a couple shootings at
the property, like 1 bullets went through the door and broke
glass and then the other bulletswent into a transformer.
And then the power was out on the building and it was 100 year
old building. So it like the sewer would
erupt, not erupt, but like back up and fill the basement and
(17:59):
there's tenants being prostitutes out of the unit.
So Fast forward and the, and themain reason I want, I kind of
was like funneling into this is because real estate investing
can be like super cool, but I, Ifeel like a lot of people on
social media don't, that's all about like the, how easy it is
(18:23):
and stuff. And all the people don't talk
about the failures. And I feel like you could learn
a lot more from the failures. And I would like to like when
you asked me to do this podcast,I wanted to share this because I
want people to, to learn the gnarly stuff and, and learn from
my mistakes. So yeah, so, so kind of talk
(18:44):
about that. What are some of the, what are
some of the main things that youtook away from it?
Like if, if you were able to start all over, you know, with
the, the vision you have now, what would you have done
differently? Where could you have avoided
some of these problems? I think just pump the brakes a
little bit on. I was, it was 2021.
(19:06):
I was like, I was making great money and I just wanted to put
that to use right away. I wanted to make an instant
return instead of just like putting it away and setting
myself up with the four O 1K andputting up something
conservative. We had already had, we already
had property. So I, I could have just let that
simmer and, you know, let the more conservative cash flow flow
(19:30):
come in instead of leverage, leverage, leverage like high,
let's, let's do higher returns. And I was, you know, you're like
eating a, a plate of delicious food and you're like, now I'm
getting kind of full. I, I should probably stop, but
then you just keep eating and then you end up feeling way too
full. But if you would have just
stopped and just let it settle, then you're like, OK, I'm good.
(19:52):
I think that's what I did with properties and I feel like that
$60,000 that I'd saved up was like burning a hole to my pocket
and I should just put it in something more conservative and
then it's still liquid. But and then just thought about
it. But I think this example is like
anything is the Murphy's life oranything that can happen will
(20:14):
happen. So I, I don't feel stupid like,
like we've made a bunch of mistakes again, My, my super
smart. Wealth advisor wife like checked
out all the numbers and and everything did check out.
But you know, we, we didn't count on as much evictions.
We didn't count on the property management company completely
(20:37):
dropping the ball. And it's not like if you own
property here, you could, you know, oh, the property
management company sucks. I'll just go over there and take
care of it myself. No, it's a $700.00 at flight and
eight hour and you just got to, you know, it's a three day thing
just to and I went out there once, but you can't do that.
It'll just it cuts in your profit margins.
(20:57):
So going back through the research we did, we did call a a
property management company thatwe're using for the Akron
property and they are like, yeah, we don't work in that
area. So that should have been like a
first red flag and we thought like, oh, it's probably because
they're based in Akron. But like, you know, you just ask
(21:18):
questions, poke people like, youknow, be, be annoying.
I feel like you don't be afraid to be annoying and ask like,
well, why don't you work there and, and just get more
information than you need? So the first, the property
management company that was referred to me.
Cool, they work in that area. Great.
But like still, I should maybe should have called a couple more
(21:40):
and I would have found out that no, like no other property
management company works in thatzip code.
Because when I was trying to find a new property management
company after I fired that one years later, I did find that out
that no one worked in that area.I was then I started asking why
(22:00):
I'm like, oh, it's just, it's, it's too much.
Crime area is notorious for people not paying rent and high
turnovers and it just doesn't make sense for us and our
vendors don't feel safe working there because their vans get
robbed when they're in, you know, working on the plumbing.
So and then another thing is property tax and insurance.
(22:24):
So when you get your mortgage quote, you're like, great,
that's going to stay like that forever.
And that's not the case. So I got the number $1800 a
month. Cool.
It grosses 6. Sorry, it grosses $3500 a month.
Sweet. So after expenses and and
(22:44):
utilities and everything, it'll cash flow $1000 a month.
Great. But I didn't account for
insurance going up every year. So as the zip code gets worse
and worse and the crime rates goup and and blah blah blah, and
the vacancy rates go up, insurance goes up as well at the
(23:05):
same time property tax goes up. So Ohio, one of the reasons why
we did choose Ohio to invest in this because the low property
tax, I think it's like a 1 1/2%,so comparable to California, but
it's not like Texas where it's over 2% or Illinois had some
really cheap properties too, butit's almost 3%.
But there's an additional property tax per zip code just
(23:29):
like if you go to Chipotle in this county or Chipotle in this,
like they're the little taxes different.
So we didn't know that or we didn't even think to research
that. Property tax ended up going up
to like over 3%, maybe, maybe close to 4%.
(23:51):
So the mortgage ended up going from $1800 to $2000 a month to
$2200 a month and then shot up to $4400 a month.
And people ask me was it was it an adjustable rate?
No, it absolutely not. It wasn't.
It was a, it was a fixed rate. But what happened was the escrow
(24:14):
account got so low because of all the taxes and insurance that
they had to raise it. They had to like double it
almost to get that escrow account filled back up.
So I'd I've called the bank obviously and like this can't
work and of course it was auto withdrawing my account.
(24:34):
So I see the $4400 charge like this, this is not right.
So we negotiate it down to like 3300.
But still at that point the properties even with increased
rents, the property is grossing 4 grand a month.
So after utilities and everything, it's just breaking
even. That's when we're like, OK, we
(24:58):
need, we need to sell. I can't like this is not Even so
other than the financial aspect,it's it was like I was losing
sleep. I was stressing.
There's nothing in my life that was stressful except that.
So I, you know, you'd wake up stressing about you'd dream
(25:19):
about it. You would go to bed just
fretting about it. So that's, that's not a healthy
way to live. So made the decision to sell it.
I called several brokers, no onewould touch it.
Called several Realtors. No one would return my call.
And I even, I left out that it was East Cleveland because I
(25:40):
didn't want to spook people. But you, you realized, and we
realized this like the first time we went out there, the
professionalism and that state, and I can't speak for
everywhere, but from our experience, the professionalism,
that state was way less than California.
I feel like if you call a realtor in California, they
(26:01):
don't answer. They'll call you 30 seconds
later. Like people in from our
experience, they're hungry, they're they want to make money.
But that wasn't the case in Ohioanyways.
So I just called the the guy that I bought it from who was
the listing agent to and like, hey, can you list this property
of, you know, all these things are happening.
(26:22):
Great list it and it it didn't no action on it for six months.
We did price reductions. We went from 300 grand to 275 or
285-270-5260. And then, yeah, and it just it
nothing. So after six months, our listing
(26:44):
agreement was expired. So I just decided to like start,
I was going to forfeit it to thebank, but I was waffling whether
whether to do it because again, it was this.
I was at the point where like I didn't care about losing my
$60,000 investment and whatever I had put into it.
And I, I listed on Facebook Marketplace as like a last
(27:06):
resort and get bombarded with wholesalers and, and Fast
forward, I, I finally end up selling it a year later, like 13
months later after the making the initial decision to sell it,
meanwhile having to pay the mortgage, making a little bit of
rent, but nowhere like just nowhere near even breaking even.
(27:29):
And then one thing after the other, like the roof, putting so
much work into the roof just because it snows in Cleveland
and people are getting that I was taking care of the tenants,
you know, as best as I could because they would get water
leaking in their units and this and that.
So I was like, what I want to doright by being a landlord.
(27:52):
So I would, I would, I came out of pocket a lot just like making
those repairs and, and the the sewer would back up and this and
that. So anyways, and we could get
more into the specifics of that,but bought it for 260 in 2021
and ended up selling it for 180.Yeah.
(28:20):
So I had to come out of pocket like $17,000 at the close of
escrow because of taxes. So I lost like over $100,000 on
that deal and I still like to this day like I'm on a dog walk
or something like man, I'm so glad that I don't have that
property anymore. I don't, I don't really care
(28:41):
about the $100,000. Not that I swimming in money.
It was, it's a lot of money and it kind of, it still stings, but
that's how bad that property wasthat I'm comfortable with saying
out loud that I lost over $100,000 cumulatively over three
years. But it's better than having that
(29:02):
property in my hands. Yeah.
You just had this stress, like lifted off your shoulders all of
a sudden just to get this thing out of your portfolio,
basically. It sounds like.
Yeah, so. And it's.
Yeah, it's, I think about it every day, just not having it.
Yeah. Well, you know, I'm glad you
(29:24):
were able to kind of relieve that stress of having that
thing. Very sorry about the loss, but
can you talk about some, some, some wins?
I, I know that you guys do some other more like creative
investing. Can you talk about some of those
different channels that you and your wife invest in that are
more fun, adventurous and like, you know, hopefully profitable,
(29:48):
not super depressing like losing6 figures on the Super.
No, I, I'm with you though, I think it's great.
I think it's great for people tosee the real side of this
industry because it isn't all just wins and, and tons of money
and like you said, hands off, you know, easy cash flow
investing. That's not the full picture.
So I think it is super importantthat you came on the show today
(30:10):
to really talk about this East Cleveland deal and, and really
make people aware of some of thethings to avoid and, you know,
try to help people by sharing your mistakes so they can learn
not to do them. Yeah, like I said, you know,
let's let's discuss some of these other different ways that
(30:31):
you guys invest because after talking with you and some of
these real estate meetups, I sawthat you and your wife are just
doing some like really kind of out-of-the-box stuff that I
think is great. So can you share some of those
different strategies that you guys are implementing?
Yeah, absolutely. I guess one thing to close out
the depressing part is with realestate, just be careful because
(30:57):
it could end up costing way morethan your initial investment.
So if I would have taken that $60,000 and put it in the stock
market, it could easily go to 0,not easily, but there's there's
a possibility it could go to 0. I'm out 60 grand.
That sucks. But with real estate, especially
if you leverage and you you get out of mortgage and everything
(31:17):
that's $60,000 potential loss can turn into it could keep
taking a like bam, the, the HVAC's out, bam, the roofs out
the foundation like so it could keep the stock market is not
going to do that. Or a lot of like like passive
real estate investments is not, is not going to do that.
But I would yeah. That's why you need to just like
(31:40):
be extra careful and ask way more questions.
And yeah, just, and I didn't know that's like that.
I think the biggest take away that I, I learned from this deal
is like real estate could you could potentially make a lot
more you, but you could also lose a lot more.
So, but yeah, on a, on a, on a happier note, around 2021 that
(32:10):
we decided we wanted to take, I guess a little sabbatical.
So we, we decided let's go, let's travel for three months
and, and my business and real estate photography and
everything that's usually prettyslow in December, January and
February. So we decided, OK, let's do
those months. So we decided to go to Sri
(32:30):
Lanka, little island country offthe coast of India.
So we did a month there. But so we knew we were going to
be gone for three months. We got the dogs that are taken
care of, but we also we wanted to minimize our expenses while
traveling. So we were able to get, we list
our house on Airbnb. So obviously I took the, the,
(32:50):
the pictures and the marketing material and then put, put it up
and we're able to get a long term renter or sorry, long term
guest, short term renter. So for 60 days, we put up for 60
day minimum. And we got this family that
they're moving from North Carolina to California and they,
(33:12):
they didn't want to sign a year lease for a rental that, but
while they're looking for a house to buy.
So there's again, something I never really would have thought
of, you know, instead of moving all your stuff to California and
put it in storage and sign a year lease and then starting the
OR, or buying a house sight unseen.
It just, it's, it was way less stressful for them just to, to
(33:33):
go on Airbnb. Hey, is there a house that our
family of four could fit in and and live in while we find a
house? Yes, so that that was our house.
And and so it's like in this market that I never even knew
existed. So they were able to, they
rented our house for two months while we were gone.
We we rented out for way more than the mortgage because it was
(33:54):
fully furnished. So while we were gone, we didn't
have to pay the mortgage the additional month that we were
gone, we had a couple other Airbnb guests and that, that was
good and we got all of our expenses covered.
So I, I was pretty proud of thatjust because it's, you know,
you're spending all this money on traveling, traveling the
(34:17):
world and you, you don't want tohave to pay your mortgage or
utility bills. So all that was covered.
You guys also do some glamping sites.
Is that correct? So we bought a back to the the
Oak Park property that I bought in 2015 that has more than
tripled in values while the 2021by 22 mortgage rates were super
(34:45):
low and maybe that we'll never see again.
But I refinance that property ended up getting a lower rate.
So like sub 3% on on that property and then I pulled out
$100,000 out of it because that's how much it appreciates,
(35:06):
appreciated. And we bought 3 1/2 acres up
near right adjacent to Tahoe National Forest off the Blue
Canyon exit. Oh, it had already been graded.
It has, it has a well, no septicor anything or electricity, but
(35:26):
we are kind of getting into the like off grid Airbnb, off grid
glamping, so glamorous camping. So we, we, we wanted to do that
and we bought the property, did a bunch of work like chipped,
grinded a bunch of trees and made a bunch of wood chips
everywhere. We bought 2 porta potties on a
(35:47):
trailer and wheeled those up there and set it up.
And then we, we bought a, a big canvas tent with a mini
fireplace and a nice queen size bed and just made it super cute.
Well, I could send you some pictures too, But and then we
rented out on Airbnb and I was going for like 150 a $175 a
(36:10):
night and people loved it. And I think people just wanted
that like remote experience. And it's a still trendy, but it
was like definitely extra trendyback then.
I found a guy up, a local guy upthere that would service it
(36:31):
every time. He would kind of do the
turnover, change the sheets and stuff.
Real nice guy, Jose. So yeah, ended up being pretty
fun. It was profitable.
And now it's the weather's kind of unpredictable.
So we've shifted from having thecanvas tent.
So now I just rent out the dirt,which is is pretty cool.
(36:53):
Just like it's $50 a night. I think I'm going to raise it to
like 75. But people just pull their
trailers or their own tents on it and just can't when all the
other campgrounds around our other real campgrounds are are
are fully booked and everything.And it's kind of cool that they
could just go to our our site and we have a great view and
(37:16):
it's super pretty up there. And it's not super high up.
It's about 5000 feet. So it's not too high up where it
gets really cold. Yeah.
But it's just been, it's been pretty fun that to have that and
just learn that like if I just like saying like this, you're
(37:36):
renting out the dirt, it's kind of cool.
And there's no, the, there's less variables that you have to
deal with the traditional rentallike toilets and, and I don't
know, roofs and stuff like that that I've experienced with other
properties. Now, have you had a chance to
stay on the site yourself and kind of camp out there, you
(37:58):
know, you, your wife or some? Yeah, we do.
Definitely had some friends up there.
We did a whole friends giving upthere, just brought tables and
decorations and kind of made heated everything up over the
fire and and it was it was really enjoyable and it still
is. I was just up there on Saturday
(38:19):
a couple days ago and just cleaning it up and doing some
burning and it's just, it's really cool just just to have
that very peaceful. But now I think my wife and I,
they we just, we want like new experiences.
So there's a California is very Northern California is just
(38:42):
overwhelming with how many cool places there are to explore.
And and we have a little Jeep Wrangler and go off road
camping. So kind of like want to explore
new places all the time. So that's that's one take away
from that property too, is I don't think I'll ever be the
person that that like wants a cabin because then you're just
(39:05):
obliged to go to that one spot over and over again.
As opposed to like exploring newareas as, as you've mentioned
before, like the the whole denture part of our lives.
I think we're always checking off different boxes of, of
locations and cool lakes, Alpinelakes and cool mountains to
climb and places to go. So that's, that's yeah,
(39:29):
definitely like higher dopamine rushes when you're just like
looking at new places. Yeah.
You guys are always out doing awesome stuff.
I love it. I love the active and outdoor
adventurous lifestyle. My wife and I would try to get
out and hike as much as we can. But, you know, there's only so
much time and only, you know, still got to work during the
(39:51):
week and then we can try to escape on weekends and stuff
like that. And you know, we have road trips
and stuff planned, but you know,nothing too crazy.
Can you kind of talk a little bit about where you see your
investments, your investment strategy going like what's what,
(40:14):
what's the next five years look like for you or what would you
like it to look like is maybe a better question.
I think just. Being a little bit more
conservative or sorry, a lot more conservative, listening to
more like Dave Ramsey these days.
And, and I, the younger me, justlike Dave, you're, you don't
(40:37):
know what you're talking about because he's all about buying
stuff in cash. And it's like that's not
attainable for normal people that you have to leverage
everything. And now I kind of get it like
what he's trying to say. He's trying to save people from
doing what I did and over leveraging themselves and
getting themselves into trouble.That being said, it's not very
(40:58):
possible for someone, especiallyin California to save up, you
know, 3400 grand minimum to buy their first property.
That's just not realistic. But right now we're selling the
duplex that I talked about earlier that our friends and us
lived in and we've rented out for the last five years like
we're selling that now. So we're kind of downsizing our
(41:23):
our rental portfolio. We are up to 9 doors.
So now that I've gotten rid of the six Plex and that was a huge
loss. But now I'm able or we're able
to take that loss and it goes against our gain.
So we're able to take sell the duplex and all the, all the
that's appreciated the money saywe'll make $100,000 just to make
(41:48):
math easy. But out of the duplex we'll take
that out and instead of getting taxed on that $100,000, we won't
get taxed on it because we lost $100,000 over here.
So there's, there is a silver lining from losing money on
investing, but the, between thatand our, our partners having
three kids and just like we don't really want to be, it's
(42:12):
just a good time to exit that property just for those reasons
I just stated. And then I, I think from there,
just like now my wife is a wealth, A wealth advisor.
So finding kind of other ways toalternative ways to where to put
our money. And there's, she's working a lot
(42:37):
with Megan, my wife, she's working a lot with 1031
exchanges and, and helping people take money out of the,
their properties and putting it into what are called Delaware
statutory trust. And so you can kind of, instead
of rolling the profits into another property, you roll it
into this trust, which is, you know, these big, big buckets of
money that they invest in biggercommercial projects.
(43:00):
And it's completely hands off. Again, nothing's guaranteed, but
they're, they have a very good track record on, you know, 8-9,
ten, 12% and you get dividends too, but that is completely
hands off. Like you don't, you don't have
to manage anything. Your money, you're just a,
you're a silent investor. So that that sounds a little
(43:22):
more appealing after being a landlord and, and having the
second job of, of taking care ofeverything.
That sounds a little more appealing just to let your money
work and, and, and you can, I like I could focus on my
business and what I'm really good at like and producing money
(43:45):
producing income. I I think is Dave Ramsey says
your income is your biggest wealth building tool.
I think the younger me thought like I just leverage, leverage,
invest and like that's like put,that's how you make money.
But I, I think if you double down on what you're good at and
focus on that, focus on one thing, you know, you can't chase
(44:06):
multiple rabbits. Like the fox who chases 2
rabbits catches no rabbits. So I've, I've kind of like with
my business coach, I've kind of decided on what I want to focus
on and having pretty bad ADD it,it helps to like eliminate the
(44:27):
distractions. So, yeah, so I guess that's
where simplify like, oh, that's like our word of the year, a
word of last year too. It was just like make things
simple, make things less distracting.
And and that goes for everythingthat goes what like how we plan
our recreation and then also howwe are planning our our
(44:49):
investment strategies. And just like instead of a bunch
of other bunch of things, we need to a bunch of spinning
plates like just OK, let's even if the return slightly lower,
let's let's simmer down and and simplify.
So it sounds like you're doing less active real estate
investing, trying to get a little bit more into some of the
(45:10):
safer, more hands off bets like ADST and also and also trying to
really focus in on your photography business.
Is that correct? I still would like to get back
into it. I just, I feel like I need a
little time out. I still photograph a lot of
(45:32):
apartment buildings and I meet these investors.
Some are young, some are like super old and they're, you know,
these 12 million dollar 300 unitapartment complexes and it's
really cool. Like I still love the real
estate investing world. I love how it's, it's a lot.
It's fairly modest. Like you'll, you'll meet these
(45:54):
property owners and they're justthese old dudes that pull up in
their Toyota Camrys and, and like you're worth $20 million.
What? And so and I just like, yeah.
And then going to meetings, you know, like with you and, and,
and just learning a lot of new things.
(46:16):
I, I still love the world, but yeah, I'm just kind of just
taking a little, a little breather.
It's also like made I'm more as I get older, I'm definitely more
weary of shiny objects. You know, I get a lot of a lot
of people in the last year or two, I've been super in the Adu
(46:37):
space and like, oh, you have youhave extra piece of land on your
rental property, like put an AD unit and finance that.
And that's kind of where I was ayear and a half ago.
Like I want to take the rentals that we have and put ADS on them
just to get extra units. And now I'm like, that sounds
risky. I don't want I don't want more
(46:58):
debt. It was like more work and more
tenants and more headaches. Exactly.
And if I if I did, if I didn't have the photo business, I, I
think I would be more inclined to do that be if that was, you
know, my job job, but I've I'm not built to do to work 2 jobs.
Real estate investing is a is a second job.
(47:21):
Absolutely. I love that you are aware of.
Your strengths and weaknesses, That's that's a very, very
important thing to understand. OK, well, we've gotten to the
point every week we do a free book giveaway.
And so for our listeners, we have a couple books here that we
(47:41):
give away. Do any of these stand out to
you, Nick? Scoot it over a little.
Well, that one thing was one thing's great.
Yeah, I think I heard you talking about that one already.
That's kind of what helped me. Yeah.
Have you read the have you read the E myth?
(48:04):
That's a great one, especially for businesses.
That one's more geared towards businesses.
So, so, yeah, for listeners, we we have a couple books to give
away. All you have to do is like this
episode and add a comment as to which book you'd like and five
days after the air date, we'll pick a one lucky winner and send
(48:26):
them a free book. So with that being said, I just
wanted to say thank you Nick fortaking the time to come on here
and kind of talk about some of the things that you've been
through on your journey on real estate investing and the
challenges that you faced and basically how you would do
(48:47):
things differently in the in thefuture.
So Nick's story shows us that real estate isn't A1 size fits
all. Whether it's house hacking,
Airbnb in your own home, or renting out forest lands, you
can still design A life that's flexible and fulfilling to you
and gives the things that you want.
(49:08):
The key is to start, stay curious and build with
intention. Real estate is the tool you get
to define what success looks like.
Thank you all for listening, andwe'll catch you on the next
episode. Thanks again, Nick.
Thanks, Anna.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.