BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 458: Ditching "Active Investing" for More Passive Income Streams with Tamar Hermes

Episode Date: April 8, 2021

Every real estate investor knows that things don’t always go as well as we’d like. What happens when you’re hit with a $16,000 bill to fix a sewer, or when 20 of your tenants call you all at onc...e with problems? Some things, like those examples, make active real estate investors envy passive investors. This is why Tamar Hermes decided to go on a more passive route for real estate investing.  Tamar started at age 28, working as an executive in the television industry. She realized that she was trading her time for money, and without her job, she wouldn’t be able to pay her bills. So, she put 10% down on a duplex and started house hacking. Over time she bought more and more duplexes, some even out of her 401(k). She was an aspiring landlord, but after being hit with the situations above, she decided to sell all her units in Los Angeles and put her money into more passive income streams. Now she’s invested in syndications, like Brandon’s Open Door Capital to be exact. This gives her far more freedom to pursue her passions in life, without having to worry about those 2 A.M. toilet calls. Tamar refers to herself as a very cautious investor, and that may be why she feels far more diversified with passive investing than active investing. She also talks through “finding your tribe” and how Gobundance has helped her meet friends and partners within the real estate space. This doesn’t mean you need to go out and find a group, but having friends and allies within your certain niche can help move you miles ahead of the competition! In This Episode We Cover: Using house hacking as a way to fuel your real estate investing  The difference between passive and active real estate investing Finding cash flow AND appreciation when looking for rental properties “Upgrading your investing” and growing your investor mindset Recourse vs non-recourse loans Finding quality agents, certified financial planners, and other partners And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums Open Door Capital Travel Nurse Housing Grant Cardone GoBundance BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Podcast 423: Who Not How: Stop Doing the Things You Hate, Free Up Time, Be Happier and Richer with Dan Sullivan Josh Dorkin  Check the full show notes here: http://biggerpockets.com/show458 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 458. There was a point when my husband and I, we took a leap and this was 15 years ago when we bought our other house and it was well over seven figures and we were so nervous. And at the end of the day, we did have to ask ourselves, okay, well, will our kids still love us? What will happen if this happens? Do we think that we can make this money? And we ended up doing it.
Starting point is 00:00:25 It was the best thing that ever happened to sometimes when you expand yourself and you actually take a leap, it's a nice. amazing what can happen. 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. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online.
Starting point is 00:00:53 What's going on, everyone? It's Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here in the C-Shed with my amazing friend, David Analogy King Green. What's up, man? Not much, bro. I'm happy to be in Hawaii, and I'm happy to be making magic in the sea shed once again. Yeah, we have a good show lined up for everyone today. We're talking to Tamar Hermes. And so Tamar is an awesome real estate investor who I met about a year ago and learned what she was doing and she's killing it right now. And so you're going to tell her story about both active and passive investing. We've got a lot of good things to talk about fear and overcoming difficult times.
Starting point is 00:01:29 It's kind of some crazy stuff happened with owner of properties. You'll hear about that story today. You're going to hear about when and why she sells properties. And that's something we don't talk enough about on this show, but I think it's super important. And we talk about later on in the show about something about that I want you to listen for. And that is the question of should you have multiple real estate agents or just one? And actually, David, you give a, I mean, Tamar had a really good answer, but then you
Starting point is 00:01:52 had a really good answer as well on that. So everyone listen for those things and more on today's show. but before we get to that, let's get today's quick tip. Today's quick tip is consider that the partners that you make need to have mutually aligned goals with your own. It's very easy to look at life only from our own perspective, but everybody else is doing the same thing. So the person who learns to look for other people's perspective will become very
Starting point is 00:02:15 interesting to the people they're talking to. This applies with your real estate agent, with your loan officer, with your lawyer, with your consultant. Make sure that the things that you are partnering with people to do is in their best as well as your own and you'll have a lifelong partner. Ooh, that was pretty good. I like that. We all joke that rentals are passive, but if you're spending nights matching receipts
Starting point is 00:02:35 or guessing what a property earned last month, that's not passive at all. Baselain fixes that part of landlording, the financial chaos. Their banking and AI bookkeeping system automatically tags every transaction, updates cash flow insights in real time, and builds the reports you need for tax season.
Starting point is 00:02:49 You can even automate transfers and move money around without paying wire fees. It's just cleaner. Sign up at baselane.com slash BP and get a $100 bonus. Base lane is a financial technology company and not a bank. Banking services provided by Threadbank. Member FDIC. A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs. That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating
Starting point is 00:03:13 income and earning your trust while they do it. And that comes down to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. If those numbers slip, your income slips. And your trust slips, too. And most PMs don't hold themselves to performance standards. They focus on activity, not outcomes. Mind is different. They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow. Go to mine.com slash show me to see how mine performs and get a month of management for free. Because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment, like an investment. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates
Starting point is 00:03:55 fast, easy, just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed's sponsored job posts help you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored post. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more
Starting point is 00:04:40 visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, indeed, is all you need. And now I think we're ready to get into the interview with Tamar. Anything you want to add before we get started? No, I want to get started. I like what Tamar has to say. You guys are going to love this. So without further ado, Tamar, Hermes. All right, Tamara, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast.
Starting point is 00:05:11 It is awesome to have you here. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So you and I first connected about a year ago, and I learned a little bit about your story. And ever since then, I've been like, I've got to get tomorrow on the podcast. So I'm excited that we finally made this happen today. And I want to learn more about you and that journey. So why do we start early on? How did you get into this idea of real estate investing?
Starting point is 00:05:29 How'd you get that bit by the bug? So when I was 28 years old, I was an executive in television. And I was making the six figures and I thought, oh, wow, I've got it made. But I knew better because I realized that I was exchanging time for money. and that if I didn't have that job, I would basically be, I don't know, I wouldn't be able to survive. And so I started looking at my bottom line, and it made me think about when I was 14 and a half, I really wanted a car. And I grew up poor. I was the child of a Holocaust survivor. And if I wanted that car, I was going to have to work for it.
Starting point is 00:06:11 And so by the time I was 16, I had saved $5,000. and cut to me realizing my bottom line, which was that I needed to figure out how to get rid of rent. That was the biggest expense. And so I took the $40,000 that I had saved and I put 10% down on a duplex. Did you live in one side of it then? I did. I lived in one side of it. And I lived in Los Angeles.
Starting point is 00:06:37 So I also lived within two miles of my work, which made it really easy. because your time can really get sucked up when you live far away from your job, especially in L.A. Yeah, that's awesome. All right, so got started House Hacking. Do you remember what year that was? Like how long ago?
Starting point is 00:06:54 It was in, I'm going to age myself a little bit, but it was 1990. Perfect. So that makes you like 29 years old today? Yeah, 29. I'm just about 30. Where to go with that? All right.
Starting point is 00:07:09 So you side to House Hack, you're living in one half of this duplex, which is such a great way to start. You know, so many of our guests here on the show has started that same way. So what came next? So after that, I started to, I kept working, but I started to think about ways that I could expand. And so what I did was I started buying more duplexes because I had one formula that worked, so I kept doing it. But I have to say that I was a very conservative investor. I was really scared. I completely relate to everybody that is just getting started out.
Starting point is 00:07:43 I wasn't, it sounds like, oh, I took $40,000 and it was a piece of cake, but I was petrified. And every time I made another move, I questioned myself. And so I did everything very conservatively, but I love to say that it's amazing how real estate is so kind over time. And you say that sometimes too. And so that's what I did. I just kept buying slowly but surely, but I was buying in the right places. I was holding and my properties were appreciating like gangbusters. How many did you have? Give us an idea. Maybe even let's go to today. What did that look like your overall portfolio? Because I know you've been in this a long time. So these shows are always different than the whole like, hey, I just got started two years ago. We can walk through first deal,
Starting point is 00:08:26 second deal, third deal, fourth deal done. So what does that overall picture look like in your life today? Like how many units do you have or have you had stuff like that? So right now I have nine units. I have a lot of passive investments because like a lot of people, once you reach a certain level, you realize that you can get other people to do a lot of the heavy lifting and you can make the same amount of money or very close to it. And so I've navigated my portfolio to accommodate that. So right now, with my investments, they're all one to two units. And at a certain point, I had five duplexes and I also had single family homes. And I sold everything in Los Angeles last year when I moved to Austin because it was just a great time to sell. And it was time.
Starting point is 00:09:15 I had held on for a really long time. They had appreciated it a lot. And it was really just a move that I needed to make. It's really scary to sell properties, I have to say, when they're doing well and they're working for you. And you know you can make a lot more by making that move. And that was the time that I really needed to take action on that. So I had been selling them for the past few years. I really got bold in the last year.
Starting point is 00:09:41 So you mentioned you're in passive investing, and then you've also got some active income streams. Can you define how you look at those two terms? Yes, absolutely. So to me, the passive investments are ones where I find deals like Open Door Capital. That's not a shameless plug. He didn't pay me to do that. There are so many great deals where there are sponsors that. are putting together opportunities, multifamily homes. You've had a ton of these guests on that are
Starting point is 00:10:12 just brilliant storage units, mobile home parks. And what they do is they put together deals. And oftentimes you need to be an accredited investor, which means that you need to be making a certain amount of income or have a certain net worth. But once you do, you can invest money into these deals as silent partners and get the money. So that's the passive. The active is where you're actually doing what a lot of the investors on this show that do, which is that you manage the property, you buy the property. And there's a lot of advantages to that. And part of the reason why I do that still is, one, I like it.
Starting point is 00:10:46 I love people. I love the game. It's fun. And also that I get the real estate professional status, which is a great tax advantage. So when you say you're doing the active stuff, what does that look like today? I mean, are you buying rentals? Are you flipping houses or wholesaling? What's that like?
Starting point is 00:11:00 So what I do, I'm not, I'm not big on flipping because I like. to acquire assets. So to me, flipping as a little bit more like a job, I don't mind fixing up a property and keeping it and holding it. That's fine for me. But if I'm going to be selling assets, then I feel like I'm kind of taking money out of my portfolio. So for me, I'm not partial to that strategy. So what I will do is I will buy whenever there's a good deal, I will buy it and I will rent it out, and I'm getting more and more into short-term rentals, and what's really popular right now, which is a great strategy, and a lot of my friends are doing this really well, is to have nurses come and stay, and for long-term or business executives, especially right now
Starting point is 00:11:49 with the shortage in housing, they come in for a few months, and they need a place to stay, and you furnish that place, and you can make so much money in the rents, and it's a very, a very easy model. It also doesn't count with those short-term gains that you have to pay those taxes. You have to pay on an on an Airbnb style. So I love that strategy. Yeah, that makes that makes sense. I'm a huge fan of those as well. We've had a few traveling nurses over the years. And in fact, right now I'm, it's not launched it, but we're launching a website called a month and Maui.com with the whole idea of we're buying condos and we're just going to let people rent them out for a month. And like, you get like the property and you get a bunch of cool stuff with it. And like, because I don't,
Starting point is 00:12:25 I don't want the like stay for three nights, stay for four nights. I want a little. A little little bit longer term, people who want to stay. Now, in Maui, it's a little different. People just come for months at a time of vacation or for a month. But regardless, the principle is the same. I don't necessarily love the every three-night turnover. I like the idea of somebody staying a little bit longer. And again, yeah, the tax designation can be a little bit different once you're going month to month versus nightly. There's less, you know, the hotel tax usually isn't an issue. So, yeah, I'm a super big fan of that. So, I mean, that strategy, I mean, how do you find those type of people to stay there? Like, what's worked for you?
Starting point is 00:12:58 for people you know, like, how do you find the traveling nurses or the people that are looking just for a longer-term short stay, if that makes sense? Well, I think that there's a website. I can't remember the name of it right now, but there's a website that does one just for nurses. And, yeah, and you can definitely go on and find a lot of resources. There's a lot of actual websites for those. Now, you've mentioned before that you hit this dilemma that every real estate investor eventually hits, where you have to figure out, do I keep this asset that's performing or do I trade it up for something that I think would perform better? And you're really weighing the risk and the reward, but it always feels scary when you have to sell something that's good. That whole bird in the hand is worth two in the
Starting point is 00:13:42 bush thing. Can you share with us a little bit how your experience is shaped out when you decide it's time to upgrade and then maybe how you facilitate that process? Yeah, absolutely. I think for sure that I held way too long. But like you just, said, when it's working, a lot of times if you don't feel comfortable, then you can just hang on to it, and it still works for you. So for me, there was a certain point, especially with all the opportunities where interest rates are super low, and Los Angeles was at an all-time high, and a lot of us are projecting that Los Angeles may have some adjustments coming in the next few months or years. It may not look the same way. So it just felt like it was just at an all-time high. And also when you have a certain
Starting point is 00:14:26 amount of appreciation in the deal. At a certain point, it makes sense to sell those properties because you can't, the amount of appreciation outweighs the cash flow. It just can't keep up with it. And that was sort of where I got. So it was either refinance it or sell. And because also, I own a lot of properties, I had bought a lot of properties I didn't mention in my 401k plan, which is also an interesting strategy. Yeah. And because of that, I really was at a point where I really couldn't do, I couldn't use a refinance or a 1031 because when you're in a qualified plan like that,
Starting point is 00:15:03 you have certain provisions you cannot do. It's great for deferred growth, but not that great for the other strategies. All right. So let's dig in a little bit on the 401K. I've never done that. I mean, I think I have a 401k maybe with a few dollars in it from random previous jobs. but I don't do anything with it. So how do you invest in real estate in a 401K?
Starting point is 00:15:24 What does it look like? So first of all, I would say that there's a lot of variables within a 401K. So there's a 401k profit-sharing plan. There's the solo K. There's the self-directed IRA. There's the Roth, which is the keys to the castle, really, because everything grows tax-free. So once you get your money into a plan, if you're a W-2 employee, generally, they'll make you invest. they'll make you invest in their whatever stocks they have in that portfolio. You really can't do
Starting point is 00:15:53 much about that. But when you leave the company, you can take that 401K or if you have a business and you're making a lot of income, you really need a place to shelter it at a certain point. I don't necessarily know that if I was doing this again, that I would recommend the 401K, but it is a viable option in terms of setting up these plans. Also, the defined benefit plan is another one that really even gives you more flexibility. So what you do is you can actually invest in, you could invest in open door capital. You could invest in any kind of syndicated deal. You could do that for sure. And that's a great way where you'll grow income. You don't get to depreciation, but you get to grow that until you retire. And then you got to figure out how to
Starting point is 00:16:36 get it out without, you know, with paying as little tax as you can. So you can do that. And the other thing you could do is you can buy a property in cash. So I was building up the portfolio and paying for properties in cash. Okay, this is really good. I don't think we talk about this often. When you say that you can buy it in cash, does that mean that you cannot get a loan if you're buying a property in your 401K? That's a great question. And I think that there is, I've heard that there is a way to get a loan, although it is not advised and it's very hard. So it's not something that you'd want to do. You don't, in fact, I don't, I've heard somebody say that they could do that. I would almost venture to say that it's pretty, it's very uncommon. And for the most of the time, those, Those plans are plans that are designated as retirement plans. So you really are using them as cash vehicles. That's interesting.
Starting point is 00:17:27 Yeah. So people have got, let's say they got a couple hundred grand in a 401k from their previous job or a couple jobs ago and they've been rolling it over to new jobs. It's got some equity in it and they leave. They can now take that, I believe, what you're saying. And you can put it into like some kind of self-directed 401k or something, right? And then they can take that and go invest in real estate with that in a careful way. Again, you can't just go out and pull the money out of the bank and go and buy a property
Starting point is 00:17:51 20% down. You're saying, but if you follow the rules right, you can maybe buy one for cash or put it into somebody's syndication and start growing wealth that way. Absolutely. In fact, you can have a check writing access and with a self-directed or IRA or a or a Roth IRA. And when you have the check status or whatever you call it, you basically can write those checks and you track it. And you do have a custodian, but you have a lot of freedom.
Starting point is 00:18:19 And you can invest in cannabis. You can invest in anything, really, in Bitcoin with that. So you have a lot of flexibility. You know, I'm guessing the reason it's that way is a 401k plan is designed to be the government incentivizing you to save for your own retirement. So if you take out a loan on a property, there's more risk that the bank might take it back and you would have lost the money. I'm guessing that's where that rule comes from.
Starting point is 00:18:40 You know, if somebody out here is a financial planner, preferably certified and is willing to come on the podcast to share some of this, I think that would be a really good interview. Tamar, can you share with us how you learned about this? Who did you go to in your life to get this information about how to use your 401k to invest? Well, that's a really good story. And it's interesting that you just did a call out to financial planners because I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder about financial planners. And I love a lot of them. And I teach finance too. I found that you have to be very careful when you find a financial planner to educate you on this. I got this in little bits and pieces. So somebody told my husband,
Starting point is 00:19:17 and I that we could get a defined benefit plan. So we did. And then we came to find at a certain point, we maxed out our defined benefit plan and they told us to roll it into a 401k profit sharing plan. But then we came to realize that that really wasn't the best strategy. So I just kept asking people. I'm a very curious person. I will ask everybody, every question under the sun. And I'll take chances. And sometimes I lose a little bit of money. Sometimes I'm most of the time I make a lot more than I lose. But it is a situation where you really want to get the information, and then I would check it with a couple more people to make sure, make sure also that their incentive is to understand real estate. Because a lot of the CFPs, they are really set up to make
Starting point is 00:20:09 money for themselves. Before you know it, they'll start selling you life insurance. They'll start selling you annuities and all kinds of other vehicles that you really don't want. You want to be in real estate because it's the best place to be. But you need to make sure that those CFPs aren't looking out for, aren't looking out for their pocketbook, but really looking at what you want to do with real estate. You know, I think that's a good principle to understand overall when you're dealing with, even in the real estate space, because it's very easy to think the same thing about an agent. The agent wants the deal to close.
Starting point is 00:20:40 They're not looking out for my interest. The agent just wants a bigger commission. They don't care if I make money. The loan officer in many ways is incentivized by giving you a higher interest rate than a lower one. It's sort of how this whole industry operates and it becomes easy, and this doesn't apply to you tomorrow, but for people that are listening, it's very easy to get jaded and just write them all off and say, well, none of them are looking out for me, so I'm not going to do it. I think the better approach is to understand that we don't pay those people like a retainer, like a lawyer.
Starting point is 00:21:08 A lawyer does have to look out for your interest, but they get paid by you regardless of how they perform. When you're in the rule that we're in, and I'm going to dig in more in a bit tomorrow about how you navigate these relationships to make them work for you because you've been very successful, it's important to note that you're in a partnership with these people. They also lose if you don't buy the property. They have to look out for their interests, just like we have to look out for our interests. And there's really a dance of understanding who the right person is with the right mix of character, who has the right skill set.
Starting point is 00:21:38 I know there's a lot of investors that just get frustrated because they can't find the right agent, but when they tell me who they picked, I'm thinking, of course, that didn't work out. You went for the worst person ever. You're trying to figure out how to buy a Ferrari and you're at this Honda dealership type of a situation. So you're making a great observation. And that's actually a part of how you become a good investor is you learn people. You learn the right partners that can find the things you need and help you.
Starting point is 00:22:03 Do you mind if we transition into some of the skills you've built or the ways you've learned to read people so that you do pick the right financial planner, the right. right agent, the right loan officer, the right property manager when you're building your portfolio. Yeah, no, absolutely. I would say the first thing is trust yourself before you trust anyone else. And that's why I'm a huge advocate of making sure you're educated and making sure that you understand everything when you go into a deal. So with certified financial planners, like you mentioned, David, is that they are, some of them, they're supposed to be fiduciaries. They're supposed to not charge you or sell you any products, really in the fullest
Starting point is 00:22:42 form, you would pay, well, you would pay them a fee, like an attorney. You would say, here's $20,000 or whatever the price is. Please share with me what I can do and what you advise. So the first thing is learning the rules, is really studying that. And for a long time, I didn't trust that I could learn the rules. And I know that sounds, it makes sense in a way, because real estate can be complicated when you look at all the facets coming at you. And so it really, I really had to dive in and say, no, I can do this. I can understand this. And it's the same thing with financial planners, the same thing with anyone that you do business
Starting point is 00:23:17 with. And I think that the other thing that is engaged for me is that if I start to get the feeling, if they start to say certain things that make me feel there's been partnerships where people start to say certain things. And I think, you know what, I think they're out more for, they're looking out to make sure that they make money more than they're thinking of the partnership. And when that happens, I'll usually back out of the deal and won't want to do it with them. There's oftentimes these little intuitive things we pick up on. And then later on in our
Starting point is 00:23:43 life, when things go bad, we're like, oh, yeah, that was a red flag. Why don't I just trust myself in those moments? So, like, that's a really good encouragement is like know yourself, dig in, like trust yourself that you have this, like, we're only using part of our brain. And so the other part of our brain, the subconscious is constantly working trying to figure out what's good and what's not. And so trust that. I think that's really, really good advice. And one of the hard things with this whole situation is like when it comes to financial advisors or real estate agents or lenders. Like, for example, if you were to ask this advice about 401ks to 10 different financial planners, you'd get like 11 different answers, right? And so like,
Starting point is 00:24:19 a buddy of mine recently went to this big like real estate investing CPA firm, like this big real estate investment. All they do is help real estate investors. And he's like, okay, he paid a bunch of money to them to help set up his like LLC structure format, this whole thing, this elaborate system paid him a lot of money. And he was just complaining the other day. He's like, It's so frustrating, Brandon, because I call them and I talk to a different person every time. And every time the guy has a hundred percent different idea of what I should be doing than what the last guy said. This is all within the same company. And I mean, that's just what you get when you have a tax code that's a billion pages long.
Starting point is 00:24:53 And there's rarely like one best strategy for everyone. And so this goes back to your point. You got to just dig in yourself. I love that you said that. It's so true because you can get, you can get different opinions on everything. I mean, think about real estate investing. You can talk to 10 investors and they'll tell you just buy, I mean, listen to Grant Cardone. He'll say, don't buy anything unless it's 16 units or more.
Starting point is 00:25:14 You listen to somebody else and they say buy single families and you're thinking, well, what's the best thing? So you get the same run around. It's more complicated, I think, when it comes to 401Ks and because it feels like there should be a clear set of plans. I mean, real estate investing, there's a lot of choices. There's a lot of ways you can go. But with structuring your retirement, you should be. able to have one direction. And it's true. You really need to dissect and decide what's best for you. That's so good. And it is. It's hard to know because there's so much advice out there on what the right
Starting point is 00:25:47 thing is, what the wrong thing is. I'm pulling us on my phone right now. I just put this on my Instagram today. I wrote this little paragraph here. It says this. Wake up at 4.30 a.m. Don't eat carbs. Write down your goals six times a day. Shout out affirmations. Take a cold shower. Don't check your phone first thing in the morning. Work out first thing in the morning. This is just a sample of these success tips you'll read online. And you know, they might just work for you or they might not. I check my phone first thing every morning and I spend way too much time on it. I rarely work out early. Sometimes I sleep in. I don't do affirmations at all. And that works for me. You might do the exact opposite and that might work wonders for you because everyone is different.
Starting point is 00:26:18 But you know what one trade applies across the board to everyone I've ever known who's successful? And tomorrow, this applies totally to you. Then what we're talking about, they sought solutions that worked for them. They tried keto or they tried waking up at 5 a.m. They tried to phone fast. Every day they intentionally ask and attempt to answer the question, how can I be better? tips are fine and then this is kind of the summary statement but the search is the secret like the secret to success it's like it's just being a person who's curious like you just said by searching and so that's something i've been thinking a lot about lately is who do we get our advice from and then we have to make sure we filter that through is it the right advice for me what's your
Starting point is 00:26:55 thoughts on that i mean that was that is a hundred percent me and i think that that is the way to move forward in your life is to just keep getting up and looking at what works for you. And there's going to be different seasons in your life, depending on how old your kids are, where you are in your relationships. And it's going to change. And you're going to need different things. That's a perfect segue into what I wanted to ask tomorrow here. Because, well, as a side note, I think when you're afraid, you look for the certainty that comes from the science aspect of investing. I want to make, I need an LLC so I don't get sued. I want to know exactly how to analyze a property. How do I make sure I don't get burned in this
Starting point is 00:27:34 transaction. But when you actually get into it, you realize it's way more art than it is science, that there's so many ways to flow and move and be flexible in the industry. And even when you screw up royally or someone screws you over royally, over time, real estate is so kind. It can absorb that loss. And that's one of the reasons that I think the three of us are so passionate. We just keep talking about it all the time. Tomorrow, I'm curious if you'd give us some insight into your specific situation, how you chose the properties that you wanted to buy, why they worked for you, why it felt right, that maybe the people listening can get a better idea of what would be what works for them. Yeah, absolutely. So I am a, I love that I can share this because I'm,
Starting point is 00:28:17 I'm the scaredy cat. I'm the one who did not want to lose money. I grew up poor. I get it. I understand anyone that had, that has any of those feelings that they don't want to lose money and don't really feel like they, they will be able to make it back. And so I pick deals that are extremely easy to understand. I'm an ABC kind of gal. I pick them in the best locations. I'm willing to pay money for them. I look for some meat on the bone. And I look for ways that I can rent them, that I can, that I know there'll be tenants, that I know I can get certain rents for them, that I know that they'll appreciate. Basically, I check all the boxes. And it's not that hard. I mean, it takes, it does take a lot of time. You have to look at a lot of deals and see that a lot of things
Starting point is 00:29:02 don't work. But then you'll know when that one comes. And it's very, it's very easy. And in my deep dive, you'll see, it's just the simplest strategy. There's nothing complicated, but I'm going to make a lot of money on it. What is your strategy today when it comes to that type of prop, like you're kind of more active stuff, the unit that you own? Is it appreciation more? Is it leaning towards cash flow? Is it trying to get a balance of both? Or do you, what do you aim for right now? Yeah. I mean, well, one of the things I really focus on right now is I'm extra cautious because of the way the market is right now, because we know that we've seen growth for what 12 years now. So we know that something may, we don't see it coming. And I live in Austin, and I promise you that people around here and in San
Starting point is 00:29:46 Antonio are not seeing anything coming. They have no idea how it could possibly happen. And we'll see. I'm very, very cautious in terms of not only I'm looking for, I look for appreciation, and I look for cash flow. I believe you can have both. And I look for deals where there's an opportunity. So, you know, there's, there's got to be some way where I feel like there's some meat on the bone. So I'll look and see where I can make an improvement in a property or where I can get it where somebody wants to give me a fair, a very fair deal in this market where I know I can cash flow it and make a decent amount of money by buying it at a negotiated price. So I'm pretty much, I would say that I have high expectations, but I'm not, I don't do
Starting point is 00:30:37 anything far out or over the top. It's pretty simple. And it's just, it's, I buy and hold. I generally will not sell a property. So that's the other thing is that I'm willing to hang on to a property for an extended period of time and let time do its part. Because it's just like that the story of the avocado, if you think of an avocado, what it cost 20 years ago, it's, it's a lot, it was a lot cheaper than it is today. And in 20 years, an avocado is going to be a lot more expensive. So it's the same thing, especially when you walk. And the other thing I look for is, is I love the 30 year fixed, especially right now with the price that it is. I mean, that's the best deal in town. I mean, come on, 30 year fixed, 2.99 on an investment property.
Starting point is 00:31:20 It's just, it's just so good to be true. I mean, that's the great part of this market right now. You can really borrow money for almost nothing. Yeah, it's insane how cheap interest rates are right now. I'm curious about actually I'm going to ask both of you guys, David and Tamar, where do you think interest rates are headed? Where do you think the real estate market's headed? I'll start with you tomorrow. Well, I think that interest rates will stay low for a while just because they have to. We really need to do something to ensure all the money that's been printed, which is going to turn into a complete disaster at some point. So there's no way that it can't. And you can read any number of history books or listen to anybody with the logic around that and know that
Starting point is 00:32:02 there's no way this is going to end well. So there's that. And I think ultimately, they'll probably, they're not going to stay low forever. So they're going to go up. I don't know how much or how fast because they really can't right now because the economy will completely collapse. So that's my thought process on it. Well, first off, we should probably differentiate mortgage. rates are not the same as the Fed fund where the Fed sets rates as far as the prime rate. And there's a lot of confusion oftentimes when the when we hear rates drop, but mortgage rates went up. That happens sometimes. But overall, I think interest rates are going to stay low. It would be healthier for us if they went up. It just doesn't make sense. I wouldn't lend my money at 2.9% for 30 years,
Starting point is 00:32:45 right? Like that's kind of all you need to know when it comes to is that a good idea or not. And I think they will stay low. But I think the bigger reason is that our country operates at a deficit. spend more money every year than we bring in through taxes. And so what we do is we borrow money from either our citizens or other countries through bonds and treasury bills and stuff. And if you raise rates now, it's sort of the equivalent of borrowing money at 18% on Visa to pay off the 14% on MasterCard. If rates go down, you're borrowing money at 12% to pay off the 14% you've already borrowed. So you can keep borrowing. But as we all see, that just makes your debt get bigger, which is what's happening with our country.
Starting point is 00:33:24 So none of us here have a crystal ball, but my bet is that we're not going to stop printing money. We're not going to stop keeping rates low. That's going to cause the price of assets to continue to inflate. It's going to cause debt, in a sense, to become an asset of itself. And it is a dangerous game to play. Like, let's be clear, it's not ever a great idea to take on huge amounts of debt. There's an argument you made in this environment.
Starting point is 00:33:48 You kind of have to play the game that way because that's the way that the NFL has created the rules in a sense. Like we've seen they have a lot of rule changes in the NFL and now passing is much easier than running the ball was. Well, when you pass it, the odds of an interception are much higher than the odds of a fumble. It's not the safe way to play, but that's how the teams that are doing the best have restructured their teams and their offense. And I sort of look at the economy the same way. It's not a game in the sense that there's no consequences. It's a game in the sense that rules often change and you have to build a skill set like when we're playing a game. You and I had a conversation with Mindy and Scott.
Starting point is 00:34:22 Yeah, it's like, don't tell Mindy that you just called it again. Yes, I know. Mindy, I love you. We're not saying investing is not serious and people's money is not serious, but it functions in the way that a game does where you have to learn the rules and strategy is applied and you can lose, right? There's a lot of, I mean, professional athletes play games and they cry when they lose or there's a lot, there's still a lot on the line, but that's the overall understanding I have of why I think
Starting point is 00:34:44 rates will stay low. And I say this because I want people to understand that if the way that the government affects monetary policy changes, will the rules of the game? games just changed and now I might expect interest rates to go up and that would affect the way that I invest. Wow. That was good. That was a good answer. Both you guys. When I bought my first rental, I thought collecting rent would be the hard part. Nope. The admin crushed me. Every night was receipts, tax forms and checking who was late on rent. I kept thinking if this is one unit, how do people run 10? Base lane changed that. It's Bigger Pocket's official banking platform
Starting point is 00:35:16 that handles expense tracking, financial reporting, rent collection, and even tenant screening all in one place. It's the system I wish I had from day one. Sign up today at baselane.com slash bigger pockets and get a $100 bonus. Baselane is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC insured bank. Bank banking services provided by Threadbank, member FDIC. 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,
Starting point is 00:36:01 pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently, without the usual bottlenecks. It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact, so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like Same Day ACH, International Wires, Car, or check and set custom roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets, and get a $100 Amazon gift card.
Starting point is 00:36:37 That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. 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, 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 costsegregation
Starting point is 00:37:15 guys.com slash BP to get a free proposal and see your potential tax savings. Wouldn't it be great if your houseplants paid rent while you were out of town? I mean, they've got the whole place to themselves, lots of sunlight, zero responsibilities. But no, they just sit there waiting for someone to spray them with some cool mist like a bunch of leafy loafers. But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there.
Starting point is 00:37:36 Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods, you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you. These co-hosts are vetted locals who already have experience hosting on Airbnb. A co-host can handle all the details like messaging guests, creating your host space, and managing reservations, so everything runs smoothly.
Starting point is 00:37:58 It's a practical way to earn a little extra money, maybe even some cash toward your next trip. Plus, you get to share your place with someone traveling to your area while you're off making memories somewhere else. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. All right. Tamar, darkest days in your real estate investing. What are some of the moments or a moment when you look back and go, oh, that was
Starting point is 00:38:20 rough. That was difficult to get through. I did have one property that was a real troublemaker. And two weeks after I bought it, I had the city of sanitation department calling me saying that things weren't looking so good at the property, if you know what I mean. If I can say that in a very piecey way.
Starting point is 00:38:41 And I needed to get the situation fixed right away. And it cost me $16,000. and I ended up taking the sellers to small claims court. And that was, I mean, it was the whole thing, I mean, I learned a lot just like everything, and it was an adventure. But it was, it was tough. It was stressful because that's not a situation that you can walk away from very easily.
Starting point is 00:39:10 And I ended up winning. So I got $10,000 back at the end of the day. But those kinds of scenarios, the other thing was that at a certain point where I had maybe, you know, 20 tenants I was managing at once, and they all call it once. That just gets really stressful. And it's all like little things. And there's always something. And that part, that was when I started hiring property managers because it was just my life was just turning into one thing after another. But that was those, those are the only times where I didn't love buying real estate. I just think it's the most amazing thing in the world. And everyone should do it. So what does your mindset look like
Starting point is 00:39:47 in those periods? Like when you were going through that, like how do you, How do you power through? Like, what goes on in your head? I think there's so much power and understanding people's mindset during those difficult periods. So what do that look like for you? Or what does it look like now when you go through?
Starting point is 00:39:59 Yeah, I mean, this is something it's interesting. I notice this more and more now that I'm 30. 29. You're not there yet, all right? 29. I'm 29. Yeah, I'm 29.
Starting point is 00:40:08 I start to realize that I manage this better and better as time goes on. But it's pretty much like, you know, we don't, we project situations in our mind, and they're a lot worse than they're really going to be. and we're more resilient than we think we are. And so something like that happens, I get the call, and the first thing I do is I just start thinking,
Starting point is 00:40:26 okay, what am I going to do? How am I going to fix this? You know, who am I going to call? And so I call the plumber. I get estimates. I go fast. And I just get it done. And then as far as that moment where I have a lot of tenants coming at me,
Starting point is 00:40:40 I just start thinking, okay, this isn't working for me. I manage everything. And then I create a solution so that moving forward, I don't have to deal with that. but I don't let it take me down because it's all just stuff that we need to deal with. It just we can handle it. It's amazing. Once you're faced with something that you never thought you could do, I mean, I never thought
Starting point is 00:40:57 I'd be on this podcast. So hello, you know, there you go. You get there. I love that. I love that. David, what do you think? Any thoughts on that? It's funny that you mentioned that tomorrow.
Starting point is 00:41:08 I just was having a conversation yesterday. I'm helping my friend Matt with, he's writing a book on triple net leases, which is a very different way of investing. and I'm getting into that space as well. The price points are so much higher that they're just a natural fear that comes with that. It always feels safer to buy a $100,000 house than a $200,000 house. Even if the $200,000 house is in a better neighborhood with better tenants and a better income stream and it's in better shape, something about a higher price point feels scary.
Starting point is 00:41:38 And I was sitting there thinking like $80,000 a month. That's what my mortgage is going to be, $80,000. How am I going to pay $80,000? right? Like what if I have two to three months? But what's that going to do to me? And we sit down to analyze the deal. And dude, it was stupid how easy it was to analyze a triple net lease. It's here's your mortgage. That's all. There's other than vacancy, which doesn't happen nearly as often, there is nothing to talk about. And I had this surreal moment of how high my panic meter was thinking 80,000, 80,000 versus how safe this income stream was compared to everything
Starting point is 00:42:17 else I invested. And tomorrow, you're reminding me, you're exactly right. Our brain always goes to worst case scenarios. Our subconscious is working to protect us and that's what it thinks will protect you. Like, but look out. You could drown in this $80,000. The battle that we fight when we're in that mode, it really determines whether we move forward or if we don't. And I love that you're sharing, you got to bet on yourself. You will think of answers. And oftentimes the answers I come up within those moments are so simple that I wonder why I ever even worried about it. And that goes with running a business. I'm sure starting a family. Like, were you ready to be a dad when the time came that you're going to be. A hundred percent. I was a
Starting point is 00:42:53 perfect dad from day one actually. You probably, you probably were better than most dads from day one. I would imagine. But there is no way to know what to do. So if you've been a parent, you can keep a human being alive and functioning. You can be a real estate investor. I promise you that it's much harder to be a parent, I'm sure, than what it is to be an investor. I love that. And I actually know, I know Matt, and I know those deals. I've looked at those deals, too. And I went through the same exact scenario in terms of, okay, with the triple net lease, what's extraordinary is that they're locked into a lease. The company cannot leave and they pay for everything. The only thing that I couldn't get past, and this might be helpful for the listeners,
Starting point is 00:43:37 is recourse versus non-recourse loans. And I don't know if you want to speak to that because I thought that was a very interesting topic in terms of how the loans are lent out. Why don't you talk about it for a minute tomorrow if you're comfortable with that? So the recourse loan means that they can call that loan and that you're on the hook for it.
Starting point is 00:43:58 Non-recourse, which is like Fannie and Freddie, those kind of loans, it means that they'll just take the property back and you can walk away. So if you're doing a $6 million, deal and it's a recourse loan, they will basically deplete every single thing that you have to get that money back. You owe them that money if anything goes wrong. Yeah, it sucks. So in our fund, most of our deals, we're trying to get everyone non-recourse. There's a few we've had to do
Starting point is 00:44:23 recourse. But the more recourse debt you have, the more dangerous it is on you because, yeah, the more they'll come after you if something goes wrong. So, yeah, that non-recourse debt is beautiful. It's a good thing. Yeah, and it's just something to think about just in terms, doesn't mean you don't do it. I mean, it's, it, there are great deals. And the truth is that, like David said, once you lay it out, you can see there's a lot of insurance, there's a lot of insurance and risk mitigation in those triple net leases. But the recourse versus non-recourse is something that you do, it's a question you want to ask. You want to see what, what you're on the hook for. Well, it's a good example of what we kind of started the conversation off when we were saying,
Starting point is 00:45:00 when do you keep it versus when do you sell it? If you get too much recourse debt, that would be the properties that you would look on moving just to reduce the amount of debt. Like there's a healthy amount that you can handle based on whatever your own finances are. When that goes too much, that's when you would offload those properties, upgrade into something else, maybe move from recourse into non-recourse. But that's what I mean by the way that you play the game. When you understand the rules, the right decision just sort of comes to mind. Like that one just did, you just will never know that before you get started. You won't know what the answer is. And so your brain will tell you you're never going to be able to figure it out. But like that wasn't
Starting point is 00:45:35 a really complicated thing. I'm getting too much recourse debt. I don't feel comfortable. They could take my house, like my family could be affected. Let me sell those three properties and keep one and reinvest it into something with non-recourse debt. Yeah, absolutely. And there was a point when my husband and I, we took a leap and this was 15 years ago when we bought our other house and it was well over seven figures. And we were so nervous. And at the end of the day, we did have to ask ourselves, okay, well, will our kids still love us? What will happen if this happens. Do we think that we can make this money? And we ended up doing it. It was the best thing that ever happened. Because sometimes when you expand yourself and you actually take a leap,
Starting point is 00:46:12 it's amazing what can happen. I mean, even moving from Los Angeles to Austin, it's a big deal when you've lived in one place and you have all your stuff, your life in one place. And you look around your house and you think, oh my God, I got to move all this. And actually, if you're willing to move, I think that's the best deal in town to be able to move every two years and get that tax right off. for 250 or 500,000, that to me is the best. So we didn't utilize that as much as we could, just because we didn't like moving and we didn't need to. But if I wanted to make money fast, I would be utilizing that strategy. Well, one of the reasons that moving as hard is you lose your support system that you had in that area, and that's a big piece. And that's also one of
Starting point is 00:46:54 the things that makes investing less scary is when you have a support system. You have people, you can bounce ideas off. And it's like, Tamara, you're in the same tribe that Brandon and I are in, that mats in. We're all Go Abundance members. And so a lot of, I think, the success we have comes from knowing there's a good 20 to 30 people that have done the same thing that I'm doing that may even be a couple steps ahead of me that I can bounce off some of these worst case scenarios. Would you mind sharing a little bit about how having other people around you that are doing similar stuff has affected your confidence and your mindset? Yeah, absolutely. It is, it is huge to have that support system. There's not a day that goes by where if I need something,
Starting point is 00:47:31 I know that I can call one of my tribe sisters and ask them for something for different skill sets that they have. And they're oftentimes ahead of me in a certain place. And I don't know what I'm ahead of, but they have more experience in one area than I have in another. And so it's just a great model to be able to ask people that you trust and that you like, that you know, have your back and say, well, what do you think of this? Or what do you think of this deal? What do you think of that? And they'll ask you different things. It's not just real estate.
Starting point is 00:47:59 It's life. I mean, it really, at a certain point, we're really talking about a well-rounded life, not just real estate. Because at a certain point, we have a certain amount of money. And it doesn't mean that much at a certain point. We need more than that in our lives. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah. Having, like, a tribe of people around that you can depend on and talk to is such a vital piece of, of anybody's success in anything.
Starting point is 00:48:22 I mean, like, this is why I think, like, in sports, like, if you're just like by yourself all the time, you'd never be as good as if you practice other people and you train with other people or in business or in real. state. And so again, like David mentioned, you and I are, you know, David and I are in Gobundance. You are also now, and people might be wondering, wait, I thought Gobundance was a men's thing, but now there's a woman's side. Can you speak that for a second? Just so get some clarity on that. Yeah, absolutely. So two years ago, Gobundance decided to start with women. And it's interesting. Brandon was actually the one who told me to join Gobundance. Am I really? Yeah, you're the one who told me when we had that call together. You had told me to join Gobundance.
Starting point is 00:48:59 And so I actually took the coaching, and I did. And we're a group of successful women that support one another. We're doctors. There's real estate investors. There's realtors. It's a group. Business salespeople, top executives, it's great. It's just a great group of women that support one another.
Starting point is 00:49:21 And we do things together. We play and have fun, too. That's awesome. Yeah. It's a cool thing to see that the women's side group. growing as well. And yeah, it's funny because you and I started talking. I mentioned earlier in the show that we talked about a year ago. It's because my brother, so just to tell a quick story, my brother had a car accident or something happened with his car and it was like, it didn't even
Starting point is 00:49:41 new one. It was just going through a rough time. And so I did a fundraiser. I just said on my Instagram, hey, anybody who donates 500 bucks to my brothers, go fund me, I'll do an hour call with you. And tomorrow, you were one of the people that took me up on that. I think we ended up raising 30 grand for my brother, which was. I'm surprised there wasn't more. You even gave me your cell number. I can believe it. You're like, and I'll give you my cell number. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:50:01 Yeah. So I still chat with a number of the people that did that with me back a year, a year and a half ago, whatever it was now. And it's kind of fun to say everyone's progress over the last couple of years through this. But anyway, so thank you from me and my brother. That was cool. And I'm glad that that conversation led to something, you know, you working on in the tribe stuff. So, yeah, very cool. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:21 And it speaks to just what it means to take a chance when you had put that out. there. I mean, I didn't know what it would be like. I mean, I knew I would be, be enjoyable to speak with you and that you'd probably share some pretty good ideas with me. But I was willing to just go for it. And it's the same kind of thing where we're always looking for the ROI. We're looking for, we're always trying to weigh it out so much. And it's not always about weighing, weighing out the variables in that way. So we need to take chances. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, we just got finished out here. We did another one of our, we did it like two years ago. We called it the Maui mastermind. I just did it again out here. I would just grab like 25 real estate investors and
Starting point is 00:51:05 did a bunch of mostly outdoor activities because we can't really go inside small places. But it was still, it was amazing. Like just getting together with other people who are working, growing, trying to, trying to better themselves. They're on that search that I talked about. Like the secret is the search. And they're on that. It's just, it's, I can't even put into words how powerful those moments are. So anyway, I'm glad to see that you're, you know, heavily involved with the Go Abundance as well. Because again, it's been instrumental in my life and David's life and obviously in yours now.
Starting point is 00:51:36 So very cool. Well, before we go on and get out of here, I do want to head our next segment of the show. And that is the DIL Deep Dive. All right, the deal deep dive is part of the show where we dive deep into one property, something that you've recently, maybe recently or maybe not so recently bought. and we want to dig into some of the numbers on it. Do you have a property in mind that we can dig into? Yeah, awesome.
Starting point is 00:52:08 So I'm going to share a property that I just closed on. And the reason why, like, this is another thing I didn't talk about, was right now, I think finding tenants has been a much more intense process for a lot of people, especially with the moratorium and people defaulting. And so there's been, I think a lot of people are afraid of buying because they're worried that they might get bad tenants. And I have found that there have been scenarios where it has been a little tricky. And I've had to be really careful in terms of who I select. But this property is a property that I bought 20 minutes out of San Antonio. It was $225,000. Oh, you're going to,
Starting point is 00:52:48 do you want to ask me my questions before I dive in? Sure. Yeah. Well, that was actually the first question was, yeah, what kind of property was it? So was a single family house, I'm assuming, or is that not? Single family, yeah, a single family house. in San Antonio and it just out of San Antonio. Yeah, I love that. Okay. How did you find that property? So I found that property through a realtor that knew that I was looking for that sort of
Starting point is 00:53:13 property. So I literally have feelers out to probably 80 realtors, wholesalers, you name it. People know what I'm looking for and what I can, what I'm capable of in terms of closing. And so she called me and she said she had a couple that was looking for. for their dream house. So they wanted to spend as much time in the house. They didn't want to have to move. Whereas if they bought it, if they sold it to someone that wanted to move in, they'd have to move out. And they didn't want that. So they were willing to make a deal and make it work. They didn't want a lot of people coming through to for COVID. So she brought me that deal.
Starting point is 00:53:49 That's cool. Hey, maybe I want to take a quick side aside from the deal deep dive here to talk about something. I don't think we've ever. And I want to ask both of you this question of how do you deal, because I get this often. How do you deal with having multiple real estate agents? And so the reason why I say that, and this is why I want two perspectives here, Tamar and David, is it makes sense. If I had 100 agents out there looking for deals for me, that sounds awesome. But at the same time, like David as an agent, you probably are thinking, well, why am I going to work with you if you have 100 agents? So I'm curious of each of your perspective on that. Smar, how do you handle it? Do you have one agent you go to when you need something and everyone else just kind of knows about it?
Starting point is 00:54:24 How do you work that system? And then I'll fire that, David. That's a good question because I feel like there's a lot of agents that I'll reach out to and tell them what I'm looking for and they'll not really respond very much and not really follow up. So I can tell they're they just don't, they're not that invested in having a relationship with me. And some of those agents will follow up with me and they tend to get access to deals that they don't all get access to the same deal. So if you're just dealing with one, you really are missing out because Jim might be friends with Jane and she and if I'm not talking to Jim, Jane's going to give him the deal. And so I sort of need to, I feel like, I mean, if I was selling my house, I would have one agent. But on terms of buying, also, I mean, I can't have one agent for all of San Antonio or one agent for all of Austin. I mean, there's just too big of a territory. So that's kind of how I look at it. I think it's an amazing question.
Starting point is 00:55:16 And what it boils down to is what are you looking for from your agent? So the way that Tamara answered it, she's looking for a deal. Find me the deal. I'll do the rest. If that's the case, it's okay to have multiple agents. And it's basically first come, first serve. You find the deal. I'll buy it with you.
Starting point is 00:55:31 The minute, though, that it starts to blend into, hey, I want my agent to answer my question, to hold my hand, to talk me off the cliff, to give me resources, to analyze it for me, to get me a scope of work. It quickly, like, it's a slippery slope. And it turns into, I have a million questions and who am I going to ask but my agent? Now you've got three, four, five different people. And as an agent, I'm like, I'm not doing this with you. you if you're going to be asking me all these questions, but you're also working with five people.
Starting point is 00:55:58 So what we do on my team is you've got two options. You can go with the whole, I'll send you deals if you want it and we're going to represent you. You tell me, all right, the offer, we're not getting involved until that point. Or the way we prefer, which is we sign an exclusive agency deal and now you get me as like, for lack of better phrase, I'm not a lawyer, but it's more similar to a lawyer. You get to have conversations with me. We come up with a strategy. I help you with the emotional side of it.
Starting point is 00:56:22 I'll be much more engaged in what you're doing, getting into your head and helping you to become successful. So I think the danger is when you try to bleed those two things. I want all the service that I should be paying or I should have an exclusive agency deal. But I like all the freedom of being able to have five or six agents. And that works out very similar, I think, to how the rest of life works out when you're like, I want to date seven different people at a time. But I also want all of them to be completely committed to me. And that doesn't end of it. They know I'm sleeping with all of them.
Starting point is 00:56:52 Exactly. And you're going to get the effort of someone who knows they're just one of seven. They're not going to be there for you when you really need it. That's a good analogy. All right. That was good. All right. So let's go back to the deal deep dive then. The question was how much was the property? So it was 225,000. 225. All right. And David? Yeah. How did you negotiate that price? The realtor had come to me and she was representing both sides. So she had come up with that price. And I ran the comps and looked around and read. my numbers. And I thought it was a fair price for both of us. And the sellers were agreeable and I was
Starting point is 00:57:27 agreeable. So it was actually very easy. There wasn't a lot of negotiation. And it was off market. So it really wasn't, there wasn't a lot of competition because it was just us negotiating, which made it a lot easier. Yeah, for sure. How did you fund that property? I got a 30 year, put 25% down and I got a 30 year fixed at 2.99%. Wonderful. Now, once you bought it, what did you do with it? One of the agreements was that the sellers wanted to be able to live there so that they could find the other home that they really wanted and they wanted to take their time. So we did a lease back and we agreed again on that price and I was fine with it. And shortly after that, they found a place and now I'm renting it. And I have three days between them moving out and
Starting point is 00:58:14 the tenant moving in. So it was pretty amazing. No vacancy at all. And they're paying $250 more than the then the sellers were paying. Yeah, what's it rent for today? It's going to rent for $21.50. And I'm assuming the tenant pays their own water, sewer, garbage, electricity, that stuff. The tenant's going to pay for everything. That's great. So it's a really sweet deal.
Starting point is 00:58:36 And it's going to cash flow. And they signed a two-year lease. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, done. All right. Well, I guess that's kind of what was the outcome is basically that. And you got in San Antonio, which is a market that's clearly shrinking and no one's moving there right now.
Starting point is 00:58:49 and what did you learn from this deal? Like what was it overall? What did you learn from it? Now the joke, by the way, everyone. San Antonio is blowing up. Yeah, everyone's going to San Antonio. It's not like this is new. It's not like everybody's going to go to San Antonio and Austin to buy or anything.
Starting point is 00:59:05 Yeah, it's not like Texas is blowing up right now and everyone's fleeing California for Texas. David, when are you going to Texas? I'll be going to Texas probably early next year expanding into that area. Maybe even late this year if I get there quicker than I thought. Oh, really? Are you moving? No, I'm putting. David Green teams in different hot markets because so many Californians are leaving here and then
Starting point is 00:59:23 we have to go find them a house with where they're moving to. So we're looking to replicate our systems and put them in different states. There you go. You don't have state income tax. Do you have state income tax in Texas? No, no state taxes here. Property taxes are very high though. And that is something to consider property taxes are very high here. But I came from California, so nothing's that expensive. Yeah, California has high property taxes and high, which is why they love us so much in San Antonio when we move there and say what? It's only 275. I'll take two. Exactly. No, but that does bring up a really good point that sometimes people are looking at like, oh, wow, Texas is so cheap. You can buy a house for $200, you know, whatever, $200,000,000 and they don't realize your taxes are going to be $4,000 a
Starting point is 01:00:06 year. And then you look at like Hawaii and it costs a million dollars by a house. Yeah, but your taxes are like $1,000 a year. Like our property taxes are dirt cheap here. But we got 11% state income tax and that might even go up to like 18% they're talking. I'm like, It's like there's these different levers in different areas that you push and pull and different things make different things work. And so don't just take, again, go back to the don't take the blanket advice. Texas is great to invest. Don't invest in California. Like things like that.
Starting point is 01:00:31 Like you can find people successful and killing it in every single market in America. Everyone. You can find people doing well in real estate. So everywhere. And any time, any time, regardless of what the market's doing. There's always properties. There's always opportunities. There's condos that I'm buying in Hawaii right now.
Starting point is 01:00:47 We're closing on them in a couple of days. And when I tell people, the first question they always say is what's the HOAs. Yeah. This is a perfect example of that. Oh, like they're $5.50 a month and they just choke. You're paying $550 for an H.O.A. Yeah. But it's like, all right.
Starting point is 01:01:01 The taxes, though, like the Delta is less than what I'd pay for the same property in California, right? So there's a higher HOA fee, but there's so no taxes that it actually ends up being cheaper to pay that H. And insurance is like $25. You know, insurance like $25 a month? It's like nothing. That's exactly right. And that's because the HOAs are covering a lot of what an insurance normally covers. So you guys are both making a great point. You have to look at the big picture. You can't just
Starting point is 01:01:23 hear that one number and then freak out. Yeah. All right. Anyway, any other lessons from this deal? I know we kind of hijacked this deal deep time and covered a lot of stuff, but anything else that you can pull out and say this was important. I mean, this deal is just, you know, jump on any opportunity where the numbers work. And it's interesting because in my favorite book that I'll share, they talk about how you need to jump on deals. And it just, it just goes to show that when you see the numbers and they work, jump on it and get the deal. All right. Well, that was phenomenal.
Starting point is 01:01:52 Thank you for sharing. And now I think it's time to head over to our last segment of the show. It's time for our Famous Four. The Famous Four is a part of the show where we ask the same four questions every week to every guest. So tomorrow we're going to fire them at you right now. And I know you know it's coming. First question.
Starting point is 01:02:08 Favorite, either all-time favorite or current favorite real estate related book. The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller. and what a great author he is. Just such a great book. And he actually talks about that one deal that he lost. I don't know where it was, but he said he lost $100,000 because he didn't take the deal when somebody offered it to him. And from that day on, he learned always when you see the numbers and you see the deal works,
Starting point is 01:02:36 jump on that because it's not going to last long. Yeah, there you go. Love it. And that's being a good investor. That is a very good book. I like that book as well. It is well, well done. It's just not as good as any of the bigger pockets.
Starting point is 01:02:48 No, it's not as good as the bigger pockets books. It's no long distance real estate or burr, but, you know, I'm going to write the billion-dollar real-state investor, and it's going to be better. Yeah, we've got to get Gary on the show some time and we're going to talk about whose books better. It's going to be great. All right. What about your favorite business book? I'm going to go with Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. I know you had Dan on recently, and that's just such a, that's a great book.
Starting point is 01:03:15 When you, it really is a mind shift when you think about who can do this, not how do I do it. And for me, it was, it was just a game changer. That is a phenomenal book. I find myself saying that who not how at least 10 times a day. Like, it's just that phrase reminds me like, yeah, that's right. Who's going to do this? And do you find that now that you're thinking like that, you have a really hard time with people who don't think that way and you're trying to now get them to.
Starting point is 01:03:42 Yeah, yeah. I'm constantly pushing people like, are you sure you should be the one doing this? Yeah, like, and everyone's like, well, of course, I'd be, well, shouldn't I be, shouldn't I be doing that? I'm like, I don't know, should you? And then they're like, I don't know. It's great. It's one of my favorite gifts to gift. All right.
Starting point is 01:03:56 Next question. What are some of your hobbies? So we love to travel and I'm a huge adventure seeker. So I'll go anywhere anytime. I've been taking up paddle boarding in Austin because we can do that really easily. And we bike ride and play ping pong. Josh Dorkan has been begging me to. to come to his house. He lives like six blocks for me.
Starting point is 01:04:18 Begging me to come to his house to play ping pong with him. Oh, it's so fun. You got to do it. Yeah, he probably plays all day long. It's great. He does. That's the thing. He's doing the same to me. And now I realize why he's been practicing nonstop and he knows he's good. And that's why he's asking him to go over and play golf or something he never does. Yeah. It's like that scene in Forrest Gump. Yeah. Yes, that's Josh is going to gump us. That's why he's asking us to come over. Yeah, that's funny. True story. I just read the
Starting point is 01:04:45 online the other day, so it might not be true. But apparently in Forrest Gump, when they filmed, like, in that movie, somebody says, don't take your eye off the ball. And so for the next like three minutes of that movie, Forrest Gump's eyes are never off the ball, no matter what, in that scene, like any scene with ping pong, his eyes are always glued to it no matter where it goes.
Starting point is 01:05:02 So a little, uh, movie random fact that does nothing for your life right there. That's our new segment of the show. Movie facts that do nothing for your life. Part 75. Was that the reading rainbow? Is that what that was? It kind of sounded like I was making up a theme song, but apparently I still reading rainbows.
Starting point is 01:05:19 That's terrible. Brought it back, man. Yeah, okay. Last question from me, what do you think separates successful real estate investors from all those who give up, fail, or never get started? That's a good one. So a friend of mine, interestingly enough, just gave me a scenario that I think defines perfectly what I think about this.
Starting point is 01:05:39 So she told me about, she's a realtor in Georgia. And she said, I had this client, a new client. and I found a property for $65,000, they would have to put $30,000 rehab into it, and the RV was 150. And I was going to manage it for them and take care of any, I was going to manage the rehab, too, and I was going to manage the property. And they asked her, tell me everything that can go wrong with the property. Tell me everything that can go wrong.
Starting point is 01:06:08 And in the end, she did, and they didn't buy it. And so I really think that the thing that stops people is, that gap from knowing and not knowing. We've talked about it today, too. It's that uncomfortable feeling that you need to take a risk in order to get to the other side. And I just think that we're just so inclined to knowing and to comfort and we don't want to get uncomfortable. And so when you're willing to get uncomfortable, then you're going to see a lot of things moving for you. That is so good. That's one of those rewind the last 30 seconds to listen to that again because it was gold. Tamar, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's been fantastic.
Starting point is 01:06:45 all I'll like David ask the final question. Last question of the day. Tomorrow, where can people find out more about you? Yes. They can find out about me at Wealth Warrior Woman, W-O-M-A-N on Instagram, or hello at Wealth Warrior Woman. And if they want to find out about GoBundance, they can look at GoBundancewomen.com.
Starting point is 01:07:06 Awesome. Well, thank you very much. This is fantastic. I definitely encourage people to go check out those links and follow you everywhere you're at. And, of course, people can jump into the show notes at biggerpockets.com. slash show 458, ask questions there. Or if you're watching this on YouTube right now, you can leave questions and comments in the comments section below
Starting point is 01:07:21 with all the other trolls that like to hang her on YouTube. And that's probably that's it. Hit up tomorrow on Instagram or wherever you can find her. Thanks. Thank you very much, Tamara. Great job. Thanks so much. This is great. Thanks. This is David Green for Brandon. Turner, signing up.
Starting point is 01:07:39 You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors, large, small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the height, 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. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave.
Starting point is 01:08:15 Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calicoe Content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.