But at the end of the day, I think everybody wants control
of their own financial future. This is a common story
where people work their whole lives. Somewhere. The company gets sold, it
merges, it shuts down. They lose a big contract, whatever it is. And all of a sudden you're like,
Wow, I just I put my heart and soul into this company. And now, you know,
I get treated like acts. We talk a lot about getting out of that
that rat race. Right. But if you're in that situation
where you have a W-2 job, understand, there's there's a couple of different leverage
opportunities you can take from there. Right. When you go to a bank to apply for a mortgage
to buy a rental property, for example, they will look at you very differently
because you have a job that's consistent. You've been there for years. You have a steady income. You're gold to that bank, right? As opposed to somebody like me. I'm unemployed. I don't have a job. They're going to look at me
very different. What you're saying is when you have a W-2 and you have income coming
in, it's easier to get finance. Right,
because it's actually hard even for me, like, you know, because I don't really
I don't have a paycheck coming in. You know,
we're living off our passive income. So that's a very, very interesting point.
Yeah. So I realized I needed to leverage that. Right? So that's one thing. If you if you're a viewer out there
and you're trying to figure out, how do I do this, how do I invest
in real estate or start my own business? How do I get that capital to start? You know, having a W-2 job provide you
that opportunity by going to the bank and getting a loan
for your business or for real estate. The other thing, it allows for is if you're working for a company
and you have a41k, right, chances are you can borrow your own money
out of that 41k as seed capital to invest in real estate
or to start your own business. Right. So there are two very good ways
that even if you have a W-2 job, you can leverage that to build yourself
higher. Yeah. And a lot of times
those employers will match that, for one. So you put money and they put money in
and it can grow exponentially. And then, yeah, Tony's right. You can basically
you can do all kinds of stuff. But why did you choose real estate? I actually leveraged my condo. I had purchased a condo I was living in
and I took out I refinanced it to take out some equity
to purchase my first quad. Right. For unit building. It wasn't the best building. I probably wouldn't purchase it today,
but I still owned that single day and I did it. I still own that building. It's still cash flowing
very nicely for me. Ended up allowing me to leverage it
and go into building. So I ended up building a couple of spec homes, right,
that I then sold and cash flowed from. And so yeah, it really started there. And I'm not special, I'm not real smart. I'm just,
you know, like anybody else out there trying to figure this out
and make a better life for myself. Yeah. Real quickly, what did you buy
the four plex for the quad? I bought it for
301. What is it worth today? Eight. Okay, so half a million bucks there? Yeah. Not to mention the cash flow, right. Which is really what you are after.
That's really what it is. Yeah,
because that's what I'm living off of. I'm not living off of my equity. It's great to see these these properties
appreciate in value. But you could you could sell that. You can scoop that equity. And that is the point here. Or refinance. Yes, your tenant is paying down
your mortgage for you. Your tenants, your for tenants
as long as you keep them for. Yeah.
They're paying your mortgage, right? Yeah. And that is the model. It's rinse and repeat. Once you buy your first one and you
get over that initial hump and any fear. And if they're exactly right. Well, a lot of us have been there. Right. We have that fear going into our signing,
the purchase and sale, managing tenants, whatever it is, property managers,
once you get over that initially, the others are just like,
you know, pretty easy. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like anything that you
don't know and tell you, you. Just got to do. It. Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, so you start doing some specs
and then you started doing what else? So 2008. Yep. Happened, right. Fortunately, I had sold off my spec homes and I was looking at the market
trying to understand what was going on. And you know, long story short,
I was very fortunate. I'd like to say I was very smart. But in hindsight,
I think it was more luck than smarts. I ended up buying a ton of bank
owned foreclosed properties. Right. And so here I was. And again, going back to the W2 job,
I was in a position where I was still working my corporate job
at at that point, and I'm buying foreclosed homes
that were vacant. I'm going in as a W2 employee. I can show that
I have current income through my job. They're not worried about that property
that foreclosed property, not cash flowing, because I have my income to be able
to support the payments on that property. Right. So that allowed
me to buy these fantastic properties that were foreclosed
on, $0.50 on the dollar. Right. And be able to go in remodel and
then rent out and cash flow once again. Yeah, right. So so now let's fast forward. At what point did you say,
okay, I'm done with. Corporate, I had enough rental property
where I was like, these properties easily pay my expenses and I had to make a choice. Did I want to go down that real estate route or did
I want to go down the corporate route? And for me, I chose the real estate route because it provided me
so much more freedom in my life. Well, 8 hours a day
plus, right? Absolutely. I mean, now you could replace it
with what you want. Though, apps. And so when I made that decision
and I, I left the corporate environment, which was a difficult decision to to make
because that was good money. I had been working a fair amount of time
and I was making good money. So it wasn't like it was done,
you know, a nonchalantly, right? It was with a lot of thought,
but I never regret it.
