BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 984: Pay Off Student Loans or Invest in Real Estate: Which Makes You Wealthier?
Episode Date: July 8, 2024Should you pay off student loans or invest in real estate? This is the question Tom Keating had to ask himself back in 2018. At the time, he had no real estate investing experience and only picked up ...The Book on Rental Property Investing by chance. He still had student loans but decided to spend his savings (which could have made him debt-free) on the down payment for his first rental property. Now, just six years later, Tom has an entire real estate portfolio of passive and active investments and is free from his W2! If you’ve got some form of debt—student loans, credit card debt, medical debt, etc.—you might think you can’t invest in real estate, but you’d be wrong. In today’s episode, Tom breaks down the simple equation you can use to figure out whether you should pay off your debt or invest. Tom took the path less traveled, and now, he’s benefiting from it, being able to go anywhere in the world, live where he wants, and control his schedule. Tom also shares a simple yet unbelievably valuable way to find the hottest real estate markets and areas to buy rental properties. The best part? The data he uses is FREE, and you can copy his same strategy to get cash flow, appreciation, or a bit of both! In This Episode We Cover Whether to pay off student loans or invest and the simple calculation you can use to decide The super simple way to find hot real estate investing areas with appreciation potential Quitting your W2 job and becoming a full-time real estate investor, even with a small portfolio How to diversify your real estate portfolio with both passive and active investments Why Tom invests across multiple states (and strategies) instead of drilling down on one area And So Much More! Links from the Show Join BiggerPockets for FREE Property Manager Finder Find Investor-Friendly Lenders See Dave at BPCON2024 in Cancun! Find Your Next Investing Market with BiggerPockets Market Finder Grab “The Book on Rental Property Investing” Should I Pay Off My Student Loan or Invest in Real Estate? (00:00) Intro (01:41) Serial Side Hustler (05:29) Buying His First Duplex (06:57) Invest vs. Pay Off Debt (12:42) Tom’s Portfolio (14:40) Investing in Multiple Markets (20:01) Finding Hot Investing Areas (26:08) Working Less, Making More Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-984 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email advertise@biggerpockets.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
According to U.S. Census data, about 43 million Americans have outstanding federal student loan debt.
That's about 13% of the U.S. population.
And when you factor in other types of consumer debt, whether it's credit card debt or
auto loan debt, Americans, generally speaking, have a lot of debt.
And for some, this feels like a major obstacle when getting started investing in real estate or
just buying a primary home.
And there's no one-size-fits-all answer to this. Some people think that you should pay off your debt before you invest in real estate.
Other people think the opposite. They should invest and use your profits to pay off your debt.
And while there's no right answer, there are some tips and tricks you can use to figure out what's right for you.
And today, we're going to talk to a guest who has done these calculations for himself.
And he's going to share with you his story about how he got started investing in real estate, even with student loan debt.
Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. I'm Dave Meyer. Today, we're talking with investor Tom Keating. And in our conversation, we're going to focus a lot on how Tom got started investing in real estate just a couple of years ago, even when he had student loan debt. And he's going to share with you why he still has student loan debt, even six years into his successful investing career, and why he thinks that this might make sense for a lot of other investors out there.
and Tom is also going to share with us a pretty cool system that he is developed for picking markets to invest in.
Tom has a lot to share, so let's bring them up.
Tom, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
Happy to be here.
Before we start talking real estate, I want to hear a little bit about your overall business experience.
What was your first foray into entrepreneurship?
So I actually grew up not that far from a golf course.
I get off the school bus at the end of the school day.
I'd drop off my books because who needs those.
And I'd grab my backpack and I'd go back out to the woods surrounding the golf course.
And I'd pick up some golf balls.
I'd throw them in my backpack and I'd take them home and clean them, sort them, grade them.
And then set up a stand or go on eBay and sell them back to the golfers.
So that was kind of my first foray into entrepreneurship.
I love it.
It's just pure profit, right?
You're just taking something that you find for free and max profit.
Is that right?
That's exactly right.
Very, very low overhead.
Great. And did that sort of set you on a path towards future entrepreneurial endeavors?
Yeah, absolutely. In college, I tried out a meat delivery business delivering cold cuts to local delis. That failed.
But studied business in college and eventually found real estate, which is my true passion.
I feel the best way to get into entrepreneurship.
I don't know if you know this about me, Tom, but my Instagram account is called the Data Deli because I love sandwiches and I love cold cuts.
So just tell me a little bit more about this business that failed.
Yeah.
So I got a van and I went and picked up a bunch of coal cuts and I would go down around to different delis and restaurants in the area, knowing that they sold frozen foods.
And I would sell it to them.
And then they would actually cook them there, prepare them there, and sell them to the end user.
So it was a tough business to get into.
Don't get me wrong.
And I was certainly going into some sketchy areas to sell the product.
But it taught me a lot about customer relationships, not being afraid to be told no.
I certainly look back on it as a positive experience for sure.
That's so true of entrepreneurship, even the ones that fail.
I've started businesses that fail for sure.
And you learn just as much or more from those types of businesses.
And so I think just trying something and having that entrepreneurial spirit really is beneficial to you for the long-term career,
especially when you get into real estate investing.
But after college, what did you do after college?
You went into finance?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
So I graduated college and I ended up going to work for a bank.
I was a leadership program, so I got exposure to different areas of the bank, which was a great
opportunity to start and kind of learn a little bit about debt, right, and loans.
So that was my first job at a college.
So how did you go from working in finance at a bank to becoming a real estate investor?
So when I was working at M&T Bank, I thought I wanted to be some sort of bank executive and climb up
the corporate ladder.
So every day I would leave the office and I'd go to the local Barnes & Noble or the local
library and I just sit in the business section and read different books. And one day I picked up a book.
I was Brandon Turner's book, actually, the book on rental property investing. And I picked it up and I
started reading and he mentioned the Bigger Pockets podcast. So I started listening to that every day when I would
go to the gym or drive to and from work. And I was like, wow, this real estate thing is really cool.
Three months later, I had my first property under contract. So that was kind of my transition from banking
to real estate. But you picked up the book before you even knew about real estate investing?
That's exactly right. Yeah, it was sitting in the business section. It was right on display. I would pick up different books. Didn't really know what I was picking up. I was just like, hey, I want to learn about business. I'm passionate about business. So it turned out that it was his book that was on the shelf that day. And he recommended the podcast. And I'm so thankful for it, really.
I love that. I mean, that's not the usual story we hear. Usually people, you know, hear about the podcast or picked up Rich Dad Poor Dad, maybe. But I love hearing that you found one of our books first and then came to the podcast. That's a cool story.
So what year was this?
This was back.
I had graduated college the year prior was about 2018.
Okay.
So you're in 2018.
You find Brandon's book.
And from that, you go to the podcast.
And you said within three months of picking up the book, you had a property under contract.
Tell us how you did that so quickly.
I started looking around.
Fortunately, that first year at the bank, as I mentioned, it was a leadership program.
I was traveling a decent amount for work.
and I was living at home when I wasn't traveling for work.
So it allowed me to save up a small amount of money.
And I was like, okay, let me go house hack.
Let me go find a property to live in one unit and rent out the other.
Unfortunately, I found a property that worked from a cash flow perspective,
but it didn't probably work from a personal lifestyle perspective.
It wasn't the neighborhood I wanted to live in.
So I decided to buy it putting 20% down, 80% finance,
and just rent out both sides.
And one of the benefits of that was I got to keep my FHA loan
or my owner-occupied loan, so I was able to use that later on.
I mean, it sounds like a great deal.
It sounds like you thought it through really quickly.
Did you have any hesitations before pulling the trigger on this first deal?
Oh, it was so nerve-wracking.
Everyone around me told me how risky it was.
It was terrifying.
Don't get me wrong.
And to this day, anytime I go close on a property, I still do get nervous.
We all do, Tom.
Whoever said, anyone who says otherwise is probably lying, or at least for me, it's true, too.
Yeah, no, it was definitely.
a stressful experience, but I'm certainly happy I did it now. That first property is one of the best
investments I ever made. Okay, so now we know how Tom found real estate, but how did he build up the
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Welcome back, investors.
I'm here with Tom Keating.
Let's jump back in.
I understand that when you were getting into this, you still had some significant student loan debt at the time.
So how did you make that decision?
You know, you're saying it felt risky or nervous.
Did the fact that you had other outstanding debt,
factor into your decision at all? Yeah. So my thought process behind that, and luckily I did have
that good finance background, was my student loan interest rate was, I think, about four or five
percent. And when I calculated the cash on cash return of that very first duplex, it was coming in
at 10 percent plus, right? So my theory was I could get a 10 percent return here or pay four percent
here. So the spread would be, I guess, the benefit to me, in addition to things like appreciation
and principal paydown as well. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if the, if the, if the,
The cash on cash return by itself is greater than the interest you're going to be paying.
That one seems logical.
But tell me a little bit about the scale here.
Was the down payment or at least the cash that you had to put into this deal enough that
you could have cleared out all of your student loan debt?
Oh, it was more than that, for sure.
Didn't some part of you?
I mean, I probably would have made the same decision, to be honest.
But I just want to know, like, did some part of you just want to wipe out that debt and sort of
be clear from that? Yeah, I was definitely a little bit concerned about the debt as anybody would be.
But I wanted to stay logical and realize that the end goal here is to increase my overall
net worth and protect my future and save for retirement. So I ultimately decided that this was the
best decision and decided to go ahead and start my for a raise into real estate.
I imagine that this is a question that a lot of people in our audience have, whether they're making
their first investment or subsequent investments, most Americans carry some sort of debt.
whether it's student debt, credit card debt,
card debt, whatever it is.
So given your background in finance,
can you tell us a little bit step by step tactically?
Like, how did you make this evaluation
and think through what the best use of your capital was
given the fact that you wanted to be in real estate,
but you did have some existing debt?
I would say the biggest thing for me
was knowing the interest rate on the debt that I am carrying, right?
If you have credit card debt that's maybe at a 20% interest rate,
it might make more sense to pay that off first.
However, if you have student loan debt, that's at 4%,
and you're going to get higher than 4% with your real estate investments,
maybe it makes sense to go ahead and start your foray into real estate.
Yeah, let me just explain this sort of with some numbers here for everyone listening.
Just imagine you had a nice round number like $100,000 to invest,
and you had that amount in debt.
If your interest rate, like Tom's was, let's just say, 4% on that $100,000,
you would be paying $4,000 per year in interest to the bank.
That's not something you generally want to do.
But if you were able to get a cash-on-cash return of 10%, like Tom's,
you would be earning $10,000 per year on that $100,000.
And so in theory, you could pay off that $4,000 in interest to the bank,
plus profit at additional $6,000 per year,
not to mention the Amher,
the appreciation, the tax benefits. And so that is why it made sense for Tom at that time.
And it's a calculation that I think hopefully most people who find themselves in the situation
can make for themselves. But Tom, you know, 2018 was a different time. So I'm curious, like,
has your thinking about this changed? One, because cash flow is harder to find now than it was
six years ago, and interest rates on student loans or most forms of debt have gone up.
Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's different things you have to take into account in today's
environment, right? Maybe you could find a single family home, as I've done, and convert it into
a duplex, right? The rental income on that single family home might not be high enough to cover
your mortgage tax insurance and maybe some repairs. But if you convert it into a duplex and you're
now collecting two rents, even if each of them is just slightly lower, the total rental income there
could be a little bit higher. Things like adding bedrooms on student rentals, sometimes students charge
per bedroom. You got to get a little bit creative. But if you're willing to dig deep and do some work
and research, I think it could definitely be done. Yeah, that's great point. I'm curious at top,
like, given these changing dynamics, like, have you paid off your student debt? Do you still have it?
I still have some of the low interest rate debt, yeah. Okay. All right. It just doesn't make sense
to completely pay at all. Nice. So have you basically just stayed on the plan,
you were on from right out of college and continue to just like pay as agreed or did you
accelerate at any point did you accelerate the payoff of your student loans?
Yeah.
So I think you have to take it day by day and you have to understand what the best opportunities
are at any given time.
For me, real estate has always provided the strongest return amongst my portfolio,
whether that's stocks, paying off debt or other investments.
So I've continued to invest in real estate given the low interest.
rate on my debt. Got it. Very cool. Well, I respect the fact how much analysis you put into this.
And really thinking about resource allocation, this is so important for real estate investors,
is there is an opportunity cost in everything you do, whether it's paying off debt,
taking on debt, making one investment versus another one sitting on the sidelines.
And Tom gives us a great example here of how you can do really, honestly, pretty simple math
to figure out what are wise decisions, what are data-driven decisions you can make about how to
allocate capital within your portfolio. So thanks for sharing that, Tom. Fast forward to today,
you know, six years later, what does your portfolio look like? So I have some super small
multifamily in New York, Cipsy and Albany, as well as Florida, and actually just recently
made my first acquisition in Charlotte, North Carolina. And then outside the active stuff,
I do have some passive investments and things like self-storage, campgrounds, and obviously
multifamily as well. Okay. Let's stick into that. But what is super small multifamily? Do you just
mean a duplex? Or is it physically a tiny unit? No, it's physically they're a decent size. I would call
them an average apartment. I do mean those two to four unit properties for the most part, for sure.
Okay. So we're talking about residential multifamily here and just for everyone listening.
Anything under four units is considered residential. Everything above that is commercial. But so
correct me from Rock, but you said you started in upstate New York near Albany. Then you went to
somewhere in Florida. That's exactly right. Yeah, I had moved down there for a job and bought a single
family home there. Okay. And now you're in Charlotte. Are you still working full-time, by the way?
No, so that's actually the reason I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. So I was able to leave my full-time job
in Florida. And then my plan was to go stay in Airbnb's. Go stay for a month here. I was going to go to
Dallas. I was going to go to different cities across the country and just travel and explore and see
what city was best for me because now I have the ability to work from anywhere with with Wi-Fi and a
cell phone and my laptop. It turned out that I came to Charlotte and I loved it so much. I never actually
continued on that journey, but I do plan on doing that at some point in the future. Nice. Very,
cool. And so you fell in love with Charlotte or did you know you wanted to invest there prior to going to
visit? Yeah, I mean, Charlotte is one of the areas in the southeast. I've been on an incredible
real estate run recently. The rent growth has been strong. Appreciation has been strong. But I think the
biggest reason I'm here in Charlotte is because I have friends and family here that I really enjoy
and the lifestyle is good for me personally. And I'm curious about your approach because this is a
common question or challenge that people face. It's like, should you double down or just like keep
investing steadily in a single market, which is what a lot of people do with a lot of success.
It seems like you're doing a bit more of a diversification play. You have somewhere in the
northeast, you have Florida, you have North Carolina now. Where are your passive investments,
by the way? Yeah. So the great thing about the passive investments is you don't really have to
be local to it. It doesn't really matter where they are. The most important thing is that you trust
the operator and the deal looks good from a financial perspective. Those are in primarily the
Southeast United States, Florida, North Carolina. Yeah, mostly the southeast.
And so why did you decide to sort of spread your capital and your investments among multiple
markets? Yeah. I think of it as it's diversification, right? Just like in your stock portfolio,
you don't want to have 100% of your investments, your 401k and one individual company, right?
You want to diversify that. So I'd like to do that with my real estate portfolio as well.
Investing in different markets, investing in different asset classes, I think are important for your
total investment portfolio. And how do you sort of come up with the right balance, right?
Because I would imagine that the return profile and characteristics of a place like Albany,
which I hear great things about, never been, but I hear great things about. And somewhere like
Florida are probably pretty different. Like I'm just going off the top of my head. So if I'm
wrong here, please correct me. But I would imagine Albany is somewhat more affordable, more of a
cash flow-centric kind of place, whereas Florida a little bit more expensive. I don't know where in
Florida you are. But more, generally, Florida is more expensive, high appreciation potential.
So, like, are you doing that on purpose? Yeah, absolutely. So you hit it on the head, right?
In Albanyac could get strong cash on cash returns, but the odds of those properties are going to
increase in value significantly are not very high. And you also have higher maintenance costs, right?
Oftentimes the buildings are 100 years old. When you move to places like North Carolina and Florida,
it's more of an appreciation play.
The trends all show that people are moving from the northeast, from California to the smile, right?
To cities, if you look at the United States map, you could see a smile at the bottom.
It goes from Phoenix and Denver down to Texas and then up through the southeast to United States.
And that's where people are moving.
So the trends also that rents are increasing there.
The population is increasing there.
And that's good for real estate.
So different play.
One's an appreciation play.
One's a cash flow play for sure.
Yeah, it's kind of similar to what I do personally.
I started investing in Denver, which is a high appreciation market.
Recently, it's been pretty tough to find deals that pencil in Denver for my particular strategy,
which is passive, not passive, but more turnkey.
You'll do like cosmetic rehabs, but I'm not doing big, heavy value add things from afar.
And now I'm sort of trying to balance that out with a market that I started investing in recently
in the Midwest, because it still is solid appreciation potential.
It's a good market, good population growth.
But it offers cash flow MLS deals.
So I think that that, to me, creates that kind of diversification.
It sounds like we sort of think about this similarly, like that we want to, you know,
try different types of markets that have different types of profiles.
Yeah, 100%.
And it sounds like you go even further, Tom, and that you're looking at different asset classes.
So it seems like your direct ownership, mostly small multifamily, residential multifamily.
When you talk about your passive deals, is that still housing, like multifamily?
Are you into other types of commercial real estate?
Yeah, I would say it's a majority multifamily and then self-storage as well.
And then interestingly enough, I have one investment in campgrounds as well.
So I try to diversify from that perspective as well.
I think the most important thing is I know who you're working with and who you're investing
with and as long as you trust them, that's the most important, most important. Just like in the
duplex and the triplexes, it's super important to know your realtor, know your property managers
because ultimately real estate is a game of relationships and trust. So if you find good people
to work with, you're going to be doing okay. Yeah, I would imagine that people listening to this
are thinking that in some ways you're diversifying, you're doing different asset classes.
And the general wisdom is that diversification mitigates risk in investing.
But in real estate, it's a little different because real estate in many senses is entrepreneurship.
You have to run and operate businesses in each of these places.
So do you think it is mitigating risk or is it exposing you to some additional risk by doing all these different types of strategies?
Yeah.
It's hard to become an expert in a lot of.
of different things. I definitely understand that perspective for sure. So if you're partnering with
right people who are experts, that's one thing. I will say working in different markets makes it
difficult to have a hands-on, like have a hands-on approach, right? I definitely getting started,
I would focus on one specific market because then you could understand what your rents are going
to be, who your best person is for maintenance and repairs. Getting started out, I would focus on one
market, know it like the back of your hand, and then go from there as you grow your portfolio in the
years to come. Okay, we have to take one more quick break, but stick around. We'll hear Tom's foolproof
method for choosing a location for both cash flow and appreciation right after this.
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Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast.
Let's pick up where we left off.
All right.
That's great advice.
Tom, can you maybe drill down for us and give us an example of how you've done this,
maybe with your most recent property in North Carolina?
Like, how did you figure out where are you on?
wanted a bike, given that you were, it sounds like relatively new to the area. Yeah, absolutely. I moved to
Charlotte and I didn't know where my local grocery store was. I didn't know anything about the
area. So one of the things that we did was create an overlay map, right? So with all the new development
coming into those cities we talked about in the smile, Charlotte being one of them, is development
causes home values around the development to go up. So if someone's building a brand new shopping
center or if someone's building a large multifamily apartment building with a couple hundred units,
the value of those properties around it are going to increase.
Another thing that causes property values to increase would be transportation services,
so like a train, a light rail, something like that.
So we created an overlay map that shows all the development coming into Charlotte, North Carolina,
and then tried to buy properties that are within that area that all the developers are building.
When you say we created an overlay map, I would imagine a lot of people don't know what that means.
So first of all, who's we? Is it just you? Do you have a team?
Yeah, great question. So that was my intern.
He is way better than technology than I am.
I could barely open up Microsoft Office.
So he was able to kind of create an aerial view, like picture a helicopter going up in the sky
and taking a picture of the land below it.
And he saw all the parcel lines and was able to put it on a map where all the development
was coming.
And I said, okay, well, this seems like where all the developers are buying.
This is the area that's going to have the most appreciation.
Why don't we buy there?
This resonates with me personally.
This is the type of stuff I love doing.
I used to do this kind of thing in Denver.
They were building out light rails.
all these different developments.
I would go to community meetings to learn about where the government was investing.
And I wasn't super sophisticated, not like some GIS architect making these maps.
But I would just like sort of sketch them out and be able to do that and just sort of look into that.
But I just forever listening, I understand not everyone is going to go and do that.
And if you do want to just sort of get background information about good markets and places where you can invest,
and learn a little bit about it.
Bigger Pockets does have a market finding tool that will give you background information
on all of the biggest metro areas.
Actually, all of the metro areas in the United States.
So if you wanted to just go into Charlotte, learn about what's going on in Charlotte,
like what strategies work there, what things are doing there.
You can absolutely do that.
Go to BiggerPockets.com slash markets.
You can do that for free.
And then if you want to drill down more and get real nerdy with it like Tom and I sometimes
do, then you can kind of.
go from there. So that makes sense, sort of like what you were doing with this map. But how did you
find that data? How do you find where developers are building and where did you get the source
material for this map system you created? Yeah, absolutely. So there's a couple different places that
you could go. I would say the first and most easiest thing to do is call your local planning and
zoning office, right? If you don't know how to find them, you could probably find it on your local
county or city's website. They're happy to talk to you. They're happy to answer the phone and tell you
Either how you can find the information or just tell you a little bit about the development there.
That would be my first suggestion.
Everyone, please listen to what Tom just said.
Honestly, local governments and local business organizations have so much information.
If I'm investing in a new syndication or in a market where I'm going to buy directly,
first things I do is, yes, go to the government website to see what kind of programs they have,
what kind of – sometimes they have incentives for people or they have different –
opportunity funds, and even if you're not eligible for them, you can see where money is starting
to flow in a city. I also always subscribe if they have like a business journal or a chamber of
commis to their newsletter. I pay for the subscriptions a lot of the time just to know like what
businesses are doing, where investments, where businesses are closing, you know, that information
is not something you can really readily Google, you know, it's not something that's just like
black and white binary yes or no. But it's just basic.
reading and research that you can do that will tell you so much about a particular market,
even if you're not at the level where you're going to be creating your own maps,
it still will inform your understanding of this market and help you figure out within a
market what neighborhoods you may want to invest in. All right. So Tom, have you done this model
in other markets or is this in North Carolina was the first time he did this? I had done it in a
previous job, but I had never done it for myself. So this was a first and it was a great
experience, honestly. Okay. And how long ago was this? This was within the last two or three months.
Okay. So probably too early to tell if the system is working. Yeah. So the reason I decided to do this was actually
because there's other markets within the Southeast United States who other developers have developed.
And it has caused appreciation in those markets. The home that I bought here, a similar home,
was purchased in a neighborhood that the same developers built just a couple years prior in other markets.
And those properties have seen those appreciations. So hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll see similar things
in this neighborhood within Charlotte.
And once you had this map built out,
I imagine that there wasn't like one X marks the spot,
precise location where you wanted to buy.
I'm sort of like imagining you have this like court board up there,
like all the police TV shows where like the red lines are all going around,
like beautiful mine thing going on.
Like how did you pick once you had everything spotted out?
Was it then just like, okay,
we've narrowed down neighborhoods and now we're going to just find the best deal
that we can within one of these five neighborhoods or whatever?
Yeah.
So I think what you've got to do,
especially if you're local, is get in your car and go driving.
So once you've identified which neighborhood and just start driving around, see what's there.
Boots on the ground are huge.
And I try to spend a few hours each week just driving the neighborhoods, seeing what opportunities may come about.
Sometimes you may see a for sale sign somewhere.
Sometimes you can go back and try to figure out using a website called Polaris,
who actually owns that property.
And you can find their contact information as well.
And you can reach out directly that way.
Nice.
Classic driving for dollars to find the good deals that way.
So Tom, sounds like you're happy in North Carolina right now, but you're fresh into a full-time real estate investing career.
It sounds like you've got a lot of flexibility.
What do you think comes next for you?
Ooh, that's a great question.
I think I love what I do.
I want to continue to build this real estate business.
One thing I would love to do and scale to in five years is to be a little bit more hands-off, right?
Bring on someone who could help with more of the day-to-day property management issues that come up,
some of the posting units online to even become more passive so I could be traveling the world
or on a cruise somewhere without Wi-Fi completely unplug and not be involved in the day-to-day
of the business. Well, that brings up another question. How many hours a week are you working
on your real estate business? Yeah. So the short answer is it depends. There's some weeks that I'm
working 40, 50 hours looking for new deals, trying to deal with tenant headaches, maybe a hot water
heater just went out. And I'm trying to get someone in there to fix that. And then there's other
weeks where just a month or two ago I went to Hawaii and I completely unplugged for all but maybe
10 hours and then just really focused on the tasks that were absolutely necessary. So the great thing
about doing this full time is you create your own schedule and you just have to keep yourself motivated
and work hard. But if you do it the right way, you could be flexible and you'll never miss a game
that you want to go to or a concert that you want to go to. So it's the best decision I ever made was
doing this full time. Well, great. Congratulations to you, Tom. And thank you so much for sharing your
story and all of your advice with us here today.
For anyone who wants to connect with Tom, learn more about what he's doing.
We will put a link to his Bigger Pockets profile in the show notes below.
Tom, thanks again and best of luck to you.
Thank you, Dave.
Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast.
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