The Code To Winning - STRATEGIES TO GET YOUR FIRST PROPERTY IN REAL ESTATE || ERIC CHEN || EPISODE 053

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

In this episode of The Code to Winning Podcast, we sit down with Eric Chen, Executive Growth Partner at WeTrust Realty, to break down the exact strategies he used to build a 7-figure real estate portfolio . Eric goes in depth starting with 0% business credit cards. Eric specializes in helping high-income earners transition into real estate investing, with a focus on creating cash-flowing assets that provide long-term wealth and freedom. His story is proof that you don’t need millions to start, you just need the right strategy, mindset, and execution.   Eric shares his step-by-step blueprint for getting into your first property, from leveraging credit wisely to identifying profitable deals that produce consistent cash flow. He talks about the mistakes most new investors make, how to avoid them, and why using creative financing strategies can help you scale faster than traditional methods ever could. If you’ve been waiting for the “perfect time” to start, Eric makes it clear that the time is now.   Whether you’re a high-income earner looking to diversify, an aspiring investor trying to break into the market, or simply curious about how everyday people are creating wealth through real estate, this episode is packed with tactical insights and proven strategies you won’t hear anywhere else. Don’t miss Eric Chen’s no-fluff advice on how to start small, scale smart, and build a portfolio that pays you for life.

I'm just a regular person. I graduated from UCI, so University of California, Irvine. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was actually working at a restaurant called Ding Tai Fon, so it's actually a really well-known franchise dumpling restaurant. So I was a server there, you know, make good money. But I didn't know what I wanted to do in life. And then one of my agent friends told me that,

hey, Eric, you should actually get into real estate. This is actually the best way to make money. Did you always have a great creative score? Because I think it's very important. I don't know what we're going to talk about, but you always have a great credit score. Yeah, so especially in Asian Asian cultures.

Recon, you get a slapping your ass if you had debt, you know. People are so afraid of debt. And then I do it all, you know, consultation with Asian clients. They don't have no debt at all. This score is always $7.80 a buck. So I literally just flip a property in West Copena. I bought it for a 790. So obviously I need to put 10% down, right?

So that's like $790K, $79,000, which I could liquidate for my credit card. I put $100k into renovation. I convinced my contractor, I will pay everything with credit card. Obviously, I'm not going to dispute that, right? So, Owing cost for me is around like 200K on my credit card, and I was able to make 100K on that after I flipped the property. And you took me around four months? And then what was the first amount that was given to you

that you qualified for in terms of that 0% present credit card? So that is the topic that's where you're gonna really die deep. The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. If you are curious and interested in learning a lot about real estate, Airbnb, house flipping, being a real estate investor, also scaling your portfolio with 0% business credit card. This is the episode for you. I have a guest in today who is an expert in all those fields that I just mentioned right now and we're going to just dive in deep and learning a bit about Airbnb, the arbitrage method. We're going to be learning about

I think it's B RRR R R R R R R R R R. But we'll talk a bit more about all these strategies, the things that have made him very successful, how he built a portfolio and a seven figure as well. So without further, due our amazing guest in the studio, Rai Chi, in the Golden State and the City of Angels, welcome Eric Chan. How are you doing, brother?

Hey, thanks for having me today. Awesome stuff, man. I'm grateful, grateful to that. Because I feel you in the field right now where people are very curious in all those three months, that I kind of mentioned, Airbnb, upscaling, 0% business credit card, all these different hacks that are very, very important. But before we start, can you just tell us a bit about you and what actually pursued this journey for you to start in real estate? Yeah, absolutely. So honestly,

I'm just a regular person. I graduated from UCI, so University of California, Irvine. I didn't know what I wanted to do. You know, most of it, I was actually working at a restaurant called Ding Tai Fon, so it's actually a really well-known franchise dumpling restaurant. So, So I was a server there, you know, make good money. But I didn't know what I wanted to do in life. And then one of my agent friends told me that, hey, Eric, you should actually get into real estate. This is actually the best way to make money. Obviously, that was before covert time where money was constantly coming in from overseas.

You know, that was when there was a lot of strict tightening tension between China and the USA. People will bring so much money to the state. And that's where we make the most money. You know, people will start buying a whole entire street. And then you make a commission with that. That's kind of like how I started doing real estate, building relationship with my thing type phone clients, because, you know, we have a lot of clients coming all the time. And they always ask me what I want to do for my life.

And when I got out of that job, I'm like, hey, hey, John, this is Eric. You know, I'm actually in real estate now. Are you looking to buy real estate? And that's kind of how I got all these client, based out all the data that I have from all these clients that I serve at the restaurant industry. wow, awesome stuff. And that was pre-COVID, right? Yes.

When the real estate market was a bit more reasonable than what it is right now. Correct. And so, did you always have a great creative score? Because I think it's very important. I don't know what we're going to talk about, but did you always have a great credit of score? Yeah, so especially in Asian cultures,

we can't, you get slapping your ass or you have debt, you know? Like people are so afraid of debt. And then I do it all, you know, consultation with Asian clients. They don't have no debt at all. the score is always 780 above, which is good, but they've got to understand how to leverage that, right? So that's something we're going to be talking about later.

By having a good credit score, you could tap into so much opportunity and so much more money, you know, in this industry. And I want to just go straight into it. I want to try and figure out, like obviously you've scaled the seven-figure real estate portfolio. How did you end up using 0% business credit cards? Can you talk a bit about that whole journey as well? I'm curious. Absolutely. So it's funny enough, this is a fun fact. This USA and also, this is not a country,

are the only country that actually provides 0% APR credit card. And that is 12 months, 0% interest, right? Obviously, the bank's going to make money by every transaction that you swipe, like 3%. Obviously, go to the merchant. And then they also make money from people that default on the credit cards, right, with a lot of interest. But if you know what you're doing, any advantage that the bank is trying to take from you, you could make that into a cash cow making

machine and then using that money to make more money, right? So basically, zero percent interest, we could stack multiple credit card different banks because when you apply for a credit card, the other bank doesn't know you have to apply for a credit card. So we could basically stack it correctly. So Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, if we layered it correctly, we could get up to 150K, up to maybe like 250K was 0% working capital for you. And a lot of people, they think, okay, I have $200K. I'm going to stop buying, you know, nice car, watch, you know, just spend that money. But imagine if you had $200K worth of money and then you had the right knowledge, which is real estate,

which is going to talk about later, that can turn to a very, very good cashful business. So I literally just flip a property in West Copena. I bought it for a $790. So obviously I need to put 10% down, right? So there's like $790K, $7,000, which I could liquidate for my credit card. I put $100k into the renovation. I convinced my contractor I'll pay everything with a credit card. Obviously, I'm not going to dispute that.

So owing cost for me is around like $200K on my credit card. And I was able to make $100K from that after I flipped the property. And it took me around four months, right? So that's only four months. So now I have all that money back. I could pay by that credit card and then rinse and repeat and do another flip project. you see how powerful this is I'm not really getting more

lending on the bank side that will charge a lot of interest especially if you're how money long 9% right maybe up to like 12% I'm using straight out the bank's money and then able to make money from that and so the first home that you flipped you made

a hundred thousand dollars like profit from that oh that was the most recent when I flipped I started health flipping back in 2019 okay yeah awesome and what's the quick turnover in house flip regarding that because I know you mentioned that right now did you use it all the time when you using the 0% credit because it's 0% for 12 months so that's what people don't understand like

it's after then there's obviously a fee that gets in but you can utilize and start leveraging as much as possible throughout the process right yeah so obviously I usually max it out because there's no interest on this so it didn't really matter and I know for a fact within that 12 months I'm not really going to really apply for new credit cards so it wouldn't really matter to me and on top of the bonus for that is for example like I'm working on this for project and I only have two months left on the zero percent API, right? Because I have real estate, I have equity from all these property that I bought from back in the days. Every single property that I have is a bank of its own. I could do a he lock on it. I could do a cash refund on it.

Take that money out, pay down the credit card. Once my DTI is zero again on the banks, when I reply for a new credit card, they're going to say, oh, Eric, I'll approve you again. So I'll get a new zero percent AP on credit cards. And whatever balance or limit that I have at 100K, did you know that you could actually transfer the whole entire limit to the new credit card, which is 0% APR again. So what did I just did? I just transferred the whole entire 150K with 0% interest credit card

to a new credit card that's 12 months, zero to the APR again. I could use that money to invest and then buy more houses. So I'm technically not really using, you know, like the traditional route of investing right now. And then what was the first amount that was given to you that you qualified for

in terms of that 0% business credit card? So that is the topic that's where you've got to really die deep, right? So like just for example, somebody opened up a brand new LLC and they have no cash flow, no nothing on it. How is the bank going to qualify you to determine how much money they could approve you for? They go check your personal profile. So that's why it's so crucial and important. If you want to invest into anything right now, invest into your credit score and actually building it up to the right optimized profile.

So when the bank see it, when you apply for a credit card, they give you instant approval. So personal credit optimized will equal to a lot of business funding. Yes. Okay. All right. Because I feel like it is true, but in your situation, like was it more than six figures that you got approved for the first time around? Yeah. So for Chase, we have a relationship with Chase with a lot of the relationship managers.

So one credit card I could get approved for 75K. Okay. And how many credit cards do you have right now? Oh, I don't even know. I like 40, 50 credit cards. leverage, bro. I have a whole booklet of credit cards and then every time I finish

using the 0% APR, I don't close it, I just leave it there and I'll open a new one and just transfer that limit over. So it's every year I get to, if you really think about it, every year I get to use 200K worth of credit card that is 0% interest. With the knowledge that we have right now

investing in real estate, it's basically free money. And you get the travel point. You know, Chase, Amex, if you learn how to do travel hack, you transfer the points around five business class. It's just so much fun. These are hacks, man.

Everything through credit cards. Why are people doing this, though? People don't really understand it, you know. And then I heard, we do a lot of consulting for a lot of like investors, real estate investors or like just people that want to get some money for to start investing in Airbnb, you know, e-commerce, all that stuff. They think zero percent APR is good. And then they didn't know that they will put every single credit card on the personal side.

So there's zero percent APR. credit card on the personal side as well. Right. So people will start maxing those out, but they didn't, they don't know that if you max out your personal credit card, it's going to affect your whole entire credit score. But if you max out a credit card on the business side, it doesn't show up on your personal credit. So what I do is I'm hiding on my debt on the business side. So my credit on my personal is always clean, always 820, 830. And when I need more money, I use my HELO paid out of the credit card and then reapply and use the same money

and my personal profile is always going to be 820. I'm not going to touch it. I'm never going to touch my credit profile again after I optimize it. Right? So a lot of people don't understand that. So they started running a business

they apply for a credit card on the personal side and it max it out. Now their income to debt ratio is too high. The credit go down. You can't do anything. You can't get approved on any credit cards after that because it's too high.

You consider a high risk for the bank. And I also heard this that business credit does not affect your personal credit unless you default. Is that accurate? Correct. So basically, you're still a personal guarantee on the business. So when you apply it, there's an inquiry, right? That's going to be showing on your personal profile. And if you stop, if you don't pay it for like two months straight consecutively, then it will show up on your personal profile. Only after two months. So, you know, obviously you're going to make sure

use that money wisely, right? So that's kind of like, you know, what we do. I mean, I'm I know you did mention earlier on, I understand the discipline that's implemented in Asian communities. However, what if you're getting a client, an American guy that's here, and maybe they were in college, they didn't like really take care of their credit card? Do you have systems on helping them to try and like at least get their credit card or their credit score, like cleaned out and better and fixed as well? Yeah, so we actually, my company, we actually do also do credit repair as well, so we could actually help them fix their credit, kind of get their credit, back on track. And while they're fixing the credit, they could actually go ahead and get on secure, I mean, secure credit card. So like discover a secure credit card or like Chase that have like a flex, I believe. So you put money into it and that's your credit limit. And that's how you start building

your credit age. So your credit, like the oldest credit card you have, please never close it because that's like your strongest point. That is something where as a credit guru or a credit specialist, that's something we can't change. The credit age. So please don't close any credit card that you have, you know, that you have like a Macy or Victoria's secret credit card you open out years ago. Don't close it. Make sure you use it, you know, and don't close it out because that's how you wear your credit. And how so? Is it called credit age? Yes. So what it is, it's like that last, like it's almost like a LinkedIn for credit cards to try and show, it's like the blueprint, try and say, listen, this is where it started and it has like the historical

data for the time frame of how long you've had the credit card, right? Yeah, so the bank want to see you have a very very. big history on when you started your credit journey basically. So if they see you have this credit card for 10 years ago, you've been paying on time for the whole time, they trust you more and they'll give you a higher limit. Fascinating, fascinating. Oh man. Now let's get trained to Airbnb, you know what I'm saying? I can't believe that. Because I like the credit card thing, and I think that's when you were in the Airbnb, isn't that also a place that your credit cards helped fund that as well? But one last thing. So you can max it out, but you

there's also a certain amount that you have to at least pay that, like for that. So let's say you max out 50,000. Maybe they might say you just need to pay $2,000 for that month. That's what you still do, right? But you don't have to pay out the whole thing. Yes, so it's called minimum payment. So if you spend $50K, you max it out. Every single month you have to pay $1% of that, which is $500.

Really? And the next month, obviously, you pay $400. You're now at $49,500. Then the next one, you pay $495. dollars because every every month is 1% until the very last month you pay everything off

obviously you make that money for everything or for all the oh is it just the one you have every single credit card it's usually 1% okay that's a minimum payment and then you still get that privilege

of a 0% APR interest man that's that's a bargain because the beauty about this whole thing is the fact that you don't need an outside investor you can pursue your own dreams you can be a solo

entrepreneur you can be an entrepreneur you can do what you're going to do and you also, depending on how the structure the business has been set out, you know that the funds are going to still be coming in and you can end up paying the thing out. Because by the 12th month is when they want that $50,000 back. Exactly.

And then this new cycle begins again. Correct. Unbelievable, man, this is... Like, people should teach this more, you know what I'm saying? I mean, I know it's out there. You've got your students and all that, but this is such valuable information, you know? And that's what you started funding for your Airbnb

when you did arbitrage. You did arbitrage in California? Yeah, so I started doing arbitrage back in 2021. That was right after COVID kind of lifted, and everybody's like, you know, formal on traveling. So I got on a good time, and obviously I was, you know, I'm actually a real estate agent. So the first thing I did without, you know,

paying for a mentorship on how to do Airbnb, I figured it out myself. Like, I asked all my client like, hey, can I just rent up one of your property? Let's try it out as Airbnb. So I did that. I put really, really bad for it. inside and we're still making good money.

Now, right now you can't do that anymore, right? The competition is being very, very, it's a lot more competitive right now. But back in the day, it was so much, so easy to make money. You literally just had to put a mattress in that you make money. That's how it is before, but you always have to adapt. And then, you know, a lot of people are, actually 2022 is the time when Airbnb Arbitrature start becoming so popular. Like, everybody is doing it.

Right. So, like, we kind of have to understand what does the client want? What does the guests want? And if you could provide those amenities, that's actually where. you're going to make the money because everybody is doing it what made you stand out. Do you still do it right now? Yes, I still do it. I still have a few arbitrage.

How many properties do you have? Last year, I have 55. Yes, and then we have 35 management deals. So I sold most of my arbitrage deal to my students because my main focus right now is actually buying real estate because I see the longer kind of future for that. Just for example, if I do an arbitrage, I need to find a little bit of a little bit of to find a specific house that had the right amenities and they had to be renovated really, really well, right? And then where can you find that kind of houses? It's really hard.

And if you could work out of find it, there's other student out there that's also trying to find that property as well. Everybody is pitching a landlord. Hey, I'm a corporate housing company. Everybody's doing the same thing. Like, how do you stand out? Obviously, if you get to talk to a landlord, right, you build that rapper, you know, obviously, they might rent it out to you. But it's so competitive and you have no control. over anything. So I'm like, I'm just going to buy a distressed property. I'm going to buy, you know, from wholesaler or like off-market deals, which if it costs

me $1 million to buy the property, I'll get at $7.50. So when I buy that property, I'm already in the greens. And then because I'm already in the greens and I use a business credit card to renovate that property, I could make this world really, really nice. And that's the selling point for a property. I could renovate the backyard, put a jacuzzi in there. and that's going to add another $100 to $200 daily on my rental property, I get to control what I want to do on the property, you know,

the design, everything I do it myself. But if I do arbitrage, I need to rent out a house. And whatever that property feature has, I'm stuck with that. I can't really do anything to it. I'm not going to renovate the property for a landlord and later on how to send the money, you know, return the house back to them, right? Doesn't make sense. So that's a different between our arbitrage and also buying.

This one has more control, and I own the property. And because I buy a distress, I'm always in the green, right? And I could do a cash-hour refund and then take all that money out, go buy another property, and just rinse and repeat. Can you explain for our views, if those are not honest? What do you mean in distress? So property that is off-market, that's completely like you need to gut everything out. The property is full of shit. You know, it's just really, really bad property that, like, you know, the seller can't handle it anymore.

And they're just in distress. And obviously, you talk to Rudy. right so wholesaling so they have co-colors they actually call all these bunch of sellers they get into contract and us as the investors we buy those contracts and we buy it for like 20k 30k extra on top and then we also obviously we could either flip the house or i could convert into her Airbnb myself and then do a cash-outrefi on it okay and do you currently have like invest in properties that you own that are Airbnb correct yes okay and all in cal nothing in northern cal nothing in northern in California or anything?

No, everything in SoCal. And then I'm very, very bullish on Orange County. I don't really like LA as much. Orange County is beautiful, man. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's a good area. It's like families as well.

It's very like laid back. It isn't as packed. And it's such a nice area and like just, I always see the communities down there. I'm like, gosh, dang, like if LA could implement this form of like field, because, you know. But they're so expensive, though. So I've seen homes going like a normal three bedroom for like. millions of dollars you know what I'm saying so when you do the investments and you say you still implement the same strategies that you use for a credit card to buy

or like invest in those properties right yes is it just for down payment or for the full payments so it's down payment so usually for example if I want to buy a property at one million dollar that's the distress you know price I need to put 100k over the down payment right so obviously there's two ways to do it right actually there's three ways to do it first way is you liquided that money out you know this a lot ways to liquidated, but we could talk about that in the future. So liquidate the money out of the credit cards, use that as a down payment, and the remaining, every single month, you've got to

calculate what is your interest with the how money loan, right? How much more extra are you paying every single month? So you had to take into account on that as well. So it's 100K plus maybe 30 or 40K of holding costs. So that's how much you actually need to, you know, to hold on to the property for at least three to four months, right? And also the renovation cost, which you don't have to liquidate. You could just put on the credit card because only the down payment it had to be cash, right, when you put it into escrow. So owing costs like $200, $250K for me to flip a property using the, you know, the credit card side.

The second way is, I'll be your own money, right? I have $100K. I put it inside and then the remaining of the interest and stuff, I also have the money. That's like people that have more, you know, money to invest. And the third way is actually through investors. So right now, constantly every single day, I have wholesaler that's sending me a bunch of deals every single area. I have this, I have this.

I'm not, I can't take on all. them. There's no way I could take on all these projects at once. But what I learned is when you're in social media or if you're really good at what you're doing, you attract a lot of people that's interesting in you. I couldn't agree more 100%. So now I have a bunch of investors waiting and lying with me. Eric, I'll put in all the money for the down payment and the renovation costs and then we could do a 40-60 split. So I take 40% of the profit after we flip the house and they take 60%. And I don't put it in. any money at all.

So that's what I'm doing right now for a lot of my project. But obviously, the very, very good project, I'll just take it out myself because I don't need investors. And how do you get investors? How was it when you first pitch that first investor? Did they come to you? They come to me. Okay.

I wasn't really thinking about having investors because every deal I want to take it because it's such a good spread, you know, but you don't have that much money, you know? So eventually, like, you know what? I need to start leveraging. And it's also good for me as well, Because if I'm doing multiple projects, I want to think about the social media, right? I don't have to go to the job side every single day.

But I go there just to do some video. So all my audience know Eric is still doing these kind of stuff. Even though I don't have to be there, it built up that personal branding. It builds that trust that, oh, Eric is actually into it. He's always at the construction site, you know, talking about all these kind of detail stuff. That's where you get more people into you, interesting in you. So if I post right now, like, you know, I need 150K, I'll give you 10% interest or 15% interest, somebody will come and then they will put that money down onto me because they know I'm doing this every single day. Wow. And I think that that's so important, like rapport is everything because the fact that you end up building that presence and you experience in the market and people know you, they're actually the ones waiting for you to get that deal. And I've seen it with a lot of like big time investors, angel. I've seen it with like people that are.

crowdfunding as well. Great. They already built that, you know, Grand Cardone raised, I think, a billion dollars in terms of, like, all these real estate deals. But I also see local people, as well in Utah, that I end up doing, like, commercial real estate

and all that kind of stuff. And I want to kind of, I know you should do with that a bit. Can we talk a bit about commercial estate? Are you okay with that? I'm not really into the commercial side. Okay. Yeah, so I only do residential right now, but eventually that's something I want to get into.

Okay, okay. So how do you find the best deals, though? Because I know the off-the-market deals, everyone talks about how amazing off-the-market is because there's no competition or like, you know, you're approaching it. But how do you end up finding those deals? Again, it's building relationship with wholesale and agents, right?

So there's a bunch of wholesale a group or there's like New Westerns. All these kind of wholesale company, they send out a bunch of deals every single day, right? But honestly, those deal are so bad, right? You have people, there's different type of people. investor that wait for the right opportunity. You have people that just recently got into flip house flipping and they get formal because they can't find deals. They will get into crappy

deals. And these kind of big company, they send out a deal with really, really bad spread. But people got, it's like, I already paid for this mentorship or whatever it is. They got into a bad deal and lose money. So obviously, that's how wholesale I make money, right? They send out a bunch of deal value-wise and they make a split spread. But for us, we wait for the right deals. and then the only way you can do that is actually building that relationship with that wholesale or agent. So for me, I like to go to a real estate event to actually talk to the person, talk to the person in front of, you know, talk to them in person because we build that rapid, we build that trust.

If there's everything just through phone calls, like if they have a really, really good deal, I want to think of me right away first, Eric, Eric, right away, right? I don't want him to send it to everybody and blast it out. When you blast it out, even if you're still all-market, you still have a lot of buyer that's trying to buy it. So how do you differentiate yourself by building that relationship, treating that wholesale a right correctly? Say, hey, hey, Rudy, you know, if you find a good property, that is in my buy box, do you mind send it to me 30 minutes before anybody else? Not 30 minutes oh I need to get to locking the good deal. I'll send an EMD right away and we'll close on the deal.

right so and you also have to that your wholesaler agent know that eric is a performer so he will close no matter what because you have these people that you know get into contract and they cancel escrow but for any deals that people they send to me they know for a fact that I will close so they willing to send it to me over other people right so that's kind of like how i've been doing it just pretty by building trust you know just throwing a bunch of you know connection with oldies agent and then that's how it works you just playing chess, man. Pretty much. And so another thing, because you also have, like, you being a real estate agent,

it also gives you a bit of the leverage and advantage because when you do listings, have you ever had a listing that you're like, oh my gosh, I actually like the listing, let me buy it for myself. Have you ever had that case before? Yes. I don't really buy on market, but if I do want to buy something on market, I just let the agent double it. I'm like, you know what?

I don't even want to represent myself. Give me that deal. You know what the number is. give me that deal. I'll pay you extra out on the site. I don't care. Give me that house because I see the value in it, right?

So, like, this is also something I talk about a lot, right? A good deal. A deal, a cycle, somebody sent you a wholesale deal. It might not be good for somebody, but it might be good for somebody else because the way they're investing, right? So this house, if the spread is not that great for some of the flippers,

they're not going to buy it. But for some people like me, for example, we're investing like a city that actually allowed Airbnb. I don't care about the spread as much anymore because I could make sure I could cash for fund this property, right? And yeah, people that actually want to buy property for co-living, people who want to buy a property for senior living or sober living, right? So everybody had different way to investing into different deals. So there's like a specific buy box that I do when I buy houses and then

always have wholesale it send it to me because they know like other people and they're not going to buy it because the spread is a little bit thinner. But for me, I like it because that's the exact property that I want. Solid, man. For somebody out there right now, watching this episode, and they have not started, like, they're making cash for about, like, 90 to 100,000. Deeks and credits go about, like, just 700. What advice would you give them right now if I want to jump into real estate investment? So what type of real estate, though?

Like, Airbnb? No, no, just like residential, like, investing, like, what you're currently doing right now. So if you have a good income, right, if you make over, like, 100, 120, like, you're probably paying the IRS. like 30 40% of that, right? So the best way to do is actually having good income is to buy a property. You could do house hack.

So basically buy it with the lowest down payment possible, you know, 3.5% down. And then subdivide these rooms into more rooms. It would be better if you could buy it near like a school or something and then just rent it out individually. And that should be able to cover your mortgage monthly and you live in there for free. So an FHA loan pretty much.

If you can qualify for it. I know right now the interest is kind of on a higher side. But you're just going to grind through it. Buy it now because when the rate job, the price is going to go out more. So I'd rather have people kind of grind it out, you know, be uncomfortable for a little bit, buy a property, sub-lease all the rooms out. And in hope when the rate drought, the price went up, they get equity on the property. That's the easiest way and I think the safest way to invest in real estate right now if we have a really, really stable high income.

And would you say then duplexes and triplexes are better? Yes, because you could qualify for a lot more higher, right, because of the rental income. It adds it to your DTI, basically. And what's crazy about this whole thing, people always complain about the California real estate market, but people are constantly buying homes every day in California. And people are complaining about California's inflation, but people are still moving to California and staying in California. So what's the big myth and misconception?

with the realistic market in California? I think a lot of people are going to get out of it, obviously. Those are the people that can't afford it, but you've got to think about it. California and Florida is the most travel visit place in the USA. And that's where people get the most attention, right? So if these places are getting so much attention, California, sunshine, palm tree, all that stuff,

you're going to have a lot of international people coming over here. right and then when you're talking about international people there are usually the top 10% of their country so you're going to people are still going to come in you're going to have people that's going to be you know eliminated they're going to move out to Arizona all these kind of places they can't afford the price but you're going to have a lot international people coming into to buy these properties right because California everybody know California there's no country out there that's no California so you're still going to have people going out it's still a cycle. So the people that's getting

wealthier and wealthier and that are comfortable paying a price of California, they're still going to come in. And it just just going to keep going up, right? Because every time you have a transaction, you sell a price for $1 million, somebody's going to try to comp that, use that with this. They sold it for $1 million. I'm going to sell it at $1.1. And when you have more transaction, that's how the pricing of

California market keep going up. And obviously inflation. Every year, inflation rates around 4% right now. So just by having that and having a bunch of international people coming over, the price will eventually keep going up. Because at the end of the day, it's not even how much money you're making. It's also purchasing power with such an underrated thing because I know you've been in Taiwan and I'm from South Africa, but even when traveling back to South Africa, because the dollar has been so strong for the last eight years,

it's not how much money you make, but it's how much money you can buy with the dollar that you have as well. and what inflation has been doing has been taking away that purchasing power by keeping wage at a certain amount but prices, you know, just seem to be increasing as well. And like you just elaborated it perfectly, which kind of segues to what I'm going to right now. If people are not making enough

and wouldn't necessarily qualify for those investment of buying a home, would you then recommend they start with an arbitrage form of method? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, this is something my mentor always tell me, like, if you have money, actually real estate is not the right thing for you right away. The first thing for you to do is actually invest into yourself with knowledge that can make you generate money for you. So if I have 20K right, I'll put 10K into somebody that I trust that's going to teach me to step by step how they make money from, you know, past, right? Not going through mistakes. Yeah, you sure, you could go into Airbnb yourself and then you don't know the contract, you don't know how to talk to the landlord. And, you know, You know, you probably went to the city that's an out Airbnb. You put all these furniture inside. You don't know how to buy the right furniture.

You're spending so much thousands of dollars freaking out yourself when you could actually pay somebody that's done it over and over again for the last two, three years. And when you run to a mistake, they tell you exactly how to fix the mistake, right? So anything in life, this is two things. Invest into your credit score. Understand how credit system work. And then once you're ready with the knowledge that, you know,

people are teaching you or like you're investing, use that. That's like a very, very big power tool to get 100K to 250K of business funding. And then the other one is just basically investing to yourself on income generated knowledge that, you know, that can help you out. And then once you have both of that, that's when you can think about buying properties, I think. And then do you have a mentorship or Discord or Telegram group or like things when you're consulting with people as well?

Do you have that currently? I used to do that on Airbnb coaching, but it just goes too saturated. and I'm an ethical person. I don't want to coach people on something that I don't sing makes as much sense as before. Back in the day, it's good. You make good money.

My students all do really, really well. But right now, everybody's pitching corporate housing, corporate housing. You know, there's only one landowner. There's like 20 students from different coaches trying to pitch the same thing. Like, how do you stand out? Yeah, I heard Airbnb was like back then

it was like you throw something and just stuck. Like I said, after COVID, it was like a honey, like, you know, a beehive. it was just so darn good that anyone is making profit, like people were not losing. And is it a dying industry, would you say? No, I don't, I won't say it's a dying industry. Again, just like any industry out there, right,

you have people that is doing the, let's just say it like this. Like in Airbnb, let's just say city of San Hiana, that's right next to Disney then. Right? So you have 100 properties. I mean, I'm going to break it down simply. Like, out of those 100 property, you're going to have around 40 to 50% of them

is more on the lower side like okay or Airbnb because there's different clientele right people that are going to Disneyland we have the very very ultra wealthy people that's willing to spend $800,000 a day you have people that's okay middle class let's spending $300,400 a day

and you have people that just want to go to Disney and save some money on the living and spend on the rental you know daily right so these are the type of people you have Most of the people are out here on the very lower one. They're spending $100, maybe $50 or a day on Airbnb because they can't afford it or for some circumstances. You have people middle classes traveling from out of state that want Airbnb.

They're willing to pay $2,000 to $300. And then you have the ultra luxury people that want to go on Airbnb. Let me just ask, like, if you have these three kind of category of people, which one would you want to serve more? The third one. The third one, exactly. The luxury ones. And guess what?

A lot of people don't understand how to do luxury Airbnb. People think Airbnb you just rent a property, you furnisher, and then you start making money. That's not how it works. I want to get out of this category.

I want to do this. Because if I'm here, 100% of people, 100 property, right? Only 10 property is luxury property. And maybe like 30 or like 25 is middle class. And the rest is trash.

Right? So you don't even want to compete with any of these. So if you can stand out and be the top 10%, you know, which is 10 property, you're only competing with 10 competitors,

and you can charge $800 to $1,000 a day on your property if you do it the right way, right? The property are probably not going to cost that much different, but just the way you furnish it, the amenities that you provide, the rich people, they're not going to book these two. So when they can book these two, they only have 10 property they can choose from. So you just have to compete with 10 people,

and you're charging $800 to $1,000 per night, right? Especially July or like December time, you could charge 2K, 3K,000. potentially on one day's day. And that's how you differentiate yourself from other people. So that's my theory. Like, you know, if you want to serve somebody like for like real estate as well, why would I want to show houses to part to somebody that only want to buy $600K house when I can make $2,000 commission? That's $12,000. It takes me probably like two to three weeks to convince them to buy a property and their mindset is not right. They're buying 600K property, right? And how to convince them to

up in price because if you don't up in price, you're not going to. to be able to bid on that property and you had the investors that or the luxury people, wait, I want to a $3 million house. Okay, help me get it no matter what. You decide on the price. So these are the type of clientele and that's a difference. So I'd rather serve the $3 million client. And that could still make me, I'm putting the same time and effort into helping people

buying a property, $600K, $1,000, $3 million. This one I make $12,000, $2,000. But for this one, I make $60,000. So which one would you want to choose? You got to pick your, you know, your battles, right? Like which one would you want to serve more? So I'd rather go over the $3 million people. And then they will generate more cash flow in the future

because you build a relationship with them. And they'll refer to a client to you. And then, you know, that's kind of like, how, basically service. We're basically in the service industry. And I've noticed, though, I feel like the luxury real estate market has, hasn't it becoming a bit more saturated as well?

Because I've seen a lot of luxury real estate, like not necessarily like agents on my social media. And I've seen it in like, five different cities, Salt Lake, Nevada, California, Orange Counties. You see it more and more. Obviously, you see a lot of, like, your usual, like, aged as well. But I've seen people that just focus on luxury and they just seem to be killing it, like making listings of like five million, three million, and they're selling. I'm like, who are these people that are buying? But I think they correct the code. And they have, you know, a different form of, like, lead base.

They have a different form of, like, a way of how they generate in these people as well. and it seems like it's a quick turnover as well. Yeah, so it's hard to get into the luxury side because you're going to know the people, right? So my mentor once told me that I, this is actually my secret sauce my mentor told me back in the days. You know, there's like a shopping center called South Coast Plaza right here, right?

That's like one of the biggest luxury shopping mall right here. Every single week, me and my mentor, we actually go there and we go shop around, talk to these salespeople, asking them what is the newest trend right now, What's coming in? Oh, wow. What is Botega having the new collection? What is LV going to have for the new collection?

What kind of Potech watch is coming out? What kind of AP watch is coming out? What is the new series of the Rolex? We go there, we talk to them. You know, they tell us all these details. And guess what? When you actually talk to somebody of that high level, you don't want to be somebody that's driving a Toyota,

you know, talking to somebody that's driving a Rollsway. They will talk down on you. They will look down on you. But if you have all these knowledge, And I mean, even if you're not there, if you could somehow stay at the same level as them, talking about the same stuff they like about golf, you know, horse racing, protect, AP, when you're at that level with them, they will treat you a lot more better and then they will trust you more, right? Because real estate transaction is a very, very big purchase.

Why would they trust somebody that's driving a Toyota or somebody that doesn't understand or dress well and not at that level? or you want somebody that is maybe not at that level, but you guys are talking at the same wavelength. When you can do that, I think that's how real estate agent, luxury agent kind of present themselves, and then that's how they make money. Yeah, I think that's the secret sauce.

That's amazing. And I realize one thing, with all these people that seem to be in the luxury real estate, they go above and beyond. They don't just do your normal like Sunday, Saturday listing. They're out there in the network. events they're out there with the clients they're building rapport they're getting dinner with them they're going to this event they're meeting with this person they're getting that connection

they're jumping on that podcast they do it it's all like it's it's like a crazy schedule because that one sale is going to bring about like four or five times more than a normal sale would because it's a luxury one because of the percentage you're in and that rapport and that like one referral just ends like building because that's one i think i realized as well in solar what i did i did for like a few years but i was like hang on if i'm making between 5 000 to like 15 000 one of my biggest one is actually a woman from taiwan the commission of that one i think was 24 000 it was a big i think it was like close to 80 panels in her house in capritino close to the apple headquarters nice but um again with hers was just a report thing she somebody referred to me to her

went to her for dinner she was chatting i'm trying to pitch us insurance on what she was doing with this like oh yeah i think i do need solar i have a big bill right now i have a big bill right now let's get this thing done and then it was one of those easiest sales but my point in in getting in this um it's the fact that rapport building that customer service and like going above and beyond is it's so important in getting the right deals and and also building the connections can you can you stress a bit more about that i know you love that topic a lot yeah it just basically you just had to be trust, you know, and I also like in real estate market as well, a lot of people, when they get the commission, they keep that commission. They don't want to spend it. But real estate is,

you got to treat as a business. The only, the reason why people are not making money as a real estate agent is because they don't treat it as a deal, like a job, a transaction. So when they get their transaction 20K, they keep that. They don't invest into, you know, everyday direct mail. They don't invest into social media ads. They don't invest. invest into buying a gift for your clients, right? So a lot of people, they don't understand. And they're afraid to spend money because they don't know, they're afraid that if they spend that money, they're not going to get the money back. So that's the mindset as well, like how to actually run the business. So if I could make 60K from our client, the first thing I would do is

I would buy a gift for them, right? And I have this hack I used before. I always go to LV and buy the cheapest stuff, but they have the biggest box. The reason why I say that is because I could buy a scarf, you know, like an LV scarf. Yeah. But it looks really, really big. When you, you know, put it in the box. So when you bring it to your client, they say, oh, this is nice. It's a lot better.

It's a little small gift. Right. So like kind of like a hack and I will kind of figure it out. And we buy a bunch of these. And every time when it's like Chinese New Year is, we'll just like each scarf is like $350, $500. I don't mind spending it because every single year, I'm reminding them, hey, Eric is still here.

He's still doing business. I love that. And then when they think about you, the next thing they did, they're going to refer to a client over. And I did the same thing. I'll start giving them between $500 to $1,000, depending on how big the system was. But if I'm going to be making like $6,000 and you get me like a referral,

I'll give you $1,000, like a $500 when they sign, and then $500 when they close and I get paid as well. Right. And I think if you start having that mentality of dollars over pennies, because you end up spending pennies to get the dollars, it's such a good concept because I've used it as well where I'd get like a bunch of sales. But yes, you may think you lose that amount. And I think they end up implementing a new thing where you couldn't end up giving actual physical cash.

So by doing stuff like buying a new iPhone or doing different stuff, because now you're giving a customer referral amount. You're thinking outside the box knowing that they're going to build the rapport, you just go close the deal. but then because they trust you and it's an incentivized way and transaction for them as well. So there's just so many different stuff people

can do rather than just doing the basic thing of like knock, knock, knock, listen, I'm selling so and so, you know, so I like that. Quickly about flipping though, how quick is the turnover on flipping if you don't mind running through the process? It really depends. You know, depending on the market. You got to understand the demographic, who is buying that area

and then what kind of renovation to design I need to, you know, acquire for them, right? So typically for a turnaround for me is probably three to four months for one flip. So obviously you probably take around two months for the renovation. Obviously depending on how much work you need to be done. So usually around two months, it will take me around two to three weeks to get the house on the contract. And then obviously a month to close escrow, right? So three to four months around the turnaround time for us.

That's quick. Yeah, that's pretty quick. Obviously, you know, just in every single business, if you're going to go through with permit and stuff, obviously, that's going to take a while more. So you're going to have to play your battles and understand the hacks on like, you know, just applying for permit for certain stuff. So the city knows that you're applying with permit. But the rest of the stuff, you do it without permit. But obviously, it still has to be, you know, a licensed contractor. So there's a lot of ways you could get around stuff.

But you obviously don't want to overdo it. But, you know, that's kind of like how we've been playing it. And then would you say then doing multiple of flipping deals is the best way to make money or is it good to focus on one and jump on the next and jump on the next as well? I mean, obviously if you were to start out right away, I would start with one, you know, get your feet with and actually really understand what kind of, you know, what kind of difficulty is going to challenge is going to face. And when you say, this is actually easy, then you can start replicating that, you know,

and getting more deals. Because usually people can only start with one as well. You don't want to over leverage yourself. And have you built a team? Do they do like cold calling and stuff like that? Or what does your team do? So I'm more like the end buyer. I'm like their investor.

So I understand every single business, they're good at what they're doing. So I'm not going to like start a wholesale company right away myself. So I'm just going to let the professional do their job. They make money. I make money. So I'll just have people send me deals. So I don't like do all. any of the cold calls.

So people send me deals. If I think it's good, I give an assignment fee for the wholesale deals. They make money and I make money on the flip side or the buyer on the whole side. And I think,

dude, that concept is so amazing. People don't, if we understand, like collaboration, it's so important because some people are just experts in certain things. You know,

I looked at like, and one of my things when I was in a rush to try and get one of my podcast edited and like somebody, like I watched a YouTube thing and my editor gave me like a thing. I'm like, what am I doing?

Like, I wanted to try and see this thing up, but like, no, it doesn't work that way. Some people are experts in their field. People are very expert, whether you're an audio or sound engineer, whether you're this thing, whether you're that thing, whether you're that thing. But that's the purpose of having people that are experts in the field is that it makes it convenience for once, and it saves time, and you can actually, like, progress and focus on what you're doing as well. So that whole concept of, like, you deal with the wholesaler, you do with that thing. They are the experts in that thing.

We both make money. win-win scenarios are so underrated. People want to do everything all by themselves and it burns them out and before you know what they're nagged out they're not making enough money then it's a downward trajectory and everyone like loses as well.

Exactly. Yeah. I couldn't agree more, ma'am. I'm grateful for all of these. I know that it's so crazy. Like I had these lists that I wanted to ask you but the commission was so good. I got a stuff from scratch.

I told you. I'll keep going. But yeah, no, we're going to close. on time right now, but I know I wanted to ask something right now, but, man, there's a great convo that time flew back. I commonly we have five minutes left, but yeah, I think it's just one year. When you're evaluating a new deal, how do you decide if it's best suited for a flip, long-term rental, or Airbnb? I like that question. All right. So this is something that I should be thinking as a lot as well. I could buy a property and make a quick flip and make a hundred

K or I could buy and hold it and make a thousand to $2,000 profit, obviously by running as Airbnb. Which one makes more sense? So that's actually something I'm actually keep asking myself. So I have a property that I want to hold, but I also want to flip. I'm like complicating between that. So I think it depends on your stage of life. I think for me, I'm 31 right now. I think the long-term holding game is the best way.

But for people that are younger, you know, they want to like, expand their business, I will flip the house. So I think that's kind of like where I'm contemplating against, like make 100K out front or a thousand to $2,000 passively and then waiting for the whole entire equity to kind of grow. Because really think about it from the long term of spend, you really only need $5 million of asset that can invest into any, you know, bonds or yield for 10%. You could live pretty much for free. I mean, pretty much. I mean, pretty well. well off, right? That's, you could literally $5 million worth of assets what you actually need to retire. You know, if you invest 10% you know, return every single year. So that's kind of like my goal

right now. Maybe just to get to that level and just travel because, you know, through my 20s, I have been just been working my ass out, no travel, no nothing. But I feel like, you know, once you actually start making money, we're going to enjoy my life more. So maybe, I don't know You know what? That house, maybe I'll flip it, make $100K and just go travel. I don't know yet. Well, you know what? In the next five years, once we do this interview again, that's the first question I'm going to ask you about, like, what did you do with at home that you were contemplating about? For sure. We will know by then. And so are your plans to go to commercial right now at the latest stage? What's your future plans?

So my future plan is we actually bought some lands in Arkansas. We're actually building like a cabin, like a 30-unit. cabin right now. But like go for treat. So that's in development right now. So more getting into motels and then also like land development. But something I really want to get into is actually like like motel flipping. So basically, you know, motel and Airbnb is the same thing, right? Kind of like traditional company that's, you know, painting company.

And then people that's doing like more creatively. So I want to buy stuff that's already assisting. that the owner is probably like on the older side, they don't know how to run their business, doing like a creative kind of deal, buying like part of their equity, renovating it to exactly I know how to make money. They're kind of like, you know, people flip houses, right? We flip motel. We'll just change the pain, you know, change the bed, you know, put some accent wool

onto it. You could potentially sell for like $100 extra, right? And when you could sell $100 extra, you build that entire business, generate will increase by 1 million to 2 million just by doing that. So I think that's something I want to really get into, just doing creative deals with motels, renovating it for them, and then either try to flip it or hold on to it

and then still give them some equity on the side so they could just retire, and we keep the operational kind of in-house, basically. Awesome, man. And then the second last question I wanted to ask, what's the most challenging or difficult part about being an entrepreneur? you always want more.

That's the best answer yet. Yeah. It's true. It's a blessing and a curse, you know, because it's just never enough. You're like, oh my gosh, I've accomplished that. And you realize your potential, like, if I can do that, let's try that.

If I can do that, let's try that. But then it started as a blessing, but before you know it, you're in the spiral thing. It's funny. When you draw the line? Sorry, you're getting to say. I have this house right now is under escrow right now. Today I need to remove the continuity.

But I'm like, do I really want to, overstretched myself and invests into that deal. You know, like, I need to decide that later on today. But, yeah, I think it's just more about just, there's so much opportunity out there. And then you just have to make sure you pick the right one and not overstretched yourself. I think that's what it is.

Love it, brother. The code to winning is, it's known for insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. I ask all my guests, this thing, towards the end of the thing, because everyone has a different definition of what, winning actually is for them. In your definition, for Eric Chen, what does the term winning mean for you? For me, winning is, you know, being able to, I mean, my parents or everybody, you know, my wife, I sacrificed a lot for me, you know, I'm here because of them. So I think right now,

for me in my 30s, my winning is actually basically just retiring my family and, you know, retire my wife and just travel. And then having a bunch of passive income come in. And also eventually we have kids, you know, having the right education for my kids, basically. Love that, brother. Love that, brother. If you could look at the camera yet and just let our guests know where they could get a hold of you, if they want to, like, get a mentor call or understand or follow what you've been doing, what are the best social media platforms, website, and like, you know, let us know as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So you can actually find me on Instagram. I'm very, very active up there. My Instagram handle is E-R-I-C-H-E-N. So Eric Chen. That's a very, very common Chinese name or Asian name, and I happen to have that handle. So you can find me very, very easily.

Eric Chen. You know what's crazy? I was going to ask you that because I was like, how did you get Eric Chen in one word? Because I was like, you probably had Instagram when it downloaded back in 2010 because sometimes people go, how many did you get Instagram if you know what I'm asking?

I bought it from the person that had that handle. That explains that I was going to say. Eric Chen, what are the chances? When I first told it, I'm like, no ways, man. Like, either you had to have been among the first hundred people to get Instagram because Eric Chen is, yeah, that's impressive. Yeah, I pay a good money, a lot of money for it, but I believe that if people see

somebody's name with Eric Chen, that's a very, very believable handle. And then it's incentivant to follow me, right? It's more legitimate. I got a blue tag and everything just, okay, follow. It's all marketing. The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Eric Chen, thank you so much, brother. Thank you for having me.

Awesome.