Entrepreneurial Appetite
Embracing Investment : Insights from Antonio Adams the Firefighting Real Estate Investor Part 2
Unlock the secrets of Airbnb investments and discover the sweet spot where memorable experiences meet profitability with us, Langston Clark, Marshawn Graves, and our real estate maven guest, Antonio Adams. In a celebration of National Home Ownership Month, we're serving up a feast of insider knowledge that will satisfy your entrepreneurial appetite. This episode walks you through the twists and turns of selecting prime locations, learning from plumbing catastrophes, and the art of transforming undesirable properties into goldmines.
Navigating the journey to early retirement can seem like a distant dream, but today, you'll get an all-access pass to the real estate strategies that made financial freedom by 40 a reality. From the booming Austin market to the importance of financial literacy, we lace up for an honest trek through the ups and downs of investing, the power of tech giants like Tesla, and the lure of living life on your own terms. Plus, you won't want to miss the candid discussion on why some investments are worth more than just a second glance.
Dive into the nitty-gritty of the BRRRR strategy, the evolving relevance of the 1% rule, and the implications of inflation on your property portfolio. With a nod to some iconic financial literacy reads, we break down the intricate dance between cash purchases and leveraging credit, and how these choices can shape your investment outcomes. As we wrap up, you'll get a window into the diverse sources of knowledge that fuel real estate success, proving that sometimes, the most valuable insights come from the paths less traveled. Join us for a conversation that might just change the way you think about property investment.
Note that this is not intended to be financial advice.
Unlock the secrets of Airbnb investments and discover the sweet spot where memorable experiences meet profitability with us, Langston Clark, Marshawn Graves, and our real estate maven guest, Antonio Adams. In a celebration of National Home Ownership Month, we're serving up a feast of insider knowledge that will satisfy your entrepreneurial appetite. This episode walks you through the twists and turns of selecting prime locations, learning from plumbing catastrophes, and the art of transforming undesirable properties into goldmines.
Navigating the journey to early retirement can seem like a distant dream, but today, you'll get an all-access pass to the real estate strategies that made financial freedom by 40 a reality. From the booming Austin market to the importance of financial literacy, we lace up for an honest trek through the ups and downs of investing, the power of tech giants like Tesla, and the lure of living life on your own terms. Plus, you won't want to miss the candid discussion on why some investments are worth more than just a second glance.
Dive into the nitty-gritty of the BRRRR strategy, the evolving relevance of the 1% rule, and the implications of inflation on your property portfolio. With a nod to some iconic financial literacy reads, we break down the intricate dance between cash purchases and leveraging credit, and how these choices can shape your investment outcomes. As we wrap up, you'll get a window into the diverse sources of knowledge that fuel real estate success, proving that sometimes, the most valuable insights come from the paths less traveled. Join us for a conversation that might just change the way you think about property investment.
Note that this is not intended to be financial advice.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. What's up everybody? Once again? This is Langston Clark, the founder and organizer of Entrepreneurial Appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting Black businesses. As promised, welcome to the second part of our two-part episode featuring a conversation between Marshawn Graves, our guest host, and our guest for the day, antonio Adams, who is a real estate entrepreneur and investor. I also want to add that this show is part of a mini-series where we're going to feature conversations with Black real estate entrepreneurs for the month of June in 2024, which is National Home Ownership Month.
Speaker 1:I want to note that today's conversation is not meant to give you financial or investment advice. Before you do anything as far as making real estate purchases or investments that you should do, you're only researching and consulting a professional. Before we delve into this enlightening conversation, we want to express our gratitude for the incredible support we've received from our listeners. Your contributions play a critical role in enabling us to bring you thought-provoking content and engage in meaningful conversations. If you haven't already, we invite you to consider becoming one of our founding 55 supporters on Patreon, for just $5 a month as a patron, you gain access to our live virtual discussions and early access to episodes, allowing you to be among the first to experience and engage with our content. But that's not all. Recognizing the diverse preferences of our audience, we've expanded our offerings with a $3.50 per month tier for those eager for early access to our content. Your support allows us to continue creating content that matters, and we truly appreciate every one of our listeners. Thank you and enjoy today's episode On these properties.
Speaker 1:Which ones are, would you say, your best investments? Are they special? We are not. Airbnbs are definitely the best for us. Why is that? Because people are willing to pay more on the weekend than they are for a whole like month, somewhere, like what's the way it's gonna say someone, long term, they think more economically than having they. What people think of fun? They think of on the mouse, just the money for that fun. Like funding freedom more. Yeah, yeah, funny fight, that's not, that's this is cool to walk around like people. Yeah, don't mind spending money honestly for experience. Yeah, yeah, actually bring all their friends or whatever like that. So we got a five-bedroom. Oh, man, I got my cousins here. They can bring their kids and there's a pool a little back and the army oh, this is nice, yeah, and they're splitting the cost, yeah, and they spend the calls. They make sense for them. So, yeah, that's. I think maybe six people stayed there, yeah, so they all paid, you know, $2,000. Yeah, $2,000. But for you, you go there every weekend. Yeah, you got some money coming in every weekend, every weekend For $12,000.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Dallas is a hot spot from downtown, oh, yeah, it's friendly girls area. Where is it? No, no, that was, uh, that's east dallas. Oh god, it's still 10 minutes on a freeway right downtown. Yeah, you watch your maps game, or? You know, I tried to buy property in traffic.
Speaker 1:Girl, that guy never, he wanted to sell it to me. I think he was lonely, though, but it's a funny story. But this guy just like goes like oh, we also see 60 000 for this house. Yeah, I'm like man, I know right now it's still worth like maybe 140, but he was like, oh, I'll sell $260,000 for this house. Yeah, I'm like man, I know it's right now it's still worth like maybe $140,000. But he was like $60,000 and he had to sign out like a loan for sale. So I think he just needs some cash. I think he needed attention Because he never sold to anybody, he just had people coming up to him. He just talked to them yeah them and show them around. Well, I'll think about it. I was like, listen, I'll give you 70 dollars to sell some right now. Yeah, you'd like, yeah, okay, man, they ain't redoing that whole area. Yeah, they told you. No, you're talking about ditch five. Yeah, they ain't just finding that whole area. Yeah, they been doing it for some years now it's been. It's still over for whatever.
Speaker 1:At the time, like this was years ago and I was trying to, maybe, yeah, four or five years ago, you know, I was trying to get that property. Yeah, all I know about it, because I have a friend who has an Airbnb property in Trinity Grove and he's doing really well Right Up there, you know. Yeah, because they have all the restaurants right there, right down the street. So, yeah, it's a good spot. Yeah, good, any advice you have for I'm going, I would be pretty personal. So I got them on right, I got them on, I got a kid and we've talked about buying property and doing property and do all these things you were telling me. I'll make sure I heard this right.
Speaker 1:The next step for me is to move out of the house. Yes, one thousand percent. And really there are ways around it. I'm not going to say there's no way around it, but that's the surefire way. Whatever way around it you have, you should still vote out, because that way too. Yeah, both of them. You know what I mean. Yeah for sure, okay.
Speaker 1:And then does NACA work for a second property or does it have to be a first? Yeah, you kind of yeah, you can't do NACA because it needs to be a first. That's why I told people before they get married. I told likes to this as well. I was like when you get married, you should get a DACA property and then your wife can get a DACA property. Yeah, and then, oh, so you're both getting a DACA property. Yeah, and then you get married, then you're going to get another house, right, well, yeah, you already. They don't let you do that once, because if either one of the entities own a property, you know they consider you a whole at that point. Yeah, yeah, they only do for people who don't own any property in my mother, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that wouldn't work for me. That part doesn't work. Too late, it's okay.
Speaker 1:So I just go hear this and get it out. Get it on, yeah, yeah, I will say what? If anybody does this? I will say this is my knack. It's a fantastic program for what you get, but it's super annoying, and I always make sure I tell people that, because they can't ever say I didn't tell him.
Speaker 1:But it's annoying. I know you're about to ask me why I'm annoying, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's annoying because the people who work there are like underpaid and overworked, so they have it sounds like the rest of the job market and laura, right now it's it's wow, they're very slow. They lose your paperwork. Their website is not even like up to date. When you try to upload stuff, uh, it's like oh, we didn't get it and it's just like I know. I said to you yeah, I know, I say so. They're sending it again. So you have to be prepared for that annoying factor. But just push through, just get to go through it, because some people are like I've been in the NIDA program for three years and I still have more.
Speaker 1:I was in and out, yeah, yeah, it's lovely when you work out like that. My guy remember walking in. He was like damn, you ready to go hard. Yeah, I wasn't playing. Yeah, I'm trying to get this done. You got to stand on top of it, do their job, learn what they are doing for you and help them do their job, push them along. What's next? Always keep the ball in their court. What's next? Yeah, I'm just following up and you know you have to be yeah, you have to be very diligent. You gotta keep your finger on it. Yeah, because they're not gonna profit from making you successful. No, you know they get a little. They get a little money from it, but they're not. You know this is what's gonna change your life. So, yeah, the other, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And what's the most difficult part of doing what you do? Oh, there's a lot of difficult parts. Maybe just staying sharp, I guess, like mentally sharp, on certain things, like what's going on. You got to be a man, multi-faceted in a lot of different arenas, like you got to be damn in a mind reader. You got to be able to interpret what people are really saying. What's going on? Is this person trying to play me? Yeah, or are you? Are you trying to throw a party? Yeah, did I change the filter last month? Oh, I didn't change my filter when I get home man, but like systems in place so that that automatically plays, fine.
Speaker 1:But now, like for filters, for example, I buy 12 filters a year because it's 12 months in a year should change them every once a month, unless you get the three month one or whatever. Like, yeah, for once a month because getting scared to them. Yeah, you got pets and stuff like that. So you, you know you want to make sure that's not today, because if you don't, you know it could cost you a lot of money later if you don't change your filter. Yeah, it's something simple like that. So I'll just buy 12, put them in the attic or wherever the ac unit is and it's, it's ready to go. Well, you're buying 120. Yeah, I am about a lot. Yeah, you're buying 120 films a year going around?
Speaker 1:Yeah, then do you have a day that you go it appears like if people are there I was amazon, I was, you know send it and say, hey, can you put these in the closet for me, or something like that. Okay, yeah, oh, so you got. You got a real relation. Do you build a relationship with your tennis or do you like this? I was doing this. It is so outstanding for why I try to call people it's definitely towards the end of the day and make sure everything is good.
Speaker 1:I check in at the beginning, check in in the middle and definitely at the end, because you want to, like if somebody was about to write you a bad review, you can kind of hear it in their voice. But yeah, it's something you may not even know about. Like I know yeah, you know, I didn't know that there was a you mad because there was a spatula. The last guy stole the spatula. Who checks his after? I don't know, that's cookware. But my boss, like I didn't know, if you had told me that I would have brought yourself I wouldn't watch. So I wouldn't watch your old.
Speaker 1:When you said, yeah, not a big deal, and talk to it, you know what I mean. So that's what it is. So you gotta check out people. I just talked to them. Yeah, I've never had a time where I've only gotten bad reviews from people. I forgot to talk to you. Ah, that's the only time you get a bad review is if you didn't communicate well, or they're just crazy. You can't, please. There's nothing you can do, nothing you can do. So it's like you know, all right, cool.
Speaker 1:One lady was like oh, the toilets got clogged, were clogged. You told me the day you checked in that your family was going to be coming Part of the street outside of my house. There's no toilet there. All the people running around ended up at the house. You think that the toilet was clogged before you got there? Yeah, yeah, I don't want that. You got kids. They flushed the toilet right down the day.
Speaker 1:That was not something I would call a plumber. I could have did it myself, but I had a 24-hour shift, right, yeah, but you got an emergency situation where the toilet's fogged right now. Yeah, so I can't leave. Yeah, you can't leave, I can't leave. So I had to call a plumber to get over there and I had to pay him about $600, $500 to do something I could have done for maybe $60. Man, that's the way it is. They get you, yeah, they get you. Everybody got to make their money, yeah, but now I got a system that helps out with stuff like that.
Speaker 1:You have a landlord what Well, I call him. He's. You know, he's my right hand, but I'm a property manager. Okay, he's a property manager. Yeah, but I'm the property manager when he is, too, he's an assistant property manager. I hear y'all be calling. Yeah, I try to make sure that you know some people do that. I don't think so. Yeah, what does his brother do for a living? Because he I mean, obviously he got to license and then he's on the mob brokerage. I recently put up on the mob brokerage and he's helping me react to property except property you got him doing right now. And what is it from for that? That's in garland.
Speaker 1:It was a burned out house, ironically, you know, yeah, it'd be the car, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you didn't play any. Yeah, you didn't buy that one. No, no, no, I didn't. What's that? Right, it was, it was. I knew it wasn't it. Yeah, okay, so you go buy houses that are burned down like any condition nasty, dirty, stay. Are you going in and redoing all the remodeling? I'm telling you I'll show you something after this is they're beautiful, like after.
Speaker 1:I like properties that they have potential. You know I'm wanting to look bad because it deters everybody else away. What doesn't happen to that imagination? So all these people come see the house because of the price plane, the 90% of the people walk away. The other 10%. Give her a reasonable lowball, yeah, cuz he needs.
Speaker 1:I worry, yeah, so you, at the end of the day, you only competing with a couple of people. You know, yeah, for that property I'll be on day, and then those people may not have financing together. Yeah, or they can't pay cash, or you know, oh, yeah, cash always wins. Yeah, it's cash and time, cash and time. I always say time is the most valuable resource that you have. You can say, hey, look, I'll give you $100,000 in one year. Or somebody say I'll give you 95 or so days. You know what I mean. You're like I'll give just 95 or something, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I could do something with that right then. Yeah, I could do something with that right now, instead of waiting a whole year for my entire Right. Yeah, by that time I done made 120. Right, I done made money with that 95.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they trying to go. They're like I don't even. They're nervous. They got little things. They're trying to get rid of this property. Yeah, they might be going through a divorce. You're doing them a favor. I'm helping you out. Yeah, that's the end. Now you're doing all these old properties.
Speaker 1:Do you ever buy new properties? Or do you always buy them? It always doesn't work. One day, I wish to. I want to. You know what? I don't want to buy new. I would love to buy a subdivision and develop the whole subdivision. Okay, yeah, and you have a dream location. You got an area that you like you have. No, we didn't build it everywhere. In tennessee they are.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think I would like, um, just something that makes sense, like close to you know nothing spectacular I think this idea of doing it is spectacular to yourself but just something close to shopping or lake or some type of attraction. Okay, so would you ever go back to chicago to buy property? Yeah, probably not at this point. I can't see that right now. Only because there's a lot of opportunities. There is more.
Speaker 1:I don't like low distance landlord and a lot of people do that and I would tell them when you had a good friend of mine, I was in the real estate buying properties like cleveland and stuff like that, and it's like it could be lucrative because the properties are cheaper up there right now. Yeah, cleveland, detroit, yeah, but it's like you ain't there when you're not there, like you can create a whole systematics for yourself. Yeah, I'm getting into this for profit and peace, like I want to profit peacefully. You know I don't want to fight for, like, yeah, talking to people more about that, like you say, you want to do it for profit, it is, they keep you fine, so it's like I'll let them know. It sounds good, it sounds like you need to go, like you know, this is what we do, I'm doing this.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I don't want. I don't want this stress, man, because it's like, at the end of the day, like you said, time is the most valuable resource and everybody has time. So how do you spend it? Yeah, you know you spend. Do you spend it in the dismay, you know, worrying? Or do you spend it like that, just like make yourself happen, like you want the things you'd like to do? Yeah, you know, I personally I like to fix stuff. You know, like, I like working on properties. That not, I would just outsource it. Yeah, it was too much money you got as much. Yeah, just not as much. I don't want it at all.
Speaker 1:If I wanted to be somewhere else, I wanted to live in mexico and not do anything I would usually just hire a property management company and just turn it over to you, and if that's what it is, I want it. So you gotta do what's best for you. You know what I mean, like what fits best for your person, yeah, your family? Yeah, there's no one right way to do it. I don't think so. No, there's a lot of roadways, though. A lot of runways, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, a lot of roadways. Yeah, a lot of them. Yeah, no, you have all these properties, right. Yeah, dude, why don't you just stop being a firefighter? Why do you keep going down in here? It hurts fast. Yeah, I mean, you got all these properties. You're making this income. Yeah, I still choose to have a job.
Speaker 1:I think I can't rationalize it in a way that I'll tell you this. So I'm 38 right now. I am not going to be a firefighter past 40. I'm 38 right now. I am not going to be a firefighter past 40. I'm not saying I'm going to quit on my 40th birthday, but before the clock strikes noon, before I'm 40, I would have quit the fire department. Yeah, because in my mind, I've always wanted to retire before the age of 45. And then, as I've gotten older, it turned into 40. It turned into 40. As you start to materialize, you start to see I can actually use this for 445. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so we talked about early, like when you could, if you bought your second house right and then moved into that one, I was like, but you could do that, but just slow your process down. Me quitting the fire department now would slow our process. It's just gonna slow it down. Putting that at 40 because it's like a hundred k job, you know you just should give it up. And plus, I'm only working six days a month, sometimes five days a month. It's like how do I rationalize giving away 5k and I'm able to work in five days a month? You know, giving away 100k. Yeah, yeah, because I don't want to do this.
Speaker 1:I, I don't like me and I'd be honest like I don't. I love the people who work with, I love the fire department itself, but it's like I don't like the fact that I'm not free, that I have to be there. Yeah, you know what I mean. You're constrained. Yeah, I'm constrained Psychologically. It bothers me. It bothers me. You know what I mean. But it's yeah, it's hard to get. It's like it's a great job, though it. The same time, people tell me like, yeah, why don't you put this great job? And I'm like, would you recommend this job to okra for my friend joey. Would you recommend it to them wisely? You know what I mean. I'm there. That's how you see yourself, yeah, so it's just like I like how you named two chicago people. That's what you do. I'm just. You know, I was just giving pantry.
Speaker 1:What do y'all call yourself, people from chicago? Who do y'all call yourself People from Chicago? Who do y'all call I don't know, shalites or something, I guess, illinois, what do y'all? Music group, too? I don't know the Shalites, the Shalites, but I think I don't know Chicago, chicago-ing. What is the person from Illinois called? I don't know. I know Texan is called a person from Texas. I go to a different thing. It's Illinois and Chicago. Oh, okay, y'all separate. Y' all kind of yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, but I've been to Texas for a long amount. I'm so out of touch. I've been to Texas since 2010.
Speaker 1:So you spent all your adulthood in, yeah, my early adulthood in Chicago and then, from 25 on because even at 23, I wasn't really doing it I was in the books for two years and then, 25, I moved down to Texas. Yeah, and when did you start your real estate process? I started it right after college. After that was on. I know you met Adam, but what year was that? Yeah, let's see, in 2014. 2014. 2014. Yeah, for real estate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in 10 years, in less than 10 years, you've set yourself up to retire. Yeah, by 40 years old. Yep man, I mean, how did that feel? In 10 years you set yourself up to retire? I mean, to be honest with you, I feel like it should have been so long. To be honest with you, really, what were your missteps? What did you go around and what could you have done? Just like I literally was somehow buying a property. I didn't have my real estate license or anything, but I also bought my properties at college in Austin, and the Austin market is a win. Oh, yeah, your Tesla boy then came down there. Yeah, y'all rocking it out low. Yeah, it's crazy right down there at the time, like they had some properties in the east Dallas for maybe like 15, 20. East Austin, east Austin.
Speaker 1:So in retrospect, like, here I do it, here I had to do it again. Probably wouldn't change much, because you got to know what that alternative reality will bring you. You know, might be about a car or something. Yeah, yeah, driving anyway to Austin. Go right as I go, go two way, go with it.
Speaker 1:Realistically, I could have took out hell's through laws I gotta take out stones. I paid cash or college but I could have took out hell's through loans with all those properties and the justification that happened I would have just I'm winning 10x my money. You know what I mean? I just would have kept doing it. I wouldn't care. It was like the farm alone, whatever. It's all good, all I would have all these problems.
Speaker 1:But then at that point we talked about earlier, I could have gentrified the whole block and definitely at that time, yeah, especially if I got some other people to do it with me, like yo, if people were buying cars with their sales levels and all that. Yeah, $60,000 cars and stuff like that, yeah, it's too low, you know. Yeah, I mean it's like you know it's frightening. Extreme Right If extreme right if you keep them for a lifetime, yeah, but if you would have kept it a couple years and again you could have paid all that off with the properties, with the property that you had here, man, I didn't think about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you give any of this game to the college student? I mean, I didn't even want to see college study, but it's like it's lying. It doesn't really resonate with a lot of people unless you have a thirst for knowledge already, because a lot of people think they, they know everything. Yeah, yeah, and a lot of people don't care to know, they cool with just the way they live in it. But it's comfortable, like growing hurts, even growing for the better hurts, because you have to make change, you gotta do something different, you gotta stay in blame, you know. You gotta study in two days, two half days. Yeah, I mean, was motivated, bro, I'm going to do it Now.
Speaker 1:Do you sell houses for other people? I have, but I don't typically do any type of traditional real estate. I have the ability and capacity to. I just don't enjoy it. But it's a lot of money to do it. It's like I've never marketed myself for that way. Yeah, especially in the Dallas area, the market is hot. Everybody wants to be in Dallas. Yeah, I don't see those day taxes. A lot of people moving there. They're in states and cities, right, so there'll be a lot of opportunity there. But you're like, nah, I'm good, right, yeah, I'm good on that, I'm good on that. Like it's just it. 3% every $100,000 is $3,000. So a $300,000 house, $300,000 is the $9,000 commission that you could have made. Yeah, you know, and these houses can get expensive. 5, 6, 7, yeah, easily.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is Tony going to do when he retires? Go over to the state? Are you going to leave the country? Are you staying? Nah, I mean, I've been out of the country plenty of times. So, like you know, even in college, like you know, I stayed in China for three months. That was pretty cool. Okay, cool experience.
Speaker 1:I've been a lot of places overseas South Africa and France and Rome. You've done the whole night. You've done all your big amazingness. Yeah, I need to do some local stuff. Man, I haven't been to Jamaica, you know. Oh, yeah, you know, the broke nigga shit. Yeah, I got boo, the ones that ain't been rich. Yeah, I got to do DR, I got to do, I did Cancun. I just, I did out all the other stuff. So, yeah, I still want to do that. Yeah, cancun, I mean, how many did the states have you done?
Speaker 1:So, you know, miami, I've been to miami, vegas, dc I love dc and some business. They see, I was talking about dc and tom. Like, yeah, dc is cool. So, like, cool, yeah, so even what, you're gonna live in texas, you're gonna stay there. Yeah, I think texas is a club right, and this is where you go to retreat, where you go to relax, and then you know, now you can be anywhere you want to be in a day Like you want to be.
Speaker 1:I want to be in Vegas tomorrow. I want to be in Vegas tonight. I've got a little bit more, buy ticket or maybe $200. And you know it might be cheaper. Yeah, and get to Vegas tonight if I want to, like I can just go. Yeah, you can do that. Yeah, but again, you're not going to your property that you have and most often I would do is, um, as a flip, I do an out-of-state flip, but it would have to be like a team I trust and they'll out-of-state to knock it out and get it done and like it has to be like a maybe a quick flip at first, so like like lipstick on a pig, which is a.
Speaker 1:Real estate basically means new carpet, if they can. You have carpet, new floor and then they may need paint and that's it and then flip it for another. For the extra 10, 20 thousand dollars, yeah, depending on, if you know, we didn't work that easy as far as clips. No, paint works wonders, especially if you pick the right color. Yeah, it makes all the difference. Paint a new floor, oh yeah. And now you know up to your problem. It's like, yeah, you, scientifically, there's something to it.
Speaker 1:The perception you have of when people walk into a place they can see everything and everything is continuous. It makes a difference in their judgment. When you don't understand where you are, then it makes you uneasy and uncomfortable. It's like the cousin of fear or something like that. So it's like if you're somewhere where it's nasty and you don't understand that, oh man, all you got to do is clean this place up and paint it. It's gonna look great. That's the difference between I don't know no profit and maybe fifty thousand dollar profit, like just just about painting. You gotta have an envision on it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's reason for it.
Speaker 1:We, they're all boxes. You know the house boxes, yeah, yeah, we just buy some of those, not the road, the structure of it. It's a of it, it's a box. It'll be falling, you know. Yeah, make sure you're not in the hood, make sure you're not. You know just a nice area? Yeah, got it.
Speaker 1:Now I'm guessing this is all a game that you gave Langston? Yeah, we talk all the time. Yeah, he's aware, he's aware's the dialogue Like we're talking about I tell a story and you tell a story, and that's like the derailment of, you know, of pure information. Yeah, that you can just get, and all this is equal, he's my equal. So it's like we I can't, it's not like I can really teach him much Like we take style, looking up to me or something to aspire to.
Speaker 1:We don't even rubbers, you know, yeah, you know, yeah. That makes it different. We're like twins in a sense, like you don't really look up to your twin, maybe your older brother, but it's like you don't look up to your twin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like. And even if you do look up to somebody, it's not like I'm trying to mash you, like I'm trying to one-up you, right, I'm just trying to get the everything that you know and apply it to my life and the way you know, I'm not trying to get to where you're at right now.
Speaker 1:That's another area where people kind of get lost in that journey. Is it like I see you got 10. I need 10 now, right, like I need to get there quick, right, it's a journey, bro, it's a journey. Yeah, it's a marathon, yeah, and it's going to take time to get there. I think for people like me, that's good to hear. They're like, hey, you don't get that wrong, we're getting there Right. And some people try to get there quick and that's where you get it to.
Speaker 1:Like the people who are big believers in the first strategy, which is then the BRRR strategy, I may get the R's reversed, but it's B-R-R-R, like five R's or four R's. Oh, like BRRR, like cold freezing, yeah, but it stands for buy. Let's say, buy, renovate. Then you want to refinance it and then you want to rent it out, and then you want to repeat, like that's the process. And so you keep doing that over and over again, and the theory is you can scale faster if you do that, because you're taking all the equity out and then putting it into another house. And so I've never refinanced the property before and I don't plan to, because I just think that it's counterintuitive, it brings more stress, it brings more risk. You gotta hit it now. Now, you gotta hit it because you took all that refinanced money out, right, well, yeah, so it's like easy numbers, right, let's do a $100,000 house, even though those really don't exist and not many of you want to live in anyway? Yeah, but it not in Texas for sure.
Speaker 1:Using the 1% rule, which, again, really doesn't exist anymore. The 1% rule is you should probably rent out the property for 1% of what the value is. So if it's $100,000 house, your rent should be 1K, right, and so the theory was well, when I pull the money out of it, the mortgage may be 800. I'll still profit $200 per month from that property, right, because your mortgage is 800. What about the repairs? You know? What about the maintenance costs? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so they don't account for that. But they don't account for that. But they didn't pull out $80,000 out of this property and they went to the next one and they want to be able to say oh, I got 10, 20, 30 properties, but it's your own, profiting $200 here, $200 there, but you're able to pull out a lot of money.
Speaker 1:You also have a lot of risks. If the economy ever crashes, for example, and your tenant stops paying their rent, what are going to do? Yeah, with all your property? Yeah, like, what are you going to with colbert habit? So many landlords, like everybody's, like, just stop getting the rent, you know? So they're like we couldn't. Yeah, what are you gonna do? We got all these mortgages to compensate for. Yeah, it's like the banks don't need their money. Yeah, they still need that money. And it's like, all right, well, you just lost your whole real estate empire because you didn't want to do things the slower, yeah, but the profit margin is the same. Actually, the property margin is greater to me with cash because you don't have any overhead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you ever looked at um, because you know us right now. Have you ever looked at your amortization schedule? I've looked at it. I'm thinking like, nearly I'll let you in. Yeah, when it comes to when you've looked at it before, like the first, uh man, really like the first 10 years, they get you a mortgage. Yeah, so you got your principal, which is what's actually going towards how. That's what's doing you up until we got your answers, mm-hmm, they're interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're worried, a thousand bucks interest is gonna be seven hundred dollars. Yeah, and the president will be three happy for years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, years and years and people say, oh, you can write that off. Well, go on, you ain't working nothing. No, it's not worth it. Yeah, it's not worth it. Yeah, because that means that you're taking a gamble there for 30 years. You're going to make your payment every single time and nothing's ever going to go wrong again.
Speaker 1:Not just you, but with you, with your tenants, with your neighborhood, with your city, with the state, with the government, with the United States, with the world. Yeah, I mean, like, what are you going to do with something crazy like that? So to me it's too much risk involved in there. So that's why, more recently, I've been fortunate to be in the buy cash.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now do people use their refinance hold to go buy another home? Yes, that's the home, that's the only person, that's the repeat, that's the last. Oh, just repeat. Yeah, to do it again. And so, if you're not keeping that 80,000 for oh, just in case you want it into another property, yeah, yeah. So now I'm running my situation in my head. It's like oh, I bought for this much. The market says it's worth this much. Now You're telling me, if I go read it, the 1% is low. Now I'm reading it for $3,000. More People in my neighborhood are reading for it.
Speaker 1:That's why I'm saying it doesn't apply anymore. It's not really a real thing, because rates have exceeded that number. Now, I mean not exceeded, but it's lower than the property value. It doesn't really work anymore, but it used to be the case. It used to be. That used to be the case. They used to be like a gentleman with a thumb, like it's around that area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, inflation is going too crazy. Yeah, has that hurt you any in your? Not really. I mean it's just a wave, like I'm surfing, so it's like I'm gonna see waves. Yeah, I'm moving with the wave, so it's like not real. I'm certain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's gonna be. It's a problem. You have so many problems in industry, so you just have to just deal with it. Yeah, man, yeah, okay, nice, no, it's good. Yeah, I mean, I just appreciate. Like. I want to say one more thing about yeah, no, go ahead. People who really like the idea of, or people will show okay, I'll give you a shortcut. This is a good shortcut for people when you do get your property, or if you want to just tell them like I believe that using credit cards to purchase properties or hope I will rent, like renovation costs, is a good thing.
Speaker 1:I'm a huge advocate. I'm listening, continue on that. But I mean even just everyday finances. I'm a huge advocate of credit cards. I mean it's an easy way to make money if you use it right. I always always tell a lot of time, like younger people that was like, hey, I don't think about getting a credit card. What should I do? I say, man, use it, yeah, because. But I always pay it off, either daily or weekly or however. Whenever I see that charge pop up, I just use like a debit card, right, like I only use it within end of the year. I didn't make seven hundred dollars and all I did was use credit. I made seven hundred dollars because I put everything on it. I didn't pay my the bills they allow me to pay. I use a credit card. Whatever I can pay with credit, I pay it and I just pay it right off. And now I made some money from using right and that credit card company wants me not to pay it so I can pay them. But now I'm using they paying me when they break.
Speaker 1:You know you make your mistakes like, oh, you've been, you've been on more than you can choose, yeah, and that's how it answers yeah. So I think that is it's better than to me, it's better than hard money lenders, because sometimes the hard money lenders. People will loan you money at 12 when you can get a credit card. That's like zero percent for 12 months, yeah, or you are. Yeah, or maybe five right now, which is better, because you know the pay and the origination of closing calls for that wedding is yours immediately and pay maybe more than 3% or something like that. I'm right across or whatever it is after 12 months. Right.
Speaker 1:Also the time yeah, 18, 18, whatever it is, you can use that one, especially if you don't flip for you that book. If you plan to flip it at six months, use the credit cards, let's use them. And the other thing is, if you use a hard money lender, if you use a traditional mortgage, they have the first lien on your property, meaning that they could take that money away from you and then that you can't pay them one payment. You know they can start a foreclosure process on you, right, but with a credit card it's an unsecure line of credit. You can't take anything from you, they'll take you to court and by the time he would have probably fixed the situation. So I'm not saying you shouldn't go there for it. It's safer to do it that way. So that's a little piece of gaming.
Speaker 1:Always apply for credit limit increases without them running your credit, because you can start off with a $2,000 credit and then end up with $ hundred thousand dollars credit. Yeah, you know, I mean, and sometimes they don't, they don't be my hey, he done so well, here he's there. So imagine if you asked him a couple months. Yeah, so you just, and they call we'll give you that money. Yeah, yeah, we're up new, we all up you a three dollar, four thousand, but you just keep doing that for you four a year.
Speaker 1:And they want you to mess up. Though they really help you mess up at some point. Right, that's what you know. Yeah, but you take care of what you gotta take care of. You be straight. Yeah, and most people do yeah, oh yeah, because they're everything they gotta handle.
Speaker 1:And then those people do not, nah, and now they bought some gucci shoes and they've been in splurge, and now they lost their job and they're a bull. Now you're in trouble. I'll take it, you can move it out there. I don't know about that. I don't know about that situation. My situation looks different. You know everybody's situation, but I am now I am thinking about that refinance situation Ain't gonna take that money and buy another property. Like that sounds like a good option for me in my situation. That's where I'm at. I'm looking at the property value of the people around me. I'm looking at what I bought the house for. Even if I take the refinance out for, let's say, $30,000, I've still left myself a big piece of wiggle room.
Speaker 1:You're taking the risk though You're increasing your mortgage, you'll have a higher interest rate Right now. Get the risk though you're increasing your mortgage, you'll have high interest rate because right now I'm assuming this part of the four, it's around the area, yeah, so that you mean 4.2. Yeah, so now, but now you're gonna be at seven, you know, and you're gonna have I'm assuming you're not gonna buy another house cash with that. It's not enough to actually buy cash. I mean I'm buying it up by the time. Another mortgage, if you usually put down on it. Now they have a renter, yeah, and only up to that level with something over here, right, as long as their renter is doing what they're supposed to, what can't go wrong will, yeah, I'm prepared for it. So, man, I have some mental attorney. If is what happened, yeah, I like that. Yeah, and it ain't. If it's just it's gonna happen. Yeah, you know, just play it all ifs to be popping up. Yeah, it's what happened.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I don't know if this is gonna catch me, but I had a colleague that I work with and she's a professor. Her husband is the real estate person and property manager. They bought a bunch of houses in san antonio right before pandemic. They have two kids. They moved into an apartment. The house they were living in that they fled, they left and they moved to apartment then, but they had two kids. It just it made more sense financially because they can get more out of renting the house out and then they were paying and rent for where they were staying. But it also helped build a portfolio so that they could get more properties. It didn't make sense because the value of the property went up, so they didn't get the 1%, but because they flipped it, they had charged so much more than what the mortgage was for them, and the housing rule affects it not.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, so I agree. I think the best thing to do all the fixing up you know what I mean, so I agree. I think that the best thing to do is to rent your house and then go live somewhere else. Yeah, and you just do that for two years. Yeah, like you could get an apartment that's not much smaller than where you live, be a three-bedroom apartment, you know what I mean. Yeah, studio for the painting, baby room, whatever, and just do that, just dug it out for two years. Yeah, dug it out, it just took years. All right, tony, you've given us a lot of game. You put us onto a lot of new information, especially for me. You know I'm in a situation right now I can take some of the information I've got from you. I've kind of gotten bits and pieces yet, but you know I now have the source and you you mess a lot of information for us to apply and to go and to get our own houses and to get that whole financial freedom that I think a lot of people are looking for.
Speaker 1:What books, articles, publishings have you read? Are interviews or ifs you've listened to. That has kind of helped you and guided you. Besides, adam, brother, al, I can't. I can't get my head up that you have a shape, that kind of shaped, where you at today. Oh man, so I'm going to be completely 100 with you.
Speaker 1:I am not a huge reader, like by the length it is. I look people around me. I've always been like a big fan of just watching and observing certain things. I do like I was in college, but a book that really did inspire me was Rich Dad, poor Dad, a lot of people who are able to say, yeah, book super popular, and it was a book that made you basically it took you out of the mode of thinking like a regular traditional person. Like stop doing like. In that book there's a rich dad and there's a poor dad that this guy has. His poor dad was his actual my life for that, and his rich dad was his friend's dad, who he looked up to, and his friend's dad was basically making all these business deals, you know, had his hands in the mud and kind of get it, you know, get it, and his actual dad was a teacher that was just like very straight as an arrow complaining about his life and he didn't have money and stuff like that, and so that was a really good book and also another book by. These books are by Robert Kiyosaki. Okay, cash Flow Quadrant is a good one, and mainly it also talks about numbers and now real estate can work for you. So one and mainly it also talks about numbers and now real estate can work for you. So that's a good one. Millionaire next door as well, and these are all books written by the same. No millionaire next door is written by a different author, but the other two were written by robert kiyosaki.
Speaker 1:Okay, and as far as like podcasts, I used to listen to a lot of d ramsay. I mean I don't 100 agree with everything. Yeah, that is saying because do you do the Dave Ramsey method? I mean I definitely buy houses cash If you can do it. So buy houses cash is great for a lot of different reasons. But that's not about credit cards. Like I'm using the leverage of credit cards to help you out because it's unsecured. Yeah, so that's something that I haven't seen you detrimentally as a result of not being in it. Yeah, that you can't fix anyway. Yeah, they ain't coming to arrest you. They need, yeah, yeah, and other than that man just listening and talking to people who are doing better to you, better than you in some capacity, ask questions about how many I get that. You know it's stuff like this just watching, listening, learning.
Speaker 1:Now, when people find you again on your ig, what is the name? T, what a while t-o-e-n-y real estate, tony real estate. Okay, yeah, now are you open to get people this game that you? You know, do people reach out to your instagram? We already talked about this, but we have. I'm doing now like I'm filming little episodes, right, so for the, I'm giving from the start all the way to completion. You know, I'm feeling the good, the bad ugly, like everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and putting it in little short segments and putting it on my instagram and I'll get people who will reach out in my inbox and ask questions, stuff like that, and the first thing I say is um, like, yeah, like I can answer your question. Whatever, 50 bucks, I'll talk to you for 30 minutes. Yeah, 50 bucks. There's nothing to me. Yeah, yeah, and for them should be nothing for them, but it definitely differentiates who's serious and who's not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't hear back from people who don't want to pay 50 bucks. You want to ask me all these questions and you're going to give me $50 for all those dollars. I'm about to give you what? Yeah, but you're about to pay $20,000. All right, you have to go straight to get out of that week. Stop, yeah, okay, yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly. I can't, I'm not worth. When you stop like, yeah, yeah, you can steal one way down there, no, to get this now, you can't steal one way down there to get this not. Yeah, well, I get inbox here now. You know you can't start putting serious inquiries only. I don't think that's gonna work though. Yeah, I was with you, but yeah, that definitely differentiates.
Speaker 1:But I've been talking to another real estate friend of mine, maria. She was like I mean, you need to put your link tree up and you know I'm going to do that, so I'm going to get that together. Okay, yeah, I don't know if you've ever seen the link tree, but you click it and it has all the different options you can go to. You can go to websites. Do you Realtycom, grand Grand AdWords, d-r-a-n-d. Yes, adams Realty yeah, grand Big Grand Adams Realty. Yeah, and that was more so. Just a site, because I'm a broker and I felt like I should have a website. But again, I don't really do traditional real estate so I really don't, but I honestly don't really need it. Yeah, because you ain't selling no houses for love life. This is just for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you got family members? That's in on this, that you try to get in on this? I have older cousins that I looked up to that has a lot of real estate in Chicago, but I didn't learn any real estate from them at all. I mean, we talk a lot now but I didn't get any type of. I guess I was inspired by the idea of what he was doing, but I didn anything. So I don't want people to think like I had you know this rich cousin that looked me on or like I didn't know anything about real estate at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, all that credit goes to adam for quick music. Adam is triple. Yeah, adam, that's it. That's all I'm thinking about. That's all I can think about that. That involved my mind that you went to an interview, yeah, at a stunt club. Yeah, damn man might be doing interviews at strip club right now. He might be. He might be at strip club, right, I'm sure he's probably in one right now. That was, uh, only houston. That's that's what it is. Yeah, that's when it beat his, that's where. Yeah, james arden might be. A lot might have been james ar, I heard. I don't know that man personally. Yeah, you know, but no, it was a pleasure. Man, I appreciate you and give me the opportunity to. No problem, man, we got to do this again. Yeah, anytime. Yeah. Thank you for joining this edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite. If you liked the episode, you can support the show by becoming one of our founding 55 patrons, which gives you access to our live discussions and bonus materials, or you can subscribe to the show. Give us five stars and leave a comment.