Epic Real Estate Investing - I Quit My Corporate Job to Become a Full Time Turnkey Investor | 687

Episode Date: June 18, 2019

Our today’s guest decided to give up on his career in corporate America and become a turnkey investor. Tune in and learn how he realized that real estate is the right path for him, how he manages his properties out of state, and why math is the key when it comes to turnkey investing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's your old buddy Matt here, and I've got a great show for you today. Thank you for listening, by the way. And before I forget, if you like the sound of the idea of finding more off-market real estate deals, and you want to go deeper with that, you might like to attend the live three-day Epic Intensive Lead Machine Workshop. It's in Manhattan Beach, California, July 18th through the 20th. If that sounds even remotely interesting, then head on over to Epicintensive.com and get the deets, epicintensive.com. All righty? What I like best about the epicentive,

The intensive was, there's so many things. There's so many, I mean, seriously, there's so many things. I think one of the things that I kind of can grab a hold of is that what we learned here this last few days is we can actually apply immediately when we get home. It's not something that we have to wait or do anything else. It's like we actually have the tools now to actually go home and apply them. And I learn that, and I'm very excited to go home and do that. Hi, Matt.

Thank you so much. This weekend or the last three days have been completely explode in my mind. I appreciate you. I appreciate Mercedes. I appreciate your staff. I'm overwhelmed with information, and I can't wait to apply everything that I learned. and I appreciate you sharing. So thank you.

Bottom of heart. This is Terrio Media. So you want to be a real estate investor, but you don't want to do the work. If there were only a way where someone else could do it for you, now there is. Tune in here each and every Tuesday

on the epic real estate investing show for Turnkey Tuesdays with your host Mercedes-Tores. Hello and welcome. Welcome to Turnkey Tuesday brought to you by Epic Real Estate. My name is Mercedes Torres, the turnkey girl, and I am lucky enough to be partners in crime with Mr. Matt Terrio, the guy who created the epic real estate investing empire. For my new listeners, welcome to our show. We created this show for busy people, busy professionals

just like you who understand the importance of real estate, just don't have the time or the desire to learn every single nuance there is about real estate investing. So on this show, we dive into creating a real estate investor out of you while we do all the work for you and you learn while we're doing that process for you. For my old listeners and those of you chiming in once again, welcome back, my friends, so great to see you again. So on today's show, I have a real treat for. you. I invited an individual to our show to share his turnkey journey with us because his journey

is quite unique. More importantly, it's really new. He's only been doing this for about eight months and he already has seven turnkey properties. Now, the need part of his journey is that Chris was a full-time corporate America leader and had his job and was at this company, I believe, for more than 10 years. So he let go of a six-figure income to become a full-time real estate investor just last year, eight months ago. And so the neat part of this whole ordeal of when I asked him, why did you do it? How did you make the dive? And he said it was the math.

He realized that doing what he was doing in corporate America was not going to provide him the retirement and the lifestyle that he was envisioning for himself and his family. He's 51 years old and he traded his corporate American. a six-figure income to become a full-fledged real estate investor. And he started his journey with Turnkey Real Estate Investing. So without further ado, allow me to introduce my friend and client, Chris. Chris, are you there? I'm here and you sound great. Awesome.

So Chris, how are you? Welcome to Turnkey Tuesdays. Thank you very much. I'm doing good. Everything as well. Very cool. I decided to invite you on our show because you are, and can take this as a compliment, please, a very unique breed. But after I started thinking about what you've done, I not only admire what you've done when it comes to real estate investing, I realize that you are that one person that says you're going to do it and then you go out and do it.

So I hear a lot of people and I talk to a lot of people that say they're going to do something. And then four years later, I talked to them and they are in the same exact predicament that they were when I first spoke to them. So I invited you on the show because you are different. And I love that different part of you. And I know it's going to make all the difference in the world for you. So I would love if you introduced yourself and tell us a little bit of a little bit of, about you so that we can dive into your story, your journey of turnkey real estate investing, and that you can fill us with your experience in real estate investing, because I know it's

been a really short ride for you. So do introduce you. Okay, great. Thank you. So I am married to a beautiful wife. I have three beautiful teenage children and live in the West Palm Beach, Florida area. I've been here for about 30 years and working mostly in IT, project management, business development, and dabbling in real estate on the side until last year when I dove in full-time. Awesome, awesome. And so when you dove in full-time last year, I love that. So tell me about that journey, that decision, because I remember us speaking, you were in, you were a very high, level in your corporate job, if you will. And now you just mentioned that you are doing real estate full time. So share with me about that. Sure. So, I mean, there's the dive in point took place

after a lot of years of dabbling. So if you want me to go back a little bit further, where I started in real estate, then it might make sense in the context. So I bought my first house in 2000. It was near the beach. And I moved into it. And at that time, I read a little purple book about passive income, not buying your own house, and basically building a big rental portfolio. And I believed it. I agreed with it. I thought it was a great idea, but I loved my house and I loved where I was and I loved my job. And I pretty much kept the thoughts on the side. But after a couple of years, I decided to make the move and I turned the house into a duplex, rented out both units, and moved out and bought another house. it was kind of hard to do because I loved living there. But in the next house I bought, it was not in a great neighborhood, but it was up and coming.

I bought that house with a 401k that I cashed out, which wasn't common wisdom, and moved into it, fixed it up, sold it for a pretty good profit right before the bubble burst. I got what I call stupid lucky. I didn't know what the bubble was doing, but that went well, went into another house. And then at the time when the bubble burst, I was in a good position. I had just sold a couple of homes and I sat out. At that time, I dug into my career. I was getting certifications.

Basically, you know, knowing that I wanted to get into real estate again, but not sure when the time would be. And it was something more of a side hustle for me. I had managed my own properties and done the rehab work with my own two hands in my spare time. but I made the decision at that point to just go deep into the career. So I started working at a company in 2006. It was a dental company. I'd been in that industry for a while. And that company was about to take off and grow.

So I started studying project management, which is basically the use of a lot of checklists, managing people and keeping a lot of things going at the same time, which was a good training ground for me. And when I joined the company in 2006, we had nine offices. When I left last year, we had 63. And I had built those. So it was a good prep for full-time real estate.

Wow. That's amazing. So let me ask you something. You said, I thought about real estate and I kept those thoughts on the side. So first of all, when you were in corporate America and you were thinking about real estate, estate. What made you think about real estate? The math. It doesn't work. The old school formula of getting up, grinding it out, putting money in your 401k, and maybe when you retire, if the stock markets at an up cycle, you'll be okay if you're willing to live on 40% of your previous income,

and if you don't live too long. And the real aha moment for me came at one time several years ago. I was looking at my 401k. I locked into it. And I turned it on and it said, you are on track to retire with 40% of your income provided that you invest $14,137 a month. And I kind of rolled back in my chair. And I'd like to say I laughed,

but I thought it's not going to happen. I didn't make $14,000 a month. I definitely couldn't put that into my 401K. and I went through a lot of struggles with stock market. So when I started investing in my 401K and IRAs and in the stock market, it was in the spring of 2008, which is right before everything went off a cliff. So I was intrigued. I wanted to learn more about that.

I needed to understand how to pick stocks or how to pick index funds and how these equities markets work. Because I was under the belief that the way you retire is with a big, Wall Street portfolio. So I was reading books, I was listening to podcasts, I was devouring everything I could on investing for retirement. And while the stock market was going through its gyrations, I remember in the summer of 2008 basically obsessing trying to learn so I could get it right. And then one day I was sitting on my couch.

It was a Sunday morning. My kids were around me trying to get me to do stuff. and I had books on index funds and things. And I said, no, no, no, I'll be ready in a while. I got to watch this interview. And on TV were two PhD economists who were debating directions of different equities in the market. And at that point, a spring kind of broke in my head where I realized I have kids that want to spend time with me. Two PhDs who are both smarter about this stuff than I will ever be disagree with each other.

Who am I to figure this out? I'm never going to get it right. And then when I could see that my portfolio wasn't headed where it needed to be, I realized that I have to get back on that passive income track. I have to do it a different way. I'll never be able to save up enough money to have a, you know, quote,'s retirement that's the lifestyle I want unless, you know, I work until I'm 80 and live until I'm 100. So at that point, I reread the little purple book. and decided it was time to start digging back into real estate again. Wow, that's crazy. So, you know, you did mention that you were living in your primary residence and then, you know, you got rid of that. You hated leaving it because you really loved that home. And then you sold a property and you got stupid lucky. Tell me what your definition of stupid lucky was.

And why did you get stupid lucky? What were you depending on that that was luck for you? Well, our bubble in Florida burst a little earlier than everywhere else. It burst in the end of 2005. When Hurricane Wilma came through, it decimated the housing inventory down here. And I had just sold the primary residence, the duplex by the beach I had sold. The other one I moved into and I fixed up I had sold. And stupid lucky means I sold them a month before the hurricane at top dollar.

For an example, one of the ones. ones that I sold, I bought for 112. I put 12,000 in my own work into it, and I sold it a year later for 201. About two years after that, I drove by that house, and it had a sign in the garage, so I called, and it was listed for 62. So the person I sold it to didn't do very well. And it just shows you what kind of a swing we had in the market where I live. I do remember those times. I was heavily involved in real estate at that time. Awesome. So fast forward, you just one day decided, okay, I need to buy real estate. I don't know what I'm doing. How did you end up deciding turnkey was the route for you? Well, the first thing I did at that point was I converted my IRAs

out of the stock market and into self-directed. I thought that would be smart because there'd been several good years in the stock market and even my 401k. It was worth it to me to pay the 10% penalty and the taxes because I was just giving back a year's worth of growth. And when I put that money into my self-directed IRA, the next thing I started doing was hunting locally for the best return on investments I could get. And this is about 2013, 2014. I ended up buying small condominiums in the $40,000 range that were renting $750 range. So it was a pretty good return on investment.

there's HOAs. We have very expensive insurance and property taxes here, but they still cash flowed nicely. And I held on to those for a couple of years until they doubled in value. So by early 2017, they were worth 80,000 and still renting for 700, 725, 750. So the return on equity wasn't really good. And it was at that time that I started to learn about, you know, live where you want to live and invest where it makes sense. And I learned about that through podcasts and through reading, through networking. And at that time, I decided to start looking for another market. And I did that. I started searching the different cities, looking at different providers, looking at property managers and in 2017 I decided to settle on Alabama. Awesome. So tell me about you live in Florida

and then you did your own research and now that I know you Chris I know that you are a researcher. I know you do a lot of studies. I know you do a lot of inquiring. What made you choose Birmingham, Alabama? It is one of my favorite markets. It is a lucrative market. It is a like you, I live in Los Angeles, California, you live in Florida. So why Alabama? And did it ever cross your mind? Well, how am I going to manage these properties living in Florida? Sure.

I knew I'd be able to manage them because the last couple of years, I hired a professional manager here. My job was so demanding and my wife's job was so demanding that I didn't want to deal with the tenants or the leasing anymore. I'd done that and I knew what that. take out of me. So I knew that if I could pay a property manager in my hometown, I could pay a property manager in Alabama. That wasn't a concern. The bigger question to me was, would I get a good property manager, were there good ones there, and would I get good prices on the houses

and good returns? So the reason I chose Alabama is all the key factors that go into cash flow and growth. So first of all, you know, there's a dozen or so common cities or more popular cities for turnkey. And I looked at most of those and, you know, I'd see different things that didn't quite work right for me. And, you know, I don't want to knock one city or another, but some would have a greater crime rate or some would have not so good schools or the taxes would be too high. The insurance would be too high. All the different factors that go into landlord favorable laws. So, generally speaking, in a state that has income tax, the property taxes are usually lower. So Florida doesn't. We do not have income tax. We have very high property taxes. So it's a great

combination for me who does not pay state income tax to own a house in a state that does collect state income tax. And you get the best of both worlds. Alabama has great press. to rent ratios. It has great property management. You can still buy at the 1%. It has good turnkey providers. It's not terribly far away. I have to get on a plane to get there. But it just seemed to me like out of all of the different cities that I looked at, it wasn't as late in the party as it was in some of the other cities. The prices hadn't run all the way back up to the pre-bubble levels and I just found it to be very easy. I found it to work out well. Yeah. So how did you make the jump from you doing it all yourself, you being Mr.

of corporate America with the first full-time job? How did you decide, okay, I'm going to do turnkey, even if you had done all the work yourself? And why did you decide? Because I knew my limitations. What I was doing, at the time I made that change was basically building dental practices out of the area I lived in. So while living in West Palm Beach, I was going to Miami, Orlando, and Atlanta, running around with commercial real estate brokers, finding property, mostly retail property, negotiating 10-year commercial leases. And then I was doing design work with architects and hiring general contractors to do these build-downs.

that were about a half million dollars each. And I was doing five to eight projects at the same time, not counting feeding the pipeline for the future business. And with the ability to do that, I knew there was no way that I was going to buy a property and rehab it in another town. I could do what I just described because I had the expertise and the team and the resources, but when it would come to a single-family rental, I knew that the only way to do that was to pay somebody to do it for me.

And so you were used to paying discounted prices in Florida. What had to happen in your mind for you to pay retail prices in a market that you have to jump on a plane to go see your property? Yeah, with difficulty. It was a real struggle to me because, you know, as a value-ad-minded investor, which we all should be, is buy low, sell high. It's always the golden rule. And, you know, when you get something at a good price and you put some value into it and now it's worth a higher price, you've got what you call forced equity. And I was doing that with the properties that I bought before. So it was hard for me when I started looking at the turnkey properties, you know, if a property was $80,000 or $100,000,

and I would look at what are the other house. I mean, even if you go on Zillow, it'll say similar houses in this area and show you, and they're much less money. And it went against my nature. It took me a long time to get over that and to figure out how to make sense out of that because it seemed like if I pay the price that this turnkey provider wants, I'm not going to have any additional equity over my down payment. and if I have to sell this house in six months, I might lose money.

What if I have a family emergency and I needed to unload it? Am I going to get even my closing costs back or am I going to lose money? And that was what held me back for a while because it just didn't make sense. And it seemed like I had to find a way to buy things for less than top of the market. And when I capitulate, here's your next answer to the next question. When I capitulated to that was when I realized I can't compare a house that has a new roof, new systems, everything rebuilt, everything completely down to the sheetrock, basically, repair, renewed, rebuilt, and on top of the market, I am getting a good price when I look at the condition of what I'm getting. When you look at the recent sales, you're not looking at rehab houses. You're looking at average houses or outdated houses or old furnaces and old roofs or even just average is below a turnkey.

So I had to get that process to where I got comfortable with the idea of paying full price, but getting full value for it. And it's not about, is this the top of the market? It's about, is this house worth this price? And the answer was yes. It made sense for me. So I had a townhouse here in Florida at that point. We moved about six years ago. And when we did, we kept a townhouse and rented it out.

And we actually moved into a house that we were renting. We were buying condominiums, but we were still renting out our townhouse. And when I did that, it was a $125,000 townhouse, and it rented for $1,200 a month. And there was an HOA fee on there, so it wasn't the best cash flow in the world. But on paper, it looked like it should have made money. After the first year, my tenant moved out. After the second year, my tenant moved out, bought their own house. After the third year, my tenant got married and moved out.

In four years, I went through four tenants, all for great reasons. But every time, I had turnover costs and I had new leasing fees. And at the four-year point, we had lost $3,000 every day. year on that house. So that was what fueled me to think, okay, out of state investing. Turnkey, how can I make this work? The good news is that house went from 125 up to 190 in value. So at that point, I said to my wife, let's sell it and let's reallocate the equity into Alabama. And that's what we did. I love it. I love it. You know, Chris, the reason I asked, you the specific question of, you know, how did you make the mind shift of buying properties,

you know, $20,000, $30,000 in your own backyard and you doing all the work yourself to paying full retail in another market? And, you know, you yourself said, I'm getting a house with, you know, updated roofs and updated plumbing and everything pretty much brand new and rent ready. you just switched your mindset. Instead of looking at a glass half empty, you looked at it half full. And oftentimes that's what's required to make that leap. You know, I speak to so many people in the same predicament as you,

and they just don't know how to get over that hump. And it's really just a matter of assessing what you're getting for the value and for the price that you're paying. And many times I have the conversations with our investors, look, the bank is putting a value on the property that you're buying. So a turnkey cannot oversell it to you. The bank sends an appraiser to appraise your property to really confirm what it's worth. So I love, Chris, that you did that all on your own, you know, for however long it took you, but you got there. And that's a really big deal because so many people get stuck for years on that same topic. And their 401K keeps sitting there doing nothing. And their IRA does absolutely nothing for

them. And then you decided to do something different. You decided to take your IRA, you self-directed you paid the penalty, you paid taxes. I like to call on pluses and minuses. And then you made a mind shift within your family because it was you and your wife. And the fact that you did that has now brought you to turnkey investing. So share with me, Chris. How many turnkey properties do you own now? So right now I have seven properties that are already rented out.

four of those I bought from turnkey providers before I went in full time. The other three I bought from other investors. That includes a duplex and a fourplex. I have five other houses that I'm acquiring right now, which will be long-term holds that I'm rehabbing up to turnkey for myself. Oh my God, I absolutely love it. So let's talk about the turnkey. When you started looking into turnkey,

how did you dive into them? What was your due diligence process like and how did you make a decision? Because there are turnkey properties out there and there are turnkey companies. Everyone's a little bit different. But how is your assessment and your interview process? Well, it started with picking the market, which we talked about. The next thing I wanted to know was what kind of property management I would have available. and I went to Montgomery, Huntsville, and Birmingham. I found great property management in Birmingham. Not so great in Huntsville, not many providers there. And not too many in Montgomery, but I did find a great one.

So Huntsville is a great market. Don't get me wrong, but a couple of years ago, my sense was that if two or three property managers went out of business, there'd be a struggle. So I stayed focused on Birmingham and Montgomery at the time. After the property managers, I start looking at neighborhoods, and then after the neighborhoods, I start looking at the individual houses. And, you know, once I'm looking at houses, at that point, I like to do my own pro forma's.

I try to be more conservative. You know, things in pro forma's, they need to deliver, or, you know, you either made a mistake or something unexpected happened. And I didn't want to make a mistake with my numbers. So, for example, a common one is, if you look at a. pro forma from a turnkey provider, they'll show you a number for taxes. Well, if that house was owned by a homesteaded person last year, those taxes are going to be a lot less than they are next year when it's in your LLC and when you had a new purchase price. So you want to estimate your

tax is very high compared to what you see. I'll often triple that number. The property management, you need to get clear if there's leasing fees or releasing fees, sometimes after a year, they'll charge you for renewing a tenant who hasn't moved out. Sometimes, you know, if you have a vacancy, you have to factor that in. So instead of just a one-year pro forma, I try to do a three-year pro forma. And I look at, you know, what I think would be appropriate for repair reserves. If I'm buying a house that's been completely rehabbed, I don't need to put quite as much into repair reserves as if I'm buying a house from another investor. and I know there will be some repairs in the first few years.

So after going through the numbers like that, it comes back down to the math. And to back up a little bit, comparing that to the 401K, there were many years when I would get to the end of the year and look at the balance in my 401K, and it's not that much different than it was a year ago, even though I had been putting money in every single paycheck and, you know, kind of sacrificing present life value, quality for every single paycheck. And to get to the end of the year and see that, it's heartbreaking.

If you do this in real estate and you take that same approach, well, you've got your cash flow. Even if you don't appreciate in a year, you've still got that cash flow. And that's what you calculate based on. You don't expect the appreciation. You can hope for it, though. But the cash flow just keeps that growing. And that's the reason why I think that real estate is such a better alternative. So I do my own pro forma, I do my own analysis. I don't go look inside every property first. I basically, I want to get really, really clear on rental comps. So I will go into Zillow and different rental platforms as if I were going to rent a house

and find out how many are available, what's the vacancy rate, what are they really going for? Again, you have to compare the quality of the house to what you're seeing and the listing. I look at recent sales, not just list prices. And I get myself to the point where I say, okay, I'm paying top of the market, but I've got a great product. I'm in the right neighborhood. And it's funny how you can do that. And you'll still have different investors out there who say don't buy turnkey. One of the things I've had fun with in the past, for example, is bigger pockets.

It was a great platform. but there's a lot of blogs and a lot of slamming of buying turkey there. And to those people, I basically say, have you ever eaten in a restaurant? And they usually blink. And I say, think about it. When you go to a restaurant, you're paying so much more than you would at grocery store. You could make that meal at home for a quarter or a half as much money. Why in the world would you go to a restaurant?

or why would you have a beer in a bar when you can buy a six-pack for the same price at 7-11, right? It's the value. It's back to what we were talking about earlier. You pay somebody to do something for you that you can't provide for yourself as long as it's still a good value. So I make sure that I have that value in the property that I'm looking at, that I'm confident in the rental. I'm confident in a renewal. And once I see all the pieces are together, it's time to stop things. thinking. You know, when you know what your target is and your targets in front of you,

you shoot it. You don't keep staring at it. And that's the difference. It's like knowledge without action is not knowledge. So you get clear on what you want. You find it. You recognize it. You take it. And that's what's worked for me. So well said. I cannot add anything to that because you have said it perfectly. You know, I will say, Chris, you are an exception to the and I said that at the very beginning because you're one of the few investors that literally fly to the market and walk the streets. I mean, less than 1% of my turnkey investors actually do that. Most of them don't have the desire to do that. That's why they hire me.

And a lot of them just don't really have the time to do that or can't take the time off the work. So we do that virtually for a lot of our clients. But the one thing I make all of my clients do is understanding their pro forma's and really crunching their own numbers. You know, we provide a pro forma and my pro forma is extremely conservative. But I always want my clients to know their own numbers. And I preach this all the time on our podcast. know your numbers, know what's important to you. Some of my clients really need the cash flow. Other clients of mine, they really need the tax deductions. And the one thing that has really set you

apart, Chris, and has excelled or allowed you to excel your real estate investing career so rapidly has been that you are always crystal clear on your numbers. And for me, that has made all the difference in the world. And I think it's done the same for you. So thank you for sharing that because people need to really understand. Even if your number is, I need to buy one property that cash flows $150 a month. And I do that every year. That's good enough. As long as you know that one number and you've got that one goal, that one target, it will make a world of difference. So having said all of that, Chris, what would you say has been your biggest challenge in making the transition from corporate America to now a full-time real estate investor? And I will say, you sound extremely humble, but you were a very well-paid executive in your company.

and I don't want to dive into details that you don't want to share. But there was a reason that you made the transition. And I'm sure that it was challenging. So what was the biggest challenge in that? And then what has been the biggest eye-opening experience in turnkey? So let's start with your challenge. I was on the W-2 salary for over a decade, you know, direct deposit twice a month,

auto deductions for investment, right? 401k. And I always felt like an entrepreneur who was kind of stuck in this employee clothing. And the problem I had was that I loved the security and the stability. But what made it really hard to go was knowing that once I let go of that, there was no coming back. I mean, I'm sure I'd be hired back, but I felt like the camaraderie of working with other professionals was something I really valued. Being valued by my coworkers was a big rewarding thing. I was in a company, not a giant one, we had 800 employees, but I was the longest running employee there. So I was asked a lot of questions, and I was jokingly called the chief historical officer. and I had a lot of the answers to things that people didn't know because of the time I'd spent there helping build the company up.

And, you know, we'd been through a couple of rounds of private equity investment, stock options had cashed in. I had a lot of fully vested options in addition to my income that I left behind. And when I did that, it was in September. It was actually the day that I negotiated my exit package was the same day I spoke to Matt, the very first time about coming to your ACE program. And it was funny because he asked me, how do you feel? And I said, I'm a little terrified, but I'm also sure that this is the right time and the right thing to do. And the reason, again, is math.

At 51 years old last year, I could see that I was just not on a road to having the kind of financial independence that I would want for use of the word. retirement that I would want. And I used to go through this routine where every morning I would get out of bed, my wife and I would make our bed together, and I would say, we get up and go to work every day so that one day we don't have to. And it became this mantra. And I realized how negative that was and how terrible that was that you're making a sacrifice to go somewhere and do something you'd rather not do.

And then when you combine that with the fact that that road, is really not leading to where you're hoping it is and you face that reality. You are not going to retire on your 401k. I mean, you can go into any corporate America and go into the cafeteria and say, who here has a million dollars in their 401k? And nobody does. And you can ask a big crowd at a conference, who knows somebody with a million dollars in their 401k? And nobody does. And the truth is a million dollars in a 401k is not going to get you there. Because a little known secret is when you're taking that money out, you know, the whole philosophy of while you defer the taxes for the future when you'll

be in a lower tax bracket, I don't want to be in a lower tax bracket when I'm retired. And what could is it when it's still earned income? Do you know, I mean, if you take that same money and invested it in a taxable account and bought the exact same funds, that's not going to be taxed. Those gains aren't taxes earned income like your 401k distributions are. By using the 401k, you're not only, you know, not getting the amount that you need over time, but you're locking yourself into the highest forms tax there is. You're better off, in most cases, doing that in a taxable portfolio, but real estate is really the nirvana. Because with real estate, you know, you,

you have five different ways that you get paid. You have your cash flow. You have your appreciation. You have depreciation. You have a hedge against inflation. There's nothing that I've found that's a better vehicle. So I know I went in a couple directions on you there. But the question about how did I leave that corporate role,

it's because I was paying attention. I stopped keeping my head in the sand on where, our retirement was headed. And when I finally got my head out of the sand and started saying, what are the vehicles that I can go on? It was to start out with buying a couple of turnkeys a year. Awesome. Thanks for sharing. So you did mention something that was a little off subject, but you mentioned it and you perked my ears. And you were one of the individuals that were lucky enough to work directly with Matt.

in his REI ACE program. And you did get to work side by side with Matt in our office, in our space, and he coached you for quite some time. So briefly tell me about that experience and how that has impacted your business in working with Matt Terrio himself. I mean, did you really get to work with him? Was it really him that was helping you with your deals? Tell me about that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, basically when I decided that I was going to do this full time, the next thing I wanted to do was find a boot camp or some kind of an accelerator,

a program where I could go through some advanced training and get up and running much quicker. My goal was not to have to go out there and figure out where am I going to get a website. I don't like websites. Where am I going to get on Twitter? I don't want to tweet. You know, where am I going to get my lead machine from? And how am I going to go on appointments when I'm 800 miles away and get these deals with these distressed sellers?

And I was driving an hour each way to work and spending an hour at the gym each day, listening to three hours of podcasts every single day, not counting weekends and evenings with books. And with all of the different podcasters out there, I started asking different people. and saying, what boot camp do you recommend? What do you recommend? What would you do in my situation? And I looked at several of them. And when I started looking at the REI ACE, which is Matt's program, I knew that that was the one that I wanted to do. And the reason was because it was very, very how-to. Mindset is, you know, the first level. But after that, a lot of the others, you know, everything that you sign up for is kind of hyper,

to get you to buy into the next level. And some of them have a lot of negative reviews. I could not find, for the life of me, a single negative review about Matt Terrio or Epic Real Estate, no matter how hard I tried. I started calling a few different, very well-known podcasters that I've been on their podcasts before. And this is where I came.

And it was because what RIA says is basically, the whole business has been built. The lead machine, the websites, the mailings, how to capture the incoming phone calls, scheduling the appointments, project management for the rehabs. The whole thing is there. It's kind of like if I want to buy a car in a kit

and put the kit together and take all winter, or if somebody builds the car for me and says, here, sit down, straps me and shows me how to use it and pushes me out the door. And that's what RIA Ace was. I can tell you that the money that I spent on that was earned back plus another 25% on the first house I bought and sold, the very first one. That's the goal, yeah.

And you got to work with Matt himself. Correct, correct. I went out to L.A. spent three days there with Matt and his team. If you remember, that was when there were the fires in L.A. Yeah, and, you know, it was all day long, every day, lots of questions. Matt is a mentor to me, and you are a mentor to me, and the availability is always there. Anytime I have questions and guides, Matt puts out more content than anybody I know.

So, you know, we interact regularly through the Facebook groups, through Voxer, through the different programs. And it's funny, you know, I see that this one-time investment that I made in that ACE program, it kind of catapulted me up to full speed right out the door. And I've been going at full speed ever since, where if I had not done that, I wouldn't have had that kind of immediate results and immediate profit. And I wouldn't have had, you know, that type of guidance and mentorship. So if anybody wanted to talk to me about ACE, I'd be. more than happy too. Oh, that's so, that's so kind of you. That is our goal, Chris. Our goal is to work

alongside our clients, where they become longtime friends as you have personally experienced. And really to get you to catapult your real estate investing future to what it, what you want it to be. So when, you know, our clients and our students come to us, our goal is just to make the best version of you in the real estate investing world. So I think you've captured that just fine, Chris. All right, buddy. So my last question to you is going to be, what advice would you give a new investor who is really considering, you know, buying and holding or really considering doing this full time or or even considering working with me or Matt? What advice would you give up? If it's for your first property, my advice would be start with mindset.

If you have not read, rich dad, poor dad, read it. You can do it in a weekend. And limit yourself to how long you're going to study and learn because you can become a conference junkie and never do anything. Set in mind, what is it that you need to know? And then buy a house. Just buy a house. I am absolutely honored, sir. Thank you so much.

Chris, you have been a wealth of information. Our interview has gone on a little longer that I like to have our interviews because I like to chop them in a couple of pieces. But you gave such valuable information to our listeners that I know you are going to touch the hearts, the minds. and just the financial sense of it. I know you're going to rattle some cages. And I always say the whole reason I do this podcast is to make a difference in your financial future. So, Chris, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you.

I love that you are an epic family member. You started off as a potential client. And now you're like running your own. shop, so to speak, and I am honored that I got to be a part of that journey. So thank you for your time, sir. Have a great day. Thank you for letting me into the family. You are part of the family. To our listeners, come and join our family if you want more information on being connected with us or about what we're doing for your financial future. Go to cashflow savvy.com. That's savvy with 2Vs, reach out to me. You can send me an email or download the frustrated investors' guide to

passive income. My email is Mercedes at epicrealestate.com. And I will see you on the next episode of Turnkey Tuesdays. Have a great day, guys. Your portfolio has seen better days. But this too shall pass. And the best for you is yet to come. Together, we'll get you there faster. We're cash flow savvy and we'd like to share some information with you that will show you how you can take control of your financial future and accelerate its arrival go to cashflow savvy.com more building less waiting cashflow savvy dot com this podcast is a part of the c suite radio network for more top business podcasts visit c dash sweet radio dot com