The Personal Finance Podcast - What do You Do if You Started Investing Late!? (Money Q&A)

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Starting point is 00:01:28 I'm your host, Andrew founder of mastermoney.com. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking through a money Q&A. And the title is what to do if you started investing late. If you guys have any questions, make sure to hit us up on Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter at Master Money Co. follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. Cannot thank you guys enough for those follows. And that allows you to see all the new episodes that we have coming out. We have a lot of great content coming up as well. So make sure you follow us on this podcast. Really, really excited for some of the new content that we have coming up. And if you're not on the Master Money newsletter,

Starting point is 00:02:06 by the way, make sure you subscribe to the Master Money newsletter because we're going to be releasing some cool stuff for you guys. That's going to be free on that Master Money newsletter. That is always linked up. in the show notes down below. Now, today, we're going to be diving into three different questions on this money Q&A. So the first one we're going to do is, what do you do with a high-interest mortgage? This is a big problem a lot of people have had as of late because a lot of mortgage rates have been much higher. And so high-interest debt to us is 6% or above. So what do you do with this high-interest mortgage? How do you think about a high-interest mortgage? Number two, what do I do if I started investing late? This is one of my favorite topics to talk through because I love teaching people that

Starting point is 00:02:44 it is never too late to actually start investing and be able to retire. And we're going to talk through that question. Number three is how to get started real estate investing. And so this is a big, big topic that I love to talk about always. And so we'll dive into how to get started real estate investing as well. We'll talk through this person's specific situation as we dive into that. So if that's something you're into, let's get into it. All right.

Starting point is 00:03:09 So question one is I have $10,000 in our emergency fund, which represents about 1.1. months of cash needed in the event of a job loss. We also have a mortgage at about 6.99%. I expect to receive a $15,000 bonus after tax in the next few weeks, and I'm trying to figure out how to use it. Technically, the mortgage is high interest over 6%. And step four of the stairway to wealth says to throw the bonus at that. However, the $15,000 could accelerate our emergency fund a little over three months. I am in a stable profession, but not as stable as, say, a nurse, etc. How would you recommend I use my bonus? I have a brand new baby and a wife who we plan to stay at home, which is lowering our household income as well. I am truly comfortable with either option,

Starting point is 00:03:54 so neither one is a peace of mind issue. All right. So this is a fantastic question. I know a lot of people actually struggle with this because technically a 6.99% interest rate, by our definition, is high interest debt. But here's what I want you to do when you think about mortgage interest debt is I want you to think through a number of different steps that we're going to talk about here so that you can kind of look at this from a very specific perspective. Now, I'm going to give the short, quick answer on the top here. If you have a wife who is going to be staying at home and you have a baby, then that money I would more so utilize towards the emergency fund. Because if you have a higher interest debt, which this is right on the border, it's 6.99%. So it's 0.99% above

Starting point is 00:04:37 that high interest debt. But you can always refinance this mortgage, which we're We'll talk about a little bit more here in a second. Secondly, though, you need to protect your family first in this situation. If you are going to lose an income, first you need to make sure to see, is it possible to lose that income and it's okay? And so you need that extra cushion in your emergency fund. Secondly, as you'll see, when you have a baby, a lot of emergencies come up. A lot of random things will come up where you're going to need to utilize that emergency fund.

Starting point is 00:05:03 So in your specific situation, this is a very powerful place to put these dollars. These dollars are going to protect you and your family for years to come. And so it's really, really important to take this bonus, and I would definitely put it towards my emergency fund. This is a very, very important thing to talk about. But at the same time, I'm going to teach people as we go through this, how to think through this process. If you have a higher interest mortgage, how to think through this.

Starting point is 00:05:28 I am less concerned with a higher interest rate on a mortgage than I would be on like credit card debt or a personal loan because this mortgage can be refinanced down. when rates drop. Now, we have no idea when rates drop. The risk with this is that you have no idea if rates are going to drop in 10 years or if they're going to drop in two years. Nobody has that crystal ball. But the likelihood of them dropping is much higher than it would be with other interest. Credit card debt is always going to be extremely high. And to refinance it, it is very difficult. It is very costly. A lot of fees are involved. And the same thing goes for personal loans and a bunch of other different types of debt. So any of those types of high interest that you want to get paid

Starting point is 00:06:07 off as fast as you possibly can. But when it comes to your mortgage, I'm a little bit more lenient on that. And I'll talk through some of the aspects that we need to think about here. So the first thing I want you to do is kind of take an interest rate comparison when it comes to your mortgage. Is your interest rate significantly higher than the current rates right now? That's going to instantly tell you, hey, maybe it's time to refinance. And so what you have to do is you have to go in there and do the math and say to yourself, are the fees that it costs to refinance this mortgage? Are they worth it to go ahead and refinance it. Is the savings per month based on that interest rate worth it?

Starting point is 00:06:40 It's saying if you reduce your interest rate by 2%, is that savings based on the amount that you borrowed worth it in comparison to the amount of fees that you're going to have to pay up front to refinance that mortgage? Because if you don't know, when you refinance a mortgage, you're still going to have to pay closing costs and those different types of fees up front. And so you want to know what those fees are and then do that comparison. But if your mortgage is 7%, and interest rates have dropped down to 4%, it's highly likely that it's going to be worth it for you to consider refinancing.

Starting point is 00:07:09 Number two is you also want to compare the investment returns or the average investment returns historically to your actual current interest rate because this is going to help you make this decision only when it comes to your mortgage. So when it comes to your mortgage, you can look at say, hey, I got a 7% interest rate here on my mortgage, but the S&P 500 has returned 10% over the course of the last 50 years. We bump it down to 8% to factor in inflation and we factor in another and other risks. okay, well, I have a 1% differential there that I am comfortable with. If you're comfortable with that number, then that is another thing that you can do is investment

Starting point is 00:07:42 returns versus your interest savings. Number three is you want to think through your financial security and your flexibility. So making sure you have that emergency fund beefed up, which is what we're talking about here, is very, very important in comparison to just paying a big mortgage down. I'd rather you have that six-month emergency fund than pay off a 7% mortgage in this situation. So I'd rather you have that six months in your emergency fund first in this specific situation. So that is one definitely is thinking about your specific financial security and how much flexibility you need within that security.

Starting point is 00:08:16 And then I would also just consider financial goals and peace of mind. If your mortgage bothers you and you have that 7% mortgage and it really, really bothers you, then having that peace of mind is going to be really important. But in this specific question, they said they don't have financial peace of mind either way. They're okay with either decision. But specifically, if someone out there is listening and they're saying to themselves, Well, this mortgage is really, really bothering me.

Starting point is 00:08:37 I can't stand having this 7% interest rate. I really need to get rid of this. Then that is a great reason to pay down your mortgage because it is bothering you. It is keeping you up at night. So you've got to put together an attack plan in order to get rid of that mortgage. A lot of money is just psychology. And if that is really bothering you, then taking advantage of that and going after that is really, really important.

Starting point is 00:08:56 And then also just thinking through those penalties and fees. Penalties and fees can be very high on refinancing mortgages. So you just want to think through what are the penalties? season fee is going to be if I do refinance this and how should I think through that process. So in your situation, because you have a lot of family events happening, your wife A is going to be a stay-at-home mother, which is absolutely fantastic. And so because of that, that is reason number one to beef up the emergency fund. Reason number two is you also have a baby coming on the way, which means that more emergencies are going to pop up. So that is a great reason to beef up that emergency

Starting point is 00:09:28 fund. And reason number three is because you're not at that six months expenses yet. So those three reasons, because of your family dynamic, I would absolutely put that money towards your emergency fund instead of paying down your mortgage. It's not going to help you much if something happens in life and you pay down your mortgage and that money is gone. It's not going to help you much in comparison to how much more valuable those dollars could be to protect your family and your wealth. So question number two is related to what to do if you started investing late. So I am noticing how important it is to start investing in your 20s. And I'm wondering what? What I can do to make up for missed time.

Starting point is 00:10:05 I am currently at ground zero. I just opened a bank account and a high-yield savings account, got a secured credit card and set up my phone bill payment to be automated with the credit card. Congratulations for those first steps. That's absolutely amazing. And then for that credit card bill to be automatically paid for my bank account, awesome. Is there anything I could be doing to make up for being late to the game? Should I increase my savings rate?

Starting point is 00:10:27 Great idea. My plan was to save about 50% of my income to start, but would like to hear opinions. this could be answered on the podcast, that would be awesome, but any help is appreciated. Well, guess what? We're going to answer it on the podcast today. So I am so excited to go through this. Now, this is a really, really important concept to understand. And I want everybody listening to this podcast to understand the next statement that I'm going to say. If you don't understand it, please reach out to me and I'll try to explain it very simply here. Retirement is a number and is not an age. I'm going to say it again. Retirement is a number. It is not an age. This should be the most

Starting point is 00:11:03 reassuring thing that you have ever heard if you started investing late. Now, I want you to hear this up top. If you started investing late, it is never too late to be able to retire. This is one of the things that most people get wrong. It is never too late because starting now is significantly better than never starting and just giving up and throwing your hands in the air and saying, I started way too late. I didn't take advantage of investing in my 20s. I'm not going to invest now. That is the wrong approach. You have to change your mindset. Your mindset is a huge factor when it comes into this is that you still will have time for your money to compound. And compound interest is going to absolutely change your life once you put your dollars towards your investments. Those investments

Starting point is 00:11:44 are going to spit off more cash that's going to create freedom for your life. But it starts with understanding that retirement is a number, not an age. Retirement is not 60 years old. Retirement is not 65 years old. Retirement is a number. It is the amount of money that you have invested over time. So how do you figure out what that number is? You're going to go out and you're going to say to yourself, well, how much do I want to spend in retirement? Maybe you want to spend $80,000 per year in retirement. You're going to multiply $80,000 by $25. And whatever number you get, that is your retirement number. So $80,000 times $25 is going to be $2 million is what you need to have invested in order to be able to draw down $80,000 per year and still preserve your wealth for 30 to 40 years.

Starting point is 00:12:26 So now that we know that quick calculation, it's a super fast calculation. And if you don't know where we got that from, just look up our episodes. on the 4% rule. We have deep dive episodes on that. We've talked about it a number of time on this podcast. Now what I want to talk about is how important your savings rate is

Starting point is 00:12:42 because what you mentioned here is should I increase my savings rate? And absolutely yes, you should. Because your savings rate, especially at the beginning, is going to be the driver and the catapult to allowing you to create financial freedom.

Starting point is 00:12:56 There are a lot of people out there who have created financial freedom in 10 years or less. And we will do an entire episode on how to do that. But there are a lot people out there who have done that. And part of this is because they understand the power of their savings rate. Your savings rate will build a tremendous amount of wealth in a very short

Starting point is 00:13:14 period of time if you can increase that savings right now. How do you increase your savings rate? There's two ways. A is you increase your income first. So increasing your income will solve a ton of of different problems for you because you can maintain your lifestyle, increase your income, and all of a sudden you're living the same way and you're investing more dollars and you're fueling. that fire even faster. I love people who focus on increasing their income first, but you also need to focus on the things that you can control, and what you can control right away is reducing those expenses a little bit. And so the difference between your expenses and your income is called the gap, and the gap is where wealth is built. This is the pile of money that you can take and shovel into

Starting point is 00:13:58 investment and when you do that, your fire will continue to grow over time. So let's talk about savings right here for a second. Because we've talked about calculations in the past on the show. There is a very, very good article by a blog called Mr. Money Mustache. And if you've never read it, it's called the shockingly simple math behind early retirement. This is an amazing article to get you started on. But what we did is we changed the numbers because he used, I think, a 5% interest rate back then in that article on the rate of return. We change it to an 8% rate of return. And what this does is it shows you, hey, based on your savings rate, this is how long it would take you before you can retire. And so you're going to look at this and you're going to say to yourself, well,

Starting point is 00:14:38 if you have a 5% savings rate and you've got an 8% rate of return in the market, which the S&P 500 has returned over 10% over the last 40 years. But if you've got an 8% rate of return, then if you save 5% of your income, it would take you 47 years to retire. This is why when we hear a lot of financial gurus say, ah, just save 10% of your income and you'll be A-OK. Well, let's look at that. If you save 10% of your income, you're going to be working for 38 years if you got an 8% rate of return. Really, really important for people to not only save 10% of their income. This is why I always say the beginning and the baseline should be 20% of your income. It should be 20% is where you need to start. Why? Because if you save 15% of your income, it would take you 32 years

Starting point is 00:15:23 to retire, and 20% of your income would take you 28 years to retire. So unless you want to be working for longer than 30 years, you need to save 20% or more of your income and put those into investments. Now, what counts as savings? What is actually part of this savings rate? Well, it's putting money into your retirement accounts, so your 401K counts, your 401K match counts as long as it's vested, your Roth IRA accounts, your brokerage account counts, all of these count. They all count towards your savings rate. 25% savings. rate is 25 years before you retired. So 25, 25, so 25% will be 25 years before you retire. But you said, hey, what if I started to save 50% of my income? This is a fantastic number.

Starting point is 00:16:05 And a lot of people who are on their financial independence journey, they try to target 50% up front. Everybody in the fire movement wants to try to get to that 50% or more number. Now, a lot of you that are new to this may think, oh my gosh, that's crazy. I make $5,000 per month. How am I going to be able to save $2,500 and live on $2,500? We get it. This is why increasing your income is really, really important. But as you get to that 50% savings rate number, if you save 50% of your income, you can retire in 14 years based on this math, meaning that you can retire in 14 years. And this doesn't even factor in things like Social Security later on down the line. And so you have this money, you can retire in 14 years. And

Starting point is 00:16:43 if you save 55% of your income, 12 years. If you save 60% of your income, 11 years. I know people who have saved 70% or more. If you save 70% of your income, you save 70% of your income, You can retire in eight years. This is why. Imagine this for a second. And let's use easy numbers here. Let's imagine for a second that it takes you $3,000 per month to lift. Now, most people in most locations, it does not take that.

Starting point is 00:17:05 I'm doing the easy math here. Okay? And let's say you're making $3,000 a month and it takes you $3,000 per month to live. Over time, what's going to happen is you're going to get raises and you're going to get increases. But let's say you really honed down your skills and you mastered your skills and you learned how to do things like sales. And then you went to a new company and they gave you a raise. And then you went there and you started to take on leadership roles and you were leading

Starting point is 00:17:30 teams. And all of a sudden, your money goes from $3,000 per month to $10,000 per month. Well, if you're making $10,000 per month and you still live that $3,000 per month lifestyle, guess what's going to happen? You have a 70% savings rate, okay? And so you're saving that money. You're taking those dollars and you're putting them in investment accounts and you're putting them in brokerage accounts and you're investing those dollars in index funds and

Starting point is 00:17:53 ETFs and all these different things. And so your money is starting to grow at an 8% rate of return. Guess what's going to happen? At a 70% savings rate, you'll be able to retire in eight years. Financial independence is just a math problem. That's all it is. And if you can find ways to save a massive amount of your income by increasing your income, it will absolutely change your life.

Starting point is 00:18:18 I thought this was never possible until I started to really focus my time and my energy on increasing my income. Focusing on saving on $3 lottes does not matter in the long run. Focusing on increasing your income matters a whole lot in the long run. And this is exactly why. The math shows you why. Because if you could save 70% of your income, you can retire in eight years. So folks, if you started late, what are some things you can do to really radically increase your income? Because if you can do that and you can take those extra dollars and you can funnel those extra dollars into retirement, it is going to be life-changing for you and life-changing for your family. How can you develop some of those skills to increase your income? That is what I want you to

Starting point is 00:19:01 constantly be thinking about all the time. Now, this is way easier said than none, but the things that you could focus on are your skills and your personal development in order to help you be able to increase that income. Because this math problem is very simple on paper, but it is hard to actually do if you don't have that extra income. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, this is a difficult thing to hear. But if you can increase that income, oh my goodness, the amazing things that you can do. So getting to that 20% minimum is why we talk about this. If you've ever wondered why he says 20% of your income should be the bare minimum,

Starting point is 00:19:32 it's because you have to work 28 years if you are just saving the bare minimum. And I don't want anybody working 30 years or longer if they don't want to. So I want everybody to be under that 30 year mark. And if you start at 20, that means you can retire by 48. That's an amazing life. And so if you start at 22, you graduate, and you start to save 20% of your income, guess what? You're retired at 50. You know how many 50 year olds are standing there when they don't even have any retirement whatsoever? And you're completely retired

Starting point is 00:19:57 because you made the conscious decision to save 20% of your income and put it in retirement accounts. This is the stuff I'm telling you that will change your life if you actually run the numbers. And I know every single one of you can do this and I know how powerful this can be. So I hope this helps answer your question because retirement is a number, not an age. And that's how. I remember when I needed to hire someone fast, but finding the right person quickly felt impossible. And if you've ever been there, you know how stressful this can be. That's where Indeed comes in. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Instead of struggling to get your job post noticed, Indeed's sponsor jobs help you stand out and hire faster. Your post jumps up to the top of the page, making sure it reaches

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Starting point is 00:23:47 entire episode talking about this. And so I'm going to dive into it here as well and kind of go through some of the concepts that you need to understand when it comes to getting started, real estate investing. Because real estate investing is something where you need to educate yourself off front and then you can just start doing. And so a lot of people will educate, educate, educate themselves and they get analysis paralysis. And then all of a sudden, they don't know, direction they want to go. This is a business that when you start to real estate invest, you need to educate yourself, read five, six books, go to a couple seminars, and then once you do X number of things, then you're going to start. You're going to go. You're going to get

Starting point is 00:24:22 after it and you're going to be a doer because the doer is the ones that actually make a lot of money. You're going to make mistakes because a lot of real estate is all through experience, but you're also going to be able to make a lot of money. I was the person who when I started to decide that I want to get started real estate investing. You know what I did? I read books for like three years straight. And I listened to every Bigger Pockets podcast back when Brandon and Josh were on that podcast. And I would sit there and I would think about every which way I want to invest. And you know what happened over that time frame?

Starting point is 00:24:51 I would say, hey, I'm going to flip houses. Then I would say, hey, I'm going to invest in small multifamily. No, I'm going to invest in single family. No, I want apartment complexes. No, actually I want to go back to single family. And so all I was doing was just churning my wheels. And I was doing nothing. Action is everything in the real estate business.

Starting point is 00:25:08 And so what you want to do is you want to start educating yourself. If you want some books out there, there are some great ones out there that I think a lot of people should read. One is Chad Carson's new book, the small and mighty real estate investor, is absolutely fantastic. That is one of the best real estate books that I have read in a long time. He came on this podcast and talked about it. So if you haven't heard that episode, Chad is a friend of the show for sure. And that is a great book. All of Brandon Turner's books that are produced through bigger pockets are really important.

Starting point is 00:25:35 Brandon is one of those people in the real estate world. It's an actual good guy. And so Brandon is someone, I need to get him on the show, but Brandon is someone who really inspired me a lot. He has a really good one on managing rental properties with his wife, Heather. And that's a great one is the millionaire real estate investor. That's another great one. Building wealth, one house at a time is another great book by John Shob. John Shob, I had the pleasure of meeting. He lives actually locally in Tampa where I live, right outside of Tampa, actually. And so he has a great book. That is an underwerect. rated book that a lot of people don't talk about. There's another book. I think it's 36 things you need to know about cash flow or something along those lines. That's another great book. There's a bunch of really good real estate books out there. Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a good book for motivation to understand your why. I would almost go, here's, here's the order I would almost go. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, just to get you fired up. That one's going to get you fired up. It's not going to teach you a ton of things in terms of technicality, but it's going to really get you fired up. Then I'd go to Chad Carson's book, Small and Mighty Real Estate Investor.

Starting point is 00:26:31 Then I'd go through Brandon Turner's books. And he's got a couple of them. There's like two or three that I'd really look through. And those are some of the core ones that I would look at, and then building wealth one house at a time. And you can continue to kind of read some of these as you go through this. And they are really, really powerful books to really get you started. Then what I want you to do is as you're reading, I want you to A, have a hard stop of how many books you're going to be reading when it comes to real estate investing and how many seminars you're going to attend. And instead, you say to yourself, I'm going to take action. And I want you to define your goals and strategy. What is your goal going to be? Are you going to be a single family

Starting point is 00:27:01 house investor. Are you going to be multifamily? Are you going to be someone who wants to buy apartment complexes? Define those goals and strategies and say which one you're going to do and set that up and get it ready. Because what I want you to do is then get your finances in order. So when it comes to real estate investing, A, you have a couple of options. You can finance it yourself with a down payment and you go get a mortgage lender, which I think you should interview three or four of them. And they need to be investor friendly. They cannot just be some random mortgage lender that your agent recommended to you. they need to be an investment friendly mortgage lender. And so they need to be someone that you can talk to and say, hey, you understand investments. Let's have this conversation. There are also hard money lenders,

Starting point is 00:27:39 which hard money lenders are technically really, really high interest debt. And so if you're flipping a house or if you're looking to buy a house really quickly in cash and you're going to refinance it out with that mortgage lender, that is another person that you can have on your team. They lend you money really quickly, but they do it at a really high interest rate. Sometimes it's like 12 to 15%. It can make sense in certain scenarios. I've used them once. And so there was a property that came on the market that when I saw this property, I needed cash really, really quickly. So I called up one of them that I've met and known for a little while. And I said, hey, I need cash really fast. Can you give me the cash and I will refinance this out within the next six months? And they said, sure. And so it worked out all in our favor where I paid,

Starting point is 00:28:21 you know, the interest differential was not very much because it was a short period of time and I was able to refinance that property. But you got to know what you're doing when you're doing that kind of stuff. So I would look for just the traditional funding route because it's safer. They're going to actually help you with all the checkpoints where they're going to make you go in there and have an inspector, go through the house and do all those different things. So interview three to four of them, make sure they are investor friendly and figure out what the down payment is because a lot of times when you are investing in rental properties, the minimum down payment, a lot of them want now is 25%. So you need to either have that in cash available and or understand how that works. Now,

Starting point is 00:28:55 along these same lines, when you're getting your finances in order, the number one thing you need to know as you're doing your research is how to run the numbers on rental property. So once you pick the actual rental property that you want to invest in, then you need to know how to run your numbers. We have a calculator. It's $19. We have a calculator that we give you. It's on a spreadsheet and it takes you step by step from step one, step two, step three. Here's the numbers you enter and here's how you do it. So if you're interested in that, we will link it up down below. But there are a number of different rental property calculators out there that you can use. Ours is just the one that I use and I've refined it a bunch of different ways and it kind of shows you, you know, how is this property going to perform over time? And it does it over the course of 20 years. And so there's a lot of cool features to it. But at the same time, you can use any of those rent-of-property calculators out there and you just need to make sure you understand how to run the numbers. If you don't know how to do that, we just did an episode this year on it. And you can go back and check out that episode as well. The next thing I want you to do, though, is find a good real estate broker or a good agent. Now, your agent is going to need to understand investors. because what investors have to do is they have to make a lot of offers. And so a lot of agents are not willing to make a million offers for you, which is tough, which is one of the reasons why I went out and got my real estate license because I could just make as many offers as I want. And the only thing I use that license for is to invest in rental properties. And the reason why I did, that is just easier A to go in C houses on the market, but B, to make a bunch of offers. And so as you do this, if you want to look on the MLS, the MLS is harder to find rental properties. It just is because typically the MLS is a location. where a lot of newer, nicer houses are going to be. When you're investing in rental properties, you're trying to find houses that need some cosmetic upgrades so that you can force appreciation into those houses. So a lot of times, off market might be better.

Starting point is 00:30:39 But if you're going to use an agent, find an agent who is investor-friendly. Maybe they can give you a template of the contract that you're going to be sending to each and every single one of these offers, and then maybe you have to fill out the template and then just give it to them and they send it off. Something like that would be one option. And then what you're going to do is you're going to have that conversation

Starting point is 00:30:55 with them and you're going to interview them and ask them a bunch of questions. Are you willing to make offers? Have you worked with investors before? Do you understand properties that cash flow and why they cash flow? And you got to go through your questions with each agent and figure out which one is a good buyer's agent. But you may not even need a buyer's agent because here's a quick tip that I think a lot of people need to think through is a lot of times if you're looking for investment properties on the MLS, what you want to do is maybe go to the listing agent that actually has that property listed because if they have both sides, they'd be much more likely to fight for your offer than someone who has a buyer's agent on their side. And so what you can do is even sweeten up that deal even more. This is a

Starting point is 00:31:37 quick tip for you, is you can go to that agent and say, hey, I will pay you a one to two percent commission on top of what you're making for selling this property if you put my offer in and my offer gets accepted. Who are they way more incentivized to promote the offer for? Is it you? or is it the person who is going in at asking, for example? And so this is where you can really sweeten your deal because you have to use human psychology here and say, hey, here's your incentive. Go present my offer.

Starting point is 00:32:06 And this is something where you can really sweeten that deal. And you can sweeten it for the seller as well and say, hey, I will help you with some of the closing costs as well on your end, X, yada, yada, yada. And you can try to sweeten the deal for both sides. So this is something where in today's market, if you're on the MLS, you really have to sweeten deal. Now, outside of that, you can find off-market properties, and we've had an entire episode on how to find off-market properties.

Starting point is 00:32:28 So if you haven't heard that episode, we'll link it up down below too. And that is a great way to kind of go through this and think through. I would much rather find off-market properties than on-market, honestly, because they just are better deals usually. So those are some of the things that I would think through as you get started. Now, what you're going to have to understand is you're going to have to make a ton of offers before you get one. It's really just a numbers game when it comes down to it. A lot of people will say 40 to 50 offers to get one accepted. I found it's, even more than that. For me, I think it was like 80 offers before I'd get one accepted. And so it's really just a numbers game, a volume game, so that you can find the right deal for you and make it work for you. Then after that, you want to think through your team, thinking through, you know, are you going to have a handyman on site or a contractor? You're going to do the work yourself. I recommend not doing the work yourself because if you want to treat this like a business and you really want to scale it, the last thing you want to do is be working in your business instead of on

Starting point is 00:33:17 your business. You want to be working on your business instead of actually, you know, swinging a hammer, doing all these different things. You want to spend your time finding properties and looking for new investments and looking for ways to cash flow instead of spending your time changing out wallpaper. So that's the type of things that you really need to think about and really go through that. And so those are some of the things that I would think through for just getting started. But I would check out our episode talking through real estate investing. And we will do a beginner's guide coming up here soon as well. But these are some of the quick things that I kind of want to talk through on this episode because I think it's really, really valuable to add real

Starting point is 00:33:50 estate to your portfolio, if that's something you're interested in. Now, for those listening thinking, hey, I got to invest in real estate now. This is the only way to build wealth. It's not. And it's not for everyone because there's headaches when it comes to tenants. There's headaches when it comes to managing these properties. And so it is not for everyone, but it is a fantastic way to build wealth. And I highly recommend once you start to acquire your first property or beforehand, reading Brandon Turner's book on how to manage rental properties, because that one really was like the thing that I used to manage my first couple ones. My SOP. are basically based off that book. So I think it's a great book and it's really, really valuable.

Starting point is 00:34:24 Mine is probably all torn up because I've read it so many times. So it's a really, really valuable book and I highly recommend it. So congratulations on getting started investing. And we'll do that episode of that Real Estate Investors 101. We'll redo that one because I think it's going to be a really, really valuable episode. So we'll dive deeper into all of this stuff. So thank you so much for asking that question. And thank you guys for listening to this episode because what you are doing when you listen to this podcast is you are investing in yourself. And that is one of the most powerful things you could do with your time and your energy. So thank you so much again for listening to this episode. And I truly appreciate each and every single one of you. Make sure you follow this podcast

Starting point is 00:34:58 on your favorite podcast player. If you want to watch it, you can watch it on YouTube, the Anderjinkola YouTube channel. So really appreciate each and every single one of you. And if you got value out of this episode, consider leaving a five-star rating review on your favorite podcast player. Thank you guys again for listening. We will see you on the next episode. 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play-O-Joe.

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The Personal Finance Podcast - What do You Do if You Started Investing Late!? (Money Q&A)

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