Wealth Through Real Estate with Jay Combes

Speaker 2 This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth.

Speaker 1 And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham.

Speaker 1 All right, what's up, everybody?

Speaker 3 We are back with another episode of Waking Up to Wealth, and I got my good friend, my homie Jay, here with me today.

Speaker 3 Thank you for being on the show with us.

Speaker 1 Yeah, man, absolutely appreciate you having me.

Speaker 3 So, you know, we kind of talk a lot about investing on this show and different aspects. And it's very fascinating to me.
You have a very intriguing model.

Speaker 3 You know, everybody thinks Airbnbs are sexy and it's great, but you've actually figured out a model in a market that works really well. It's kind of a high-end luxury Airbnb investing.

Speaker 3 Like, tell us a little bit about it, where you're doing it at, kind of how it works and how you kind of figured it out.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so

Speaker 1 we live in the Smoky Mountains. It's 40 minutes from my house.
And

Speaker 3 for those that don't know where that is, where is that?

Speaker 1 So Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It's the Great Smoky National Park.
It gets 14 million visitors a year. That's more visitors than the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone combined per year.

Speaker 1 Actually, more people visit the Smoky Mountains than Disney.

Speaker 3 And when you told me that, I was like, holy shit.

Speaker 1 I mean, I didn't know that. And someone told me, like, when they broke down the stats, I was like, wow.
You know, and it's crazy because,

Speaker 1 you know, living here, you take for granted that and you're like, oh, it's like right in your backyard.

Speaker 1 But, you know, we can go there on a Wednesday thinking that we're going to be able to go do something. And it's slam-packed.
And so, really, our only downtime the entire year is January, February.

Speaker 1 And so, which makes it an incredible market.

Speaker 1 It's highly sought after. So, one thing about our market, it was compressed for many years because

Speaker 1 before the fires in 2016, you know, most it was a very good old boy system, and most of the property managers were on a 60-40 split.

Speaker 1 So, the investor would only make 60% and the property managers take 40%. And so, you can't have great returns.
And so, the prices were super low. Well, after the fires, a lot of people rebuilt.

Speaker 1 They built these really nice cabins and man, off to the floodgates. And we've been the top, you know,

Speaker 1 short-term rental destination for many years, at least least one of the top. And so

Speaker 1 I got into it

Speaker 1 literally by luck. I'd bought it my first Airbnb in Destin.

Speaker 1 And how long ago and when was that? That was in 2019. Okay.
And then in 2020, a buddy of mine and Praiser Buddy had introduced me to this property. He said, there's three cabins on this parcel.

Speaker 1 And then I

Speaker 1 bought that beach house with two other people. And so,

Speaker 1 but he was like, dude, you know, this is a great deal. It's three cabins on one parcel.
It's doing $90,000 a year. He said, they, they want $600,000, but I was terrified.
Right. Of course.

Speaker 1 I was terrified. This is my first deal, you know, and I was, I was only been in business, you know, four or five years at the time.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, I just bought an office building, put a bunch of money in that. And, you know, thankfully, I did almost kill the deal like 15 times.
Should work out.

Speaker 1 But anyways, ended up buying that deal, put

Speaker 1 the rents up the very first year up to $150,000. And

Speaker 1 I put probably about 100,000 into them, about 30,000 a piece. And that's so basically 700,000 is now at just raised at the end of this year for 1.5 million.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And all the values have gone up. So there's just a lot of a lot of a lot of people that want to be there.

Speaker 1 And we are, the really nice thing about our market is there are, you know, I think it's like 18 states within a day drive. So, you know,

Speaker 1 pretty much anybody in southeast or east United States can be in the Smoky Mountains within a day drive. So yeah, very sought after area.

Speaker 3 So Airbnb, right?

Speaker 3 So kind of post-COVID, you know, a bunch of people got into Airbnb that had never been in Airbnb before.

Speaker 3 I think there's a lot of misinformation on the internet of how easy it is because I own some Airbnbs myself. Yeah.
You know, I want you to talk about,

Speaker 1 yes.

Speaker 3 you can get an Airbnb and be successful. Number one, it's market indicative.
You're in a great market. Yeah.
But there's a lot of shit that plays into being successful in Airbnb.

Speaker 3 Talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So that's actually a great point.
Everybody,

Speaker 1 not everybody, that's generalizing.

Speaker 1 A lot of people come into the market and think that they can just, one, I see it often that people come into the market and they're like, I want to buy four or five of these and get out of my day job.

Speaker 1 It requires a lot of luck. Right.
It requires a lot of capital to get into a property, right? And it's a lot of work, you know?

Speaker 1 And so there's a big difference between a passive investor and someone that's an operator, right? You know, that's an investor and operator.

Speaker 1 And so if you're an operator, you know, and that's going to be your thing, maybe

Speaker 1 you have the capacity to do it, you know, there's a lot of technology that does allow people to manage it from afar.

Speaker 1 But it's a lot of work, man, you know, and there's a lot of expenses that go in it.

Speaker 1 And if you're not making sure that your properties are taken care of, I mean, there's people that are, that are hemorrhaging cash right now, thinking that they bought right, right?

Speaker 1 They probably hired a real estate agent that didn't know shit.

Speaker 3 Or they based their numbers off of COVID.

Speaker 1 2021 projections. I tell people, throw that stuff in the trash because

Speaker 1 no international travel. Right.
So you couldn't fly out of seas. Plus, all this funny money.
Right. We get

Speaker 1 all this funny money that was put out into the market.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, you have all this money and people aren't, you don't have to go to work. Right.
And so what do you do?

Speaker 3 People were allowed to work from home.

Speaker 1 So they work from home.

Speaker 1 from home or it's like during during the thick of the pandemic you didn't have to show you're getting your yeah stemmy baby yeah you know we used to joke around and say i got me a stemmy check yeah and so what do you do when you're making the same amount of money as you did but you don't have to show up to work maybe you're making more

Speaker 1 right and you're you're like okay well i can't go you know these states they're closed down they want me to wear a mask or whatever you know tennessee's wide open you know florida's wide open and so you know people just flooded and so people that bought on that, you know, on those projections and baseline, there's people that were paying a premium for it that shouldn't have.

Speaker 1 Right. Or they, or they just, they didn't think through it.
And then interest rates and everything. So there's definitely money to be made.
You know, we've got 14, 15 different properties.

Speaker 1 We're building a lot more. I've got a buddy of mine, Alex, you met earlier.
He's, he's got a one-bedroom that's, you know, pacing the gross over $100,000 a year. But

Speaker 1 yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 it's a phenomenal property. But at Royal, it really boils down to

Speaker 1 you have to, if you're going to do that, you got to be a hell of an operator.

Speaker 1 You have to be really good at marketing and you've got to be really good at customer service. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So, so I think you would agree with this. What I learned about being in the Airbnb business is you essentially now are in the hospitality business.

Speaker 1 Big time.

Speaker 3 So you think you're in the real estate business, but you're now in the hospitality business. And then

Speaker 3 most people that are seeing your property, they're on vacation.

Speaker 3 And frankly, they're expecting it to be flawless. And

Speaker 3 they're staying with you versus a hotel. They want hotel-like service.
And I think that's what people don't get or understand of that's the lift and haul of this business.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So

Speaker 1 nailed it, man. And,

Speaker 1 you know, people have this expectation that they're paying. you know, Hilton Marriott prices.

Speaker 3 They got to get that service.

Speaker 1 They got to get that service. Well,

Speaker 1 they're staying at a cabin in the woods.

Speaker 3 you know, and you're in your situation, yes.

Speaker 1 Right. And so, um,

Speaker 1 you know, there's not a maid that's coming. And there's not, you know, it's not, it's not like we have in-house people.

Speaker 1 And so stuff happens, you know, and so I think that I wish that there was like, you know, when you opened up Air and BNB, that there's this big disclaimer that says, hey, you're not staying with Marriott or,

Speaker 1 you know, the Hilton. You're staying at a

Speaker 1 residential real estate property

Speaker 1 and that stuff can go wrong. And, you know, it's not going to be a, you know, a seven-minute turnaround, a butler going or, you know, a guy going up.

Speaker 3 Somebody's not in the property that can fix it.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so it takes, you got to get somebody out there.

Speaker 1 It takes a lot of work.

Speaker 1 And so, um, and, and I applaud, you know, it's like now it's like the race to the bottom, just like real estate with, you know, wanting that these, these investors want to skin these property managers and pay them next to nothing because they want to, you know, they want to protect their yield

Speaker 1 because it is an expensive business. And so, you have to be smart, man.

Speaker 1 You have to be, you know, you have to be smart with the buy, you have to be smart with your rate, you have to be smart with your amenities, you know, to be able to produce a yield.

Speaker 1 And then you have to have phenomenal customer service. And so, setting good expectations on the front end, you know, the more detail that you go into it, but man, it is like

Speaker 1 it is a

Speaker 1 very intensive, but it is not a sit and push away business and if you're not and if you're not staying on top of your properties man it can be it can be a bloodbath and that's why i see a lot of people will get in these things and they're in and out of them within less than a year because they're like holy crap man

Speaker 1 yes dude they get beat down and they realize or they don't go out and hire a you know property manager

Speaker 1 or they're too cheap to yeah you know and then they you know they end up you know suffering the consequences yeah but it's a beautiful business i i don't i don't just i don't say that stuff to scare people out no you're just giving this this is the reality.

Speaker 3 The reason why I asked this and why I wanted to bring it up is because I've had a ton of conversations with people where they're like, yeah, Airbnb, Airbnb, because it's sexy and it's cool.

Speaker 3 And, you know, everybody, but it's like anything else.

Speaker 3 Let's talk about the reality of what it's like.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Now, let me ask you a question.

Speaker 3 This is kind of another. you know, fantasy and dream that a lot of people have.
And I've seen this,

Speaker 3 I've seen people that are able to do this if they get educated, they get the right management, the right partner in the market to find the property.

Speaker 3 But let's just say you're, hey, I don't want to go into Airbnb full time,

Speaker 3 but I want to buy a property in the Smokies because I always wanted to have a vacation home there.

Speaker 3 So is it possible to do something like that, whether it's Florida, Arizona, you know, market indicative, obviously, but where they can go in, buy it, use it

Speaker 3 for when they want to use it through the year, not necessarily make a ton of money, but maybe break even or cover a ton of a ton of their costs.

Speaker 3 So it almost is, it's almost taking care of their second home for them without them being out of pocket a ton of money.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So that's the,

Speaker 1 are you asking if that's possible? Yes. Yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely possible.
And it's actually more plausible than anything. Yeah.
If you, like

Speaker 1 my properties, I've stayed and I've got, I mean, dozen plus. Now I'll buy some, sell some.
So, I mean, I always, you know, stayed a dozen plus properties.

Speaker 1 And so I've stayed at my properties. I've got some properties I've never stayed in.
I've owned for years. Yeah.
Right. And because, you know, heads and beds, heads and beds.

Speaker 1 You're not making money with a vacancy.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 now if you want to, if you're coming here to enjoy this with your family, big difference.

Speaker 1 If I buy another property down in Florida, I don't, quite frankly, I don't care if it's a cash cow money-making machine if I plan on using it consistently.

Speaker 1 And so philosophy is different. Sure, sure.
I've got a customer who, you know, bought a property a couple months ago and he first started at a million.

Speaker 1 And then I showed him what a million looked like. And then we looked at a million five and then landed at a million eight.

Speaker 1 And so, and it was funny because he wanted for personal use, too. Yeah, he was like, I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, it's like he didn't know what he wanted.

Speaker 1 He's like, I want to, I want to do it for,

Speaker 1 you know, my family, but I also want to, you know, I want it to pay for itself. And then he's like, oh, I wanted to make money.

Speaker 1 But really, he wanted it for his family and he didn't want it to pay for his toy.

Speaker 1 And a lot of people just want to have that. They want to tell their buddies, man, I got this second home in the Smokies, or I got this second home in Sedona, or I've got this second home in

Speaker 1 St. Pete.

Speaker 1 And so, yeah, that's actually more probable because

Speaker 1 there's a level of strategy behind that, just like everything. That if you are staying in it during peak season, we'll just know you may be losing $7,000.
Yep. Right.
And so maybe you don't go.

Speaker 3 You're planning your vacations not on peak season.

Speaker 1 Not on peak season, or you do, but you're just, there's a little bit more strategy because now with technology, you can see the peak weeks.

Speaker 1 And you can, okay, well, if my average ADR is $1,800 this night, but I can go

Speaker 1 a week later and it drops down to $1,200. Well, that's a $600.
That makes sense. $600 a day.
You know what I mean? It's like move your vacation a week.

Speaker 1 So we see a lot of people do that that have that, that want expendable or want a second home, but they just don't want to go out and, you know, have another $6,000 a month payment. Right.

Speaker 1 They have somebody else pay for it. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 if someone is like, you know, they're listening to this or they watch this and

Speaker 3 they're like, you know, they just got this burning desire. I want to go into Airbnb investments.
Like, what is your, I mean, that's a large question.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But what would you say? Where would you say for them to start?

Speaker 1 Do your homework.

Speaker 1 You know, I just posted a video on this the other day. You don't have to have the big four or five bedroom pool cabin, $2 million, right?

Speaker 1 Like that, that's what people know me for because that's what I build. Sure.

Speaker 1 But like.

Speaker 1 I've also bought tons. I've built a lot of two bedrooms and I've bought ones and two bedrooms as well.
That's actually my sweet spot. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But you can go, like, I bought this, this little one bedroom. It's 600 square feet.
Yeah. Bought it for $375,000.
It's five minutes from the strip.

Speaker 1 It literally looks over the pigeon forge strip, makes $60,000 a year.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 And so somebody could be in that deal. I put like $25,000.
Let's just call it $400,000. That's a great return.
Good, good return, right? And so I net after everything and then some $15,000 a year.

Speaker 1 Right. I'm paying $8,000 towards principal every single year.

Speaker 3 It's not a big headache, right?

Speaker 1 No, not a big headache.

Speaker 1 Stays booked.

Speaker 1 It's little honeymooners you know just little weekend stays occupancy is good um people that don't you know they rarely complain and it stays booked and it's a good cash flowing property and i ran a cost seg on it saved twenty five thousand dollars in taxes so you know my cash basis was was taken care of you know year one year two yeah and so you don't have to have the big sexy properties you know it's like get down to basics

Speaker 1 or you know there's there's there's ways to go in like fractional ownership with people You can come in, like, you know, we're working on some other stuff like where people can come in on deals.

Speaker 1 You know, there's, there's different levels of strategy. So I would just, you know, the one thing that I do, like when I get into something is I obsessively research on it.

Speaker 1 And so the more, the more educated you get on it, the better. But, you know.

Speaker 1 just like anything like if i'm going to go out and i want to learn about investing i'm going to call a guy like you right like i'm going to go to the path of least resistance find somebody that's what i would do there's so many resources online like this yep um to do it and then find somebody who's in that market that has properties and that knows their shit that knows their shit here's one thing i would literally say to anyone out there never go out and buy any real estate from somebody that doesn't own real estate you know and don't buy airbnb from somebody that doesn't own airbnb yeah if somebody doesn't even own a house is trying to go out and get you to buy a million dollar piece property 100 i you know wholeheartedly agree with that well i tell people all the time like look i you know do i want to sell your property of course But

Speaker 1 is the commission going to change my life one way or another? Absolutely not. You know what I mean? So

Speaker 1 it is what it is. I mean, I want to steer you in the right direction so that this will win for everybody.
I think that's the type of motive. But, you know, find somebody who knows it.

Speaker 1 I mean, there's merit in that, man. Just like anything.
You want to go with somebody that's got skin in the game. And quite frankly, I want to know somebody that's going to tell me about all the mud.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like, scare me a little bit.

Speaker 3 Steer you out of the shit you shouldn't be doing.

Speaker 1 Facts, man. Like, scare me a little bit about it so I'm educated.
And that way I can make a really good decision on it.

Speaker 3 So you just said something and I just don't, cause this is a show about investing in money.

Speaker 3 Not to go deep on the diatribe on this, but you mentioned a cost seg and

Speaker 3 we've had different people talk about this before, but one thing that is super, super like interesting about real estate and why wealthy people do it is because it's a tax shelter.

Speaker 3 What Jay mentioned is an instrument that you can reduce your taxes through by owning real estate called a cost segregation, where you essentially essentially take a bunch of depreciation in one year.

Speaker 3 We, neither him nor I are CPAs, but if you are listening to this, that is one of the reasons why you want to invest in real estate. You need to learn about that.
It's what the wealthy do.

Speaker 3 And it's one of the reasons why people keep wealth is because they use real estate as a vehicle to keep wealth and to avoid paying taxes. And it's legit and it's legal.
The IRS lets you do it.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. I tell people that all the time because that's just going to immediately shelter it.
But, you know, there's the components that the thing I love about real estate right now and

Speaker 1 specifically short-term real estate,

Speaker 1 interest rates are high right now. So most properties are not going to cash flow nearly like they would in the last two years.
True.

Speaker 1 But I have bought more real estate in the last, you know, 12 months than I've ever bought in my life.

Speaker 3 Because you're getting a better deal. Dude,

Speaker 1 I'm still in it. I'm stealing it on price,

Speaker 1 labor. I mean, I've got guys with labor that are, you know, hey, dude, I'll do it by the hour.
Or, you know, they're coming at me with a fraction of what they're, what they're doing. So

Speaker 1 my basis versus 20, 20, 21, 22 is, is so much is compressed. And so I'm in this for the long term, right?

Speaker 3 It's like, I think it's a good point that you made because there's so many people that I'm talking to. It's waiting.
Yeah, whether it's residential or investment or whatever.

Speaker 3 And they're like, well, I'm going to wait till rates go down. And

Speaker 3 man, that's such a fallacy because everybody else is going to do the same thing. Absolutely.
So now

Speaker 3 it becomes a crowded market again. And now you're fighting on every deal with everybody where now, if you buy it now and it can work, it's only going to get better.

Speaker 3 The worst you're buying it at from a term standpoint is now, but it's going to get better as time goes on. But you're also not paying 50 or 60 grand, probably more than you should

Speaker 3 because you're not competing with everybody else who's trying to buy the same deal.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Well, just think about it, man.

Speaker 1 Say you could go buy a property, you know, in 2021 for a million five. Yeah.

Speaker 3 right let's say a million for simple math by the way just so for everybody listening to this he's this market that he's in this is what they deal with there's high-end cabins and shit like i'm buying 150 200 000 houses me and my buddy alex were just talking about this like well we're not moving here so

Speaker 1 you have to you have to flip how many homes to make that well and that's that's that's that is my niche man items you know it's like

Speaker 1 small numbers larger you know

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 you know somebody taught me that very early in my career. It's like the race to a million, man, it comes in 50 different ways.

Speaker 1 You can do it, you know, a hundred times over, you know, you can take, you know, 20 grand, you know,

Speaker 1 50 times and you're there, right? And so, or you can do a hundred grand 10 times. So, um,

Speaker 1 but so say for simple math, we'll drop that down to a million, right?

Speaker 1 Uh, but a million bucks, say property in 2021.

Speaker 1 You know, now that property may potentially get someone that's distressed, maybe they're going through a divorce, maybe they're, you know, maybe they're burnt out on it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 And you can get it for $850,000. Yeah.
You get $150,000 worth of equity. Yep.
Right. And so, yeah, maybe it doesn't cash flow today.

Speaker 1 Maybe you're breaking even, or maybe your cash on cash is much, much, you know, less. Well, the second that rates go down, then that price goes back up.
And now the basis.

Speaker 3 You can't go above a million.

Speaker 1 Right. And even if it goes back to a million, right, that rate, so you buy it at $850,000, right? One thing I would advise everybody just on these DSCRs, they've got these

Speaker 1 54321

Speaker 1 rate locks. Man, listen, go and pay a higher rate today with no penalty.
And that way, you know, let's say that it takes, maybe it takes two years for rates to come back down. Don't get

Speaker 1 in a situation where you're paying a big fee. Get yourself in a situation where you're paying a higher rate today.
Who cares if it's cash flow and a little bit?

Speaker 1 Because what happens is 24 months from now, which I can't predict the future, but I'm saying let's all, we're all in a hopeful situation.

Speaker 1 Rates come down. You've already got a lower basis in the property.
Now you're, now, because you bought 850, you already, you put 200 grand down on it. You're in this deal, 650, you go refi it, right?

Speaker 1 You probably go get 100 back out of it. Yep.
Right.

Speaker 1 And now your rates there at a lower price versus that person that's now coming in at a million to get the same rate and they're having to bring more cash to cash to the deal.

Speaker 1 And so that's my play. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And, you know, and I advise it. And I think that the people that are smart, you know, it's like Warren Buffett's strategy.

Speaker 1 He's, he's, he's, he's, he's pulling back when people are getting greedy, right? But he says, listen, he said, when everybody's running, dude, it's time to have bloodbath.

Speaker 1 And so that's, that's my strategy. You know, I'm not, there's a whole lot, you know, guys smarter than I am, but I think that it's just common sense, you know, supply and demand.

Speaker 3 Well, it's not common sense of most people.

Speaker 1 Well, it's common sense for people that for good investors. For good investors.
Yeah, no doubt.

Speaker 3 One of my, my personal journey in the Airbnb is kind of what you talked about. So I bought a property just for myself and I had not planned on getting into short-term rentals at all.

Speaker 3 And I put it on the market and it was like, holy crap, it booked out.

Speaker 3 And then I started getting some income on it. And that's how I got into STRs.
And then once I learned through the mistakes of my own property, I was able to get good at it.

Speaker 3 That's when I went out and did some, you know, did some other things. But to your point, if you don't get educated and know it and understand it, you you can certainly get your ass handed to you.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Well, I think that if you just

Speaker 1 to simplify and not to overcomplicate things for people, but if you look at just dollar for dollar versus a short-term rental versus a long-term rental, banks love a long-term rental. Yes.
Right.

Speaker 1 It's it's safe, right? But I look at it from a standpoint as how many dollars am I making per dollar from a short-term space versus long-term space. My expenses are much higher on a short-term space.

Speaker 1 I've got, you know, cable, I've got utilities, all these other things. But typically, I'm in a situation where I'm getting two and a half to $3 per every $1

Speaker 1 on long term. And so it just, it made, it made sense.
And I'll tell you a story on this. You talked about your first deal.
You didn't know. I bought a duplex.

Speaker 1 It was the second property I'd ever bought. And it was actually, I think it's my first Airbnb, or excuse me,

Speaker 1 my first one in Tennessee. But it was this little duplex and

Speaker 1 bought it and I had nothing. And it was It was like $130,000, had like 3% and 5% down in this deal.
So nothing, right?

Speaker 1 Put a renter in one side

Speaker 1 and then I was like, I was going to put a renter on the other side. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go, this place has like a couple of hospitals.
It's got a plant next to it.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to throw it on Airbnb. See what happens here.
Spend 10 grand on some furniture and we'll see what happens.

Speaker 1 And dude.

Speaker 1 Crazy. I went $30,000 on this one-sided little duplex that would normally rent out for like $800

Speaker 1 a month.

Speaker 1 And And so, of course, what did I do?

Speaker 1 My other tenants on the other side, I said, hey, y'all wanted to go buy a house, right? I said, let me out of it. Let me get you.
Let me out of your lease. Let me let you out of your lease.

Speaker 1 They bought a house with me, so it was a win for me too. And then put it in that property.
Every year has made, you know, between $55,000 to $65,000 a year on a little duplex I bought for $130,000.

Speaker 1 So I sold it last year. Dude, insane.
So I ended up selling that property last year for $315,000. Because of that cash flow.
Cash flow is insane. Right.

Speaker 1 And so, I mean, the

Speaker 1 cash on cash return and the total cash, you know, profit and just, it was absurd on it.

Speaker 1 But it just, it goes to show you, it's like, you know, I'm, I'm not educated, you know, barely graduated high school, you know, dropped out of college three times.

Speaker 1 But one thing I learned quick is real estate. And it's like.

Speaker 1 a duplex, a little single-family home.

Speaker 3 A lot of wealthy people love it.

Speaker 1 Dude, exactly. And it's just one of the things.
It's like

Speaker 1 you can see it, you can touch it, you can feel it, you can go stay in it. You know what I mean? Like you can go out and depreciate it and you can borrow against it.

Speaker 3 And it never goes to zero.

Speaker 1 And it never goes to zero.

Speaker 3 And regardless if you go SCR, you go long-term rental, no matter what, you can get a fixed amount of income from it every month that's predictable, regardless of what's going on in the economy.

Speaker 1 100%. Well, you know, like Grant Cardone talked about all the time.
He's like, you know,

Speaker 1 you can go out and leverage 80% of it, right? So you can go on a million dollar property, you can go out and put 200 into the deal and go buy a million dollars worth of evaluation.

Speaker 1 Well, you can't go out and borrow money to go buy stocks or you can't borrow money by crypto. You can't borrow money, right? But the thing about,

Speaker 3 but it's, it's expensive and risky.

Speaker 1 I didn't even know that, right? So listen, I'm learning something today, too.

Speaker 1 So it's expensive and risky.

Speaker 3 And you're not going to get that same leverage ratio either.

Speaker 1 Right. And so, but the beautiful thing about that is.

Speaker 3 You actually pay a shit ton of money for it. Like you're paying a ridiculous rate to get that leverage.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So, yeah, and that's, that's above my head, right? It's like, you're smarter than me.
You probably went to college. So,

Speaker 1 okay, well, the two dummies

Speaker 1 on the investing podcast. I love it.

Speaker 1 But, you know, you're getting appreciation on 100%. You only have 20% skin on it.

Speaker 3 And you're depreciating on that.

Speaker 1 And you're depreciating.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, it's insane, man.
It's just,

Speaker 1 I'm grateful that I stumbled into it. You know,

Speaker 3 so one thing that I always ask everybody, the show is called Waking Up to Wealth. Everybody has a different version of this.

Speaker 3 Everybody gives me a different answer, but I always ask, what to you is Waking Up to Wealth? And it can be anything. It's not necessarily money.
It's just what is your version of that?

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, it just depends on the perspective of it, right? So

Speaker 1 money-wise, like if I wake up to it, I just, I know that I've got money. You know, I made a video on this the other day.
I know like when I'm sleeping, I've got checks coming in.

Speaker 1 When I'm at the gym, I've got checks coming in. When I'm out spending money shopping, I've got money coming in.

Speaker 1 And so that's a cool scenario, right? Like that, like when you realize like you can never work as hard as your money can work for you, like when that really clicks. It is a game changer.

Speaker 1 Now, wealth is a different perspective. I think that there's monetary wealth.

Speaker 1 I will tell you this, you know, I've probably had the best spiritual awakening in my life over the last 12, 18 months money will never buy you happiness yeah no doubt it'll never buy you happiness and all money does is accentuates the personality that you already have you know I mean so

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 honestly last year I was in a situation where like I actually refrained from making money worked the least amount of hours I've ever worked

Speaker 1 and so honestly I felt guilty about making money that's kind of how it's funny like somebody watches this they're like bullshit you know but really I just felt guilty about it And so, you know, now like some of the goals that I have is like, how much, like, if I were to go out and make an X amount of dollars, right?

Speaker 1 How much money could I give away? Yeah. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 And I think when you can go out and one, not let money dictate who you are, what you are, your values, but then you can say, what am I going to do with this money? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And who can I impact with this? That's wealth, dude. Yeah.

Speaker 1 When you can go out and say, hey, I make money and I, and, and, and part of this is I'm going to go out and I'm going to give this to people that have never experienced it or I'm gonna go impact somebody's life that they don't know it you know or I'm gonna go out and I see that this waitress is is probably not in the best position and you go out and help that and tip that lady you know 150 bucks on a $30 you know I mean like that stuff that's just like little things like that you know with most people that watch a podcast sort of speaking that that like you know they're not gonna ever miss that hundred bucks yeah but on the flip side of that massive you know I mean and so I think

Speaker 1 I think the the true wealth on that and what I'm getting at, and like one of the reasons why I'm like, I'm, I'm in, I'm back in a push mode. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, I'm like, okay, let's go out and make some money. Cause I'm like, well, how much can I give back to my church? How much can I give back to the community? How much?

Speaker 1 And that right there has got me fired. It's like, it's like, okay, a buddy of mine told me he's, he had a goal to make 20 million bucks.
I said, well, shit, I need to go get to work. Right.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? I want to open up my brain to think bigger. But then I was like, okay,

Speaker 1 I'm not guilty for wanting that. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Not at all. I'm not guilty for wanting that.
It's like, if, if I'm willing to go out and put that forward, and that, that, truly, because there's a lot of wealthy people that are miserable.

Speaker 3 No, no, no question about it.

Speaker 1 Miserable. So I think there's a level of contribution, man, that's, uh, that that's really, truly, like, if you want to see fulfillment, fulfillment, that's probably the best word.
Yeah. Fulfilled.

Speaker 1 Somebody's happy with it. Um, and there's no amount of money, paper, which I'm real, right, that will ever make you happy.

Speaker 1 But doing things with it, helping people, dude, game changer well uh i think that's a good place to end so if people want to get in touch with you um follow you whatever how can they find you yeah short uh str pro uh uh on instagram or investing with j it's just a simple website where i've got it to where people can ask questions find us you know check out some of the stuff that we do just investingwithjay.com Awesome.

Speaker 3 Thank you for coming and hanging out with me today. I appreciate it.
Yeah, man.

Speaker 1 Appreciate you having us. Yeah, man.
Yeah, brother.

Speaker 2 Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Wake Up to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it.
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Speaker 2 Until next time.