Epic Real Estate Investing - Justin Wilhelm and Investing Out-of-State | Episode 112

Episode Date: June 30, 2014

Taking the first step and getting out-of-state real estate to produce cash flow. ------------------------- Download Matt's free real estate investing course "How to Do Deals | No Money Required" at��FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com or text FreeCourse to 55678 "Click" what interests you most:  Education Properties Income  Coaching Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

podcasting from Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. Hello and welcome. Welcome to another episode of Epic Real Estate Investing. If this is your first time, listen to the show, welcome. Super happy that you're here. If this is not your first time, welcome back. As you may know or may not know, this is the place where I teach people how to escape the rat race by investing in real estate. And you see, this is how it happened.

I changed one thing, just one time, and I escaped the rat race forever. You see, what that thing that I changed was, I changed my focus. I changed my focus from making piles of cash to making streams of cash. And that, right there, that's what changed my life forever. And just, I'm in a place now where no longer do I work for money, my money works for me. You know, and if I had to do it all over again, if I had to start from scratch, if I were to venture out on this journey again, I would do it the exact same way. I wouldn't change a thing.

that goes whether, you know, whether I had money to work with or not. Because, you know, while I was finding my way, I stumbled upon 12 different strategies of investing in real estate with little to no money. And in hindsight, you know, being forced to start that way, I believe it made me a better investor. And I'm here to make you a better investor as well. If you are willing, if you are open, you know, everything that I share here is just one way of doing it.

I mean, there's millions of ways to make a millions of bucks in real estate. And I'm just sharing with you how I did it. it. And I believe because I got started the way I got started, it just made me, you know, better than the average. Certainly there are investors out there that are far more successful than I am. I'm not claiming to know it all, but, you know, it worked for me. And if you want to, you know, stay tuned here and follow down this journey, I'd be more than happy to show you exactly how I did it. And to get you started, what I did is I put together the two strategies, the two of the 12 strategies that I used, the two easiest, and I think the fastest strategies to a paycheck in real estate,

I've put them into a free course just for you, and you can access that free course at free real estate investing course.com. Go get it there. It's whole and complete. No strings attached. No purchase necessary. Nothing like that. It's just a complete course. Okay?

And it shows you those two easy, fast strategies to a paycheck. And I emphasize easy and fast that that's relatively speaking. They are the easiest and fastest. This is real estate investing is work. It's not easy and it's not fast, but it is easier. than probably anything else out there if, you know, aspiring to great wealth is a goal of yours. And, you know, I guess working 40, 50 years for someone else that would make this fast, faster. So go to free real estate investing course.com and that course is yours, all right?

So if you're listening via your smartphone and you just can't wait to get to your computer, you can access that free course also by texting free course to 55678. Free course, all one word, text that to 55678. Okay, I got a great show for you today. I got two really quick announcements. Coming up July 31st, our next Grub and Grow Rich event that will be in St. Louis. Our last event was an absolute smash, standing room only. And, you know, I got to meet a bunch of podcast listeners, a bunch of Epic Pro Academy members,

a bunch of cash flow savvy customers. And even had a few people just moseying on from the restaurant. They just decided to come in and check it out because they wanted to chat real estate. So that was very cool. So the next Grub and Grow Rich event is July 31st. You can go to Grub and Grow Rich.com to get some more. information and reserve your seat grub and grow rich.com. And last announcement, our next cash flow savvy tour will run concurrently in St. Louis

that will go right in alignment with the grub and grow rich event. So both the grub and grow rich people and the cash flow savvy tour people will come together the night of the 31st for a cash flow workshop and a happy hour event. And then the following morning, the cash flow savvy tour participants will hop on a bus with my team, will tour the city, will drive by some of our before property, some of of our properties in the midst of rehab, some of our finished properties, and then we'll have lunch, always my favorite part, the eating of these tours. And I'll introduce you to the entire team. I'll answer your questions and then we'll meet again for dinner to talk more cashful,

savvy, or really anything real estate for that matter, if you haven't had enough of me by then. But really, it's a very casual environment. You get to meet my team, you get to see how I run my operation, and we get to know each other a whole lot better. And if that interests you, go to Epic Real Estate Tour.com for more information there, and reserve your seat, Epic, estate tour.com. Okidoc. Lots of domain names there, as you know. You can always go to the show notes, and they will all be listed there for you, for your convenience, and you can find those at epic real estate.com. Okay, so the meat of the show, let's get down to it. Our guest today is a long-time podcast listener. He's an Epic Pro Academy member, and he just closed escrow on his first investment

property. And he agreed to come in and sit down with me to share his experience. So without further ado, please help me welcome Mr. Justin Wilhelm to the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast. Justin, welcome to the show. Hi, Matt. Honored to be here. Yeah, I'm glad to have you here as well. So let's get started by, you know, kind of how we always get started. That's just start at the beginning and we'll work our way up to the present and ask you a bunch of questions and just answer freely, okay? Sounds good. Great. So tell me about your background. Okay. Growing up, my father was an entrepreneur. He's had several businesses and both my parents were involved in Amway way back in the day. So I kind of grew up around motivational tapes and, you know, Zig-Zegler and all of those

people. Right. It's a good way to grow up, actually. Yeah, it wasn't too bad. I used to actually kind of enjoy listening to them from a young age. Mercedes the other day was commenting about how your son listens to your podcast, and it kind of made me laugh because I grew up listening to Amway tapes. He grew up listening to you. It's a good start. He does just randomly blurt out cash flow. Kind of funny. That's great. So growing up, I knew that I wanted to work for myself. I didn't necessarily want to have a boss, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I got into Pepperdine and went to Pepperdine for business administration, and I figured that a degree in business would at least be useful somewhere down the road. When I was in Pepperdine, I had one professor who kind of changed the way I looked at money.

He explained the future value of money, present value of money, compounding and all of that. And I think he was actually the one who recommended that I read, of course, rich dad, poor dad. Right. The book that started it all for everybody. Right. And so I read that and it kind of changed the way I looked at houses, at assets, and et cetera, et cetera. So I started reading more. I at one point looked into getting my real estate license but kind of decided that wasn't something I wanted to do.

I ended up, I knew that I wanted to buy a house and I was kind of waiting, holding my time and waiting for my career to start. Making excuses, basically. But about a little over two years ago, I actually became a police officer. and went to the academy and bought my first house in June of 2012 while in the academy and was able to buy at probably at a pretty good time in the market. I think I've already gone up about $70,000 in equity in the last two years. You're here in California, right? Here in California, yeah, in the north part of L.A.

So I was able to buy with an FHA loan. I put less than $10,000 down. And since then, I've been renting out. I bought a four-bedroom house specifically so that I could rent. out the other rooms in my house and help to cash flow my house, help pay my mortgage. And then, you know, while I was doing that, I was looking at, after I did that, a buddy and I were looking at investing in California, but, you know, we're looking at investing out in Riverside County where we grew up and the numbers just weren't making sense out there.

So I looked at tax liens out in Vegas for a little bit, but there just weren't that many available. And I kind of gave up for a little while. A friend of mine suggested that I start listening to your podcast, started listening to it and really like the idea of cash flow savvy. That's a good friend. I know. He's a good buddy. I should buy him a beer. He's going to listen to this and text me saying I owe him a beer.

But so I like the idea of cash flow savvy. I like that you had a team in place already in the market. And that took a lot of the stress out of me, you know, stumbling along the way I could kind of learn for or, you know, take the advantage of you guys having our. already learned from your mistakes and not have to make those mistakes on my own. So I put my money that I had saved up and bought a house with cash flow savvy. Sweet. Well, thank you for your business. Yeah, you're welcome. And, you know, the one thing, one thing I wanted to bring you on on the show for was that you were probably the most diligent person in pursuing, or not pursuing us, but investigating us. Maybe it comes from what you do for a living. But you did a lot of question asking,

and I imagine you did a lot of research behind the scenes that we didn't even know about. Is that accurate? I did. You know, I actually almost thought this is too good to be true. You know, this is too simple. I thought, you know, when I got your investor package, it was, I'm not saying it was content lacking, but most things that you go through when you're buying a house or whatever else you're doing in California, you get stacks and stacks of paperwork.

You know, four trees are killed for you to make your deal. Right. And so I just, I thought it was too easy. So I did, I did my research. I, you know, scoured Google looking for anything anyone had to say that was bad about you. And, you know, I'd been listening to your podcast and you mentioned several times in your podcast that you, you know, were up for meeting up with people who wanted to talk to you, grab a beer. So I knew that you lived in the area. So I emailed you about grabbing a beer and you were, you know, very, very open to that.

And we met up. And more than anything, I just wanted to get a feel for you in person. And like you said, I was trying to do my due diligence, but I couldn't find anything. Couldn't find anything bad. That's good. Nothing but a good experience. I hid all that stuff well then.

I need to learn how to Google better. Right. No. Super. So you've decided to take the plunge. What was the big, I guess, turning point? You tried a little bit on your own. You went out and you looked at the tax stuff, the tax lien auctions in Vegas, and you're

out with your buddy looking around. What was it that really stopped you then? What caused you to take a break? I got a little discouraged because we were looking out in Riverside County and this is an area that we both knew really well. We grew up there. And, you know, we both had thought that we had to buy with with our money and our credit. So between the two of us, we thought that we could kind of hedge our bets and, you know, be guaranteed to cover this property if we didn't have somebody to cover the mortgage if we didn't have somebody in there to rent. But, you know, we were looking at the numbers and the numbers weren't that great. The margins weren't that great. But, but. But we, at the time, I didn't really think, I thought to look outside of state, outside of this state, but I thought I was doing it on my own. So it was, it just kind of seemed more like a daunting task. You know, and as we were looking out in Riverside, the prices of properties kept going up. And eventually we just got, we got priced out of our price point. Investors were buying up all the properties. And we weren't able to, we weren't able to really, at some point, we just weren't able to even find any properties. The emails from our MLS from our agent just stopped coming. And we, you know, we just weren't able to look out there anymore. Right. How long ago was that?

That would have been in 2013, I think. About a year after I bought my place. And that was the only way that you were really looking for properties was having an agent send you stuff? Out in Riverside, yeah. You know, because that's kind of what I was thinking at the time. I mean, I knew about wholesaling and flipping properties and stuff, but not having had to explain to me, it wasn't really something that I wanted to undertake. And it kind of just seemed like this distant thing. that people with money did.

I didn't really know that much about it. Got it. Yeah, 2000. That's probably about the time when all the inventory was starting to dry up here in the South California. There was nothing.

We watched it. Yeah, you saw it. You were right in the middle of it. Well, cool. So you took a break for a second. Yep. And then you decided to give it another shot. What happened there?

Well, I'm 28 right now, nearing 29, and it was kind of always a goal of mine to have done this long before 30. And, you know, I just keep seeing my, not that 30 is old or anything, but it was a personal goal. And I keep seeing 30 getting closer and closer,

and all I had done was by my house. And, you know, yeah, I have roommates in my house helps make me some money. They almost pay the mortgage, so I was building equity for free, essentially. Right. And, you know, I got more than my $10,000 of investment back in the first year easily.

But I was looking at, you know, watching my 30th birthday come closer and closer and I still hadn't done anything. And I knew what I wanted to do and I kept learning more and more. and my goal got more and more defined, but I just hadn't taken action. And, you know, I finally, I was listening to your podcast,

listened to some of the, you know, some of the stories about cash flow savvy, and it made sense. It was a way for me to, you know, I'd worked hard to save up the money to invest and to put as down payment. It made sense for me to put that money to work. It wasn't doing anything for me in the CD

that was earning 0.08 or 0.09 interest. 0.09, that's a good one. Yeah. Very good. So the clock was ticking. Your 30th birthday was getting closer and, you know, we crossed past at the right time. Yeah. And I finally decided one day that I had had enough. I don't remember exactly which podcast I was listening to. But I was driving to work and I finally just, I had enough. So when I got to work, I emailed, submitted my email to Cashlow Savvy for you guys to call me and you guys called me, I think like literally the next morning. And we, you know, we talked about it. Went from there. and the process went pretty quickly. Super. So, was there anything, you know, part of this process that you were a little bit nervous about

or that you didn't know about, like, particularly investing out of state, I think? Yeah, investing out of state, I was a little nervous, not being able to see the property, not being able to go there, not being able to, I mean, your guys' team works so great. It was almost like a lot of the problems that I would have normally faced buying the house myself I didn't face and it almost just seemed too easy. You know, so it was a little bit. bit of a leap of faith and trust, but I'm glad I did it. It worked out. It was, it was better, so much better that it happened that way that I had to, you know, have a leap of faith rather than

having to be bombarded constantly by problems and, you know, having to go through all the hassles that real estate investment can be. Super. Which market did you purchase your property in? I bought in a suburb south of Cleveland. It's called Garfield Heights. Garfield Heights. Got it. When did you close on that? We closed. I believe it was May 19th. In 19th, cool. Yeah. So it's, oh, you should be getting your first check any day. Yeah.

Because that was just almost 30 days. So there you go. So I wish we should have talked after because I would like to talk to people after they receive their money. That's good. Super. So you've done that. Looking back, is there anything that you thought of it? I mean, I guess you kind of said it.

And I don't want to make you repeat it. But, you know, is there anything? I guess just looking back that was like, oh, well, why did I, why was I scared of that? or why did I wait so long, that type of reaction? Yeah, looking back, I just, I kept making excuses. You know, when I was looking to buy my house that I have now, I kept saying, well, I'd like to have a job. I'd like that security.

And I'd like to have my career. I had a job, obviously. I made good money, but I didn't have my career. It wasn't what I wanted to do. Looking at investing, I was half-heartedly trying, but I didn't really go into it. I didn't really focus completely on it. Just kept making excuses.

And really, once I stopped making those excuses and just did, it started rolling, the ball started rolling a lot faster. Right. And I ask you that question because, you know, I interview cash flow savvy clients. The interview kind of comes out sounding like a commercial for cash flow savvy. But I noticed that what really, you know, whether they go out, when an investor goes out and does it all themselves, or they go out and they have a turnkey operation, do it for them, the challenges are kind of the same as far as they're all mental. They're in your head. Like, I was making excuses.

I was putting it off. And, you know, I wasn't unsure about that, I'm sure about this. And so that's the kind of what I'm trying to pull out. Because I really want people, whether they use our service, or they use someone else's service, or they go out and they do it on their own. I just want them to understand that there's nothing to be afraid of. And every person I've ever had on this show, once they talk about, you know, once they got that first deal under their belt, they look back and like, gosh,

I wish I wouldn't have waited so long. There was nothing to be afraid of. It was like, it was. And so that's just, was that your experience? Yes? Yeah, definitely. There's just a great fear of the unknown. but, you know, like people say, there's no courage without fear.

It's understandable that to be afraid, but you just have to take that first step and actually do it. Right. Right. And if you mess it up, it's not the end of the world. Yeah. You know, what's even more scary than doing your deal, though, is looking 10, 20 years down the road. That's why my goal was 30 is I was looking down the road. I was looking at my family members, my friends who were in their 50s and 60s and had no means of retirement, no hopes of retirement. You know, I have an uncle who's a general contractor just had a 72nd birthday. still is a general contractor. I love the guy and he's probably the hardest working guy ever, but he of all people deserves retirement right now.

He should be sailing the world on a cruise ship, not building houses and crawling into addicts and stuff. So that, looking at that scared me and, you know, I didn't, I know that a 401K is not the best option for retirement and saving, you know, stockpiling cash is not the best option for retirement. You're never going to grow rich that way. the thing that really got me to action was actually was even looking at my pension looking at what my pension would be if I work 33 years or 30 years and retire I'll have a guaranteed you know six-figure

income but that six-figure income 30 years after that is going to be today's value like 47,000 or something like that it's going to be next to nothing and every year that money is going to is because of inflation the value of that money the purchasing power is just going to go down further and further and further and to the point where you know I I'm going to be 70 or 80 and still have the same problems that 70 or 80 year olds have today who are on Social Security and fixed incomes. They're purchasing power just disappears. It's funny. I couldn't have fed you those lines any better.

You're smarter than most people I speak to. And forgive me, but you're smarter than most police officers that I speak to because I come from a family of police officers. And they're all just very traditional. They're like, no, we were taught to, you know, work that 30 years and we're going to save our money. and, you know, and they've done okay for themselves, but they did have to work. My uncle particularly, he was a lieutenant in the sheriff's department, and he enjoyed what he did. Yeah.

So he did it because he wanted to, but he actually did have to do it. Yeah. You know, so where did that information come from you about inflation and looking at the future? That would have been my professor in college. Yeah. His name was Mike Mullen, and he did a lot to kind of help us to understand the power of money. He showed us all about compound. and interest and the bell curve that comes along with that.

And it really helped me to understand that I need to make my money work for me. And he was the one that kind of, he was like rich dad, poor dad. He kind of sparked it. And then since then I've kind of figured out what I want to do with that. You know, he was the one, he was pushing for like, go out and invest in a Roth IRA and get, you know, return on your investment and your money will compound and showed us the power of even just $4,000 now for the next four years what it could be.

Well, that's great. but that same money put into real estate is going to go a lot further. Right. And looking back, I'm exceptionally glad that my buddy and I weren't able to invest out in Riverside because the return on investment out there is nothing compared to what the return on investment is in the Midwest and the South. Right. We were looking at about a $200,000 investment and we'd get maybe two grand. Well, that same $2,000 and that's not even taking into account the like $1,400 mortgage we'd have. So we'd have maybe $600 after everything's done.

that same $2,000 in the Midwest would bring $4,000 in rental. Mm-hmm. Or the same $200,000. Yeah, same $200,000 would bring $4,000. And you wouldn't have any debt service. Exactly. Right. Exactly.

So it would be all cash after expenses. Mm-hmm. Well, gosh, I'm a little bit envious. I wish I had an instructor in college that was that progressive of a thinker because that's, you know, I think that's where a lot of people get stuck is that's when we're our most impressionable. And at that moment in our, our lives as we're getting ready to just go out and be independent and contributors of society,

you know, our college instructors are, they hold a lot of influence over our thinking and how, how we start thinking as we get older and we progress through life. So super. Let's give him another shout out. Mr. Martin. Mullen, Mike Mullen. Mike Mullen. I love it. Fantastic. So, all right, so you got this one under your belt. You know, and you actually, one thing I was thinking about you being a police officer, and I think, enriched dad, poor dad, or maybe it was. cash flow quadrant, Kiyosaki actually uses a police officer, or maybe it was a member of the fire department, as a great place where you can live in more than one quadrant, where you can be the employee, generate the income. But because of the hours that you guys work, or the more,

I guess the more free time that you actually have, you know, once you hit a certain point, is the same in my cousin's in the fire department. He's like two days on, three days off, something like that. Yeah, we work either three-twelves or four-tens. And so right now I'm working four tens, so I still have three days off a week. Right. And I hopefully will get back on the 312s relatively soon because then I'd have four days off a week. And that's almost enough time to have another full-time job. Correct.

And I'm young. I'm single. I don't have to have. I don't have any kids. I don't have the responsibilities that a lot of people have. I could have two jobs, this job and that job. And I like my job. Don't get me wrong.

I like being a police officer. But I don't necessarily like living in Southern California. and I don't like the idea of having to work 30 years. I like the idea of if I have just a horrible day and things are going just the opposite direction of where I want the department to go. I like the idea that I can walk in and just say, you know what? Thanks, guys. It's been great, but I'm out.

And I want that freedom. And so that's my goal ultimately. I don't care if I get a pension or not. A pension would be great. It's more money for me coming in. But ultimately, I want that freedom. Right. I think you speak on behalf of a lot of people.

Yeah. Whether they're a member of the police department or not. I mean, that's kind of a corporate America sentiment as well. You know, you just come in and the one day, you're just like, you know what? I don't like the way this company is going or I'm sick of my boss and I want that freedom. Yeah, I'll probably keep, I mean, I keep my job for a while. You know, as long as I, as long as it's fun, I'll keep my job. But I like the option of not having to keep my job.

That takes, honestly, that makes the stress that I would experience at work even less because it's like, I know that this isn't where I'm going to be for 30 years. I know that if it gets really, if it keeps. getting worse, I'm out. Right, right. Sweet. Sweet. So, um, that was the question I got sidetracked on. Oh, so what is, what's next for you? So where are you now? Okay. So just closed on the, on the first property. My goal is to buy hopefully two more this year. Um, I looked at the flipping at wholesaling properties and I don't know that that's something that I want to do. I've actually, I was on the way here listening to your, the podcast from last week about John Jackson with the lease options.

And that's something I'm interested in, so I'm going to start really looking into that. The podcast with Joe McCall had gotten me, it was McCall, had gotten me interested in that before. So I want to start looking into that more. I think that would be something that would fit my personality a lot better. That being said, what's next for me is I'm going to try and buy two more. I still have more money and I have good credit. I'm going to try and take my equity in my house and leverage that to buy a second property. And hopefully before the end of the year, I'll be able to.

by a third. Fantastic. I love it. Sounds like a good plan to me. So that'd be three in one year. That's the goal. That'd be sweet. Yeah.

You're almost afraid that you weren't going to hit the one before you're 30 and you got three in the one year. I know. I was actually doing the numbers. If I get three this year and another one next year, I would technically be financially free if I had all three of my rooms in my house rented out. My expenses are so low because, I mean, I have my job. I don't make all that much money.

My expenses are so low that I'd be able to cover my expenses. That's awesome. It doesn't take much, doesn't? And then you have that freedom. It's not being disgustingly wealthy and having to have millions of dollars in the bank. You have those streams of income and there's your independence. Yeah, it really is that easy. It's amazing that we make these excuses.

I think when we, you know, the older we get, we try to manage risk. But I was talking to my mom about this the other day because she's interested. I kind of put her onto your podcast and she's kind of going through her own little like do-over. She's in between jobs right now. So I was telling her that, you know, I don't know when, I don't know at what age we became, we got to the point where we have to know everything about something before we jump in. That's not how we, you know, we didn't go learn the physics behind riding a bike before we got on the bike and started pedaling.

Right. And we don't know every single rule of baseball before your dad went out there and threw a ball to you, you know, in the same way, like, even when I became a police officer, I went out on the street after the academy, which prepares every police officer out there will tell you that the academy doesn't prepare you for being on the street. And you go out there and my first day, I was so scared. I did not know what to expect. I didn't know if we were going to get ambushed and somebody was going to shoot me while I was

walking down the street. I didn't know if somebody was going to fight me. I didn't know if my training officer was going to put me, you know, through all kinds of tests or what. I had no clue what was happening. And it was just a 12-hour blur of driving around trying to remember street signs, trying to go put myself, you know, that scene or whatever, trying to use the the MDC and figure things out.

I just felt like I was playing catch up the whole time. But I wasn't prepared. I didn't know everything. And you never can. You just have to go and do it. And if I'd had the same mentality about police work as I did for a little while about investing, I never would have gone out there that first day.

I would have just probably walked in and quit. How long have you been a police officer? Two and a half years. Two and a half years. And so what's it like now? You get into a rhythm. You know, A lot of people say you don't really fully understand the job until you're five years on.

And then a lot of people say you'll never know everything. And I'm pretty sure that's true. There's always curveballs out there. There's always crazy things that you'll see. It's a lot better now. I have a lot more confidence in it. But there's still all kinds of situations that I don't know how to, that I don't know how to handle things. I don't know the best course of action.

I don't know the best way to respond. But you're learning and you're always learning. And that's what makes us able to adapt. and overcomes that we are constantly able to learn and learn from our mistakes and try again next time. That's sweet. How do you look back on, you know, you just, you know, we're very giving of sharing how you felt on day one. Knowing what you know now, you've been on the force for two and a half years, looking back at day one, how do you view that day now? I think I had somewhat easier of a time than some of my classmates because I had a really great T.O.

My first couple months. So I had a great experience, but that first day, I look back. at it just with fond memories. It was kind of like a, just like a right of passage, you know, you're, you're sitting in roll call, you don't know what to expect, you're the new guy, you're the boot, and, you know, everything is completely new. It felt a little bit like and to watch where you're that, that, you know, probation or sitting at the front row. You just don't know what's coming. But it was, it was, like I said, it was a right of passage and I'm, glad I'm through it and I'm glad I'm past all that, but, you know, there's definitely fond

memories there. It's, it's always, it's always better looking back than it is at the time that you're in it. Right. And that's the same way this is going to be. Like, the hard times that I face, I know will be great memories looking back because I'll learn something from them. You know, I asked you that, and if we didn't know that you were talking about your career as a police officer, you could have inserted just about anything in there.

Yeah. Right? And so that's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Thanks for sharing your insight. Super. So, you know, that's where you're headed for this year. And then, you know, you see yourself creating that financial independence.

You don't like California. Okay. I can't leave California. I love the ocean. Yeah, that's the weather. That's the hard part. That's why I'm still here. Yeah, exactly.

It's the sunshine tax will kill you, though. Yeah. All right, so where is the goal? Where is the big dream? Where are you headed? As far as living, we're just... Yeah, once you hit the passive income that you want to hit, you know, where do you want to move to?

You know, that's hard. I haven't looked that far in advance that because I can... I mean, I can tell you what I think now, but obviously if, you know, after life with kids and marriage and whatever else, it'll probably be something. something completely different. But I like to travel. So I'd hope that I'm not in whatever state I'm in too long. I hope that I'm able to go explore Europe and make conference calls from, you know, from the coast of Italy and from the Mediterranean and South America and whatever else. It's been a little while since I've gone and traveled. You know, I was fortunate I was able to

backpack through college and live, I was able to live in London for a year and then backpacked through Europe several times throughout that year. And then I even did a trip to South America. And I'm hoping to do another one in the next few months. But I just, I would like to be able to do a lot more of that. Go live other places, see more. You know, there's so many young kids that do that. Yeah.

And I could have never even imagined that for myself. It scared me shitless at the time. At 19 years old, I was not independent by any means. I was not ready to leave the nest. But the fact that so many young kids do that, it demonstrates. that it doesn't take a lot of money to do it. It doesn't take that much money, and it, it obviously, it depends on where you go. You know, the dollar's a lot weaker, or the dollars a lot stronger in Australia and a lot weaker

in London, you know, so it's, it just depends on where you go. Right. But there's something, a sense of adventure about, you know, just buying a plane ticket, going somewhere, and then figuring it out from there. Obviously, it correlates back to our example of, you know, baseball and riding a bike and everything else. You just got to take that first step. But that's, that's what we did.

A friend and I are planning on taking a trip, hopefully to South America in November during my vacation. And, you know, we were talking about what we want to do, but I don't really want to make plans. I want to buy a plane ticket and then just figure it out when I get there. And some of my best trips have been like that. You just, you get to another country, you figure out how to take their trains, how to take their buses, you go find a hostel. You take a guidebook with you. You've got resources where sometimes you sleep in a, you know, sometimes you sleep in an airport because you can't find anything. and sometimes you sleep in a, you might sleep in a street corner, but it's a sense of adventure,

and it's fun. You know, you get to see different things that you wouldn't see if you were staying in hotels every day. So literally, traveling as far as you can see. And when you get there, you see further, right? Exactly. That's super. Well, thanks a lot, Justin, for sharing so graciously your experience.

And, you know, when you pick up those next two properties, let's come back and talk about it again. Sounds good. Sounds great. Fantastic. You know, I don't know if you're allowed to do this or not based on your career, but if anyone wanted to get in touch with you, do you have a place where they can do that? Yeah, I've got an email they could contact you. Sure, go ahead and give that out.

Sure, it's Justin, J-U-S-T-I-N-6-0 at g-mell.com. Justin 600 at g-mell. Fantastic. So if you're looking to a network with another academy member, another investor here in California, Justin, this is where he resides. He's giving you out his email. We'll put that in the show notes as well. And if, you know, you wanted more information about either the Epic Pro Academy or

cash flow savvy, would you be happy to. Do you a reference for that? Yeah, I mean, my mom was calling me a walking Matt Marshall the other day because I was talking about Castro Savvy after the event. But I don't mind sharing my experiences. I was just as skeptic as anyone. And I really got past all that. I've had a great experience. So I'm glad I did.

Fantastic. Well, thanks for your endorsement, Justin. I really appreciate that. And I really appreciate it. You, your honesty and your candor. All righty. So that's it for today. I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream.

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