How Mid-Term Rentals Can Make You Financially Free | Jason & Jackie McClure DSH #1206

So fulfilling, so enjoyable.

I remember this one time I was driving that Porsche and we were in like downtown LA, and there was a homeless guy, and I got into my car, and he's like, That is an awesome car.

I'm like,

You want to go for a ride?

He's like, No way.

And I'm like, Yeah, hop in.

He goes in, he's like, Hey, can you go around the block?

My girlfriend's over there.

I want to wave to her while we're driving by.

I'm like, Absolutely.

That's funny.

But at the end of the day, what's a thing to enjoy if you're just, you know, if you're just enjoying it for yourself and not sharing it with with anybody

all right guys from dallas we got jason and jacqueline here we're gonna talk midterm rentals and and life thanks for coming on guys come on thanks for having us yeah this is a space i know nothing about so you're gonna have to start from the basics with me what exactly is a midterm rental so midterm um everyone knows what a short-term rental is right that's basically 30 days or less a midterm is gonna be any anything that falls into 30 days or more

um so

you get to furnish all the same stuff as like a short-term, but 30 days or more.

And you get to avoid

blocks like HOA saying, you know,

we don't allow short-term rentals.

We don't allow any rentals less than 30 days.

You get past that a lot of times.

There's some crazy HOAs that are trying to do something like nothing less than a year now, but it's really rare.

But yeah, basically, we're providing housing, and we specialize in the

IMTR market, which is

insurance midterm rentals.

So let's say like you take off, you're in New York for the weekend, you come back, and you're like,

my toilet just, all the water's on the floor, the filler just leaked or whatever it is.

And you have a potential mold problem.

You're like, what do I do?

You call your insurance, and they're like, okay, we're going to move you to another place because there's mold hazard or there's just too much construction to do.

You can't be living there.

And wherever you go to, that's what we're trying to provide housing for.

Got it.

Yeah, it sounds like it's less headaches, right?

A lot less headaches.

Yeah, we've done long-term.

My favorite part about it.

The tenants.

We've done short-term headaches.

They're amazing.

They're homeowners.

So it's like we love the tenants.

That's our favorite thing about IMTR, more than the money.

Right, because they're homeowners.

They're looking for an in-between spot to stay while their new home's done, basically.

They are.

And

they're people that are nearby.

They generally want to stay someplace that's near their kids' school, near their work, whatever.

And they just want to stay there until their home's done.

So they're not trying to squat.

No one's squatting.

They're not even paying out of pocket because it's coming out of their insurance.

Oh, wow.

So they're just happy to be someplace, and we try to buy to provide the nicest place possible.

Yeah, that's legit.

I didn't know insurance companies were covering this.

Oh, it's yeah, absolutely.

So it's, we call it a win-win-win.

The insurance company wants to get them taken care of and get them out of the house while repairs are done.

Right.

And then they themselves,

they just want a nice place to land in while their their home gets fixed up.

Right.

They want convenience.

They want, you know, we want them to walk in and be like, wow, yeah, I'd love to stay here.

And then us, we love taking care of them, and then we make great money doing it.

Yeah, that's cool.

You guys do this in Dallas?

We do.

Yeah, we've done it in, I think, five or six states.

We pulled back this last year and consolidated a little bit.

We've done it in Florida, Indiana,

Ohio,

Tennessee, California.

California is where we started.

We're originally from LA.

I don't get LA vibes from you guys at all.

That's why we're not there anymore.

It's down there.

We got roots,

but yeah,

we've

been in Fort Worth.

Let's bring Cardone in there and turn it around and we might just skip by a place there again.

Hey, come on.

I was there during COVID and I hated it.

Oh, that's when I moved it.

We moved in January 2020.

So right when it started?

Just before.

Just before.

Oh, before it started.

Yeah, it was only two months before.

Because lockdowns dropped in March.

Yeah, talk about good timing.

Oh, best timing.

Because you would have been screwed if you waited two months.

Done.

And I traveled there a number of times just because we still had family there, we still had business there.

And it was the worst.

Dude, I mean, it wouldn't even do anything.

I moved there at the worst time, and I lasted five months.

And then I came to Vegas.

It wasn't planned.

I drove here, stayed at the MGM for a month looking for a house because everyone was leaving LA to move to everywhere.

So it's hard to find a house around that time.

Super hard.

I remember my best friend visited from California to Texas in 2021, and she brought her new baby that was born in 2020 and she's like oh my gosh he has never seen people he's never been out like we went to a restaurant he was like it's his first time at church it's his first time here I'm like dude he's almost a year old how is this

but it was it was such a paradigm shift because Texas we were like living pretty much normal yeah Texas and Florida handled it well yeah you guys could do whatever you wanted all right I mean I was honestly I was a bit surprised on that they still had restrictions that were as strong as they were I was expecting Texas to be totally free.

And there was legit like quarantine recommendations.

When the uncertainty was there, which, I mean, we all were like, what's going on?

It was a couple of months.

Yeah.

It was a couple of months, and I was reasonable.

Kind of thinking, like, this kind of feels like California.

But when I went back to California, I was like, okay, this is not, that is not California.

This is California.

Yeah, California.

I remember her brother came out to visit in the middle.

It was like a year and a half in or something.

Yeah.

And he came to visit from California.

And he's like, we took him to a restaurant, a barbecue spot, and it's filled with people no one's massive band is playing employees aren't massive nobody and he's like I just I I don't know what to do right now like this feels crazy and then he moved shortly thereafter oh you moved there a lot of people moved to Texas never thought he would but my whole family moved slowly but surely and his mom just moved last weekend wow real estate went up a lot right in Dallas too much too much

well you got in at 2020 so you're probably chilling right but we keep buying so oh

yeah plus the interest rates yeah what is it seven now?

Yeah, it's around there.

We do some sub-2 stuff to kind of avoid that, but shout out to Pace.

Yes.

That stuff is crazy.

Sub-2.

It's great right now.

So you were able to...

I don't know what's possible.

Yeah, you guys were actually able to get a house using that strategy.

I got two last year.

Wow.

Because I tried out here and I couldn't do it.

Man, you got to stay on top of that.

Well, my price range is too high, I think.

Oh, you're trying to get it for your homestead?

For my home.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

So when they're over a million, I feel like it's harder.

Yeah, it's harder to cherry-pick.

That's what I told him.

I'm like,

we'll just take what we can, find the good stuff for rentals, and then when we want to find like whatever we're looking for, we're going to have to just find it on MLS.

Yeah.

Because it's too, you can't, you'll wait forever to find the right.

And if something does pop in, you've got to be in the first place.

Be quick, right?

Yeah, you got to be on top of it.

Yeah, because it's probably competitive now because Pace taught thousands of people that strategy.

There's so many people.

I mean, she posts something in the group and like five of our friends are like, I saw you posted something.

I know, like, right away.

Oh, the Facebook group?

Yeah.

You guys got a group?

Oh, um,

Pace's from Paces, yeah.

Oh, and Pace's group, yeah.

I don't know if you follow that one.

I think I'm in there, yeah.

Real Estate with Pace Morby.

Yeah.

Amazing group.

I'm actually going to this event next month in Dallas.

Really?

Yeah.

We might be there, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

March 28th, Jordan Peterson.

Oh, that's right.

We're not going to be there because we're going to Turkey on that actual day.

Turkey.

Whoa.

Why are you going to Turkey?

We're leading a missional trip.

to Turkey.

So we're taking all of our crew, our family.

So six of us.

We have four kids.

One on the way.

Congrats.

And then thank you.

And then we're leading a team, some of them coming over from our church.

Some just, someone coming over from Australia.

We got a team member from like North Carolina, California, just kind of a nice spread, Louisiana.

And we're just going to hit the ground out there.

We're going to land in Istanbul.

We're going to be out there about two weeks, something like that.

Maybe just under, we're going to hit Cyprus and just pour into the local community, bless them as much as we can,

bring goods,

and just bring love.

And then we're going to ultimately spend our last week in

Hatai region, the southern region.

Where the earthquake was, if you remember, a couple years ago.

Yeah, where it is.

And we're just, there's still a ton of refugees and still a lot of rebuilding, even from two years ago.

Wow.

And we're just going to help build tiny homes and just love on the people there.

Man.

You guys really give back.

You know, it's impressive.

Like, you don't have to do that, you know?

I think that's what life's about.

Part of our calling for sure.

Yeah, but I think it's everybody because you see,

you talk to enough people that

are really wealthy.

Yeah.

And at some point, nothing brings fulfillment anymore.

And you see, the only thing that they have left to turn to is like philanthropic

exercises.

And so, like, they're trying to find some way to give back.

And I think that's just because

you're not really going to find fulfillment in

finite items.

You can be a car guy.

I love driving.

I love cars.

But I mean,

let me give you an example.

When we were first married,

we were not well off at all.

And we were looking for a car.

I thought we were going to get a Volkswagen.

And we found this car.

It was this special Porsche Boxer.

It was on eBay.

It was way like, it was like a dream car, but it was like an hour drive away.

And she's like, We should go drive out.

And it was the same

price as the same price.

Yeah, he was at the same price as the Volkswagen we were looking at, right?

So I'm like, let's go check it out.

So we go out there, and the guy's like, Do you want to test drive it?

He's like a boutique dealer.

I'm like, yes, please.

You know, so I jump in.

I'm like, this thing's wild.

So he tells me about it.

He's like, I don't know where this thing came from.

I got it on auction.

Nobody knows where it came from.

I pulled some part numbers and they're like German part numbers.

I don't know if it was just some rich guy that sent the car over to there and brought it back after all the work was done or what.

But,

you know, it is what it is.

And nobody was bidding on eBay.

And it was like pristine condition.

So we did a handshake deal.

We didn't have funding, nothing.

I didn't even know how we were going to pay for it.

Handshake deal, 23,000.

Right.

And we go back and I'm like, okay, we got to find some sort of funding for this, some way to like pay for it.

And sure enough, we got funding.

But one night I was up late and I'm like, if this car is something, like it's someone in the community has got to know something.

so I'm like pulling up Google search like looking for Porsche black Porsche boxsters you know and I see a picture in Google Images and I'm like this is it click on it sure enough it's it it was the cover car for European car magazine

June 2002 or something like that

and it said everything that was done to it it was it was built by this guy who who raced uh for Porsche in Le Mans one year and it was his like kind of fun track car Court Wagner.

Shout out.

I never met him but shout out because he built this great car.

Great car.

9-11 engine transplant, GT3 suspension all around.

We're talking about like $75,000 or $100,000 in upgrades and

we did a handshake deal for $23,000.

What?

And so the guy calls me the next day and he's like, hey,

I found the car.

I know where it's from.

I'm like, really?

He's like, yep.

There's an article on it.

I'm like, kidding me?

He's like, European Car Magazine.

He's like, but because we made the deal, I'm going to honor it.

And that's how we got it.

But I have to say, I ended up with this car that I didn't deserve.

You know, shout out to my wife who encouraged it.

She's crazy like that, and I love her.

But I used to drive, I was a trainer at this point.

I was working at an upscale gym in North LA County.

And I would drive that car.

once or twice a week.

But if I drove it like four or five times a week, like it was just, it felt like overindulgence.

I just didn't enjoy it the same amount.

And I think that's what it's like when you're just constantly trying to find fulfillment in things because you get to the, it's like, it's like you're climbing this ladder.

You get to the top and like, what's there?

Like nothing.

So you got to find something else.

And you're continually climbing ladders.

But, you know, I...

I think there's like this

longing in our heart or you can say like a hole in our heart, something that's lacking.

And we're continually trying to fill it with finite items, but we never reach the true fulfillment.

There's a temporal happiness, but not a long-term fulfillment.

And I think you only get that in relationships.

I think horizontal relationships and then vertical relationships, especially.

And then pouring out and using these things, just a lot of people, they think that these finite items that they're chasing after are like the end.

But in reality, it's a terrible end.

It's like they make terrible master, but great servant.

And so if you can use these things to build into other people, bless other people,

then, man, it's so, so fulfilling, so enjoyable.

I remember this one time I was driving that Porsche, and we were in like downtown L.A.

and there was a homeless guy.

And I got into my car and he's like, that is an awesome car.

I'm like,

you want to go for a ride?

He's like, no way.

I'm like, yeah, hop in.

He goes in.

He's like, hey, can you go around the block?

My girlfriend's over there.

I want to wave to her while we're driving by.

I'm like, absolutely.

That's funny.

But at the end of the day, what's a thing to enjoy if you're just, you know, if you're just enjoying it for yourself and not sharing it with anybody?

I think it's just leads nowhere.

I love that.

Yeah, I used to have a phase of buying material goods, but I'm over it now.

It's not like sustainable.

It's not.

It's not.

Yeah, I bought watches, cars, and yeah, it didn't bring any long-term happiness.

That's the thing.

It's like you never arrive at it, whether it's a car guy or a real estate guy or whatever, you never arrive at a point where you're just like, I have enough now.

You know, it just,

it never ends.

It keeps going on and on and on.

And then at some point, you just got to realize the purpose is not found here.

Yeah.

It's just a means.

That's why I'd rather spend money on experiences

over physical items.

100%.

Us too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nice little vacation or something

out of town, you know?

Yeah.

A little staycation sometimes in Vegas.

Yeah.

Those are much better ROIs.

I'm an introvert, too.

Oh, yeah.

Social introvert, but nonetheless, I need that personal time.

But I think

getting married, like you're about to get married.

Yeah.

Having kids, like that's deeply meaningful.

For sure.

And I think our society, our culture is coming back around to realizing that.

Because probably for the last like 50 years, it's been like, pursue, you know, your dreams and kids get in the way of that and all that.

And we're kind of realizing, like, oh, wait, there actually is something.

deeply spiritual and meaningful in doing these like traditional things.

Yeah.

I saw that a lot with my generation.

A lot of guys I grew up with didn't want kids, but now they I'm messaging them and they want kids.

Yep, but in their young 20s, they definitely didn't.

Yep.

And it's wild, right?

Because now they're older and now, you know, there could be

complications or it could be hindrances or it's not as easy.

Right.

Yeah, they waited too long, some of them, because some of these women now are 35, 40.

They can't really have kids as easy.

Right, right.

Totally.

When I met her, she didn't want kids.

Oh, really?

For sure.

What made you change your mind?

That same category, because I was also very, like, already entrepreneur and, like, I want to start my own business and I want to do this and that.

And I just, I don't know, I kind of bought into the whole thing.

Like, the earth's overpopulated anyway.

If we're going to adopt, if we're going to have a kid, we should just adopt one that's already in existence.

Why do we need to make more?

Probably a little bit of the, like, I don't want to get pregnant and get big and like birth a baby and all that.

Probably a little.

But

yeah, I just had a shift.

I think one day a friend of mine, when we were living abroad, we lived in Shanghai six years, and just on a walk with one of my girlfriends, and she's like, so when are you guys gonna have kids?

And this and that.

And I said, oh, I don't think we really want kids.

We're just really content.

We travel so much.

We have so much fun together.

And she said, like, wow, have you prayed about that?

Have you asked God about that?

And I was just like, I'm a strong believer.

I asked God about all kinds of things.

I'm not asking him about this.

I was like, I've already made up my mind.

What do I need his opinion for?

And then, so it kind of just led me to think, journal about it, think about it more, pray about it, and boom, heart shift.

And then we adopted our son.

Oh, wow.

So you adopted the first one.

Yeah, first one.

From China.

From China.

Wow.

I have an adopted cousin from China.

Oh, right.

Cool.

Yeah.

You look like you could be like one quarter.

I'm half.

Half Chinese.

Yeah.

Wish what's going on, my mom?

I wish I could speak it.

My mom speaks.

Her grad is not teaching me Mandarin, actually.

Yeah, but she was born there and she came here with 20 bucks and worked her way to become a self-made millionaire.

American Dream.

On.

Yeah.

20 bucks.

Interviewed her.

We need to watch her.

She's coming on, yeah.

She'll be my 1500th episode.

Oh, yeah.

Dude, that is so cool.

Talk about how she raised me and why I am the way I am.

Because she was a single-parent household, actually.

Wow.

So she

did well, I think.

Oh, yeah, you too?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, my mom,

well, when I was

I was conceived non-consensually.

Damn.

Yeah.

Holy crap.

And my mom was 17 years old when she had me.

Jeez.

And she's first generation.

So her mom was from Argentina, Buenos Aires, and her father was from Italy.

And she was

dating somebody kind of short term, not for very long.

And one night this thing went down.

It was not consensual, you know, not necessarily violent,

but it just, it was a no, you know.

And then

that was her first time having any sort of,

you know,

sexual experience whatsoever.

Holy crap.

And all of a sudden she got pregnant.

And when she found out,

her dad was pretty livid with her.

With her?

She was like the black sheep at that point.

Wow.

Even though, obviously, it wasn't her choice.

But they were kind of a traditional Catholic family, and she was kind of looked at as like the outcast of the moment.

And so she would go to school, come home, and then she'd be relegated to her room after school.

And so she was thinking, you know, there's no way I can have this baby, because if I don't have support, you know, from my own father, then what am I going to do?

And she was never she told me she was never thinking abortion, but she was definitely thinking like adoption.

Yeah.

Probably gonna be the answer.

And then she said one day she was sitting in her room and she heard the audible voice of God and she wasn't religious

and

he said I love your baby and if you keep it I'll take care of it and so at that point she decided all right I'm keeping this baby holy crap and she was a great mom and then

you know he did he's he's taking care of me he takes care of me I mean he I've been blessed beyond belief I think he takes care of everybody but

you know, there's special themes on people's lives.

And looking back in hindsight, like I see it.

I see times where I, you know things should have been different but yeah you know I was I was spared and

she met my my dad that raised me when I was about three

and that's who I call dad that's he ultimately adopted me and

and I carry his name and I love him and he taught me discipline hard work lots of things that that I didn't have and then I ended up meeting cars yeah lots of things that's a good skill and I can't replace that one bro it's true

And then I

was meeting my biological father when I was 30.

Oh, you met him?

Yeah, I did.

And then I found out that I have another brother and sister.

Wow.

The brother and sister that I was raised with.

So you made amends with him?

How was the money?

I did.

You know, I never had enmity in my heart towards him.

And I also never, I don't have like father problems.

I don't have like, I don't feel like.

I never felt like, oh, man, who's my biological dad?

You know, I need to find him and like fix something, you know, or like heal this these wounds

I think and it goes back to that promise that was spoken over me like I've always been taken care of and I have so many people that have been spiritual fathers to me and

functionally fathers to me and they they've even so many people call have called me like a son they call me their son or like a son I mean I'm talking about you know more than a handful of prominent people in my life over the years in addition to my own dad that raised me.

So

i think it wasn't hard for me uh to to meet him it's not hard for me to maintain a relationship with him um we're very different uh but we're alike in some in some ways too which is kind of crazy but yeah i mean i think i think uh

you know it's tough walking around with bitterness and i don't think there's any way to live no some people say like i've heard it said

being bitter towards someone is like pouring a glass of poison for the person that you're bitter towards and then drinking it yourself.

And expecting them to die.

Expecting them to die.

No, I see that.

That happened with my dad.

You with your dad, yeah, Dave.

Yeah, so divorced at 10, but we were close, but his problem was with his parents.

He got physically abused.

He grew up on a farm and he never forgave.

So this bitterness you're talking about, I saw it every day in him.

He never forgave his parents.

And the night his mother passed, she came to me in my dreams.

No way.

Yeah, she's never been in my dream before that.

And I was holding her hand trying to find my father.

She wanted to say goodbye.

But because he was so closed off and never forgave them, they didn't get a proper goodbye.

Wow.

Which is super sad.

Wow.

So like we still talk to him to this day, man.

He passed away now.

Yeah, but I saw young, young.

He was sixty-four, but man, he had a lot of lot of damage from that childhood.

Some people just never recover, I think.

Has that shifted something in you, that experience?

Made me want to become a a really g good parent, hands-on, and um just a better partner with my fiancé, honestly.

Because I saw the trauma.

They fought a lot, my mom and my dad.

So I have memories of them just screaming at each other.

I got one vivid memory of them pulling on each arm.

Of yours?

Yeah, and making me pick who to hang out with that weekend.

So that's a big one I have.

So just being around that environment definitely stuck with me because that stuff doesn't leave you, you know,

when you're a child.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was tough.

Wow.

But I learned a lot from it.

Divorce sucks.

You will be.

You'll be a good dad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Divorce was tough.

You just need to reduce your hours a little bit when you become like that.

Let them in while you can.

Well, I know it's a full-time job being a parent, so I'm going to definitely be prepared for that when the time comes.

You know,

it depends how you want to do it.

But like with him, I was like, if you're going to be at a nine-to-five all day every day, I do not want to have like kids.

I just can't do all the things by myself.

Yeah, it's tough.

And you guys have five, right?

Four?

Yeah.

Four crews.

What's more yeah.

One on the way.

Wow.

Yeah.

How many were adopted?

Just the first one.

Oh, just the first one.

As a matter of fact, how long after

we committed to adopting him?

Five days later.

Five days later.

So we said yes to adopting him, and he moved in.

And then five days later, found out I was pregnant.

Wow.

So nine months later.

Holy crap.

In China.

Wow.

You guys were there for six years, huh?

What were you doing out there?

You know, it was just the answer to a prayer, a simple prayer.

We got married in 2010 in Malibu, California.

And when I proposed to her, she was living in China.

She graduated Pepperdine, flew out there, was living out there.

She's crazy.

She knew one person, and she was just living.

And we came off this crazy hard breakup, and then we started talking again.

We thought we'd never talk again.

And then all of a sudden, things were healing up.

And then I flew out there

and I surprised.

proposed to her and she said oh wow yeah right after a breakup not right after breakup

we had five months we didn't speak a word to each other yeah and and and i thought we would never speak again.

It was heartbreaking for me because she was actually my first real only girlfriend.

Yeah.

I mean,

I just had extremely high standards and like

never dated.

I got close to dating two people

in my entire life before that.

And so when we broke up, I thought she was the one for sure.

And then I was just every morning I woke up.

I'm like, oh,

like, oh.

But,

but

God was good.

He was, He was nearby.

I think he's near the brokenhearted.

That's a promise in scripture.

And so anyway, things happened on both of our ends.

And then right before she moved to China, she reached out to have an in-person meeting.

And first I said no, and then I recanted.

I said yes.

And then at the end of that meeting, I remember it was supposed to be like a pretty short meeting, half an hour or something.

Yeah.

We talked for like three or four hours at this place, Alcove Cafe, right?

And we had cheesecake.

I love

back then oh cheesecake's our wedding cake was the cheesecake oh five two got me thinking about my wedding cake now come on oh you have to do it i love cheesecake oh yeah yeah it was the best nobody knew it too because it was

i'm gonna tell my fiancé after this bro so uh

at the end man we were talking like i said three four hours and then she's like

so

can i stay in touch with you

And like, my mind's going, no, no.

No more heartbreak.

And then I just, I watched it come out of my mouth.

Sure.

I'm like, what did I just say?

But that's how we started talking again.

And then, so after she moved out there,

we talked for a good couple of months.

And then after that, I was like, okay, she's the one.

Like, we both kind of know that this is what's going to go down.

So I, I,

I flew out there, no notice, didn't tell anybody except for our families.

I asked her her dad and her mom for her hand in marriage.

Wow.

Yeah, they both gave them and her brother and sister.

So I asked her.

Wow, you asked four of her family.

Yeah.

And then I told my my parents and then I flew out there.

My clients were like, they showed up and I wasn't there.

I had a replacement trainer working training them those days.

And

I had this whole day planned out for her and it was being filmed by a friend of ours.

She thought it was a production for something in China.

Smooth.

But yeah, so she the whole day, I sent her like

I sent her things to do, this roadmap to follow and money and envelopes for her to spend at these places.

And then it ended at this restaurant overlooking the bunch.

Maybe on the bun.

Marian the Bund.

And she's there and she's text messaging me.

She's like, man, this is so nice.

I just, it's kind of sad because it's,

they're starting to serve me now.

Food, it looks so good, but it's, I just wish you were here.

And I'm like, oh, man, I wish I could be there.

He walked in.

And then I walked in.

Oh, my God.

So beautiful.

You were singing?

I was, and I'm not a singer.

Wow.

Never, ever saying to me that was the first time.

And so she said, yes, we moved back to LA, and then we just, we moved into my condo.

That's kind of what started us on the IMTR gig ultimately.

But

we moved in there.

We were working a job.

She was teaching Mandarin Chinese at a private school.

I was training and teaching PE.

I had a really cushed job set up with the best clients ever.

And then she's like, all of a sudden, one day she's tugging on my sleeve.

She's like, I don't think our time in China is done.

That started like even like before we got married oh hinting at it yeah wow and i'm like oh babe that's this is not something we can just try like i got eight years worth of clients that i'm still with you know and like this really cushed setup and so i'm like well if we're gonna do this let's pray about it we got to pray about this and let's just give it to god so we just said simple prayer father we'd like to go back to china

And we asked that if it would please you, you would open up a door for us.

And if not, then we'll stay in LA.

And that was it.

That was the prayer.

And like, we didn't have too much money back then.

We put aside $500 a month just in case

to be able to fund us to get out there if it were to go down, but we didn't know.

And I don't know if it was three months or four months or five months.

It was pretty shortly thereafter.

Friends of ours from Shanghai reached out.

The husband was Taiwanese.

The wife was

Indonesian Chinese, but from Toronto.

And they're like, hey, we're going to go back to Toronto because we're pregnant.

We're going to have our first child there.

And we're just thinking about you guys and wondering if you guys would want to house it for the summer.

Like, you just stay at our house.

Wow.

And they didn't know what our prayer was.

We didn't tell anybody.

They didn't have a clue.

And I'm like, it's so obvious.

People were like, were you scared?

Like, how could you just leave everything?

But, like, we asked for it.

A door opened wide up.

Literally.

They have tons of friends.

They could ask anybody in Shanghai to house it for them, but they asked us in L.A.

Wow.

And so we just dropped everything and moved out there.

And we thought it would be indefinitely, but we ended up staying there for six years.

And then we came back with our son, our daughter, who was born there, our first daughter, and then two dogs, two whippets.

Oh, what caused you guys to come back?

Was it another prayer?

It was actually...

The adoption.

It was the adoption.

Yeah, it was a pretty tricky adoption that we had to do.

The one in China, the first one?

Yeah.

Yeah, the adoption of our son.

Yeah.

So

we were disqualified from adoption

on two counts.

And so we had to finagle the system.

China's now closed adoptions, international adoptions now.

So

I wonder why they did that.

I don't know.

But I'll tell you what, adoption is just a laundering scheme.

It's crazy.

No way.

Oh, yeah.

Oh,

it's an industry.

Wow.

It's terrible.

They would tell us, and I'm sure it's everywhere, it's this way across the globe.

But they would tell us, like, okay, so here are the steps that you're going to do.

You're going to go to this place, make sure you bring crisp $100 bills and this amount of them to give to this person.

What the heck?

That's weird.

Bro, it was like $30,000 or $40,000 at the end of what?

For one kid?

And

you're taking a kid off their payroll, right?

Exactly.

Holy crap.

And he was special needs, brain injured, severe.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, did you know that?

Yeah, yeah.

We met him before we, yeah.

Yeah, we knew him beforehand.

Yeah, the one my cousin was brain injured too, but they didn't tell my aunt.

Yeah, they hid it.

That's the worst.

Yeah, I don't know if they knew, but yeah, she had a bunch of mental disorders and stuff.

But another little fun, like, financial aspect of it was literally we got Mateo, that's our son, we got him into our house in December.

We were like watching him in December

fostering.

Like we hadn't decided to adopt him yet because we thought he was being adopted by somebody else.

And it was January 1st that we got our first IMTR

client.

So we went from renting long-term, getting like $1,500 or maybe $2,000 a month.

Negative cash flow.

Oh, it's negative?

Yeah, because we were upside down.

It was right after the crash.

I'd refinance at the height of the market.

Oh, oh, wait, crash.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Exactly.

In North LA County, a condo, less than a thousand square foot.

And then I refinanced at $330,000, $330,000.

And then it dumped.

And I was super underwater.

Damn.

This estimate was like $150,000 or something like that.

Holy shit, it was something crazy.

Maybe it was $200.

No, it was in the ones.

It was in the ones.

It was bad.

I mean, everyone was like, bankruptcy or foreclosure or whatever.

But so at the same time, so then our tenant, our long-term tenants of years wanted to break their lease early and leave by January 1st.

And just so happened, this crazy fluke, there was a gas leak in the Valley Over, and Southern California Gas was paying like billions of dollars to rehouse thousands of families in neighboring areas.

Oh, wow.

And so my mom found out about it, was like, you got to get your condo on the list.

Maybe one of these insurance companies will rent your house.

And it just so happened because his sister is one of the renters, we left that house like half furnished.

When we moved to China, we were like, is it cool if we just leave all the beds and you know, you can rent out the rooms, whatever.

And so at the same time, we get this boy that we say yes to, whose name is Mateo, a gift from God.

But then it's like a gift that you have to pay, you know, $3,800 for.

But then we got this IMTR contract that was supposed to be for one month, two months to start?

Two months to start.

Two months to start.

And it was, they gave us $7,000 a month.

And they ended up saying five and a half months.

Holy push it out to five and a half months.

We made more money than all the years combined, you know.

But like that amount also just dollar for dollar was like, oh, that covers the adoption.

And I was thinking

a gift from God.

And people were pouring in.

People were.

Yes.

Oh, his foster family blessed us.

Wow.

I wonder if Cali's doing that right now with the fires.

Are they relocating people?

They are.

The tough part with some of it is when you have, like, well, the North Carolina stuff and the FEMA involvement stuff with insurance.

And then with, like, Southern California, it's hard because this section in your home insurance, and you could check if you own a home, it's called the additional living expense, or it's the category D.

Category D.

And that is how much you have to, like,

should something happen to your house and you need to go somewhere else, that's how much you have to spend somewhere else, including anything that would be outside of your lifestyle.

So

if you stay at a hotel, that's fine.

But then it's like you can expense dinners there.

You You can expense all these things because you don't have a kitchen.

Oh, wow.

You could have your laundry sent out because you don't have a laundry room or whatever.

So that

usually people are like, oh, a hundred grand in there, that's fine.

You know, like when we first bought a house, we were like

$100,000 in ALE.

Great.

Sounds like a lot, huh?

Because if something's going to happen to your house, you're thinking, like, I'll be out for three, maybe six months.

Could find a great Airbnb for eight grand, nine grand, no problem.

With the fires, not so.

Because if you had a hundred grand in there, now you have to make that last two years.

Gee, or however long

your rebuild period is, right?

Which is going to be wild.

They're saying three to five years, right?

And you're in one of the most expensive counties.

So, like, there's no Airbnbs that you can get for seven grand in that area.

So, now it's,

yeah, it's, it's a little tougher of a situation.

Wow.

So, that's a good thing to note.

Can you raise that or is it set up?

Absolutely.

And it's not much money to do it.

Oh, so you might as well know it.

We're always like, how much is it to go to 200K?

How much is it to go to 300K?

And usually it's like $20 extra a month oh i need to look into that for my house wow sure that's good to know yeah what's that called a le ale okay additional living expenses or category d they call it that's good to know wow yeah yeah everyone that owns a home

so everyone thinks it's heyday right now for imtrs in in la but it's actually not oh it's not no because their ale budgets are you know 100,000 or 200,000 or whatever they are.

I would say like 10% of people had the coverage thing.

Very, very,

and then other people had second homes and third homes.

So they're like, okay, well, that's fine.

We're going to rebuild.

We're going to go to Florida.

And then they'll just take every penny of their ALE for themselves.

Like, they'll pay themselves rent as much as they can.

That makes sense.

But you see a lot of people renting rooms and stuff because they just know their budgets can't last too long.

Yeah, hotels are overbooked.

Yeah, it's crazy to see what's happened.

What happened in North Carolina?

Did people have coverage there with the floods or no?

Oh, bro.

It was a bad situation because they, so many of them didn't have flood insurance.

Oh, wow.

Because there's no, there was no flooding there.

You're in the mountains.

right?

Yeah.

This hurricane comes through, and there's mudslides and

crazy water everywhere.

I mean, we went out there.

I took your group out there probably a month or a month and a half after it happened.

And it was bad.

Trees down everywhere, onto houses, through houses,

mudslides into houses.

Like you're just mucking, and it's non-stop.

And this mud is like, it's like quicksand.

It's crazy.

And people are just like,

insurance isn't doing anything.

We didn't have flood insurance.

You would have to have like a specific, it was like, oh, we see there's like wind damage that caused this.

So there would be like little loopholes.

Yeah.

If your, you know, roof blew off due to the wind and that could be considered.

But if it was flooding or if they consider act of God, it was like, oh, no, you're in FEMA's hands.

And then we all know that.

FEMA gives you 700 bucks.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Matt Von Swall that we follow on X.

He's been like the ex-guy that talks everything about North Carolina.

It is just shocking.

I mean, there's some people that still haven't received their $700.

Have you guys been seeing all this Doge corruption?

It's

the Social Security one was crazy to me.

Did you see that one?

What was the specific on this one?

It came out like two days ago.

Basically, there's people that were like 200 years old.

Yeah, Social Security.

Millions of people.

Yeah.

Millions of people, though.

It wasn't just like a couple people.

There was one guy that was 350, I think.

Like, I want to meet that guy.

Those are the most vulnerable people in society.

They deserve their money.

We just saw a meeting yesterday.

It was like, meet Fran.

She's having a rough time right now.

She survived the Titanic.

She lost her husband dumped tea into the Boston Harbor.

Yeah.

And now she lost two sons.

She lost two sons in the Civil War.

And now the administration's taking her Social Security away.

Crazy.

That's where our taxes are.

Like the dead people voting, too.

Yeah.

Last like several elections, there's a lot of

no one did anything about that i'm like it has to be

well funded and we see that

we see that it's been well funded yeah i think everybody kind of knew that there's stuff going on we knew but not this bad and to see actual numbers now is like it's we're no longer conspiracy theorists like there's facts and data out there now yeah yeah so it kind of feels good in a way too that it's finally being exposed And more coming.

Shout out to Elon, though.

Trump's probably going to help your guys' real estate market out, too, right?

I think so.

We do think so too yeah that's why we kind of even though interest rates are high we're still not scared to buy right now because i'm like i think we'll be able to refinance in the next year or two like right and then cost segregation i'm sure is going to come back 100 i mean yeah i'm sure he's going to make it what more lucrative for yeah so you guys are still buying absolutely well our margins are pretty strong on i mtrs provide a pretty a pretty healthy margin.

Right.

You know, so the things, you're getting basically the margins of an STR without the constant turnover.

So you don't have the headache, but you also don't have the turnover costs.

Because every time you turn over an STR, an Airbnb or whatever, you got to pay the cleaners.

You got to replace things that were broken.

You got to, you know,

even sheets, towels, stains.

It's a lot more work.

A lot more work.

And you're dealing with people that are in there for just a few days.

And so they might be cranking up the AC or the heater or whatever.

Smoking pot in the garage.

Yeah.

I hear horror stories from every Airbnb guy I have on the show.

It can be bad.

It can be bad.

I mean, not everyone.

We've done it.

We've done it quite a bit.

It works in the right markets, right?

Yeah.

It does.

And if you have safeguards in place, it's great.

Like I heard the vacation markets are good.

They're great.

I was going to say, if you have a really nice home and then if you like pour luxury amenities into it, you're going to be really busy.

Oh, yeah.

You should see the one I'm staying at tomorrow in Sedona.

It's beautiful.

Is it?

Yeah.

Sedona's a great place.

Yeah, I can't wait.

Need some time off, man.

I've been grinding.

Good.

I've been working hard.

Yeah, that's always been my issue.

I get so focused on work.

You know, it's it actually like ruins my relationships and friendships sometimes.

So I make sure to take vacations every year now.

Because the first five years I worked, I didn't take a single vacation.

And it destroyed all my friendships, my relationships with my parents.

So now I'm like very aware of that.

That's great.

That's awesome because it gives you a glimpse into what parenthood's gonna be like.

Because so many parents run into the same problem, but it's too late.

That like they don't get the the pre-glimpse of it, right?

So they're making money.

You always ask them, what are they sacrificing all their life for?

Oh, for my family, for my kids, right?

But in hindsight,

you're losing that precious time that's irreplaceable with your kids, just grinding.

And then all of a sudden, your kids are 10, 12, all of a sudden, 18, 21, and you're not even close with them.

You don't even know what they love.

They don't know you because you've done so much for them.

or at least in name you've done it for them but the reality is like they'd rather have time than anything else.

Wow, that's deep.

But it's true, you know?

I mean, you ask people.

One of the main regrets that people have is just not savoring those early moments of childhood

with their kids, you know?

And it's crazy because, again, you ask them why they're doing it.

I'm doing it for my kids,

for my family.

But in reality, their family are the ones that suffer the most.

Damn.

Yeah.

I can't even say how many people come up to us, like older people, and they see us out and about with our kids and they come up and they go, This is so precious, cherished this time.

It goes by so fast.

We're like, Yep, we know.

One of y'all find us every day and tell us that.

So, we have to believe it, you know.

But I think that also that generation really was like a night, the mom and dad were both working, and the kids were in public school, and they maybe met up for dinner, if that.

So, they do look back and go, man, I regret it.

But I'm so grateful to be in this like era where we both are home.

Like, we don't even really like work from home.

It's like we hardly work, but we're home.

But it's just, it's so sweet.

We know our kids.

We're teaching them how to read.

We're teaching them manners.

Oh, you homeschooled them?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm going to do that with mine, I think, either homeschool or private.

There's no other way to go, I think, because what ends up happening is...

Your relationship is so special.

Yeah, and you're farming out your kid.

I mean, I don't mean to.

be offending

offend anybody that's the culture but but really what's going on is you're having someone else raise your kids, right?

And then all of a sudden, you're like, I can't believe my daughter did such and such to me.

Can you believe the way that he spoke to me, our son?

But the fact is, they're learning, they're taking cues from other people, and you're expecting them to be on the same page as you, you know, with the same standards,

behaviors.

It's just not feasible.

How can you expect, how can you farm out your kid to be mentored in

life and how to act?

You know, mind your fees and q's, and then, but you're not investing at all.

So you're you're not pointing to them what your values are.

They come back with someone else's values, and then what happens?

Like you're not just not on the same page.

Conflict, yeah.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

And I hope it gets revamped.

I think the education is going to get revamped because it's so bad right now.

America's like, we spend by far the most money.

We're so far below all the other developed nations in our education.

So I feel like it will, but it's like, imagine if we could have something like this where we go, we feel like we know Sean because we get to see him every day.

We know his values.

We know blah, blah, blah.

I would hire someone like Sean to teach my kids how to whatever, you know what I mean?

Kind of like Ryan, I think Ryan Panetta is saying he's trying to develop something for us for kids that are, you pick your teachers based on their values and based on like their success in life.

You're not picking people just like pick the school and then whatever you get for your kids, you meet your teacher on that day.

Thanks Thanks for raising my kids.

See you later.

But it would be so cool to, you know, pick, wow, this guy is so good at AI and all this.

I want him to teach my kids.

100%.

I remember ratemyprofessors.com.

Yeah, that was a good one.

That was so good.

Does that still exist?

I don't know if it does.

I used it for sure.

Oh, I used it too.

Yeah.

I mean, that was important because there were some Fs and some bad grades on that site.

And sometimes you use it for the wrong reason.

Like, he's super easy, never changes.

Yeah, but there should be a site like that for teachers, not just, like, professors in college.

And teachers should get paid more if they're really good at it.

If they're good, yeah.

It should be results-driven.

Totally.

Yeah, because right now it's backwards thinking.

All of them are on the same salaries, and they get paid for longevity, but no results.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, why does longevity matter if their results are the same or worse, right?

Or worse, yes.

Yeah, because we're grading, like, the worst in math and reading that we've ever graded.

And they say most eighth graders are functionally illiterate.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Crazy.

Yeah, it's wild.

It makes no sense.

I'm impressed you guys have time to homeschool for kids and run this business.

Well, you know, people have this idea of what homeschooling is.

Like, oh, it's so hard.

And what running a business is because our business is not really like that hands-on.

We hired somebody to do the management.

Yeah.

So really, you do the financials.

Yeah.

And what else?

I mean, I do take bookings.

Okay.

I like check my email a few times a day and stuff like that, but it's not.

We're not.

Hands-on.

We live like, I mean, we're hands-on to an extent, but we have boundaries in place because what's most important to us is family time, exposure to the world, building into people, you know, pouring out resources,

being a blessing, really, you know, so pouring into our family and then pouring into people outside of our family is, is what we're here for.

I love that.

Yeah, and real estate is pretty, I don't like the word passive, but, you know.

It's almost there, right?

It is.

It largely is.

If you compare it to any nine to five, I mean, it's very passive.

Nothing's passive.

Yeah, nothing's truly passive.

Like, we could get a text from our manager and say, hey, this house needs this.

Is it cool if I send the plumber?

It's like, yes, go ahead.

To me, that's like pretty passive.

I still don't know.

Yeah, compared to most businesses, yeah, you're not trading your time for money, basically.

And that's it.

And most people are absolutely trading their time for money.

Yeah.

And the killer is, you know, money comes and goes, but time only goes.

And so, I mean, you're left trading your only, your most finite resource, the most valuable resource that you have.

Yeah.

But wouldn't you also say, like, a lot of your friends or people you know that are like multi-millionaires, they're still always asking you, like,

bro,

I want to live.

You're so free.

You do so much.

And he's like, dude, you could be that way too.

You have more money.

You make more money than I do.

Like, what's the holdup?

Even real estate people.

It's a boundary issue.

It's that people won't protect what's most important.

That's what it comes down to.

So they're just squeaky oil gets squeaky wheel gets the oil.

That's what's happening.

So whatever's pulling on them the hardest, that's what they're giving themselves to.

So work, oh, I got to do this for work.

Deadline this, deadline that.

But the fact is, your kids have a deadline every day.

Yeah.

Or like then you're on the brink of divorce.

So then you're like, now it's like

counseling.

Yeah.

I used to work seven days a week, but I had to give up weekends to save my relationship.

You used to work.

Yeah, I used to work seven days a week, 15 to 18 hours a day.

And

yeah, the fact she stuck with me through that for five years is crazy.

This must be a good girl.

Yeah, she really has my back.

So, yeah.

It was tough for me because I love working, but I had to do it to save our relationship.

So, how do you view life now compared to back then?

I'm happier.

My health is way better.

Back then, I couldn't even probably run like a mile.

Like, I was a twig.

I was super unhealthy.

Mentally, wasn't even healthy there, too.

So, I'm way better overall overall and happier yeah so i gave up making a little less money but i think overall i'm way way happier and healthier i think that's what you find we were it's just our uber driver this morning right he went to the philippines and he said like 80 of the people over there are poor but happy

over here 80 of the people here are rich rich and unhappy

wow that's deep yeah because if you zoom out even if you only make 50k a year in america you're top one percent of the world absolutely so it's pretty interesting but we're one of the unhappiest right and I think that's that's a picture of what we were talking about earlier that everyone's chasing after these finite things and these theoretical like

points of value but once you get there there's nothing nothing to be found nothing and comparison is dangerous

man social media makes it easy but uh it's dangerous yeah comparisons it's a big killer and everyone's doing it i mean I struggled with it for a long time.

I still find myself like, you know, looking over my shoulder or

even subconsciously, like comparing myself to something or someone.

But

it is killer.

Like you got to break out of that.

It's just

once people can realize that

they have a certain gifting that's just theirs,

they have,

you know, they have a destiny on their life.

I believe that.

I believe that God created each person individually and with purpose, with individual purpose, you know, and I think when someone can grasp that and understand that they're not their job, they're not their accolades, they're not their car or their house or their business, whether those things are great, like whether it's a Lambo or a Pinto, whether it's a failing business or, you know, top 1% in the world,

BlackRock, whatever.

When you can realize that you're not that, then you can truly be free from yourself and understand, like, I was made for a relationship, and I'm special, I'm unique, there's only one of me, and I don't have to compare myself.

I just need to learn to be the best self that I am.

Take the gifts and stop squandering them.

Because when I'm chasing after somebody else and comparing myself to them, I'm leaving my gifts and my unique offerings to the world behind.

I'm neglecting them, you know, and the world needs those things.

That's why I'm here.

That's why you're here.

You're offering something that I can't offer, that she can't offer.

And if you don't offer it, then it's not going to be offered.

Right.

Yeah, you can't copy your way to the top.

Doesn't work long.

You can try, but in the end, it's not going to be fulfilled.

Yeah, long term, it never works.

Because I used to try to do that, but now I'm on my own path.

Guys, it's been awesome.

Where can people learn from you, keep up with you, figure out where to find you?

Yeah, so we got vettedhomes.com now where we're teaching people how to do insurance midterm rentals.

So we've got this course.

It's our third iteration now.

We're working with two partners of ours, Kelly and Jason.

They're amazing people.

They're the first person, first people that we taught how to do this

to.

And they came back to us

about a year and a half ago.

And they're like, too many people need us and want us and we don't have enough time.

Do you think we can put something together to get it out to more people?

And so we're like, yeah, let's do it.

So we put together this course and we got this community.

I think we got like

around 80 people now in the community.

Nice.

We're on school and it's awesome.

It's very, very in-depth, like everything related to insurance midterm rental.

Start to finish.

Nice.

So we're teaching people how to do it there.

So if anyone's interested in learning about insurance

midterm rentals, it's vettedhomes.com.

Our heart behind it is just like, this is what allows us to live a free life.

It's not even money's great, but it's really, it's the freedom that it allows.

And really, there's some people in our community that have just one, and it's changed their life.

Like, they left their primary house.

They rented it out insurance midterm and like say their mortgage is four grand and they're getting 12.

So they're using that extra money to travel the world, like do whatever.

Yeah.

And it's life-changing.

So

yeah, that's eight grand a month.

Yeah, that's six figures a year.

Yeah.

Wow.

I mean, it's just like that for how we got into it with our condo.

That was life-changing.

For sure.

And it shifted our mindset.

That's why I love vetted.

I feel like that's my heart is like, if we could just set people free themselves one one at a time like one house or two houses It's not about being a billionaire and like buying a whole city, right?

But just like if you have like one or two rental houses that you want to do really well take care of people really well um could be a cool thing.

I love it.

I love

ending number one in IMTR.

So now's the time to get in.

Let's go.

We're at the beginning of MTRs.

It's it's a fun sector to beautiful.

We'll link everything below.

Thanks for coming on, guys.

That was fun.

Thank you, bro.

Yeah.

Check them out, guys.

See you next time.