BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 352: No Driver’s License, No Money, No Excuses: How Diego Corzo Blazed a Trail to 18 Doors

Episode Date: October 17, 2019

Eighteen doors by 29 years old by never taking no for an answer! We realize there are a lot of inspirational investors out there, but on today’s show, you’re going to be blown away by one of the best. Brandon and David sit down with Diego Corzo, a “DREAMer” who moved to the United States with his family at a young age. Fast forward a few years, and Diego jumped headfirst into real estate investing, using house hacking strategies that will work for anyone. You will be blown away by Diego’s story of how he rode a bike (with his suit in a backpack to avoid getting it sweaty) when he couldn’t get a driver’s license, how he got on the fast track to becoming a millionaire, and how he overcame a speech impediment, going on to give a TED talk! You will love his fantastic advice on what to look for in a house hack property, which areas to look when investing, and how to target the perfect tenant market. You’ll also appreciate his thoughts on avoiding drama between roommates, vetting turnkey companies, and structuring partnerships. Diego goes on to share some solid info about why he prefers “B” neighborhoods over “C” and why doing your own math is so important when analyzing deals. This guest is truly an incredible person with an incredible story—not to mention some pretty fantastic investing advice. Don’t miss out! Download this episode today, and make sure you're subscribed to the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast so you won't miss the next one! In This Episode We Cover: How Diego owned 18 doors by 29 How he overcame not having a driver's license What adversity can teach you How he got on the fast track to becoming a millionaire How he overcame his stutter to go on to do a TED talk How he invests out of state What he looks for in a home to house hack How he bought his first property How he bought a property with his father Why he prefers “B”-class properties over “C”-class properties How he vets turnkey companies Why doing your own math is so important What he looks for in someone he can trust What he recommends in terms of choosing an area His advice for structuring partnerships How he recommends avoiding drama with roommates in a home And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums Brandon's Instagram David's Instagram DACA BiggerPockets Youtube Channel GoBundance BiggerPockets Podcast 226: From “D-Student” to $400,000 in Annual Rental Property Cash Flow with David Osborn BiggerPockets Podcast 190: Building 61 Different Passive Streams of Income with Pat Hiban BiggerPockets Podcast 318: 100 Units in the First 2 Years (Using Bank Financing!) with Collin Schwartz BiggerPockets Business Podcast Loom BiggerPockets Conference Check the full show notes here: http://biggerpockets.com/show352 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 352. I found myself in that room with 15 millioners. And as they were sharing what their net worth was, some guy was worth 40 million, 30 million, 15 million. They come to me and I'm like, my name is Diego. I own two properties. At this moment, I'm 23 and my net worth is 35K. And they were like, who the heck led this kid in?

Why is he here? You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the height, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everyone? This is Brandon Turner, host of today's podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David Green.

What's up, buddy? Not much, dude. I had a great weekend. I actually had a good conversation with somebody about starting up a partner. to start buying houses very similar to what today's guest is doing. So that was kind of ironic that that's how things worked out. Ah, fancy, fancy. Well, speaking of today's guest, it's fantastic.

Today's show is so good. So this guest today, his name is Diego. And Diego has been a buddy of David Green and mine for a while now. And he's got such an inspiring story. I mean, he even did like a TED Talk. Like, the guy's like legit. Like, we'll link to it in the show notes at bigger pockets. com.

I show 352. But Diego's story is such a story of resigning. resilience and like overcoming obstacles. Like again and again, I mean, he was brought here as a child, as an undocumented, they call him Dreamers or part of like the DACA. I can't remember what that stands for, but like delayed action against something. So anyway, I think I have it written down here so I don't look like a complete idiot. DACA stands for deferred action for childhood arrivals.

Anyway, so he was brought here as I didn't have a driver's license because of that, wasn't able to get like certain types of employment because of that. Like he's just like like obstacle, obstacle, obstacle. Couldn't get a mortgage. but he did it and he now owns like, what is it, 18 doors or something like that, 19 doors, something like that. Like, the guy's like legit. Anyway, very, very cool guy. So I'm excited for y'all to hear a story today.

But before we get to Diego's story, so, yeah, David Green, I guess the time for today's quick tip. Today's quick tip comes to you from actually from a suggestion that our guestmates today about documenting your business towards the end or in the like the famous four. he talks about the importance of documenting your business. So here's what I'm going to suggest. Find something today that you can document how you do it. Exactly. Maybe it's something simple as like posting your business stuff on Facebook that you do regularly. It's something you do over and over and over that you could probably hire someone else to do it.

Now I'm not saying you have to hire someone else to do it today. Documented today. So you're quick tip of start documenting the steps that you do to get things done. And we talk about a resource later in today's show. That's a free resource that allows you to like screen record and save and archive and all that. Listen for that, but that's your quick tip is start documenting parts of your business, because once you document it, then eventually you can hire others. When you hire others, you can pull yourself out of the business and above the business. And so we have a great

conversation about that later today and today's show with Diego. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off. and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently without the usual bottlenecks.

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The deal fell apart. Well, our friends at Dominion Financial just launched a program to help prevent that. With their new express rental loan, you can close in 10, days or less. And they still offer their price beat guarantee so you can get great pricing and a timeline you can count on. Fast, simple, reliable. That's Dominion financial. Check them out at BiggerPockets.com slash Dominion. That's BiggerPockets.com slash Dominion. So speaking of Diego, I think it's about time we get to today's show with Diego. Like I said, fantastic show. Everything from how to get started. We talk a lot about house hacking, about how to invest in real

state if you live in an expensive market. I mean, his market, he was in Austin, Texas. You can't buy 1% deals even in Austin, Texas. How do you do it? Diego explains how plus a whole lot more. So stay tuned for all that and more in our interview with Diego Corso. All right, Diego, after two years of me begging you, we are finally sitting here doing this thing. It's the Bigger Pockets podcast. Thanks for joining us today, buddy. Very excited to be here. Yeah, this should be a lot of fun today. So let's go through your story. I know you got a long story, but I want to get people kind of an update on before you got into real estate, what was it?

Like, where were you at? And how did you get into this world of real estate investing? So I got into real estate. I read the book Rich That Poor Dad when I was 21 years old. I was in college and I had a friend and he threw me this book and it was rich that point by Robert Kiyosaki. He says, dude, you have to read it. So after I read it, I understood that there were two ways that people make me. money, active income and passive income. And that was the first time that I learned something that

it was out of this world and I got hungry to learn more. And in that aspect, that's what I began to do a little bit of research on, on how I can build wealth. And it just happened that I stumbled through investing in real estate. And that is what got me hungry to to start doing it at a young age. Okay. Okay. So how young, I mean, when you, you read it when you were 21, you said, right? So what were you when you actually ended up buying your first deal? What happened was I read that at FSU. I graduated college. I moved to Austin, Texas, and I was working as a software developer. I wanted to buy my first property to house hack, but like in a lot of my life, the plans haven't always gone my way.

And I can, we'll get into that later. But I wanted to buy my first house hack, live there with some roommates. and live for free. In that process, I found out that due to my status of immigration as a DACA recipient, I found out that I couldn't qualify for a loan. I was under contract, and then they told me that without showing my green card or my citizenship, I couldn't qualify. And when I read Rich that Port that, I set a goal that I wanted to own 10 properties by age 35. So I felt like, I felt devastated from the perspective like, oh my gosh, this was the plan, this was my goals, and now I can't accomplish them because I have no bank willing to lend me money. So I was talking with my dad and he told

me, well, why don't we buy one cash here in Florida? So my first deal actually happened to be a home that we bought for $62,000. We went 50-50 with my dad and it began renting for like $1,200 or $1,300. $500. And that was my first step into getting into real estate. Now, the crazy thing part was that I was renting a room at that time here in Austin for like $500. So I managed to buy my first property while living with somebody else. So I was making money and that rent was actually also that passive income was paying for my rent at that time. That's cool. So you thought, you were going to do it yourself, but because of the DACA thing, they wouldn't let you do it yourself. So you ended up partnering with your dad on that very first deal. I love that,

like, that attitude of, you know what, because here's what most people in the world would do. And I want to go back to DACA. We'll talk about what that is in a second. But like, yeah, I love the attitude of, you know, oh, I can't do that. Oh, that's a, that's a wall in front of me. Okay, well, I guess I'll sit down and watch some more TV. And that's what the majority of the world will do, right? When they, they overcome any kind of obstacle, they come against any kind of obstacle. The natural human instinct is just shut down and be like, well, guess, guess, It didn't work. I mean, how many times have you guys heard people say,

I want to invest in real estate? I just don't have any money. Or like, I want to invest in real estate. But I mean, guys, I live in San Francisco or whatever. It's like they, I want to do it, but there's this thing. So I love that that. Now, there was a like, this is like your personal. As long as I've known you, this is like, Ben, your like story is like there's something

in front of you. And then you're just like, eh, I'll figure out another way around that. Like I remember some story. And I could be confusing this for something else. but wasn't there like a bike riding story or something where you couldn't get the license at the time or something like that? Yeah, yeah. So I'll tell you a little bit of like where I am right now just so that you have a picture. And then I go back to like that kind of aspect.

But right now I just turned 29 and I own 18 doors. I've been living for free since I was able to later buy my first house hack at the age of 24. and it has been a life-changing experience since then. But my journey and all of the struggles is that I am an undocumented immigrant. I am a dreamer. So if people have been following the news and stuff, I came here from Peru when I was nine years old as a kid. And one of the obstacles that I had as a dreamer was that I couldn't get a driver's license.

And that's when I knew that my life was going to be different. in that aspect, I managed to get into college, found out I couldn't qualify for student loans. Then I was trying to get a job so that I can pay for college, and I found out that I couldn't legally work in the United States. So in facing all of those obstacles, I still found out that I could open up my own LLC and work as a contractor. And since my bike was my only mode of transportation, I would do websites for small businesses, and I would meet with them riding my bike in the middle of the summer to the small business with a suit in my backpack,

park my bike in the back of the building, and change into my suit and walk to the front of the building to meet my client. And that was my life for a long time with all of these obstacles, like not knowing what was going to happen, not knowing what I was going to do. But like you mentioned earlier, right, like I believe that there is no excuse for somebody to, be able to achieve their own version of the American dream being in the United States. Just because there is a lot of opportunity, but people either quit too easily, they quit too early, or they don't have a strong enough why. And with all these obstacles and even getting into real estate, I've been able to still take

action despite those obstacles. Yeah. Yeah. This is such a powerful reminder that like, we live in America. Like you, like, we have no excuse. like not to be successful. Like even if it requires like riding your bike with a suit in the backpack, you know, across town getting all sweaty and hot and meeting like just, you know, and you're like,

oh, I'll see. I can do that. And maybe I can go this way. Like it's just, it's asking that question. And this goes back to like rich dad, poor dad, right? Don't say I can't afford it. Ask how do I afford it. Don't say I can't do it.

Ask how do I do it? And you've definitely been one of those guys that's constantly asking how do I do it. Yeah. And, and I feel just like in, in that book, they share about. like the power of questions, the power that you ask yourself. So no matter what kind of obstacles you're going through, whether it's something in real estate or in life, is just asking yourself, why is this happening for me?

And what can I do about it? Say that again. Why is this happening for me? Why is this happening for me? Yeah, I expect you to say, why is this happening to me? But that's different. Exactly. See, because when you ask yourself,

why is this happening to me, you begin to blame others for your current situation. But if you ask yourself, why is life happening for me, then you begin to look for options and solutions for your circumstances. And when that happened to me, instead of asking myself, like, why is this happening to me? Why can I invest in real estate through like low money down with a conventional loan or FHA loan? I was like, okay, what are my solutions? What are my options?

And in doing that, in doing that research and just asking people around, That's when my dad came up with the idea that we can buy a house cash and partner up. So by me telling people a little bit of some obstacles, if you're surrounding yourself with the right people, they would like to form solutions rather than say like, oh, I'm sorry, life sucks. But it's more like, okay, that's where you are. How can I help you? Yeah.

You know, there's something I've always wanted to ask you, Diego. People may not know, but Diego and I are actually really good friends and Brandon as well. We've known him for several years now. And he's probably, when it comes to a healthy mindset, one of the most amazing, spectacular people that I've ever met. I literally have never met a human being that doesn't like Diego. And I often, when we hang out, I try to find what's the skeleton in the closet. Like, where's that thing about him that will make me feel better about myself?

Because there's something bad. And you just, you cannot find it. He's so awesome. I wanted to ask you. And I've wanted to ask you this for a long time. Yeah. You come from a different country and you said, like you mentioned, in America, there's nothing that can hold you back. People quit too easy.

What is it like for you when you navigate your way through this country, seeing how people quit so easily, make excuses so quickly? Like, it's right there in front of them and they just don't go take it. Is that frustrating for you? What would you share with others from your perspective of seeing how successful you can be if you just decide you want to be? Yeah, sometimes people quit too easily because I, the, the main reason is because they feel like they should, like it, it should be there already. And they, they, they, they, they, they think that success just like happens, but, and, and it's a straight line up, but it's actually, it's a lot of ups and downs and ups and downs. And also, and talking about just like on the real estate perspective, I feel like people want to hit their first home. right in the beginning and I'm all about the mindset of just taking action and getting to first base. If you focus on getting to first base or second base, you're going to be able to get over the analysis paralysis. And that's what stops a lot of people from even starting to take action.

And then by not having the right mindset, by not educating themselves on asking themselves why they're doing those things, they are able to create excuses. And sometimes those excuses, this become more powerful than actually the hunger of achieving that goal. Yeah, that's good stuff. Yeah, it's more important to get on base than it is to try to hit that home run your first time or to believe because, hey, I don't, you know, I didn't, I didn't hit a home run like I heard David Green hit a home run on his last project. So clearly I'm not doing anything right.

I'm going to sit here and just keep watching TV. You know, like, it's like, hey, just get on base. Get something. I mean, we've talked about that before here. Get something. Yeah. And not being afraid of actually, like, if you make a mistake, if you made a mistake, if you may lose a little bit of money on on a deal but now you learn and now you can continue taking action

and not make the same mistake over and over again now if you do commit it again then you have to choose something else or something like I mean you definitely have to learn and make sure that you don't commit it again yeah yeah I did a video a while back on my I think with Instagram maybe I put on YouTube anyway it was basically like to be successful you have to like have this like this triangle type thing where you have to like take action and then you have to learn from that and then tweak it and then do it again. Take more action, learn from it, tweak that, and do it again differently. And if you miss one of those three parts, you're never going to get there.

You're just like you're going to fail unless you do all three. Take action, learn, do something a little different, do it again. Exactly. 100%. You know, your brother is a really good example of what Brandon just mentioned. He moved to Florida as, how old was he like 19, 18? He was 19. 19 years old, moves to Florida, moves in with a buddy of ours,

learns how to wholesale from somebody else and in a couple years builds himself into probably one of the biggest wholesalers in Florida. Would you agree? Dude, it has been, his journey is freaking amazing. He's 24 years old, 23, and he's wholesaling over 100 deals a year now. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, we'll take. Yeah, and that just speaks to the power of mindset, right? Like, when you have that right mindset, like Brendan and I always tell people, you shouldn't worry so much about getting paid or what you're earning, you should worry about what you're learning. Like an apprentice mindset is definitely not a bad thing.

And you're a great example of that. Your brother Gonzalo is a great example of that. There's another story I want you to share, which I think is awesome. It's how you got affiliated with Gobundance and how I got to know you, is that you basically just walked into a meeting of millionaires that you weren't invited to and didn't even know you were supposed to be invited. Right. Let me make sure I get it right.

And the group of you all go somewhere like a hotel or something like that to talk. And one of the people who drove had to leave early. So there weren't enough car seats for everyone to go back. back and you just volunteered to let them throw you in the trunk that you were just that humble you didn't care is that right yeah exactly exactly i was the smallest guy so i was like i might as well just go in the trunk and they were like all right this this this this Diego guy is cool yeah that's what it tell us about what that led to like how how did that eventually impact your life yeah so i i found myself in that room it was actually at david osborne's house which i believe

that you guys have had here in this episode. I heard about it through a podcast with Pat Hyben. I found myself in that room with 15 millioners. And as they were sharing what their net worth was, some guy was worth 40 million, 30 million, 15 million. They come to me and I'm like, my name is Diego. I own two properties at this moment. I'm 23 and my net worth is 35K.

And they were like, who the heck led this kid in? Why is it here? but in them, in me telling them my story of the obstacles that I've been through, but still being able to invest in real estate and finding myself in that room, they were like, Diego, we want to help you out. We're going to help you become a millionaire. And even though I'm not a millionaire yet, I've taken the right actions that they've told me and implemented them in my life.

And the best part is that by surrounding myself with those people, I've been able to take what will take 10, 20 years. and chunk them down into just a couple of years. And that has been one of the most amazing things because they've been keeping me accountable to me being able to quit my job, to get into real estate full-time and to invest wisely, and even into making me, like, helping me become a better speaker and me getting healthier and all of this other stuff.

So it has definitely changed my life on the perspective of life and also on the business side. That's cool. Yeah, we talk about this a lot about just getting around other people, raises your internal thermostat. And it's not just about money. It's about everything. You get around a bunch of people who are in shape,

and you're naturally going to become more in shape. And, you know, get around people who are wealthy. You're going to get more wealthy. You get around people who are whatever. You naturally become like the people you surround yourself with. So you basically forced your way nicely into a setting where you could level up your life with other people around you. And I think that's something that any,

anybody can take out of this episode is like, how can you get your way into nicely into a setting where there's people that are just far greater than you, like whose goals are way bigger than your goals. And like when you hear their goals, you're like, almost scared because they're so huge. Like how do you get yourself into that room? Exactly. Yeah. How do people do that? So one of the things is number one is understanding that nobody becomes successful just by yourself. Right. When when you look at Elon Musk, if he wouldn't be with Tesla and everything, if he wouldn't have partner up with Peter Thiel to do a couple of companies in the past or Steve Jobs with Steve Wozniak, right? So understanding that, that's number one.

Number two is you have to be putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. Like me putting myself into a place where I know I didn't belong right in the beginning was definitely out of my comfort zone, especially with me coming from a place where I was the youngest one. I've had a speech impediment since I was five years old, and now I knew that I have to give a five-minute presentation in front of millionaires. I was like, why can I teach them? Right. But in doing that, and also in investing in myself, a lot of people don't like investing in themselves in personal development. I feel like the first step in becoming successful is definitely changing the type of conversations that you have.

And because the way that you ask yourself the different questions, different conversations, well, can elevate your life, right? Instead of a lot of people go to happy hour and they complain about their life after work, well, like, when I surround myself with my mentors, it's more about, hey, how much passive income do you have now? How many properties did you buy? And when those types of conversations, I know that they're coming, so I better take action when I'm at home, by the next time that I go see them, I better have implemented it something

because if not, they're not going to want to help me out in the future. So I feel like that would be it. So that's a great segue into what you've actually done regarding real estate investing because you were able to as a, I believe that you referred to it as an undocumented immigrant, acquire 18 doors without being able to get like financing the same way that somebody else would. And you actually didn't mention it, but you're a top. producing agent at Keller Williams. You left your job. I remember talking about that just a couple years ago. You got a really good job and you walked away to become an agent. You crushed it right off the bat.

For those people that say, I can't find a deal, I can't make it work. There's no 1% rule of properties in my area. Tell us how you overcame that and what you did to scale as fast as you have. For sure. So I realize number one, like I'm a millennial. So one of the best strategies for, for millennials specifically is by starting house hacking. And I was able to buy a home by putting down 5% down. And I started living for free. What that gave me is I basically looked at the highest expense that I had and it happened to be my housing expenses.

So I asked myself, how can I eliminate it? And in looking at the forums and all this stuff, that's why I found that about house hacking. and I was like, I could totally do that. So I bought my first house in 2014, and by 2015, I was able to quit corporate America and become a full-time real estate agent. Through that time, I also, in Austin,

because I'm in Austin, Texas, and the real estate market has gone really high. So right now there's not many properties that follow that 1% rule. So I had to get creative. And it just happened that my buddy, Pascal, he also wanted to invest in properties. So we started renting them by the room in areas that were close to like GM, Dell, Samsung. There were all these companies that I knew that young people would be okay with living with roommates.

And we started buying properties around there. So it wasn't like 100% passive income because I was managing the properties. But instead of putting a family there and the home was renting for 1,600, I was able to make 2,400 grows from a property. And that definitely gave me the biggest advantage to then later be able to buy properties in other areas for more long-term investment and just gave me that opportunity to just make money actively irrelevant. That's so good. So many good things there. But let me pull out a couple of things I want to hit. So first of all, the renting by the room thing, I think is a cool idea, right?

What basically what you did is you said, hey, look, there might not be cash flowing rentals very well in this market, which is true in a lot of markets. You can't just go buy a typical single family house and have it produce more income than it. I mean, like here in Maui, right? Like if I buy a house here, the mortgage is going to be $6 grand a month. It'll rent for $4,000 a month. It just doesn't work, right? So you have a couple options.

You can sit down on the couch and watch more TV or you can ask the question, well, how do I do it? Right. And I would say like in every area, there's either a way to do it or you can invest somewhere else. So you can take David Green, you know, book here, long distance real estate and you could have bought in Memphis or in Oklahoma or whatever, right? And or you can say, hey, what does work in this market? What is going to work? What is going to provide cash flow? Hey, could I do the Airbnb or could I do renting by the room or could I do this or that?

There's other strategies that work. Would I flip houses? Could I become a real estate agent? Like asking that question, no, again, good questions lead to good answers. And so you really define the question as what works in this market. And you figured out the renting by the room thing will work. So that's that's super cool. But also just the fact that you like figure out the house hacking thing.

I mean, for those who aren't familiar with house hacking, we're just talking about the idea where you live in a property, but it also serves as a rental of some kind. So maybe it's a duplex where you rent out the other unit or maybe it was a single family. So what was that first house hack like for you? Like what did you buy? What did you buy it for? Give us some example to that.

Some of the numbers. Yeah. And that was going to be my deal flip flow of I was going to explain. So I can go over it now. Dude, yeah, I love it. Yeah. So I bought a home in 2014. It was 170K.

It was a four bedroom, two and a half full baths. So what I have found is that in renting by the room is better to buy a house with at least two and a half bathroom. So that if a roommate is taking a shower, somebody else can use. the bathroom downstairs, right? The half bath at least. So bought that for 170, my mortgage was going to be around 100, I mean, was going to be a thousand, three hundred and bought that putting 5% down. By that point, I was a realtor.

So I was able to use my commission as well. So my all in with closing costs and stuff was 6,300. The best part was that I was able to rent out. the rooms, three of the three bedrooms for 550 plus utilities. And that made my gross $13.50. So the extra $300 that I was making, a little bit went for repairs or maintenance, whatever, but it also covered my car payment. And because those were my only debts, my house and my car, because I couldn't get the privilege, quote unquote, to get into student loans because I couldn't qualify for anything.

That changed my whole life because I had other people paying for those expenses. And when that happens, you get a level of freedom that is amazing. But here was one of the coolest part because I was able to get roommates finding them on Craigslist, but I was able to get them to sign the lease the day right after I bought the home so that by day one of me,

owning the property, I had, I was making passive income. And that was awesome. Yeah, that's so cool. I love that strategy of, you know, when I was in college, I did something similar. I rented an apartment, rented out the bedrooms, live for free. You know, like, and the ability to do that, not only did you get to live for free, you made more money that then covered your car payment. You're paying down now the mortgage, every single month, that mortgage gets paid down a little

bit. The property value is climbing in value as well. And so you get the tax advantages of owning a property. You can just like win after win after win after win after win. And now because you no longer have that the big, I mean, like Scott Trench talks about this a lot in set for life, the book set for life. And then of course Craig Curlop, who we just released the book, the house hacking book, the house hacking strategy.

Like this idea, if you can eliminate your most expensive like payment, which for everybody is housing, like that's just, well, taxes or housing. But if you can eliminate housing expense, like you instantly free up so much opportunity in your life that now you can. risk being a real estate agent and maybe you don't make a massive commission the first month or two. But the guy who's got the $3,000 a month rent because he wants to live in a nice, posh apartment, he just, he can't even try to be a real estate agent because he just knows that he can't make the first month or two.

He can't go try to start the T-shirt business. He can't go and try to start a flipping house's business because his mortgage or his rent is just killing any chance of freedom in his life. And if people just understood that simple fact, like just imagine like how much more like freedom people would have, how much more opportunities for entrepreneurship they'd have. But yeah, I love that story. Exactly. And especially like when you look at from my angle, right, I'm a dreamer.

And if I could do this, like I feel I believe that anybody can do it. The opportunities are there is just, and it does take a little bit of sacrifice, right? I always sell people in real estate investing or just with anything big in general. It will take a little bit of sacrifice. My friends were telling me, Diego, we make $5,000 a month at GM. why are you living with roommates? Like I could afford a condo in downtown Austin like as an apartment and live on Rainy Street,

have an amazing life or whatever. But I decided that instead of getting the brand new Cadillac, I got a 2009 Honda Civic and I was living with roommates. But that sacrifice right now allowed me to later, when people were asking me, how were you able to quit corporate America? And I'm like, this is how I did it. Right.

And not that saying corporate America is bad, because like if people love their jobs, then awesome. But it just gave me, it just gave me the options. It gave me the freedom to choose what I really wanted to do. Yeah. I think it's important to point out that it is important to eliminate your biggest housing expense or your biggest expense, which is usually housing. And as a side note, I've often thought about how people say,

it's too expensive to live in a big city where I could make a lot of money because I can't afford a house. But it's not like cars cost more in San Francisco than they do. somewhere else. I mean, maybe a little bit. Food may cost a little bit more, but it's really just housing. That's the biggest expense. So if you can solve that one problem, you can work somewhere where you can earn more money, get a better job, but not have to spend it all on housing so you win both. And the second thought that I wanted to point out is what you did that was brilliant was not just that you saved money because you could have saved it and just saved yourself $1,000 or $2,000 a

month and just continue doing that with that small mindset. But what you did was you said, I've eliminated my biggest anchor, like what Brandon was saying, that prevents people from hitting freedom. And I've used that opportunity to go take a risk. I go started a new business. I got out of the corporate world, then I got into sales. I was able to buy more houses which were riskier, but I could afford that risk because my expenses were low. So if I lost money on a month, I could cover it.

That's really the secret. Yes, playing defense matters, but it only matters because it gives you the opportunity to go do something riskier where you learn and you grow and eventually you build big wealth. Exactly. Yeah. Good for you for doing that. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. So what came next? I mean, you bought the house at 24. What came next? How did you build a portfolio from there? So what came next is I had my, so I began to buy homes the same way because my friend was idea. If you're making this income with the roommates, why can we put just 20% down and buy

investment properties. So that is what, that's what happened. We began buying multiple homes, and this was while I was still working in corporate America. And I used, he had the money. At this point, I was out of money from that perspective, but I was able to put my commission as part of my share of half of the 20% and then I would pay him back. I did charge a couple a hundred bucks for managing the property and then I basically I was trying to buy myself in into a 50-50 partnership. We did that for about three or four homes. And what happened was he began, he wanted to create a startup. So we sold those homes. And with the cash that I had, I was able to invest in Florida with my brother who's a wholesaler. So he found me those properties.

In that meantime, I was able to buy really cheap properties in sea areas in Jacksonville, Florida. And they were so, for us, as an example, I bought a property for 24,000. This was in 2016, 24,000 and it was renting for around 600 bucks. So the cash on cash was really good. I was getting into a lot of obstacles, again, of me being able to qualify for loans. because of my situation. So cash was my, was one of my,

my only ways to, to actually do it. And so now I own two single family homes over there, two duplexes and a quadplex as well. And I've been able to find them and get more of the cash flow. And the cool part now is that those single family homes have now appreciated and doubled in, in price.

So what I'm going to do next, is I'm going to be selling those properties and getting into syndications in the future just because I want to get I want to get rid of those properties. I learned that in the beginning it was great the cash flow was coming in. And then once the tenants moved out, they were, I had to evict the next set and pay $2,000 for this, $1,000 for that. So it was a great learning experience. I made great money from it passively for a while.

And then now I want to reinvest that into another set of assets. That will be multifamily syndications or something like that. I don't know yet what I'm going to do, but that's coming next for me. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. I like that, you know, you did it. You got on base.

Maybe you got the second base there, right? Like you're playing the game. You figured out what works. And this is something that I think a lot of people, and we should talk about it, misunderstand about owning rental properties, especially in lower priced areas. I mean, all three of us own properties in cheaper areas. But it's one thing that I think a lot of people don't account for is that there are. I mean, like, yeah, you're making $400.

Let's say you're making $300 or $400 a month in cash flow. Wow, look at me. I'm doing awesome. But then boom, you get hit with an eviction because those happen a lot more often in those areas. Okay, now you got three grand there. The tenant trashes your house. Somebody steals the air conditioner unit. Like those are real problems, which is why when you're running the numbers on a property

in an area like that, like you can't. just assume, oh, 5% for, you know, repairs and maintenance and capex. And, like, it can be a sizable chunk of your income just to cover for those big items. And so numbers might seem, and this is why what drives me nuts sometimes about turnkey companies. Again, I don't have a problem with turnkey. I like turnkey company. I think they can be great. But some companies are just notorious for like, yeah, buy this crap property in this crap area that your mortgage is going to be $800 a month, and you're rent for $900. You're making $100 a month in cash flow. And I'm like, no, you're not. You're losing money every month forever.

Like you will never make money on those properties ever because people are too lazy to do their own math. So they let the turnkey company do the math. They let their agent do the math. So what have you learned, Diego, in buying these properties that would help people like understand, I guess maybe run the numbers easier or decide, yeah, I want to buy these lower priced areas or I don't? Like, do you have any advice for people thinking the same?

I'm going to go buy a $25, $30, $50,000 house in Jacksonville. Yeah, I would say making sure that you're working. So this is three years later, right? But in the beginning, those properties were making great money. So understanding that most likely the C level properties, I would recommend that people use them as their, okay, what do I do next? It's like I'm going to commit to this for two years because I set up my team the right way. So what I did is I found the right wholesaler or you can find the right realtor.

From there, find the right people or somebody that can manage the property the right way so that they have the right contractors, the right HVAC guy, plumber, whatever, so that you're not the one that's getting a call at two in the morning. And then just making sure that you have the systems in place in the future that whenever you do have some extra income or whatever, that you still allot for repairs and then reinvest the same money for another property and be able to build a portfolio that way.

But if I were to do it again or knowing what I know now in the future, I would invest in B kind of properties rather than C. Yeah. One of my tenants for, or if it's going to be a C property, we had this house where it was an older, older woman.

and she was getting money from Social Security. And that was great because we knew that she's lived there for like 10 years. She will continue to live there for a long time. So I would recommend the turnkey properties making sure that you really look at the numbers, really look at the streets and talk to other people that have invested with them in the past. Because you will hear that, hey, they will sell you on this, they will drive you through those areas. But then there are some people that they don't tell you that it was actually like a crappy house,

that they painted over cracks and they do have foundation issues, but you had no idea. So putting somebody that you're trusting place will make sure that you don't commit some mistakes. Yeah, really good, really good. That's awesome, actually. Diego, what about how do you recognize if they are someone you can, What are some things you look for in somebody that make you feel comfortable trusting them? I would say number one is if they've done what I've been doing in the past.

Because if they've done it and they have had some success, then you know that they have the right resources. Number two is making sure that they are the ones that can help you out in the future. They're not just going to pass you to another person, three people under them. I would say half a relationship when you know that the guy that you trust will be there to answer your phone calls. And I mean, and if you build a good relationship, you know that that can happen. So that will be number one. I would say talking to people that may have used their resources or hire them in the past.

And sending them an email and just ask them, hey, send me a deal that you have done for yourself in that specific area. send me a deal and find me a deal similar to that. Because if they can do that for you, then you know that that's somebody that they can trust. Okay, last question from me before the deal deep dive. If I want to go find properties like what you found, you mentioned you look for four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. I think that was a really good tip. What are some other tips that you would recommend somebody do?

I think you have some really good perspective on this because you're both an agent who looks for these properties and an investor who buys them. So what should somebody look for if they want to do what you're doing? So I would recommend, number one, knowing that you have to invest not for cash flow, not just appreciation. Because what I'm seeing a lot of people doing is just investing for appreciation and hoping that in the next five, 10 years, it can appreciate. Austin is super unique, but I still, a lot of the deals that I still do, or as a realtor that I help people buy here, it has to cash flow.

So that's number one. Buying in growing areas. So if you don't know if you're going to be able to like, if you don't know if you want to live in a specific area or buying that area and it's the area that you might be 20 to 30 minutes away, if they have a Starbucks that's getting built or I'm a good. McDonald's or some kind of franchise, then you know that they have done their research to know that that area is going to, either they're going to be continuing to build or that area is going to appreciate. So I always tell people leverage on what like what the big franchises are doing because they have already done the research for you. They know what's going to happen in the next three, five years. So you might as well use that to your advantage. So I like that. I like chick

Filets. Chick-fil-A is another one. Yeah. You don't see a ton of those. So if they put someone there, then you know that they really, really like that area. Exactly. So it's location areas and seeing what are the next. So depending on what's your strategy, right?

Is it closer to a university? Is it close to tech areas? Here in Austin, I say we have Oracle, Dell, Apple. and I would always say invest in areas where where those people, those kinds of employees will be there in the future. Because those are the tenant base that you're looking for that are going to rent a room. That's why you're saying that. Exactly.

Exactly. And understanding the demographic. I feel like if I'm investing more for long term somewhere else, then I know I'm going to be looking at another set of demographic, whether it's blue color workers, white color workers, whatever. That's great. Really, really good tips. Hey, Diego, my last question before the deal deep dive,

what was your greatest day of your investing life? Like, if you were thinking back to a certain day that was just like, makes you smile, it was like, oh, that was a good day. Is there anything that comes to mind? Man, I would say when I bought that property, my, my first house hack, just like getting that money, getting that check from that roommate, I'm like, wow, like, this is real. And I had made money from like the other two problems.

that I bought with my dad or with other partners. But getting the house hack, then getting that check for me was amazing because I had to speak with probably 10 or 15 lenders. I had to go through at least 15 nos before I got that yes. And when I got that, that I was able going to be able to do it with an owner-occupant loan, I was like, that is amazing. That and I would say really quick, the other one was, When I moved out of my first house hack, I was able to move to the next house hack.

When I realized that I was making $1,000 a month growth, like after expenses for my first house hack, and I saw that in my bank account, I was like, this is awesome. Because other investors were making $100 a house. I was making $1,000 through that first house hack. Yeah, that's so cool. Very cool. Yeah, that feeling is unlike any other. Lately, people have been sending me on Instagram, like, pictures of that.

their first check, their first rental check. And then I like to repost those on my story, my Instagram story, because it's such a cool feeling. Like, yeah, it's not life-changing money. I mean, yeah, you got 500 bucks. You got $1,000. But there's a certain, like, message that goes with that. Like, hey, I'm on base.

To go back to your analogy, right? Like, I'm no longer swinging. I'm on base. And, you know, if I do this long enough, I'm going to win this game. Exactly. Exactly. And having the, I would say when you're getting to like the first basis, right, I always tell people that especially millennials, they want everything right away. And I always tell people that life is a marathon. So it might be a couple of hundred bucks for your first base. But imagine what you can do in 10 years. Maybe those are going to be $1,000, $10,000 months on passive income. So you're, you are okay just making the first base. You're, you are okay just making the first base. You're, first couple of hundred bucks, it will be okay. Yeah, so good. Last question, but I know I said it was

awesome. Does this advice about getting on first base? Does this also apply to dating? I'm just kidding. Don't answer that. He's like, wait, do I ever really answer that? No, moving on to the deal. Deep dive. If you own a large or complex rental property, congrats. And I'm also sorry. One day you're building a portfolio. The next, you're reconciling six accounts, five states, four LLCs, three partners, two property managers, and running your portfolio starts to feel like running a median-sized accounting firm. And if you got into this to get your time back,

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things that matter for your bottom line. Things like occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score, and they have the results to prove it. Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get your first month free, which is much cheaper than learning the hard way. Tax season reminder for all the real estate investors listening. If you own rental properties, short-term rentals, commercial buildings, basically anything that's not your primary residence, you need to know about cost segregation. It's an IRS compliance strategy. that lets you accelerate depreciation on your properties, which means you're paying less in taxes this year

and keeping more cash in your pocket for your next deal. Cost Segregation Guys is the go-to firm, having done over 12,000 of these studies with $500 million in total depreciation identified. Head to Costsegregationguise.com slash BP to get a free proposal and see your potential tax savings. All right, this is the part of the show where we dive deep into one particular deal

that you've done, Diego. I love that your name's actually the D. We're going back to the D alliteration. That was the funniest time. Diego, let me know. Do you have a deal in mind something that we can kind of dig real deep into? Yeah, for sure. All right.

All right. So you should have said definitely. Yeah, definitely. Well, the reason why I said, so I gave a couple of details in my first house hack and I was going to share on. We can still go back to that one. if you want or if you want to do that one you're more welcome to it but we only asked a couple questions earlier so we might a little dig deeper. Cool.

Dig deeper. You like that? Let me follow what David said. Definitely. All right. So real fast, for those that don't understand what I'm talking about, our producer Kevin just gave us some awesome notes. Go listen to show 318 with Colin Schwartz and hear the deal deep dive.

I think I laughed my way into a six pack on that episode. It was so ridiculously funny. That's what we're referring to. Okay. Now on to today's. deal deep dive. All right. What deal are we talking about here?

That's your first house hack, right? Yes, my first house hack. All right. So the question then becomes, what kind of property was this? Like single family, multifamily? It was a single family home. All right. And where?

Austin, right? It was a street right outside of Austin. But yeah, Austin, Texas. All right. And how did you find that deal? I found a deal on the MLS. And because of the fact that I was a realtor, I was looking at a bunch of different deals that hit a criteria.

And the one thing that I have to say in finding that deal was that I had the mindset. So I am not handy at all. Like I am not, I don't want to do anything in homes. I at least myself. So I found this house and it was, it was remodeled. So I knew that when I was able to get a remodel home, the pictures look great on the MLS. And I'm like, okay, if it looks great on the MLS for me as an owner, it's going to look great for the potential tenants.

Yeah, that's cool. And you paid, I believe you said 170 for it, right? 170, yeah. All right. How did you negotiate that price? I looked at the properties that have sold in the last six months. And it was so the property was on the market for, 175, I believe.

And I negotiated it, putting $170 with $2,000 in closing cost. And then during the inspection period and stuff, there were a couple of things that came up. And I was able to negotiate those as well. Okay. And then what about financing? What did you guys do for financing on this? What did you do? Financing was 5% down.

Okay. And that also included the PMI. Okay. And so was that like an FAA, basically an FHA loan? No. So FHA, three and a half percent down. Okay. Yep. A lot of people think that you need 20 percent down for a conventional loan. But really, if you have a good credit score, conventional loan is actually cheaper, especially now since you don't have to pay the PMI for the entirety of the loan with an FHA loan.

Very cool. Very good point. There's conventional loans at 3% down 5% down. down. I've even seen them with 1% down. And to your point, the PMI, they call it MIP on an FHA loan. It never goes away. As long as you have that loan, you have it. Well, with the conventional loan, it can drop off.

So yeah, very good. You also mentioned that you had to pay the PMI up front. That's another thing people don't realize. We often think about it as it's a monthly expense. But really, you front load that the first year's PMI gets paid at closing. And then every month they collect to pay the next year. So sometimes you're not realizing that $6,000, $8,000 is being closed. collected as a closing cost to pay your TMI for that year.

So thank you for pointing that out. Yeah. And one last thing that I would like to say for anybody that's doing, thinking about getting their first house hack with FHA or conventional loan, with an FHA, it does cost a little bit more because you pay a funding fee of like 1.75% of the loan. So just be aware of that. If the numbers make sense, then for sure do it.

But just know that you are paying MIP for the entirety of the loan. loan and having that funding fee. Makes sense. Okay. So for this property, what did you end up doing with it? So that was the one that I lived in the master bedroom. I rented out the rooms for $5.50 plus bills. And one of the things that I learned also was that I was able to buy some of the furniture

through credit. And that because it fit my numbers too. I didn't have to go all up front and pay the furniture because I furnish everything in the common areas except for the bedrooms. So at rooms to go, you could finance for like, I think like three years or whatever without any interest. I was able to finance all of the furniture and the roommates were happy because I was like, brand new house, brand new furniture. Boom. Yeah, they were happy to pay. Yeah, very cool.

So I already know, like, I mean, the outcome you talked about earlier, you're basically living for free, makes your car payment, all that, which is great. But what lessons did you learn on this? Like, what did you learn from this that you can pass on to other people? So I learned that I, that asking the right questions to the right, like to get the quality roommates. I had spoken with a lot of people in the past through like while the property was on the market, I was. I was trying to find roommates on Craigslist. So I learned that you had to ask the right questions, basically asking like,

what is your current living situation now? Can you pay the security deposit at once? Because if they're, if they cannot afford the security deposit at once, then you know that they're not going to be able to pay, like if their tire breaks or like if they're, if they have a small problem, they're not going to be able to pay for,

So true. Or the rent, even if it's $500. Right. Dude, I've been investing now for like 12 years. And I've always had that rule. You know, he's to come up with it. But I've never thought about why that's so important. And you just nailed it because everybody has unexpected things to come up.

If they can't afford right now a thousand dollars or whatever for security deposit or 500, like they're never going to be able to do it later either. Like that's such a good point. Geez, I've got to go back and amend like the book on rental property investing now. And just add that piece of advice in there. It's so good. And here's the thing, right? I make it in the point, I make it to the point that they cannot say no.

Like if they say no, they know they're not going to be like they know is going to be a no. Because I tell them, hey, for the protection of the roommates and for the quality of the roommates, I do two things. I expect security deposit upfront at once with one payment. And I also do a background check that's paid by you. It's going to be $40. bucks. And I do this for the security of the roommates to make sure that all the roommates are safe here, but also for you so that you know that if I get another roommate in the future is going

to be a good quality roommate. And that, I mean, they are not going to say no to that. They just can't. Yeah. Awesome. Very good advice. Well, that was a great deal. Deep dive. So thank you, Diego. Let's head over to the next segment of the show, our world famous Fire Round. It's time for the Fire Round. All right, time for the fire round. These questions come direct out of the bigger pockets forums. And we're going to fire them right now at you, Diego. Number one, I like the idea of partnering with my friends to do deals.

I've got money. And my friend, oh, friend, not friends. He's got one friend apparently. With his friend to do deals, I've got money. And my friend has the knowledge of managing rehabs and placing tenants. What are some ways I can structure that kind of partnership? And I think they're kind of asking you, like, is that 50-50? Is that always how it is?

Like, how do you structure a thing like that where I have the money and they already do the work? Yeah. So number one, I would say definitely set up an LLC to make sure that all of the funds go to the LLC first that both of you guys manage or whatever, if you have three business partners or whatever that is. Because I wouldn't want the money to go directly into my business partners account

and then something happens and then you don't have access to that. Right. So put yourself in a position where at least you know it's there. Number two, I would say definitely make sure that they're a trustworthy friend. But when you're partnering with people, definitely I would ask myself, can this person do something different that I can't, right? And in this case, as he was saying, I believe he said that he has the money and the other person has the experience of the rehab, whatever.

Yeah. So I always like making sure that other people have some money, some like skin on the game. So you can put 50-50, like you can front in, I would say you can front in 100% of the cash to buy the property and let him put the money to do the rehab or maybe 50% of the money to put in the rehab so that at least he has some skin in the game. then he can use his sweat equity to be able to buy himself into the 50-50. But definitely do do that. And with different, because I've learned through experience, have different clauses of what to expect if the house doesn't sell. As an example, if they're doing a flip and the house is taking forever, be like, okay, you better have agreed upon making sure that if the house sells, are we going to get a loan on it?

Is it going to be a commercial loan? Would it be a conventional loan? And how would we split the profits? And because you don't want to just put that into somebody else. And be like, well, you told me that you were going to, you told me that you could flip it and sell it for me in six months. Now you put it in your name, put it on your loan and all that stuff. So just make sure that you have everything already spoken about.

Yeah. Especially if you're doing a flip at this time of the market where the market's very topy. It could go down at some point in the future. We don't know. but it's really good to have that thing to find. It's what happens if things don't go perfectly. Yeah, so smart. That's why, like, I'm starting to flip out here.

I got two properties under contract in Maui. But, like, we are definitely saying, what happens if we have to rent these out? So, like, we're having already our backup plan and our backup plan, our backup plan is Airbnb. We're going to Airbnb these because they're both in areas that are zoned Airbnb. If that doesn't work, we're going to rent them.

Who's going to manage them? My partner and I have already talked about that. Who's going to do the work to manage? Who hasn't? So all that spelled out, which I think especially at this time in the market, especially for flipping, very, very good idea. All right. Number two. Number two from Kyle in Indianapolis.

I have a question about running by the room. Do you find there is a lot of drama between roommates? And what are some things that I should do to minimize this drama? Yeah. So I've only had one issue. But one of the things that I do, and it has just happened just because of the. way that I mentioned on my Craigslist post, I say we are, like, I say, I'm a male, right? Diego, male. And then when, when I speak to the people on, on the phone, I tell them, hey,

you're probably going to be sharing a bathroom with two other guys. Is that okay? So that actually gets me like, okay, if, like, if there's a, if there's a tenant that doesn't want to share the rooms with, with guys, then she knows that she's not going to be a good fit in the property. But usually the best way that I have seen to minimize the drama or the hassle is just making sure that the people are very similar. So if they're millennials, give it up to millennials. If there's more like adults, then more adults will jive in the house. But I've only had one issue and it was we had a female in the, master bedroom and there was a guy, I don't know how in detail you want me to get in this,

but basically there was a guy in one of the other rooms and he was with this girl being very, very loud and the female tenant was telling me, hey, like, I do not want to hear them every night. What can I do? So I told the other roommate and he said, hey, I think she's jealous. And I'm like, no, dude, it's not that. Yeah, it's just that you're being too loud. So it actually, it happened that he was about to move out the next week or like in the next month. So he moved out and everything was fine. But I would say just making sure that you tell people up front the like the culture of the house so that there's not trauma.

Right? Because at the end of the day, if you're upfront with them, if you tell them, hey, like we are expecting that you do the dishes after like at least like within 24 hours or 36 hours whatever that is that you're clean whatever that's that's going to set expectations so just make sure that they set their right expectations for the roommates very cool all right next question i'm going to go uh we'll we'll probably make this our last one germane from chanler arizona i've got no experience in real estate but i've got a burning desire to learn i know corporate life is not for me if you could boil down two or three things that I should do. What should I do to get started, Diego?

Yes. Number one, make sure that you are saving money for your down payment. And you do this by understanding your finances, right? A lot of people want to invest in real estate, but they forget that they just want to get financial freedom or try to get into investing. But I feel like the first step is managing your finances by knowing how much is coming in. And how much is coming out to make sure that you also have some money in reserves because you don't want to go and buy a deal and you're like you're hoping that the AC doesn't break or you're hoping that there's no that there's no leak the next month that is way too risky so make sure that you do your due diligence on your finances to make sure that you're ready to invest and then number

Number two is for somebody that's looking to get started, I would say find an investor-friendly realtor and ask them, hey, if you were in my shoes, what would be the best deal here in my area that I could buy and tell them. I mean, do you want to invest in a house hack or do you want to invest in a property that you might want to do the Burr strategy or straight up as an investment? So depending on that strategy, that's where you need. know how the conversation would go. That makes a lot of sense. All right.

Very good. Let's head over to the next and last segment of our show. It is our world famous. Famous for. All right. These are the same four questions. We ask every guest every week, but before we get to them, let's get over and hear from Jay Scott on what's going on this week over on the

Bigger Pockets business podcast on Tuesday. Hey there, Brandon and podcast listeners. This is Jay Scott, your co-host of the Bigger Pockets business podcast. This week on the business podcast, we have awesome guests, Michael Hulahan and Bonnie Harvey. They are the founders of the single largest wine brand on the planet Barefoot Wines. And they're with us to tell us all about how they started that venture accidentally and how they grew it, scaled it, and sold it off and are now focusing on new challenges. So tune in and check out our latest episode on Tuesday. Now back to your famous four.

All righty. Big thanks to Jay Scott for being awesome and Carol Scott, of course. You guys, make sure you listen to the Bigger Pockets Business Podcast. It is lit. I've never used the word lit in my life, but I'm using it right now. It is lit. It sounds like you've never used it before. It is literarily.

I don't even know what lit is short for. What is lit short for? It's not short for anything. It's just like lit. Oh, like lit on fire. It's not like leery. Legit. It's too legit to lit.

It's too lit for legit. I don't know. Oh, man. It's just. humorous and people at the same time. All right, number one. Diego, what is your current favorite real estate related book? It would have to be rich that poor dad.

All right. And the first one and, of course, the second one. The cash flow of water. Yeah, cash flow quadrant. Perfect. Second question, would you agree that book is lit? That book is definitely lit and legit. It's too lit for legit.

Oh, man. All right, I better save us before we go down that road any further. What is your favorite business book? Favorite business book is the Emmeth. Nice. Yeah, I love that book. The Enth is great. And I can share a story about that, but if you want me to just get it.

I love stories. I'm a story. I'm a story fan. So I became a realtor, right? And when I was going full time, I partnered up with another agent who had 12, 12 years experience. So this was great because I leverage his experience. And at that point, he leveraged my time.

Now, what happened was I was doing everything. I was doing like the showings, the transaction coordinating, everything. But after reading the book, The Emmeth, what I did is I looked at all of the things that I was doing on the buying side, on the selling side. And I created a checklist. And then I would say, okay, is it me that needs to do those things or can I hire somebody else to do them? So after following that checklist, and this was me, like I created the checklist by seeing what I did throughout the day. What I did is then if anything that had to do on the computer, I recorded my screen, filmed it. Yeah, so I recorded it.

And then I hired somebody in the Philippines for $2 an hour to basically create a procedure manual of all of those tasks. So for $70, she actually created like hundreds of pages of all of the tasks that we had to do as a team for every transaction. And then from there, I was able to hire a full-time office manager. And then he just had to look at those at that procedure manual and follow that to the T. And if there were any questions or anything, he would come back to me and ask me, right? Because it's always a learning process. but systemizing your business, that's what that book teaches you. And that changed my, that changed my whole life.

That's great. That's great. That's what EMS is all about. Yeah, systematize your business. Get out of working in it, work on it. And that's a great tip about taking. I ever thought about it. Like, I make videos, a lot of videos, but I've never taken my videos and then turn them

into an actual like manual, like hiring a virtual assistant to do that. That's a great tip. I never even thought of that. So that's really good. As a resource recommendation, you might have one as well, but I'll just throw out there. I use something called Loom L-O-O-O-M. And it's easy to use. It's a Chrome plugin.

It's free. And you literally just press like one button and it records your screen while you're talking. And then you hit the one button again to stop it and automatically upload it to the cloud and gives you a link that you can share. And it keeps it all in your thing. It's really, really good. I use it constantly. They have a pro version as well.

But just the free version I just use and I'm in love with it. So loom.com, I think is the website. and hopefully I just didn't get that wrong. But loom. Yeah, loom. No, that's right. We use that too. It's fantastic.

So, all right. Next question. What are some of your hobbies? What are some of my hobbies? Salsa dancing and running. Really? Salsa dancing. Yeah, I love salsa dancing.

Diego was also telling me he just did a five-day juice cleanse with no sugar. How was that? It was intense. It was the first day. was horrible. It was no, like it was, I was hungry most of the time, but I had a lot of energy. So it's really interesting how that works. But the first day, I had chills. I had a little bit of a fever, which meant I was going through some like kind of, yeah, withdrawal of sugar, I guess. But you end up feeling great and you become more conscious once you get back into the regular routine, making sure that

you take the right actions on the food that you're eating, right? Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Congrats. All right. Last question from me. It was a tough one, but it was good.

Yeah. That sounds intense, but I love stuff like that. I'm constantly doing little experiments to myself. Number four, what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from all those who give up, fail, or never get started? Yeah. I was thinking about that one because I first, wanted to say like a strong why, but then I realized this morning that even though that is really

important, I feel like connecting with the right tribe with accountability is the thing that is going to push you to take action because you're surrounding with people that are investing the same way you are. And that for me is like the easiest thing that you can do to be able to look at deals too because those people can begin to send you deals. and you can share on their knowledge. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, if anybody here was at the Bigger Pockets Conference that we just held here a few weeks ago,

we're recording this before the conference, but during my keynote, that's part of my plan as I talk about just like how much, like scientifically, how studies have shown how much just adding the degree of accountability in your life will change the outcome of whether or not you achieve your goals or not. And so that's one of the things I talked about or am talking about, I don't know, it's always weird to talk about in the past

or something that's actually in the future. But that's a, you know, Bigger Pocket's conference. If you were not at the conference, you should definitely come to the next one. Tickets will be on sale soon for next year's conference, probably, so keep an eye out for that. All right, dude, last question of the day from David Green over here.

Tell us where can people find out more about you? People can go to my website, DiegoCorzo.com or house hacking club.com. And more than happy to share my email, info at DiegoCorso.com. They can ask me any questions. And I'm also on Instagram as real Diego Corso. That's awesome, you're going to get bombarded.

It's great. That's fine. We'll see what happens. Househacking Club.com. Was that the website for househacking? Yeah, house hacking club. com. Awesome.

All right, dude, thank you so much. And it's been fantastic. I knew it would be. So I've been telling you for a couple years, man, Diego, we got to get you on the podcast. So I'm honored to have you. I've been listening to this podcast since you guys had it in, I think it launched 2012 or 2013. Yeah. I think so.

And I was listening to it in one of my runs. And I'm like, one day I'm going to be on that podcast. And this one I had zero properties, zero. And like one day I'm going to be in there. I don't know how. I don't know when. So thank you for this opportunity. Yeah, dude.

This has been great. Thank you. All right. Now was our show with Diego. Yeah, Diego is the man. I love that guy. He's so cool. Who doesn't?

Diego's probably one of those popular human beings I've ever met. I mean, he didn't talk about it much. But this guy went from a speech impediment. where he had a pretty significant stutter to doing a TED talk in like two years. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Like, he's legit.

If, like, if Diego can do it, like, you have no excuse. Everybody out here has no excuse on why they're not achieving massive success. So, you know, hopefully this show gave you not just motivation, which it should, but also, you know, a ton of education, a ton of tips and ideas for getting starting your own business. So go and apply that. Like we said earlier today in the quick tip, this, you know, a couple, an hour and a half ago, like start documenting your business. Find things that you can get out of.

Start growing, start scaling. And make your dreams come true. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's totally doable with real estate. So thank you all for joining us today. Thank you. I know. People keep,

that's why they call me beautiful, beardy, Brandon. The alliteration is strong with you. You are on a roll. Yeah, I'm on a roll today. Well, David, do you want to take us to the end? Yeah, that was an awesome show.

Thank you, Diego Corzo very much for sharing some knowledge with us. I am David Green for Brandon. Too lit to quit Turner. Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast.

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