In this episode, hosts Jacob and Mike delve into their personal journeys, sharing stories and insights that bridge their fear of post-2010 real estate with their current pursuit of financial freedom. They discuss missed opportunities, the compounding nature of time, and the belief that achieving financial freedom can positively impact the world. Through relatable anecdotes, they emphasize the importance of motivation, education, and relatability for aspiring real estate investors. The hosts express their commitment to offering a resource for everyday investors, bringing guests who are actively pursuing their goals and adding a unique perspective to the realm of financial freedom. While their conversation touches on topics like the Cleveland market, their main focus is on connecting with listeners and offering them inspiration, education, and laughter as they navigate the real estate landscape.
FREE Real Estate Investing Tools & Resources:
https://www.cashflowsaga.com/links
Join The Waitlist For "Rental Property Investing 101":
https://tinyurl.com/k4vpbd5u
Connect with Jacob:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cashflowsaga/
Website: https://www.cashflowsaga.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cashflowsaga
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cashflowsaga
Connect with Mike:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realtormichaelmagno/
Website: https://themagnogroup.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@realtormichaelmagno
In this episode, hosts Jacob and Mike delve into their personal journeys, sharing stories and insights that bridge their fear of post-2010 real estate with their current pursuit of financial freedom. They discuss missed opportunities, the compounding nature of time, and the belief that achieving financial freedom can positively impact the world. Through relatable anecdotes, they emphasize the importance of motivation, education, and relatability for aspiring real estate investors. The hosts express their commitment to offering a resource for everyday investors, bringing guests who are actively pursuing their goals and adding a unique perspective to the realm of financial freedom. While their conversation touches on topics like the Cleveland market, their main focus is on connecting with listeners and offering them inspiration, education, and laughter as they navigate the real estate landscape.
FREE Real Estate Investing Tools & Resources:
https://www.cashflowsaga.com/links
Join The Waitlist For "Rental Property Investing 101":
https://tinyurl.com/k4vpbd5u
Connect with Jacob:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cashflowsaga/
Website: https://www.cashflowsaga.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cashflowsaga
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cashflowsaga
Connect with Mike:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realtormichaelmagno/
Website: https://themagnogroup.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@realtormichaelmagno
This is the Financial Freedom Fighters Podcast
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:We are live. This is a, this is a big moment. This is a big moment. episode one. Welcome everybody to the Financial Freedom Fighters Podcast. Triple F name is, uh, Jacob Sandoval. Um, I am one of the hosts and I have here my friend, my agent, Mike Magno.
Track 1:hey. What's going on, Jacob? How are you today?
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I'm good. I'm good. You know, it's Friday.
Track 1:that California sun treating you?
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I think it was about like 77 degrees out here, nice and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky. So, can't complain. How's the weather over in, uh, in Cleveland?
Track 1:Uh, you know, it's been, it's been a really nice summer. Um, very wet though. We've had a ton, ton of rain. Ton of rain, even more than normal.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:why do you think that is?
Track 1:Uh, who knows? Climate change. What, I mean, there's a million theories, but
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:It's, it's gotta be climate change related. this is an aside, we'll get to the regular scheduled program after this, but I watched an interesting video, which was basically the US map and mapping out where are the most at risk places from a climate change perspective from now until like 2050.
Track 1:Okay.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:beautiful thing. Cleveland is like one of the, one of the lowest risk places from a climate change perspective and the highest risk places, obviously Texas and Florida. And where are people investing today? Texas and Florida.
Track 1:as somebody who has a, you know, who own, who owns property in Florida It's wild. I mean, it truly is.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:It's wild. think it's probably one of the overlooked benefits of investing in Cleveland. But we'll talk all about Cleveland, obviously this is episode one, so I think we should each probably talk a little bit about why we wanted to, launch the Financial Freedom Fighters podcast.
Track 1:got all these ideas in my head, right? we call it the squirrel syndrome in the real estate business, like shiny object, shiny object
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Track 1:something like, oh, oh, I gotta go do that. And for me, that shiny object has been content, right? Putting out, putting out content for people because there's just so much, I don't know, garbage out that I really wanted to put forth something that I felt was like real
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:right? And don't get me wrong, I love. Obviously BP Podcast, real Real Estate Radio Guys podcast, um, real estate rookie podcast. Like we love, we love all that
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:hundred percent.
Track 1:consume it all. where I've gotten to a point with it personally was like I just didn't feel like it was bringing me a ton of value as someone who is every day living the life of the real estate agent, of the real estate investor. And I just felt like there's a. Segment missing, right? Like, I think you and I both being, I mean, not new investors. I've been doing it for a few years now. You're fairly new, but we, but we both know kind of what we're doing and we've had some successes and we've had some failures. And I, I think it's a to people. I do consultations with new clients, I love using stories of my own to share with people. Like, Hey, it's not all sunshine and I've had, I've had shit get sideways, right? So, um, you know, I just, from that perspective, like I wanted to share that. you know what the genesis of me approaching you about it was, we, we'd done a couple deals and you know, I think you and I have built a pretty good rapport. And then on top of it, you were starting to put out some, some content that I liked. And I thought your content was very approachable for people. And I thought, well, there could be a melting there of us together. you're in tech and you live on the West coast. I'm, you know, I'm, an East coast Midwest guy. Like this is just the way I raised and, and grew up. And, um, you know, so for me, I thought it would bring two pretty unique perspectives, So that was why I wanted to do this.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I agree with everything that you said. I think what's missing is the everyday investor story, the small time investor story. People that are in the trenches trying to do deals, trying to do their first deal, right? Um, since investing in real estate, the amount of conversations I've had with people in tech, um, the amount of conversations I've had at weddings, um, and these are, these are smart people working in at big tech companies and things like that, and they just don't, they don't invest in real estate. They don't know anything about it. And that's because the average price home here in the Bay Area is over a million dollars. And people assume that you actually have to invest where you live. And so they just don't do it. And that's actually how I felt as well. Um, and we can talk about why I ended up doing my first deal, but for me, that's it. Right? I. Believe in the power of real estate long-term to create financial freedom. I think most people would benefit from making a few real estate investments and I just think that for me, it was like seeing the Matrix for the first time, right? it's the recognition that real estate has been in the playbook of the wealthy forever, But at the end of the day too, if we can just provide a different perspective and even if it helps a couple of people, and they're able to get inspired or learn something or even just get comfort knowing that there's people out there doing the same stuff that they're trying to do, that would be a win for me in my book.
Track 1:Yep. Yeah, I think so. I mean, you, you make some awesome points there. it's a huge vehicle for people, like you said, to, to build wealth. And no, not everybody uses real estate completely, right? I mean, you get people in the tech world, right, that get in, um,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:and crypto.
Track 1:know, socks, right? I. The whole crypto thing, right? Like, yeah, I heard about Bitcoin in two, 2012. Like we were still in, in Ohio. Like we were still in the depths of the recession in 2012. Like I was bartending for crying out loud, just trying to make, just trying to make ends meet.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I, didn't know that. I, didn't know you're a bartender.
Track 1:yeah, I had a, I had a roommate for crying out loud, right? I was house hacking, uh, before I knew what house hacking was. Um, you know, coming outta the recession, uh, I had gone through job loss and, um, got into the restaurant business because I needed to pay my mortgage. I had student loan bills, uh, car payment, you know, the whole thing. And, um, I had my house and that was not, I didn't have much else and I didn't want to give up my house because I needed a place to live. I had a buddy that I worked with at, at a restaurant and he, he wanted to sell his house. He sold his house. and he just moved in with me, you know, and I charged him like 350 bucks to sleep in my spare bedroom. My mortgage was only like 600 bucks. know, it helped for a couple of years, of get reestablished and things like that.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I mean, you had the awareness to house hack, which for all the listeners out there, I think is, it's hard to refute that. House hacking is probably the best real estate strategy that you can do, especially, somebody trying to do it the first time accomplishing two things at once here, which is like you need a place to live, but also you're dipping your toe in the real estate investing world by house hacking and for everyone out there, house hacking is effectively when you have your primary residence, but you're also using it as an investment of some kind. Whether you are renting out the rooms or you have an a D U accessory dwelling unit in the back somewhere, or you're renting out a basement. And that could either be long-term, midterm, short-term, and we'll get into all of this stuff. But
Track 1:Right,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:is very hard to do in the Bay Area. Almost impossible. Almost impossible. Because you're not going to buy a$1.5 million house and unless you're like luxury Airbnb it, renting out all the rooms, doing whatever, it's gonna be tough to make that work regardless. Right? And so it's one, a big regret I have right now is that I don't live in a market that, that's very easy, all that to say, you had the awareness during a tough time to house hack before house hacking was such a big thing. So I think that that's super commendable. and one of these days I'm going to house hack. I don't know when, but I'm gonna do it. Maybe I'll have to, maybe I'll have to move to Cleveland.
Track 1:it's funny too, I, I tell people all the time, um, The young people like that is their, you know, I know affordability issues are out there right now, especially with interest rates where they are prices at all time highs. I, I totally get that. But there are plenty of programs out there, there are plenty of ways that you can, you know, do this right? You can buy the duplex, you can, you can buy the triplex or the fourplex.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:little bit of a transition right now. Um, since, since this is the first episode and people don't know who we are, um, I think we're probably gonna tinker with different formats and everything here. I think we plan to bring on guests, right? Everyday investors, people that you work with. Might people that I know out here in the Bay Area that are also investing. But since we don't have any guests today, I think we could interview each other. Um, so I'm gonna start with you. question I have for you is how did you get started in real estate?
Track 1:So, uh, it's, it's funny, it goes back to me when I graduated college. Um, I graduated here locally, uh, in 2001. The winter. The winter of 2001, 2002. And, um, you know, I grew up in a very blue collar household. Parents didn't go to college. Heck, they barely graduated high school. They worked blue collar jobs, factory jobs, stuff like that. And, um, you know, my dad, you know, I, I followed the prescription of go to, you know, my grandparents and my parents were like, be better than me. Go to college, get a job,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yep.
Track 1:you know, do that. So that's what I did. I went to college. I got a job. And then I bought a house. You know, my dad's like, uh, you gotta buy a house. Gotta buy a house. Don't be paying someone else's mortgage. Gotta buy a house.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:So, fast forward, I buy a house in late 2003 going into 2004.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:And, um, it was okay, you know, uh, it was all right, whatever. I was a single guy, you know? Um, and then, you know, fast forward 2008 happens, right? And it's like, uh, okay. Like that's, that's not the way this is supposed to
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah,
Track 1:right? Um, so I go through job loss, I go through all kinds of turmoil, 2008, 2009, 2010, um, almost on the brink of bankruptcy. I sat in my car. I'll never forget that I was sitting in my car in that parking lot. I looked at myself in the rear view mirror and um, I said, you know what? You got yourself into this fucking mess. You're gonna get yourself out of this mess. So fast forward, you know, I just started literally tracking everything. I, someone turned me on to Dave Ramsey, the whole ton, total money makeover. Um, so I've used that. Um, you know, obviously I don't agree with a lot of what Dave Ramsey teaches for the investor side of stuff. But for someone who's in debt has terrible credit, needs to rebuild their, rebuild their life, I will, to this day, total money makeover is one of the reasons I'm in the position I'm in now. fast forward by 20, like, it was like 2013, I was debt free with the exception of my mortgage payment on my primary residence. So in late 2014, early 2015, here in Ohio, the market still had not recovered completely in the real estate market,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:How, how bad, how bad was Ohio hit relative, I guess, to the rest of the country?
Track 1:So this is what I tell people in, um, I bought, I paid, uh,$85,000 for my house in 2003.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:I woke up, I woke up one morning in 2000, 2009. My house was worth about 30 grand. I.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Wow.
Track 1:And I owed at the time, like 75,000. Right? That's why I didn't explored the whole bankruptcy thing,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:but I also needed a place to live. So that was my thought process. Um, so fast forward 2015, when we're building this house I'm sitting in right now, my house in Akron, the one that we were living in, was probably only worth about$65,000. That's where the market was at that time. And at the time, I still owed probably like 55 on it. We had paid a lot of it off, right? So I would like 55. It was worth probably 65. I probably would've walked away had we listed it for sale. And we did not. We, we were at a high enough income at that point that we didn't need to sell it to buy our, to build our house. So I had said to Diana, I said, Hey, do you think, uh, we can turn this into a rental property? so we didn't know what we were doing. So we closed on our house in where we live now, and that was in February, 2015. We moved in, uh, I cleaned up, I painted our new, our old house. I redid some stuff in the kitchen, put in some appliances, put new carpeting, uh, in the bedrooms, and put in some new laminate flooring. And, uh, from there I didn't know how to find a tenant. She posted something on her Facebook page and boom, we got one of, we got somebody that ran it from us that we knew.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:And, um, it was a girl that we knew and her mother and, um, I didn't do any background checks. I didn't do, didn't do nothing. It was a handshake. Right? It was a handshake. And, um, they moved in about a year later, the daughter moves out, the mother wants to stay. She's like, Hey, can I stay? I said, well, can you pay the rent? She goes, yeah, I can pay the rent. I said, well, you can stay. And that she's still living in that house to this day.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Wow. Wow.
Track 1:Yeah. Just, just crossed over eight years. She's been living in the house now and that house. Now that's the, that's the kicker, right? So that house. Now, if she were to move out and I went in and fixed, I went in and fixed it up to market value. It's worth probably about 115 to$120,000 today.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Today?
Track 1:Today. And, um, I only owe like$37,000 on it at this
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yep, yep.
Track 1:know, she's been paying that, she's been paying that debt down for me for the last eight years.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah, for sure.
Track 1:So, and then, um, so fast forward, uh, 2016, um, I get called into the office of my job and I get shown the door. So, so after about a, about two weeks, I did the honey do list of stuff around our house, painted, just did some other things. I, I said to her, Diane, I said, Hey, I think I want to get my real estate license. What do you think? And she goes, well, you know, I support you a hundred percent. Whatever you wanna do.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:Um, and um, took the test, I passed, boom, I got a license. Oh, man. Now what? Right.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:Um, so the Keller, the local Keller Williams office, uh, the, uh, the team leader slash c e o at the time, guy named guy by the name of Jeff, he And he, he looks at me, he looks up at me, he looks at the papers, he slides'em across the desk, right? The, basically, it's the papers that I have to sign to say that I'm gonna come to Keller Williams. He slides it across the desk, and he looks at me and he goes, Mike, you're gonna make so much fucking money at this place that you, you can't go anywhere else. That's what he said to me I was like, sweet man. I, and I signed, literally signed on the dotted
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:uh, you're just like, yeah, sounds good.
Track 1:signed, and, uh, then they, the people that sold their house had to buy a house, so then I got their buy. So that was December of all of. 2016, those three transactions closed three sides. And I had about$10,000 after splits of commission money. And I thought, okay, we can do this. And, uh, you know, the rest is history. I, I ended up selling like 16 properties at next year in 2017. And just, everything's kind of gone from, you know, from there.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:being where you're now, and I think you told me before you're doing like, 12 deals a month, maybe now at this point, right? Is like kind of steady volume for you. Is that, is that typical for a realtor, in the first year to just like really suck at it and it's just, that's just gonna be what it is.
Track 1:yeah, I mean, I don't know what the statistics are, but, you know, I would have to think half the agents that get into the business are out within the first 12 to 18 months because they just, they don't leave themselves enough runway.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:Um, you know, something that I did, uh, something that I did to help offset the expenses right, and the living expenses is I actually, um, signed up and I drove Uber and Lyft here in Cleveland on the weekends. So, I, I made a, I made it a really nice chunk of change for about a year, doing that on the weekends to help offset as I, as I learned real estate.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:we touched on the realtor agent aspect of it. So where does the investing kind of come in? Because you're, you're, you're, you're both right. And I think this is a very important distinction, right? Just because somebody's a realtor doesn't mean they're also an investor. I've, I've actually been quite shocked. To know that that's just not the case.
Track 1:Oh yeah. It's, it's so minuscule the amount of agents that actually invest in real estate. You'd be, you'd be blown away by the amount of agents that don't invest in real estate. Um,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:and this is just a for, you know, our future listeners, or if you're listening to this
Track 1:yeah.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:if you are partnering with an agent, you wanna make sure that they're also an investor too, right? Because it's just a very different conversation. And this is coming from someone who's worked with both a traditional realtor who's maybe just working with home buyers, um, and then you, Mike, it's a very different conversation. Like somebody that knows how to run the numbers, somebody that's not gonna show you something that like, really doesn't have the opportunity to cash cashflow ever. Um, and just somebody that's gonna know what an investor should care about. So it's just again, yeah, I just think it's very important.
Track 1:Yeah. So for us, I mean, we got into it, uh, very little, right? And we had that one property. it wasn't until a couple of years ago that we wanted to like, start really. You know, building the, the passive piece of our portfolio. So that's, so then we've kind of, you know, we've got several singles now. We have a duplex,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:What's the, total unit count for the portfolio right now? Today?
Track 1:um, nine,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Nine.
Track 1:includes the house in Florida.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Okay. In the house in Florida, and it's a mix, right? You said there's a, is it predominantly long term or are you doing some short term in Florida.
Track 1:Just the short. Yeah. The only thing we're doing short term is in Florida.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Okay. Okay. Nice.
Track 1:I do want to get into short term here though.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah. Yeah.
Track 1:I'm effort. I'm efforting some things there that I think can be very fruitful
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I'm very interested to, to hear about that. I also do want to dabble in short term, um, so we can talk about maybe like in a future episode.
Track 1:as a newer investor, what got you to come to the Cleveland market?
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I'm born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. no one in my family invested in real estate. worked now for 10 years, um, ended up in tech and so that's what I do today. I work at a startup called Chime. It's a banking startup. I do analytics, so I work all things data. numbers, especially on the real estate side, convey natural, natural to me. But still, you know, even with my background, I just wasn't very educated on the real estate side. I invested in stocks, invested in crypto, but I didn't at all think about real estate whatsoever. the only reason we actually got in into real estate is my wife and I, we were looking for a primary home. Um, and at the time we were actually doing a stint. This is during Covid. So this is, uh, 2022. We were living in LA for about a couple years. We wanted to get out of San Francisco and just like have a different scenery. So we were living in la. living in Pasadena. We loved it there. We loved Pasadena. Still love Pasadena. And you know what? We were just like, let's just fucking buy a house in Pasadena. Let's do it right? It's expensive in la but we could afford it. Let's just do it. our agent came back, guys are the lowest of 40 offers. Lowest of 40, right? We went a hundred K over asking, we went a hundred K over asking, and we were the lowest of 40. And we were like, what the fuck? So we offered on a couple more places in Pasadena, and this was the trend. This was the trend. We were the lowest every single time. to continue with the story, we wanted to be bigger fish. We wanted to be bigger fish. We knew that we couldn't be bigger fish. I don't know who was buying offering on these houses, but they had way more money than we did. Where else on the west coast?'cause again, we're still trying to find a place for us to live in. Where else on the west coast can we buy? Right. was like, okay, Portland, Portland's cool. You know, it's different. It's definitely less expensive. Let's just try Portland. Super random. We don't know anything about Portland. ended up landing a place. And so we got a nice three bed, two bath, a good neighborhood. was 550,000, which we felt was like, okay, this is so much cheaper but again, don't know anything about real estate, right? I don't know if that's a good price. I don't know if it's a bad price. I just know it's half of what the prices in California are. And so we're like, this is great. So we locked that up and then my wife gets the job offer at Google. It's a dream job for her. And Google is saying, oh yeah, we need you to be here in the San Francisco Bay area
Track 1:office. Yep.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:in the office. Google's very like, you need to be in the office.
Track 1:Right
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Now what the fuck did we do? Right? talk to our agents. They're like, you know, this would be a good rental. This would make a good rental, right? Why don't you just throw a tenant in there? They were connected to one of the bigger property managers in, Portland, and they were just like, why don't you just do that? So we did, we got looked linked up with the property manager. listed it, it rented out, and they're like, what do you wanna charge for this? And at the, my mortgage on that place is like 2,500. And I know anything about, I didn't know anything about renting the numbers, I know anything, but I was just like, let me just charge a little bit more than the mortgage, right? And so I was like, I don't know, can you do 28, 2800? And they're like, yeah, we could probably do that. And we threw it on there. It rented out in like three days. Rented out in three days. And I was like, oh shit. that was the light bulb moment for me. That's what led me to find BiggerPockets. And then I figured out, oh, actually I know how to analyze a deal now that's not that good of a deal, right? There's not enough spread between your P I T I and the rent. Figure that out. And then I just did some high level analysis and I was like, you know what, Cleveland seems like a market that keeps popping up in my research. Seems like a market that you actually can get deals to cash flow. The affordability is a lot better than in west coast markets. And weird connection to Cleveland. My wife's sister did residency in Cleveland. She's a doctor.
Track 1:Okay.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:So we went to Cleveland a bunch of times. I actually rescued my dog in Cleveland. I got engaged in Cleveland. Um, and so I was like, you know what? I kind of know Cleveland a little bit. And, uh, so just made the plunge, found you on biggerpockets.com/agent Finder. We hit it off. And, you know, long story short, done two deals together, both in Cleveland, a duplex on the west side, and triplex most recently in Euclid. And, uh, now, yeah, we're at six units now and, um, I took the, I took the red pill and, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm all into real estate.
Track 1:Nice, nice. So, um, what, what would you say are, has been your biggest challenge to this point?
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:The most difficult thing initially was I didn't have anybody that was investing in real estate that I knew. I. right. And so I didn't have a network, I didn't have a community, I didn't have any of those things. I was kind of, and it feels very lonely. It still today feels pretty lonely when you're like out in the trenches trying to like build a real estate portfolio. It feels super lonely. And I talk, my wife's ear off about this and she's just like, she trusts me and she's obviously investing in all these deals with me, but at the end of the day, she's like not as passionate about it as I am. And I, and I feel bad for how much I talk about it I think being a beginning real estate investor that those first couple deals, and I'm still in it, right? I've only done three deals. That's, I think the hardest part, actually it's the hardest because any one deal feels like It feels like it can just like take you down because you don't have like the portfolio at scale. But I think it's actually once you get to like 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 properties, that what, whatever goes on with any one property, it's not that big of a deal, right? Because you have the portfolio balances out, but when you only have one or two properties and like shit starts going wrong at any one of them. Like this year we had a double vacancy on two properties and that's two out of, and at the time I just had two, I only had two and I had vacancies on both. And then I had turnover costs on both and I was like, oh fuck, this is like, I didn't plan for this, right, So it's like
Track 1:right.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:just taking the licks and just like keep going. And so like, but it's a learning process. I'm in it for the long haul. I know it's not gonna be easy. And anyone listening to this, you should know it's not gonna be easy, Right, If it was easy, everybody would be a real estate investor. Everyone would fucking be rolling in it. But it's not easy, but it's also not complicated and I guarantee you that if you stick with it long term, You're gonna be glad that you did. Right? Because there's not a single person I talk to that's older, that's like, I, I wish I invested in real estate when I was, you know, your age. Or I wish I just bought more real estate. Or I wish I didn't sell those houses to upgrade to bigger houses. I wish I just held onto it, right? Like my parents, they literally, if they just held onto every house that they sold, kept it as a rental. All those properties are like four x what they're worth now and here, here in California, right? And so I'm just like, if I look, I don't need to be, I don't need to be a mogul, right? I don't need to be on the BiggerPockets podcast and like have like this massive real estate empire. But I know that I want optionality. I want to, I want to be like, look, I have a portfolio that I stuck to, that I built, that I took care of, that I nurtured that is now giving me the optionality to walk away from my job if I want. I that's that's it. That's it. And I think real estate is like one of the, it's not the only way, but I think it's one of the most proven ways to do it long term, so, yeah.
Track 1:No, that's awesome. No, I'm, I'm, I'm in the same boat, you know, obviously I got a, a much later start, um, you know, having gone through the previous recession and then, you know, for many years, like I just, you know, just, I was afraid of everything,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah, of course.
Track 1:of taking any, any risks. So, so risk averse. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, you know, so then you get into this business and you start doing it at a high level and you start meeting people that are doing it at a higher levels and you, you know, that just kind of, everything rises above. And, you know, for me it's the, the time, right? The ti you, the only thing we can't do, the only thing we can't buy back in this, in, in this world is our
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Totally.
Track 1:you know? So for me, that's, that's the biggest thing I'm looking at. I don't want to, you know, I'm 45 now, so I'm a little bit further along in the journey. Um, but I definitely don't want to do, you know, I don't want to be slinging houses until I'm 65 or 60, 68, you know? And that's where, you know, I see a lot of agents, right? I see a lot of older agents who've been doing this for years, and they've been through all the good, all the bad, all the this and all the that, and yet have nothing to show for it. Nothing. And they're still out having to sell houses because they don't have a retirement. Because guess what? We're all independent contractors. We're all independent business owners. Like they don't have anything to show for all their time and energy and effort. And it's just like, wow.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:yeah, yeah. And
Track 1:So, you know,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:right now, like something that's super top of mind for me is, my mom and dad, they're at the age now that they're thinking about retirement, um, and my parents, they immigrated from the Philippines, right? Like they, they, they'll be the first to admit that they didn't have like a proper financial education. But, you know, I'm, I'm having it now with like the financial education that I have, trying to figure out what is the most optimal way for my parents to retire with what they have right now. And I'm, that's also why I'm so interested in real estate and also why I'm like very diligent because I, I act, I legitimately believe that that is the way that they're gonna be able to retire comfortably, but still, there's a lot of work that's to be done. Because they haven't, they don't have that portfolio, right? it's not gonna be easy to be like, oh, we're just gonna buy five or six properties. each prop, each transaction is like a journey. It's, it's a competitive, competitive market. And, you know, we have to try to make that happen. So that's something that's in the back of my mind, but it dawned on me, I was like, okay, I'm not in my parents' position. I'm very young. I can do this over a 10 year period. And even if I buy one house, one property every single year, I'm just gonna be in such a better position at the end of the 10 years. Right? And so I, I just think everybody would benefit from think, like, just think about. What you want, right? Do you want to work for the next 40 years of your life depending on how old you are? I'm sure the answer is no. And if the answer is no, when do you want to retire? Right? When do you wanna retire and what is your plan? What is your strategy? No one has a strategy. No one has a plan. People are like, I'm just gonna plow money into my 4 0 1 k. I'm like, okay, cool. So you're gonna, you're okay. Retire like working till you're 59, Right, Because that'cause you have to, you have to be okay. Right? I actually just today stopped investing, not today, a couple weeks ago, I stopped investing in my 4 0 1 K and my I R A and I'm somebody that's been doing that for a while. Right? And I'm not saying that do that, right? If you're listening, I'm not saying you do that. But I'm saying for me, with my goals of early retirement, I'm gonna make better use of that money investing it now. I'd rather put that in a real estate now or a taxable brokerage account where I have the liquidity now than have it locked up when I'm 59, where I don't even know what my Outlook is gonna be right. I'm trying to retire when I'm 40. That's my goal right now. So why would I plow it into a 4 0 1 k i r a? So again, this all goes back to what is your plan? What is your strategy? And have one, don't just be, don't just be like, oh, I'm gonna retire when I'm 65. And then, and then be like, oh, shit, I actually didn't, I don't have enough to retire. Right? And that, that's what I implore people the most. And that's like what I try to, like, I'll get off my high horse now, but that's what I want. That's, that's what I implore the most is like, just have a plan. Right? Have a plan.
Track 1:No, that's a, uh, you, you made a ton of great points in there, and you know, that, and that's, it's a, it's a mindset shift for people too. I mean, that's, that, that's the, that's the biggest thing that I've learned in my, kind of the last 20 years, my limiting beliefs of everything. Um, you know, when I first got into real estate, all I wanted to do was replace the$70,000 a year I was making as a, as a restaurant manager.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:Right. And I didn't want to have a boss anymore, so I was like, all right, cool. It doesn't, and you can reverse engineer$70,000 in real estate. Like, that's not, that's nothing. It's like, and I mean, I'm in my market, it, you gotta sell a few houses, but in some markets that's, you know, six houses in my market, you know, I, you know, you gotta sell 20 or 20 or 25 houses. But, um, you know, to make a six figure income in this, in this industry is not hard. Is not hard. And, um, you know, so for, for me, it's just been this whole mindset thing. This whole like, Just shift in everything. Um, and, you know, just doing things differently. Same thing. I mean, my, you know, my, uh, my great grandparents came over here in the early 19 hundreds. Um, you know, my grandparents first generation born here, you know, my, my same thing with my, you know, my parents, they, they, like I said, they, they grew up in the sixties, they grew up in the seventies, they went to high school, they went, they got a job. My parents are just now getting into retirement age. Right. And they're retiring and, you know, they, they beat they, you know, and they beat themselves up for all those years too.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah,
Track 1:And that's what I really wanna, um, you know, really want to change is is just all of that, you know, moving forward.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I was having a conversation with my younger cousin, I think he's 16, trying to get him fired up. I'm just like, listen, listen man, this is my younger cousin. you need to buy a house. You need to rent out all the rooms to your homies. live for free. And then I was just trying to get through to him, but he is 16. He's 16. Does he? Is that, is that sinking in? I don't know. I feel like that's also a demographic in age group that I hope potentially we can reach, is that, look, if you're early, early on, this is the time to be, to be really focused on it. Right. Because very minor moves Right. Can have massive implications. If
Track 1:No, if I could go back and, I mean, if I could just go back and kick my younger self too, right? I, I try not to dwell on that stuff, but what I can tell is to, to the young people today, like your cousin, you know, my daughter, right? Is this is the way, like I'm, I'm giving you the blueprint for the mistakes that I've made, and I'm trying to get you ahead of that curve, right? you know, how many$10,000 houses I could have bought here
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Oh my man.
Track 1:are worth$150,000 today, it's unbelievable. Instead I was, you know, I was, I was sitting on a bar stool, you know, after a shift, you know, lamenting the man, right? Like,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Yeah.
Track 1:and, and wasting 50 bucks here or a hundred bucks there, and it's like, man, I had, I just not done, you know, had I just. Put a plan in place. And, and, and once again, you can't, I can't go back and change the past, but what I, what I can do is what we're doing right now, which is trying to bring these types of real life to, to, to people. And like I said, we, if we change one life doing this, man, I'll, I'll be, I'll be ecstatic with that.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I legitimately believe the more people that achieve financial freedom, the better our world will be. what happens when you achieve financial freedom? are you just gonna sit on a beach and drink my ties like the rest of your life? No, you're not gonna do that. You are gonna get bored doing that. You'll do that for a month or two months, and then you'll be like, okay, what am I actually doing with my life? But you don't have to stress about money. Every single person has innate abilities that are gonna make them awesome at something, right? There could be the world's most skilled cello player in the world that is just an accountant right now, and they don't even know that.
Track 1:Right.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:Because they have to pay the bills. And accounting is a stable job. And
Track 1:right,
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:if more people cared about financial freedom, if more people actually pursued it and took that seriously, and if more people actually achieved it, the more people are gonna find what they're actually supposed to be doing in this life. And so I, I just think that's why it's so important to me, and that's why I'm so fired up about it, is that I don't think enough people think about it, the concept of financial freedom what we need to focus on on this podcast. It's like,
Track 1:Yeah, no, I, I totally agree with you a hundred percent there. You know, if that's, you know, just a little bit of what we can do, I'll be, I'll be ecstatic.
jacob-sandoval_1_08-18-2023_145958:I think, I think that's episode one. Peace.
Track 1:See you.