BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 562: Police Officer Surpasses $10K/Month FI Goal w/Out-of-State Sober Living Investments

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Achieving your FI number in just four years? If you want to do it too, you must try something different. This couple found a niche within a niche, allowing them to hit the coveted “1% rule” in real estate, skyrocketing their cash flow and passive income and allowing them to make more than almost any other landlord in their area. So, how did they do it, and what was the investment that got them there? David and Morgan Stanhope weren’t real estate investors five years ago. They didn’t come from investor families and had zero real estate investing experience. One day, at his job as a New York State Police Investigator, David met a mentor who would change how he thought about money, financial freedom, and passive income. This was perfect because David and Morgan were already in a great place to invest—Upstate New York. But David chose NOT to invest in his home market, and for good reason. They went south to a state known for higher home prices and crushingly high insurance costs. There, they found acreative rental property investing strategy, allowing them to make much more cash flow than regular rentals. Four years later, they’ve surpassed their $10,000/month FI goal. Now, they’re on track to hit an even bigger achievement: $70,000 per MONTH. Today, we’re talking to them about exactly how they’re getting there with investment properties you’ve probably never heard (or thought) about. In This Episode We Cover How to hit real estate’s “1% rule” with creative, high-cash flow rentals Borrowing from your 401(k) to fund your first real estate deal Making real estate cash flow EVEN with eight percent mortgage rates (yes, it’s possible) Why David WON’T quit his job, even though he has already hit his FI number Finding contractors and vendors when out-of-state real estate investing  Using other people’s money to invest in real estate (and why you may want experience before you do) And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group Network with Other Investors on The Path to FIRE Through the BiggerPockets Forums Finance Review Guest Onboarding Join BiggerPockets for FREE Mindy on BiggerPockets Scott on BiggerPockets Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Apply to Be a Guest on The Money Show Podcast Talent Search! Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area Find Investor-Friendly Lenders BiggerPockets Money Group Stanhope Capital Start Investing with “The Book on Rental Property Investing” See Mindy and Scott at BPCON2024 in Cancun! Socially Conscious Investing: How to Start a Sober Living Home 00:00 Intro 01:17 Early Financial Education 05:13 Finding a Money Mentor 09:06 Hitting the 1% Rule in...Florida? 17:31 Current Cash Flow Numbers 20:41 $70K/Month Goal!? 24:09 Is Sober Living Investing Stable? 29:11 Borrowing Money to Invest 32:04 How Much Time Does It Take? 34:46 Connect with David and Morgan! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-562 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you thought to yourself, it's just too hard to invest in this market? Or it's too late. I've missed all the good deals. On today's episode, we are going to hear a story that will make you believe that investing in real estate and reaching financial independence is still possible even in 2024. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me, as always, is my real estate believer co-host, Scott Trench.

Thanks, Mindy. I really appreciate all of these wonderful, creative intros that you come up with every week. Bigger Pockets has a goal of creating 1 million millionaires. You're in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting or whether you live in a great investment market, but choose voluntarily to forego it and invest in another state hundreds of miles away. Today, we're going to discuss how David and Morgan started their real estate investing journey in 2020 and scaled their portfolio to 10

properties in just under four years. We're going to talk about about how they plan to continue to scale their portfolio to reach their fine number of $70,000 a month from real estate investing and how they're making it work in this market cycle, including their most recently purchased deal here in 2024, that produces a great cash-on-cash return with an 8% mortgage. David and Morgan, thanks so much for hopping on today. Thank you for having us. We're excited to be here. Hey, guys. So I'm looking for a snapshot of your money story. Morgan, I'm going to go with you first. Where does your journey with money begin? So my journey with money began when I was a young child.

I grew up in a divorced household, and both my parents raised me on and off their time. But the cool thing is, is they got us a savings account when we were really young, early 90s. So every week, I would take my passbook to the bank and I would get in real time how much money was in my account. But that was really it. My parents would deposit money for things. like household chores, and then when I became old enough to start working at 14, I would then deposit my own money. But that was really how my childhood looked. My parents never, ever talked about what a 401k was, what an IRA was, anything to do with their jobs. So they really just said, save your money for a rainy day and spend your money on things, which is weird to

me. So every year my mom would take her income tax and bring us on vacation. So I grew up with doing certain things like going on trips instead of buying tangible items, if that makes sense to you. Yeah, experiences over possessions. Yeah, over possessions. David, how about you? What did your upbringing look like? Yeah, similar. So I grew up, well, actually, I guess to kind of even back it up, I was adopted when I was three months old from Calcutta, India. And grew up in Rhode Island. We grew up in a middle-class family. My dad was a computer programmer, and my mother was a social worker.

And money was never a big topic for us. You know, we knew to save money. We knew to invest your money with CDs at banks. And real estate and 401Ks were never a discussion in our household. David Morgan, could you tell us what you do for work? So I was actually a special education teacher for years until we had our son in 2017. And that's when we discussed, am I going to continue working or am I going to stay home? So with the cost of child care, it was just a no-brainer for me to leave my career to raise our son.

And we knew in the future that we wanted to have more kids. So I became a stay-at-home parent. So for me, I'm a New York State Police Investigator. I work with the counterterrorism unit. We work with the FBI. So to kind of give you an overview of what I do, my role is to essentially make sure another 9-11 never happens in New York State again. We make sure that, you know, there's no domestic terrorism in New York. And that's the focus of what I do for work. Awesome. Thank you very much for doing that and keeping us all safe here. It's wonderful. And remind me, what part of the, in a general sense of the state do you guys live in in New York? So we're up toward the Adirondacks right near Lake George and Saratoga Springs. Awesome. And this is notable, I believe, because I attended, obviously, I was at BPCon, 2023.

And I had this thesis in my mind that upstate New York is like the best place to invest because of the changes from COVID. Everyone's moving out to these areas. It's beautiful in the summer. you got all these fancy things. The cash flow is great. And I'm talking about this thesis. And David comes in and we're at the bar and he goes, you're crazy. Yeah.

I live there. And I would never invest here. And I invest out of state. So with that prompting, can you tell us? And let's tease that up for later. I'd love to hear about the thesis here. But how did you get into real estate investing? How did that start to get set up?

Give me a little bit of background about your wealth building journey leading up maybe to 2017 and kind of the changes that came about when you guys had your son? So we moved back to New York from Arizona when I was in the Air Force. And so I joined state police in 2014. I was a trooper on the road. And I was promoted to the position as an investigator in 2019. So with state police, we have a pension. We have a 401K. And those are kind of the foundation that we had going into. to real estate. Awesome. And you guys are, I imagine also accumulating wealth at a pretty good clip in the years from 2014 to 2019 that you just previewed here. Could you give us your mindset on how you spend, budget, and otherwise think about accumulating wealth? Absolutely. So I think

we're very much similar to everyone else. In terms of we, when we move back, we built a custom home. We both have vehicles. We're doing everything everyone else is doing. We're not doing, we're doing everything everyone that's middle class is doing. We're not, we're saving money, but not to the degree that we are now. And I think going along that path, and then once COVID happened, and then Morgan's at home with their children, that was the catalyst that, um, started us on their real estate journey. Okay. So to be fair to say that leading up to 2020, you guys are living a very normal kind of middle class lifestyle from a financial perspective here in a relatively lower cost of living area. It's not the lowest, but it's not Manhattan either. And you're accumulating

a little bit of cash over years in addition to 401K contributions and a, I don't know what the word is, vesting maybe pension plan, moving toward vesting the pension plan. Yep, we put in X amount every month towards a pension. And I think my mindset changed when I was a trooper up in the Adirondex. I met a mentor when I was stationed up there. And Greg really gave me the foundation and kind of the thought process of a real estate investor. And, you know, you're never going to change your life unless you try. And that mentality that he gave us and that, you know, that idea has really,

led us to where we are now. And a little background on Greg really quick. He is a guy from L.A. and he vacations in the Adirondacks every year. And Dave just happened to meet him when he was a trooper on the road. So Greg is a real estate investor. So every time he would see Dave, he would say, you know, what are you and Morgan doing? And have you ever thought of this? And he started to talk to Dave about all of his investments. Then Dave would come home and report to me everything that Greg was doing. So that's what got the ball rolling on what made us really start to think about,

okay, I think this is possible. I think we have the income to do it. We're looking at all the 401K information and money that he's put in to his deferred comp. And we had our son, and I said, let's just do it. What year is this, that this transition and thought process happens?

This was, you were still up in Tupper. This was in 2019, between 2018 and 2019, because we had just had our second child, our daughter. And then I think you and Greg talked over the year. It must have been a few years. Absolutely. And we still stand up. And then it wasn't until 2019 when we purchased our first property. Stay tuned for more on how David closed on his first investment property after this quick break.

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building up. And in 2019, is actually when you buy the first property. Mechanically, where did the resources to purchase this property come from? Did you have a cash position? Did you have to find another creative way to access this? And how did you get prepared financially to buy it? So that first purchase was in October 2020. That was in Cape Coral, Florida. So in terms of the money and where we pulled that from, it was from our 401K. So to kind of give you a snapshot of that we pulled, we pulled a percentage of money from our 401K. There was 30,000. And we used that 30,000 towards a purchase. But then this was also during, since this was during COVID, we also used the CARES Act. And since our, my son wasn't able to go to preschool at the time, under the CARES Act, you're able to

pull out further funds. So we pulled out an additional 25,000. So now we're working with 55,000 towards the down payment of that first property. And from there, also using our savings, we're able to close on that first home. Awesome. Okay. So we have a combination of savings in 401K. Do we borrow from the 401k or was this a straight up withdrawal for the first part? The second part sounds like was a withdrawal. Both, yes. So the first part was a loan. And then the second part, the CARES Act, was just pulling those funds. Awesome. Okay. Now, why did you decide not to invest in the great upstate New York land that I have built up in my head to be this? wonderful land of magical investing returns and instead decide to go to Florida with the hurricane.

That is a good loaded question. So Florida, there's a couple things. So this is during the middle of COVID. Just demographically, if you look at migration patterns, everyone from California and New York are moving. So there's a couple of reasons for that. One, Florida, obviously, great weather. And then two taxes. And everyone was still working. Florida didn't shut down. Yep. Landlord tenant laws in Florida are better. I mean, they have high insurance rates now, but we do things to mitigate those costs. Okay. I want to know what you do to mitigate those costs because Florida insurance,

homeowners insurance is, let's be polite and say, unaffordable. Yes, I agree with you. So when we went to go purchase our first property in Florida, I was actually originally looking at condos. and another trooper he bought a condo down there and he said, you know, I'm making $200 a month and off of that condo as passive income. I thought that sounded excellent. And then I started listening to Bigger Pockets. And Bigger Pockets said, you should go for that 1% rule.

Those were the days, huh? Yes. So it still works. So I, without, you know, having any other any other ideas of real estate, I just said, realtor, I said, I want to make 1% off of the total purchase price. She told me it wasn't possible, and you can't do it in this market. And so I told her anything's possible, and we found another realtor. And after we found the other realtor, she introduced us to a program. The program is a sobriety program. It places individuals going through alcohol or narcotics recovery

in single family homes. And that organization, is how we're able to, one, bring in that 1% rule. And then also, it allows us to make a substantial amount and to hit that 1% every single purchase. So with the high insurance rates, we're able to far exceed what apartment complexes, Airbnbs, a whole slew of other real estate investments, what they're able to bring in.

So with the sobriety program, who is paying the rent on the property? So that's a good question. So the tenants are paying rent to us. Now, to give you an example, they have, we'll say, we have own a home in Tampa. There might be 10 other sobriety homes affiliated with that program in Tampa. So we received the rent from the tenants, but if for whatever reason they can't pay, if there's a hurricane that comes through, those other 10 homes will chip in rent. And then they will give us our month. rent check. Now, for whatever reason, those 10 homes can't pay us, it goes out to a chapter. Chapter covers a region in Florida, and that regional chapter will kick in money to us. And if for whatever reason that can't happen, and there's a large, large hurricane, the state of Florida will end up sending us a rent check, which actually happened a couple months ago. And then there's another safety program as well on the federal level. Now, the mechanic, the economics,

of this at the fundamental level are these are typically multi-bedroom homes and we're really packing in a large number of individuals per property right and people are actually splitting rooms in many cases or is that a different type of program that that's not the same as what you're doing there might be a couple of rooms that are split in half but for the most part it's six to eight people per house but i mean we're looking at homes there are 2 500 square feet five or six bedrooms two to three baths they're large homes and and if for whatever reason We need to, we've actually added multiple houses we've added on. So we've added two, three more bedrooms in some of these properties before the tenants move in to give everybody an adequate amount of space.

Awesome. And then mechanically, are you guys finding candidates, clients for the program here? How does that work? So we are very, very, very hands off with regards to the sobriety program. we only take care of major fixes within the homes, whether that's an HVAC system. But otherwise, the program, they place individuals into the home. They have a more or less a house manager, and they will contact us if there's any issues with the house or any repairs to be done. But we don't find the people.

They find the people if there's ever any major repairs. We'll cover them. But there's minor repairs. They will actually cover the costs of the. those minor repairs in the home. Now, do you ever get one of the things, I've contemplated this for some properties here in Denver, and I've ultimately opted not to do the same. Do you, how do you position these properties? I imagine that neighbors, for example, in certain neighborhoods would have a problem with eight to ten recovering drug addicts or alcoholics in a building nearby

them. How do you find these properties and do you factor that at all into your consideration for these purchases. Absolutely. So the thing about the people that are in these homes, and this was one thing that was really big for me, just because I was at the time as a New York State Trooper, and I'm making arrests of people that have narcotics on them, that are drinking and driving. And once the program was explained to me that these are just normal, normal, normal people. They are in their Tampa home, had a local DJ that was in the home. We have people that are normal blue collar workers. And they're just as normal as anyone else. They're not the normal people that I would deal with in terms of making arrests. And in terms of when we purchase these homes, we make sure that the home,

one, is not overfilled. It's a normal, you know, five to eight people in the home. And they're in nice areas. We've rarely had any complaints from neighbors, but we also make sure the houses are kept up, that there's landscaping that's done, that their driveway is a big driveway to accommodate all the vehicles and that there's not vehicles parked on the road. When we went to purchase our first property, I always told Morgan, I wanted it to be a property that we would live in. Yeah, that we would live in and that I would be proud to live in. And that's kind of been our mentality going forward. Okay, so can you give us the numbers on this first purchase? We don't need to go through every purchase in the portfolio. But I'd be here about this first purchase and what

the portfolio is swelled to today. So this first purchase in Cape Coral, it was in October 2020. It was $269,000. And the cash we invested in that property was $58,000. That house right now spends off 1,316 a month of cash flow. And just in terms of quick numbers that produces an ROI for us of 22.65%. We were able to get 1% off of that purchase price. And then right now, we're renewing the lease. And then we're also going to get, you know, a higher passive income and a higher ROI from that. Awesome. And you're providing affordable living conditions and helping people on their recovery journeys with this as well. So that's fantastic. How many of these do you have today? So today we have 10 homes. They're spread throughout Florida. And we strategically buy.

them in, you know, high retirement areas or areas that everyone would like to move to that will appreciate. So whether that's Jacksonville or Cape Coral or Bradenton, you name it, those are areas that we pinpoint in terms of very certain data points. And so far, it's worked out pretty well. Awesome. And then let's zoom in on the most recent purchase. What's the most recent property that you acquired, and what do the numbers look like on that from an acquisition standpoint here in 2024? So the most recent purchase was in Orange Park, which is in Jacksonville. That purchase was $329,000. So to give you an idea that, that current mortgage, we're looking, so we're faced up against right now an 8% interest rate. So obviously, everyone else is going

through the same boat that we are with high interest rates. We, for that rent, we were able to negotiate a $3,300 rent every month. And that gives us a cash on cash of $977. So for the ROI for that property, that is giving us a 24% ROI off of that property. A 24% cash on cash ROI? Correct. Awesome. Okay. And when you use the word negotiated $3,300 in rent, this is a negotiation with a program that fills the house with sober living clients. Am I using the right terminology or am I reasonably close with this? Absolutely. Perfect.

Awesome. So what would the property rent for as a long-term rental? A lot less. I don't know them specifically, but a lot less. So the other thing is that I always prepare is that if this program did fall through, that I need to make sure that I can rent very close to what our current rental rate is in terms of to make money. So that's why we purchase in these appreciated.

areas. In terms of what they would make, it would definitely be a few hundred dollars less. But every couple of years, they will increase rent more and more just so they can have that stability. Is there another piece to your overall portfolio? How do you think about building wealth today and what's the end game? So that's a good question. So I think for us, you know, I know that there's the fire movement and that I think there's a lot of value for me as a state policeman. member, obviously to keep my job, but to have that aspect of a W-2. And it allows me to have reserves. It allows me to plan for if there's ever air conditioning that goes.

And for me, at least as a W-2 worker, it works right now. You know, I have six and a half years left with State Police. After that, then I will go on to retirement and continue growing our portfolio. And can you walk me through the six-and-a-half years thing? What is the six and a half years item there? Yeah, just six and a half years until I retire. So with my military time, I'm able to buy back a couple of years. And then after that, for me, it'll be year 17 with state police.

I'm able to retire. And by that you mean you'll have the pension and benefits that that kick in. Yeah, so I'll have a pension. I'll have a 401K. And then we'll have our real estate. Yeah, because state police, it's a 20-year commitment. for state police. Yeah.

So, I mean, I think our goal, obviously, my original goal was to have, when we started this, my original goal was to have 10 homes. In 10 years. In 10 years. And I wanted to have one home a year. And then that didn't happen. And then we just far exceeded that expectation. And then I originally wanted to have $10,000 passively.

And we've exceeded that. So my new goal, one thing I do is that I can. created a roadmap. The roadmap shows literally every single year since we started. How many homes I want to, or how many homes we should accumulate that year, how many homes we have, and how much we make passively every single month. So allows me to stay on track. And as of right now, we're hitting all the metrics and all the numbers that we need to in terms of our goals. So I want to have 50 homes when I separate from state police and passively make over 70,000 a month. That's awesome. And what will you do with this every thousand a month passively? Can you tell us about the world travels or the excitement that will come at that point?

You know, I'd always joked around and just said, you know, I'd like to retire and just didn't have any big plans. But to be honest, I want to continue working as long as I can. I enjoy everything that we do within real estate. I'd like to be the Warren Buffett and just live till, you know, as long as I can and continue doing exactly what we're doing. I enjoy every aspect of it. I enjoy the research. I enjoy finding the homes in certain areas. I wouldn't be against moving on to apartment complexes and other endeavors. But I think one reason we are successful with what we're doing is because we're doing one thing.

We're not flipping homes. We're not doing Airbnbs. We're doing one thing and we're doing it well. And I honestly just want to continue doing what we're doing. And obviously make our kids a big part of that. and hopefully it would be something that they'd be interested in moving forward. We have to take this one final break, but more from David and his financial journey right after this. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture,

including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier.

It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple.

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Is there any, like, how long has this program been going on? Is there any, like, I would love for them to go out of business because nobody needs it anymore, but I live in reality. But I'm wondering, because you get so much more rent from renting through this program versus just renting to one family, have you taken anything into account that this program might end? No. So this program's been around since the 1970s. They were actually founded by a stockbroker. New York City. Unfortunately, that stockbroker, he needed this program. He was in an alcoholic anonymous program. And there was no follow-up after, after that program was done. And that's why it was created. Now, kind of on that point, there's hundreds of sober living programs throughout the country, prior thousands. But one of my bets was that, unfortunately, like you said, I would love with this program, went out of business, and it was never needed in the country. But I think in terms of reality, it's not going to happen.

I think for what I anticipate happening, it's always going to be needed. And it's always going to be something that's helpful for everyone. And that's kind of something that we're banking on. Yeah. And I wish I could say that you're wrong, but you're not. It's going to be needed. Do they, have they been around since the 70s in Florida, like in this location? I'm just, I'm trying to poke holes in this.

You're not leaving me any room to poke any holes in your plan. So they're in every state in the country. They were allowed in Florida. Florida legislature allowed them in a couple of years ago. Beginning of 2020, they allowed them to start purchasing properties in Florida. And obviously, they use an investor to purchase those properties. But no, they're in Canada. They're in the United States.

They're actually even in Australia. But they have such a high success rate. an 85% success rate. And that's why there's a lot of value. And states recognize them, as well as other sober living programs because of the way they're structured in terms of having a president of the House, a treasurer, a secretary. It gives everyone a job. And it gives the House a meaning.

So they're able to be successful because of those jobs. There is a little story, if you guys want to hear it, with the law enforcement that called us. Yes. I don't know if you guys want to hear a quick story. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Okay. So in our property in Fort Walton Beach, it's up towards Pensacola, Panama City. I got a phone call while I was at work that one of our tenants was going around the neighborhood and checking, I want to say checking, but trying people's car door handles. And I don't think it was as a nice thing. Anyway, so he got a call from the police department and told them what I did, which, which was very well received by their police department down there. So that individual was removed, obviously, from that house, and that sober living program took care of that person being removed, nothing that I had to do. Since what I do and that program was so well received by the police department,

they ended up going over to our house two weeks later and throwing them a barbecue. The whole Fort Walton Police Department. And they also did. So they took these guys that are, you know, in the 30s, 40s on police ride-alongs. And it was a very, very good, it was a good story just for them to understand what we're doing. That everyone, a lot of people have preconceived notions of what it is. And they were able to see that that is not, they're all just normal, normal people working nine to five jobs. And this was a little bit of a more affluent neighborhood where we purchased this property.

So a lot of the neighbors were, like, thrilled. And I know we mentioned that earlier. So they were constantly calling the local law enforcement. And of course, this situation was warranted. But the Fort Walton police sided with our house, which was really awesome. And we never heard anything again. So I thought that was great for the community to know that these houses exist and for the world to know that these houses exist. and these people are just trying to live normal lives and in a safe, clean home.

So I just thought that was really cool that they all came together and it was positive. Yeah, they said that that was the first time that they've ever, ever had law enforcement come over and cook for our guys. Yeah, that was the first. That's fantastic, guys. What a wonderful, like, tie into what you do and the research and the very thoughtful business that you've constructed here over several years. I have a couple of quick last minute questions here before we wrap up. One is, is all of this real estate owned personally by you guys or in a business that you 100% own or do you have outside investors or partners in any part of the business?

So all of the homes are owned by me. They're all deeded to us. However, a couple of years ago, I've always had interest from coworkers to get into real estate with us. I've never been comfortable doing it until Morgan said, you know, what's the worst that could happen? And I said, well, I could lose everyone's money. And then so when, you know, Morgan was, she's awesome with this. So she is a very, very, very, very supportive person. And she gave me the confidence to move forward with using investor or using funds from my co-workers. So that looks like we received $50,000 from

a coworker and then I will produce returns from them. So I essentially make nothing off of, we'll say, the last three properties. The last three properties. The first seven properties were just our money. Yep. And I will give them the passive or the cash flow that I'm receiving off that property. Now, after year five, it's a five year note that we do with them. But after year five, we will receive that cash flow. And the benefit to them is that it takes, place with our 401k, and I can give them better returns than our 401k can or our deferred comp. So there's a huge, huge value for them just because of what we do is very stable. Okay. So coworker lends you $50,000 or whatever it is for the down payment on a property.

You'll use those funds as the equity in the down payment and then borrow using a conventional loan in your name for the remaining of the property, pay them back principal and interest over five years and then own the property outright. And you've done that in the last three, including perhaps the deal we just discussed, the most reason one at the 8% interest mortgage. I mean, it's a huge benefit to them. Everyone's happy. And then in five years, then we'll have that property moving forward. We'll have that cash flow moving forward. Got it. Okay. Awesome, guys. And then last question here, are you still contributing to your 401 case, you know, or anything? Are you plowing every dollar available back into real estate?

I was initially, but I don't put it into my 401k anymore. I'm not against it. The 401K is great, but what I can produce off of our real estate far exceeds anything that the 401K can push out. And yeah, we don't put anything into our 401k anymore. Awesome. So this is the bulk of your portfolio now is this plus a vesting pension plan. Okay, I have a last question.

how much time per week or per month are you spending running the properties you already have, not looking for new ones, but just like managing the 10 houses you have? That's a good question. So not much. Just because of the way they're structured and they have that house manager, we don't get that many emails or phone calls whatsoever. I'll get a couple a week if that, and that's it. I use my commute going down to work in terms of being on the phone or listening to podcasts or whatever.

And in terms of managing them, there's not much managing on terms of my side. It's just major fixes or major repairs that might need to be done. Which we've had quite a few in the last couple of years. We've had some big fixes. But I think it's interesting where we find our people to do that. We've pretty much established a team in Florida. not people that work for us, but we used an app that most people I think are familiar with, if I can say it.

We use Dave loves Yelp. And we have found HVAC technicians. We have found plumbers, landscapers. And these are people that we've now, over the course of four years, have established a relationship with. our landscaper has driven hundreds of miles for us to put in sprinkler systems and our plumbing guys have worked on multiple properties. We've had to do HVAC and some of our properties, and we've used the same people because obviously we're not there. So it's hard to trust if that's the right word that people are doing the job and doing it correctly. So everything that we've researched has been free information.

And Dave looks at reviews. I think on that point, everyone is extremely honest, whether they like a company or not on Yelp or Google. And so we rely very heavily for repairs on Yelp and Google. And we have not had one bad experience with a company. just because if someone likes them, they'll say they like them. And it's easy as that. Knock on wood. Right now, knock on wood.

Yes. I know. But that's awesome. That's a great tip. And I haven't heard that one before to go to Yelp and Google reviews. But yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. If somebody doesn't like you, somebody doesn't like the service you've provided, they don't hold back.

That's it. Well, guys, where can people find out more about you? So we just created a website. So website is. Stanhope dash capital and that will have all of our social media handles, our email, and everything else about us. Sanhope dashcapital.com. We'll link to that in the show notes here. Well, thank you for all you guys do for sharing this wonderful story and for teaching me

a lesson about upstate New York and how it's maybe a nice place to live, not so nice place to invest from some of their standpoint here. So really enjoyed the conversation today and hope that it inspires a lot of people. Thank you guys. Thanks guys. Nice to see you again, Scott. Thanks, Mindy. Thank you. Thank you, guys. And for everybody who does invest in upstate New York, you can email Scott at BiggerPockets.com to tell him how great the market is. All right, that wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is the Scott Trench. And I am Mindy Jensen saying, Tootles Noodles. Bigger Pockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench. This episode was produced

by Eric Knutson. Copywriting by Calico content. Post production by Exodus Media and Chris Mickin. Thanks for listening.