This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 454, and I just remember one time when she made me cry, I went to the bathroom and I was looking at myself in the bathroom and I just decided right then, I am never going to let an employer treat me that way again. I'm never going to be trapped because of financial constraints. So that's what really got me going and being like enough with excuses, enough of me saying I don't have enough money, I don't know enough, I'm going to make this happen.

And I got invested by age twenty four.

You're listening to Bigger Pocket's radio, simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from bigger pockets. Dotcom, your home for real estate, investing online.

What's going on? I want to bring in Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David Greene. What's up, David Greene? How are you doing?

I'm doing great. I'm back in Northern California, just got back from Tahoe yesterday. We had our go pundits event. Unfortunately, you couldn't make it, but I held it down for the two of us and had a great time.

Thank you. Were you like the the cool kid in the back just smokin and leaning back in his chair and everyone's like, Oh, it's David Greene?

Is that how that was what actually happens if everybody wants to know? The reality is that when Brandon shows up, no one pays any attention to me at all. That's not even true at all. I get completely discarded and thrown to the back. So I sabotage Brandon so that he couldn't come. I put his name as a terrorist on the flight records so that he wouldn't be able to leave Hawaii using my law enforcement connections and he wasn't able to come.

So I was the belle of the ball the whole time. I got all the attention, I was the pretty girl, so I had a great time to be the pretty girl.

That said, let's get into today's show with a phenomenal guest, Rachel Richards. Rachel, along with her husband, were able to build a portfolio of like dozens of units. And when I say units, you're going to find an interesting strategy to use.

That'll make more sense later than what I'm saying right now, that they buy these properties and we're able to retire in not ten, not seven years, not five years, but two years after getting started, they were able to to retire and live off of their cash flow. You're going to learn about the aggressive model that Rachel follows. Be able to do that. You're also going to hear she got a lot of good tips in there. But things make sure you listen for how she decides whether or not to do a task or not, like whether or not she should outsource attitude herself, those really, really gold and then just the six thousand dollars getting stolen from her.

That's a crazy story. You're gonna hear about that and a whole lot more. So all that and more to come. But first, let's get to today's quick tip.

This quick tip is very simple. If you want to be a guest in the Bigger Pockets podcast and you've done at least a dozen deals, go to bigger pockets, dotcom, get the GST, you can upload your information even like a touch of video.

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Now I think it's time to get into the show. Anything you want to add, David, before we bring in Rachel.

Rachel, strategy, as you guys are going to hear today, is one of the most simple to replicate of any that I've heard. There's several other people that I've actually put on the path when they tell me what their goals are to using this strategy. Brandon hasn't coined a term for it, but stay tuned because I guarantee you he will.

If you decide this is something you want to do, go ahead and send me an email or reach out to me on social media and I'll connect you with the people that I know in that market. They can help you guys get started, because I think for a lot of people, this is the best place to start their journey towards financial freedom.

I do have a name for it's called the Yard Foot Strategy or the yada, yada, yada, yada strategy. That's what the new name is going to be. You heard it here first, folks.

It's not really I catch you that I don't even see how it applies. You have to break that one down, are you? By by the yard and sell by the foot or by. By the yard. By the inch. That's the that's the strategy. You know, when you take some time to qualify it, it makes sense.

But I think you can do better. That said, let's get to the interview with Rachel Richards. Rachel, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. It is awesome to have you here.

Yes, thank you, Brandon and David, for having me. So let's get into your story a little bit. How did you discover and get into the wide world of real estate investing?

Like a lot of other people? I read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad in high school. And that's what kind of sparked my passion for getting into high school. Yes. High school is not usually her.

That's that's unique. This is an overachiever, folks.

Yes, I very much am. And actually, even at a younger age, I was reading personal finance books because I grew up in a really wealthy county. It was a very unrealistic bubble to grow up in. And I remember feeling like I didn't fit in. And that's not the way you want to feel. And middle school and in high school, you know, my parents were always on a strict budget. Money was always a stressor in my family.

And actually in sixth grade, as when I read my first finance book, Motley Fool Guide for Teens, How to have more money than your parents ever dreamed of. Like that sounds cool. I started reading and I just couldn't stop learning ever since then. And that's kind of what sparked me wanting to become financially independent at a young age.

That makes a lot of sense. All right. So you read Rich, that poor dad, and then you're like I this this the prescribed like pattern for life that 90 percent of people follow is not for me. So what did you do?

I try to figure out how I could invest in real estate as early as possible. In hindsight, I could have done this a lot sooner. I had a lot of limiting beliefs around. I don't have enough experience. I don't know enough. I'm too young. I didn't have enough money. But I first went into college. I paid my way through school selling cutco cutlery. Have you guys sort of KONKONA? Oh, yes.

I'll tell you, there's a lot of great sales minds that came out of guy. I have a lot of respect for their training program. Yeah, yeah, they're great.

So I was able to pay my way through school and graduate without debt. I became a financial advisor because I had this passion for helping people learn about finance and I had the sales background. The only problem was I wasn't interested in cold calling people for the next ten years of my life.

So I was like, oh, come on, why not? That's fun. Yeah, why not? I was like, there has to be another way to teach financial literacy and impact people. So in the meantime, I was looking into real estate investing and finally at age twenty four, combined with my, you know, my husband's efforts and knowledge as well, we were able to purchase our first duplex.

Was that a house tack? Did you live in one of it? It was a straight rental.

It was a straight rental. And so a lot of people, you know, they see that we have thirty eight doors. We're young. They're like, you must be a trust fund, baby. And then I'm sure a lot of guys get that on this show. But no, we are not trust fund babies. I actually never made six figures from a job or a salary ever in my life. And when I graduated I was only making thirty six thousand dollars.

So it's not like I had any distinct financial advantage working for me. I was just really frugal. I was aggressively saving fifty percent of my income. So starting out I was living off fifteen hundred dollars per month and by the time I was twenty four, my husband and I had saved money. So we each put ten thousand dollars in to get to a twenty thousand dollar down payment on that first rental. And that's how we got started.

That's awesome. Where was that rental at Louisville, Kentucky. That's where all six buildings are located for us. All right, Louisville, Kentucky, so, yeah, it's definitely a cheaper market, is that where you live? I'm assuming then it is where I used to live just last year we moved out to Colorado.

So we'll get to that part of the story, I guess. So tell me about that first duplex. I mean, what went right? What went wrong? A lot of both.

So what went right? And is that the way that I found the property? It just worked really well for me. This is probably the greatest deal we've ever done was our first property, which is pretty unusual. I had my real estate license at the time because I had had it from a previous stint in real estate. Didn't I didn't ever work with clients, but I had it for my own purposes. Part of what I was doing in those early years was looking at the expired and cancel listings on the MLS and and reaching out to those agents.

But I think where other people might reach out once and learn, oh, can I make an offer? What's going on? I was following up with people, you know, once a month, once every other month. And there was this duplex that I saw in a great part of Louisville at a really, really cheap price. I followed up with the list agent over six months just to be like, hey, I just want you to know I'm still interested.

Just want to stay top of mind. You know, when you're ready. I'm here super friendly. And before that seller relisted the property on the MLS, the list agent came back to me and said, hey, we're about to relist. You want to go ahead and make an offer? And we did. And that was such a huge advantage for us that we got our first rental ended up being something like twenty to twenty five percent cash on cash ROIC, and it's just one of the best properties we own.

That's awesome. So that's what went right. And so you got it. What went wrong on that one. Anything that you learned?

We've learned so much with every single property that we've done. But one thing going in is I kind of structured the deal in the wrong way at first. So this was a duplex for one unit was rented. It was rented, but it was still rented. The other unit needed a total rehab. I mean, it was an absolute disaster. So at first I was like, OK, well, maybe we can squeeze together a few thousand dollars to do this renovation.

Then when we got into inspection's I was realizing that this was like a fifteen to seventeen thousand dollar job. And I mean, we were going to already be depleting our savings just to be able to close on the property.

So I was like, OK, well, how can I make this work? How can I make this a win win? And I went back to the listings and I said, hey, what if we increase our price by this amount and we can negotiate a seller's concession? That's what we did. Now, seller's concessions, there's a lot more rules around those than there were like a few years ago. But we were able to essentially have the seller pay for all the renovations.

And we just got a bigger loan, which for us was crucial in order to get the deal done.

So it started off as a bad thing, but it turned into a good thing for the people who don't know what that means, like a raise the price and sell a concession to explain what that like. Give us an example of, like number wise, what that's like.

So I think initially we'd made an offer for eighty five thousand dollars, but then when we realized we didn't have to do the work, we said, hey, let's offer a hundred grand, but then you give us a check at closing for fifteen grand in cash. So the seller is netting the same amount. It's just that we're taking a larger loan and then getting that cash up front. So it's a really great way for buyers that don't have a lot of money to still make a deal happen.

Was that given to you by covering your closing costs of the deal? No, it was actually negotiated outside of the transaction. So which again, I think is like not a thing you can do anymore.

It's I mean, OK, that's why I was asking. I just don't want list. I don't know that in every circumstance you can't do it. I would definitely ask a lawyer because that is a good idea. Like you're saying, we typically use that strategy when we're trying to cover the buyers closing costs and get them more money. So that was very smart of you guys. But just make sure that that's something that's still legal when people go to do that.

But I like how you think you're thinking outside the box.

The reason I wanted to have people like look at this in more depth, because this strategy of being able to get money back from the seller when you buy a property is something I've used numerous times to I about a mobile home park. Once it was like one point one million dollars and we bought it. Now, granted, it was a seller finance deal, but we paid one point one, but we asked for a one hundred thousand dollars in a credit at closing that could be used for whatever we need it for because to fix up the property and the guy was OK with it.

And so we did it. And so we really only pay like a million for it, but got one hundred thousand dollars put into the thing, which was amazing. And I've done it. In other words, it had been pay closing costs. I've had them fix up the property. And it goes back to one of my favorite strategies, which is when I make an offer, I usually offer two different options. I'll be like, I can pay you eighty eighty as is, or I can pay you eighty four, three, one hundred.

But I need fifteen back in a credit. I need you to put a new roof on it or whatever it gives people that kind of multiple option things. So I think it's, it's underutilized in the real estate space. But I love that you brought it up because there are ways to do it, even if, like, the way you did it has changed or the rule of change or a lender doesn't allow one thing or another. If you just keep asking that question, you'll find a way to get that through.

It's just a good kind of tool in your toolbelt.

The other way that I, I think about how can I get more cash at closing? Because that's such a problem for buyers starting out. Right. Buyers have more time than they have money. So it's like how can I put enough money together to even close a deal in the first place? So so we talked about the seller's concession, but another real strength that I have. Was the fact that I had my real estate license, there's so many benefits, so when we were depleting our savings accounts to purchase the property, I was representing our US as the buyer's agent.

So that meant at closing I would immediately get a commission check back for thousands and thousands of dollars. Sometimes it'd be ten grand. That's money we didn't have before. And that would be that would go towards the down payment for the next property and really is the primary reason I was able to scale so quickly. We went from zero to thirty eight doors in two years because of that.

Yeah, that's one of the really good reasons to have. There's not a lot of good reasons, in my opinion, to have a real estate license if you're getting into just investing. But that is definitely one of them, is that that money you get back as being your own agent. David, I'm curious of your thoughts because you are an agent. You also just wrote the book, sold your teaching agents all the time how to do this better.

What are your thoughts on becoming a real estate agent for that reason, for getting all that money back?

Because I know I go ahead every time I do that, every time I see my agent, like, make all that money, I'm like, oh, I could have totally done that. I could have been an agent, got that money.

But people like Brandon think that agents shouldn't get paid because I think I know that has come up a lot.

So here's what you're not seeing is how much money those agents are paying to hold their license and how much time they're spending. They're not being compensated for. What I would say is if you're someone like Rachel who's doing a good number of deals, like there's enough volume, you can actually write down your expenses with being an agent and determine if you're going to get a positive ROIC on that. And maybe the bigger component of why what Rachel's doing is so smart is I haven't heard Rachel say, well, I negotiated fought to get the price down, though.

I'm sure that that happens. Rachel, you recognize that I only have so much capital available to me. I need to structure a deal, in which case I can save as much of my capital as possible to buy the next deal. And if I have to pay a little bit more and borrow money at four percent interest or whatever, that's fine.

So being able to get a commission as an agent really just reduces how much money you're putting in of your own. At the same is true of you getting that fifteen thousand dollars back. I think that's incredibly smart. And I want to highlight it to the listeners that if you don't have a lot of cash, the way you put the deal together actually makes sense. It's not just the overall price that matters.

Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Thank you, David.

Let's talk about management then. From the beginning, were you managing your properties yourself or did you hire someone to do that?

We were yes. We were self managing from the beginning because we had the time. And I always talk about rental income as passive income, but it's only passive if if you have a property manager. So you have to keep that in mind. But for us, it was more important for us to learn all the ins and outs of managing our properties and to continue to save money at that time, because money was at the time our our biggest resource that could get us ahead.

And then it turned into time later. So we did start off self managing, but once we got to twenty six units. So keep in mind, my husband and I were working full time. We were acquiring properties and managing our rentals on the weekends and I was writing my books in the evenings. So once we got to twenty six units, there was no way we could do it on our own anymore. We made a pretty big mistake here.

This is, I would say, the biggest mistake we made as investors. And my flaw is that I tend to be too cheap, too frugal. And when you take frugality to an extreme, it really can hurt you. It can it can bite you in the long run. And that's exactly what happened. So my thought was, well, instead of hiring a traditional property management company, we had a couple people that had been working for us.

It was a husband and wife. They did things like cleaning the common areas, maintenance, lawn care. They were the hardest working people to this day I've ever interacted with. They always went above and beyond. So my thought was, why don't we give these two a chance? We'll make them employees of our company. We can save a little bit of money and we can be more direct and hands on with the way they're doing things. So that's what we did.

It started out great.

Sounds like a great idea. Yeah, well, thank you. In hindsight, to me, it sounds it sounds naive, but this is why I like to share this mistakes so other people don't make it. But it started off great. And then six months and things just started slipping and I was just like, what's going on? They're not doing as good of a job. My husband went to collect the rent from our onsite lockbox one Saturday and he noticed that a lot of rent was missing.

This wasn't just the typical tenant paying late, it was a significant amount. So we're calling them. Of course, they're MIA. We never heard from them again. They stole six thousand dollars in rent rental income just that weekend. And we found out that they had been squatting in vacant units and rooms in our properties for almost a year.

Oh.

Which is just such a violation. It's just so gross. So the you know, the moral of the story is this isn't the place to be cheap and cut corners.

If we had hired a licensed, bonded, qualified, insured property management company and their employees had done that to us, they would have been liable for the damages, not us. So sometimes when you're that cheap, you think, oh, I'm going to save money, but it costs you a lot more money in the long run. So that's my that's my rookie mistake. That's the worst thing that's ever happened so far. Knock on wood. But there you have it.

I love that you shared that because like, you know, it's a vulnerable. But we've all been there, I know, David. David, you had a terrible first experience getting ripped off from your property manager, didn't you, or a tenant or something like that.

It was my tenant, yeah. So I bought this house and it had been worth about six hundred thousand. And then it went down to I bought it for one ninety five. So the taxes being collected on it or about three times more than what they should be. So they collect that in escrow. Then the title company will kick you back to check for your refund once it's been reassessed. Well, they sent it to the property, not to me.

They assume that I bought it as like a primary residence, but it's investment property. So my tenant cash the check, forged my signature, then paid me rent for the first two months with my own money.

And then that was how I learned real estate investing. Wow. And Rachel, you're bringing up a great point because you and I both did wrong when I manage my own properties, was we failed to take into account that there's a financial component of risk that needs to be taken into this, that you took risk when you hired these people, that you took that upon your shoulders. And when we don't understand, like the property management company having to take that risk and needing to be licensed and bonded or like Brandon said, why is my agent getting all this money?

He's not seeing all the stuff that that person is having to do or the risk the broker's taking on having, you know, errors in omission, insurance and everything else. We tend to think, oh, I can do it myself. And then you get in there and you realize, oh, this was a terrible idea because you just didn't realize it. So we'll never know every right move, a wrong move to make. But it is smarter when you're having those thoughts, like I should do this myself because I promise you, I'm just like you.

It was a long time before I stopped stepping over dollars to to pinch pennies. And what I had to force myself to acknowledge was I don't see what goes on behind the scenes, so let other people carry the risk and I'll focus on, you know, more dollars producing activities.

Just, you know, like this is something I struggle with. I still to this day is like hiring the right people at the right price till I do the right work, you know, like I still want to try to find a cheaper way to do it. That's how I you know, I was young and scrappy, just like, you know, you guys were and like, let's just hire that guy. He can do the work. You know, it sounds like a good idea.

So six months ago, I hired an electrician guy to come over to my house. I have a pool here and he was doing some electrical work. But it wasn't like I hired an electrician. It was a guy who was a friend of a friend, of some guy who knew somebody who came over to wire something down by my pool. And then we just found out the other day that he disconnected one or two of the wires that were supposed to go to the pool lights to make it safe.

So in other words, what we found out was that if at any point water would have leaked into any of the underwater like lights in the pool, the circuit breaker would not have tripped and it would have just killed was ever in the pool for like the last six months. And like, we swim in there every day. My kids are in there every day. And it would have just killed whoever was in that pool if we were swimming with the lights on and something happened.

And it's like that's what you get for hiring some random person, not the right person. And like, yeah, crazy. Like, my my stomach just twist when I hear that still in like I cannot believe like twisting because we're acknowledging how how scary that was. But the reality is how many other things are going on in our life where it's that way and we don't know because we're not talking about it. Yeah. Like Brandon, you're just acknowledging this one story.

But how many of us that are listening have the same thing we're doing? And we don't know that we're swimming in a pool without a circuit breaker?

Yeah, it's crazy. Like, yeah, hire the right people, do the right thing. I mean, I've done it with property managers. I've done it with contractors. I've done it with I mean, everybody, like, find the cheaper way to get things done and it's seldom the right move. So I'm glad you brought that up, Rachel, because I still struggle with it, too.

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's tough because, like it's like there's this guy we call them fellin Tim because Thelen Tim that name. Yeah, exactly. And like my mentor, like the guy who I learned real estate from, like that was his painter. It was like, like you hire a felon. Tim Appellant. Tim didn't have a car or any equipment or anything but he would paint any house for three hundred bucks like the entire house would be done.

And so like I'm pretty sure my buddy still uses felon Tim to this day. But like, there were times where, like, he would paint and I'd come over and he just didn't tip off the floor and would I just paint the floor with his paint sprayer? And I was like, just paint the carpet because that's just like that's what you get for thirty dollars from Pellington.

Tim So anyway, well I like that we're diving into the mindset of this because what it comes from, and I'm sure you realize this to Rachel, is we got ahead in the beginning by being frugal.

We didn't have many options. We had limited resources, so we had to stretch it. We had a Top Ramen our way right through those first five years or so of investing. And now that we're in the point where we can hire the right people and we can make sure we don't get electrocuted, our brain still tells us, no, this is what you have to do to be safe. And it involves a mindset shift into a different way of thinking, which is what we're all, you know, more or less struggling with when we talk about this.

Exactly. I mean, it's a time versus money trade off. And in the beginning, all investors I see and that I work with, they have a lot more time than money. So we're doing things like self managing, trying to fix toilets on our own. I mean, we're hustling and we're scrapping because we have to be. But then when you start building wealth and you have cash flow coming and it's like you can't have that mindset. More because you'll hold yourself back in other ways, because then time is your most precious resource and you can't keep growing and scaling if you're going down your property three times a week doing some maintenance issue.

So it's hard it's hard making that mindset. But once you do, that's what allow you to keep growing and scaling.

So now coming out the other side, let me ask you a question and I'll fire this on both of you.

But, Rachel, specifically, now that you've done that, do you feel like I almost feel like the idea of you we had to do that in the beginning. Is that a limiting belief? Do we actually have to do that or could we have started with where we're at right now, the level that we are we're all thinking mentally right now. Could we have started there or do you really think that we had to get there because we do have the money?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think there were decisions I made that were poor decisions because I hardly had any money. So it was operating out of a scarcity mindset. And but I probably would have been better off if I could make those decisions differently, even if it meant giving up more money at the time. In the long run, operating out of an abundance mindset will serve you better. So I don't know. That's a tough question.

Yeah, it is tough because I don't know if you can get the mindset, like my coach's name is Jason Jewry's. Right. He talks about this all the time. He says like, well, there's a levels that we're at mindstate life level to level five, level 20, level 30. Right. And if you can operate a level 30 mindset, like let's just say that's where we're at today in terms of hiring the right people, at the right prices and managing people and teams and all that, can you get to level 30 without having going through level one, two, three, four, five, 10, 20?

I don't I don't know. I suppose you can if you adapt from somebody else. David, what do you think on that?

I think the short answer is it's a matter of faith that when we're on this side of it, we realized we could have. But when we were there, we didn't think we could if we had more faith when we were in that point that, hey, this is going to work, it will I do need to think that's a better way to think. We all recognize that. It's like it's a difference between eating more expensive, healthy food versus eating junk food that's cheaper.

We know that the costs will be more to eat the cheaper food, even though it appears cheaper in the moment. But it's hard to have enough faith to believe I need to invest in myself when I don't have as much money. So the reason this question is relevant is because now we're all in a mindset that isn't where we're going to be in 10 or 20 years or more levels of success. So can we go back and learn from those lessons we had and say, OK, well, right now where am I doing that still?

And can I have enough faith that if I pay the right person, do the right thing, make the decision that feels scarier, that it will be better for me? I'm really glad, Brandon, that you brought that up and Rachel that you brought us into this point. This is a really good interview. Yeah, I'm going to do some more thinking on this.

Maybe we'll do a whole show on this, David, sometimes just about the mindset needed to get into it, because I'm even thinking now, like, OK, what mindset am I going to be at in ten years from now? And what do I do? I have to go through the drama and the pain of the next ten years, or can you skip to that point and just start living that way?

Now, I can think of like Matt on a frio, right? Like we had on the podcast. Twenty seven year old like Anaesthesiologist. I was just hanging out with him in Tahoe yesterday and I know exactly where you're going. The guy starts from like like, oh, I don't do any real estate to I'm making millions of dollars in real estate within like a year period. Right. Why? Because he already had a level twenty or thirty mindset that he had from his previous careers or because he listened to a lot of the podcast or hung out with people who are at that level.

And so I think you can adapt that level quicker if you surround yourself with white people and recognize that you are not at the level. You going to be glad to share that, though.

That's very helpful for all of us that are listening right now. And everybody who's listening to the podcast is that the mindset is the number one X factor with how quickly you get where you're trying to go.

So, Rachel, let's bring this back to where where you're at. Do you remember a point in your journey where your mindset did shift, where either you felt more confidence or you recognize this is the path I'm going to walk?

Everything happens so quickly for us that there wasn't even time to think for for those two years. So it wasn't about, oh, I feel much better about this now. It was just like get the next thing, get the next property, get the next property. I do think though, twenty eighteen is when we stopped acquiring properties. So we're not actively acquiring properties anymore. A lot of investors will ask us, well, you know, why aren't you building an empire.

You could be growing a real estate empire. And that's that's exactly right. I could be it's just that that's not my goal. That's not what I'm passionate about and that's what ultimately fulfills me. Real estate investing for us has always been a means to an end. Once we got to a point where we were generating 10K a month and profit from our rentals for us, there was no point in continuing to grow because that was enough money to cover our living expenses.

And so at that point we were retired. We were financially independent. So then it became about how do we become more efficient with our time, with what we already have invested with our real estate. And now we're we're we're at the other end of the spectrum where time is truly the most valuable resource for us.

So we're even starting to think about selling some of our properties to invest in something even more passive like real estate syndications. So I'm totally blurting out about syndications right now. That's my favorite thing.

Well, come on and I'll take you. I'll take your money. It's OK. Yeah. Undercapitalised crashing returns I've been looking into. So if I hear you correctly, you're not giving up on real estate investing, you're giving up on the asset class or the way you've been doing it thus far.

Exactly. And part of it, too, is I mentioned it earlier, but last year we moved from Kentucky to Colorado. We always wanted to move out west. We love the mountains. We love hiking. And once we physically were removed from our properties, it just has it's like out of sight, out of mind type thing. And even though we could hire a property manager at this point, it's just we just feel this is the right next move for us because we're not doing a good job.

We're not doing them justice. So it's like, let's get out of these and let's get into something bigger. And that makes makes sense for our lifestyle and our values.

Hey, let's take a quick break from this episode. We'll continue in just a moment. But first, let's hear a word from our sponsors.

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I want to go back real quick to the mindset stuff, and then I want to go into how you built the units and how you built that portfolio and the way you financed it and all that. But I don't want to leave a mindset thing quite yet. What mindset do you feel like? What mindset or plural mindsets have served you well over the past decade or half a decade while you've been building this? And which mindsets have you had to outgrow?

I've had my mindset have grown from limiting beliefs. They have come from limiting beliefs. So I already talked a little bit how I was little. My family didn't have a lot of money and it was just kind of the comparison game. And I had a lot of fears coming from that situation. I was always scared there wasn't ever going to be enough money. Money was always a stressor. And I had this fear that I wasn't going to be able to support myself financially or worse, be able to support a loved one financially if they needed it.

So my initial instinct to become financially independent was truly because of the way that money was handled and viewed in our household as a child. Later on in my career, there were so many different situations of the way employers were treating me, where I was like, I have had enough so I can remember distinctly working for for a female boss. And this was in one of these real estate stints that I had. I was I was maybe twenty two at the time.

She came into the office and she said, hey, where's the letterhead?

And I looked at her and I said, What letterhead? Because, you know, in nine months working there, we'd never use letterhead. And she looks at me and she goes like, I'm stupid. She goes on the letterhead like, OK, thanks for the explanation.

So I'm frantically searching on the computer, trying to print out letterhead for her. She's literally standing next to me, tapping her foot with her, with her arms crossed. Like, this is not an exaggeration. And then after ten seconds, I guess she got fed up. So she marched to this dusty shelf behind me and took out letterhead from a place I'd never seen it before. She holds it in front of my face and she says, What do I even pay you for?

And it was just vicious, it was it was just I was 22 and I was being bullied by this woman at work who hadn't even taught me anything, and she had made her employees cry before. She made me cry a couple of times, unfortunately. And I just remember one time when she made me cry, I went to the bathroom and I was looking at myself in the bathroom and I just decided right then, I am never going to let an employer treat me that way again.

I'm never going to be trapped because of financial constraints. So that's what really got me going and being like enough with excuses, enough of me saying I don't have enough money, I don't know enough, I'm going to make this happen. And I got invested by age twenty four.

I wanted to be the ability to affect my happiness, like in my enjoyment, my fulfillment in life.

I know it still plays like any, any argument I have with anybody ever like any kind of disagreement I have is always because of that, because somebody is trying to somehow tell me what to do in some way, shape or form or making me feel the way that I don't want to feel and feel like it's a powerful motivator.

Like like. Yeah, I'd say that's your most powerful motivator. Brandon, if I want you to do anything, just tell you're not allowed to do it.

Yeah, that's reverse psychology. Yeah, exactly. That's funny. All right. So how did you build that portfolio then? You bought all the units. What type were they? Are they multifamily, single family? Then let's get into the financing side. Did you save up down payments?

Yeah, for sure. So we started off with two single families that we had because they were both of our previous primary residences. So we didn't buy them intentionally as an investment property, but they turned into one.

Then we bought the duplex and then after that we bought three buildings that were ten to 12 units each. So we scaled very quickly.

We did finance them all with twenty percent down payments, saved up money. Yeah, but it still was a lot. I mean, but at the time my income had grown, I was making closer to, you know, between seventy five and eighty five grand by then. And then combined with my husband's income, we were earning six figures. So if we were saving half of that, I was there in the commissions and we were saving one hundred percent of the cash flow from all of the previous rentals.

That's how we came up with massive down payments over and over again. If we couldn't do that, we would hit on the strategy. Thanks to David Greene.

It's like the the income snowball. I think somebody mentioned mentioned our show before.

And it's funny because when I look back to my initial strategy that I had, my initial strategy was to buy a single family home every year for fifteen years, all on 15 year mortgages. You guys have heard this before.

And then I was like, OK, by my mid thirties, I'll be retired. So that was my initial strategy. But once my husband and I kind of put our heads together and our money together, this happened so much more quickly than I ever would have imagined. So it is it's the snowball effect of income.

You said something that I really liked and it had to do with the smattering of different ways. You put your portfolio together. You had a couple properties that you just kind of fell into. You bought it as a primary residence and then you rented it out. So as a side note, every time I buy a primary residence, I always make sure it's a property that could be house packed or could function as a rental property. A lot of people in expensive markets will say, well, they don't cash flow, so you can't make it work.

But they're just buying a three bedroom, two bathroom house that has no unique features that would make it a rental. Then you got into the 20 percent down method, then you moved into something else. What I love is that you didn't wait to get started until you knew exactly how this was going to work. You jumped in there and you sort of evolved with what you're doing. And that even means getting out of the asset class that you were in and into a different form of real estate investing.

And that's so important to highlight to people, because this is how people that build portfolios do it. They don't wait till they have every single domino lined up perfectly and push over one and they all just close really cleanly. Would you agree, Brandon?

Everybody obviously has a little bit different approach there, but mostly, yeah, I think that it just you line them up and knock them down. You don't always know the answer at the end of the day. Rachel, what do you think?

I mean, yeah, if I if I had waited until I felt ready, like I almost want to laugh right now, like if I had waited until I felt ready to get started, I'd be dead before I owned real estate. And that's another mindset thing, Brandon, is that we focus so much on consumption.

Right. We want to learn everything there is to learn. We want to listen to podcasts. We want to read books, all the stuff. But if you can't move from consumption to execution and acting on that knowledge, you will never get to where you want to go.

And so something that was hard for me is so I'm a perfectionist. I'm a control freak. And I was really scared to get started investing in real estate because I was like, well, what if I lose money? What if I do something and I waste my time? What if, what if, what if?

The thing is, I had to accept the fact that I was going to lose money, I was going to waste my time and not once, but throughout my entire real estate investing journey, I had to accept that fact. Once I did, I was finally able to get over that mindset, that limiting belief. And I was I was able to just start taking action. And that's the only way you're going to become successful as a real estate investor.

That's awesome.

So, Rachel, from the first property you bought until the point you could retire, how many years was that? Two years. Two years you were able to buy enough properties that you were able to just say, I'm dropping the mike and I'm retiring. Yes, yes. And part of that is that we bought properties that were really unique.

I've never talked about this on a podcast before, but I want to I want to deliver the goods here.

So we are our second property after the duplex that we bought was an 11 unit multifamily, the way that I've never seen a property structured this way. It was basically acquired. It was a four plex. But the owners at the time were renting out the bedrooms individually. It was something that's now called more of a boarding style house. But the cash flow on this thing, when I saw these numbers, I was like, there's no way there's no way that this four hundred thirty thousand dollars property is generating eighty six thousand dollars in rent revenue.

And then they showed me what they were doing. And I was like, this is the most brilliant genius thing I've ever seen. So so that's what three of our buildings are. There's these properties that are rented out by the bedroom. The tenants share the kitchens and bathroom areas and we're able to squeeze, like, way more rent out of it than we would have otherwise. So how do you manage that?

I mean, we've we've talked to a few people on the show before. They've done, you know, student housing or, you know, somewhat similar, somewhat similar things. But it's always a hassle to manage. It sounds like it is.

It's a lot more work. And that's part of the reason that we're thinking about selling those ink, because at the time, the cash flow was incredible. We were making twenty five hundred three thousand dollars in profit per building, but it was a lot more work. I mean, because you have tenants that they're like kids, right? This guy stole my food from the fridge. This guy won't clean up his dishes, whatever. So you're kind of constantly have to not not just be a property manager, but a therapist, a therapist for these people and being like, OK, got kids.

You know, let's let's figure out how we can handle this situation as an adult. And the turnover is a little bit higher because we're not doing traditional one year leases. It's just a different and unique way to run them. And then again, they still cash amazingly well, but it's just not worth it to us anymore.

Yeah. Are you are you still managing yourself in that regard or do you have a property manager, another couple that you got to to handle this stuff somewhat once they moved out to Colorado?

We have a family member in town that we're paying to help us be there. You know, just do things that we would only trust that person to do. And we have different people in place now. I mean, one great thing about being a long distance landlord, it used to intimidate me. I used to think, no, there's no way I can do that. What we've realized, though, it's actually easier to manage these properties from a distance, because when we lived in Louisville, we were running down to our properties twice a week whenever something happened.

Now, though, we're forced to outsource that and to have reliable people in place, which if we had just done that from the beginning, it would have been a lot easier. But it forced us to do that when we moved away. Yeah, that's one of the things I love long distance investing, like, you know, David Greene's book is because, David, you make that point in there, like long distance investing, you are forced to have good systems.

It's like put up or shut up. Kind of like you just can't survive without it. You can survive if you have a local rental. You can survive with terrible systems and processes and awful people. You can do it just by limping along for decades. I mean, so many landlords do. But the minute you go a long distance, I get revealed. I mean, I have that property in in Ohio and Cincinnati and the property was fine.

But like I've told a story before, like, I just did not have the systems or the people the core for, as David says, to be able to manage it. And I wasn't taking the time needed to manage the people that I did have. And so it revealed it very quickly, like, yeah, this is not something you should do this. I got out of it. The guy who bought it was doing super, super well with it because he's there and he can do all the systems.

But yeah, I don't know. It's been it's a fascinating thing when you move out of an area.

Well, I think, Rachel, you're hitting on a deeper truth about how business works in general. And this is something I've learned through being an agent. When you love what you do, or at least you can tolerate it, it's not in your own best interest when you like fixing toilets or you like to be the person that shows up and fixes the light bulb. The temptation to do that every single time is massive. And you'll trick your brain into thinking, I worked hard today because you went to your property and you put in a light bulb or you fixed a leak or something, but you did nothing to get your next deal.

You did nothing to move the needle along the goal, which was for most people, it's going to be financial freedom.

It's this light, sweet, tempting siren that pulls you in. And I see this with real estate agents because they love the job so much that they never leverage off parts of it. They never grow. Part of why I spent the last two to three months traveling, hanging out with Brandon in Hawaii, my team's doing good. Was that to be frank, I didn't love being a real estate agent I didn't like, which motivated me to find people that were better than me and say, you do this part, you'll be better for here.

You'll do a better job for our clients. And I operated it like a business. And that's just something to be aware of. If you're like, oh my God, I love analyzing deals. You can spend all day long analyzing deals and never offer on any of them or pursue them because you already got your dopamine hit just by analyzing it. So we're always afraid of the things we don't want to do, but we should maybe be afraid of some of the stuff that we like to do, because that's the thing that will sabotage you that you don't see coming.

You are so right.

And to your point, David, there's a question I now ask myself to decide whether I should be doing the thing or somebody else should be doing the thing. And that question is, is this a revenue generating activity? Is it going to generate revenue to go fix the toilet or to manage my tenants? No, it's not. Those things need to be outsourced. Is it a revenue generating activity to go make offers and drive around and look for your next deal?

Yes, that's what you should be doing.

Yeah, that's so good, though. So here's the point I think we're getting out here, we just sum up, I think everybody listen to show. Should you take a month or two, just come to Hawaii and hang out so that we could all it. I'll see what their systems are breaking down and what they should be doing and not we all agree, whoever which is come to Hawaii, I'll be there. All right. We're going to get a quarter million people here.

I know it's going to be great.

No, but on that on that point, a couple of buddies of ours, Alex Camacho, who's been on the podcast before, Alex was in Southern California and has been here now for a couple of months investigating Brett, Britney Arneson, who's been on the show, she's doing the same thing. Tal Yarber, who's a big bigger pockets contributor. Same thing came just like left for a while during this whole covid mess as both one way to enjoy this time more, but two, it's to put their systems to the test and to force themselves to start thinking like an owner rather than an operator.

And for all three of them, they're just crushing right now in their businesses and making a lot of positive changes because it it forced their hand. So so I joke about it. But maybe it is time for some people listen to the show right now. Maybe it's time to say, you know what, I'm going to pack my family up and go, you know, go to Costa Rica for a couple of months or I'm going to go and go to Nebraska for a few months.

Like maybe it's time to force yourself to get out of your bubble where you're managing everything and go see what you actually have built. So there's some encouragement for people or maybe some people. Right now, the stomach has got twisted because they're like, oh, man, I know he's talking to me right now, so use it. All right. So tell me, Rachel, about your books real quick. I'm just curious. You mentioned you you wrote some books.

What are you writing?

Yes, in twenty seventeen, which is a senior. I started investing. I started writing books. So I wrote my first best selling book, Money. Honey, the reason I wrote it is because I was a financial advisor before and all my family and friends came to me for financial advice, which was great. That's what I love to do.

I also had this aha moment where I realized, oh yeah, like personal finance is boring for most people.

It's intimidating, it's dry, it's complex. No wonder they don't like to learn about it on their own. So I thought to myself, how can I make this topic sassy and fun and simple? And that's when money honey was boring. So that's why I wrote the first book Money Honey, and it has almost a thousand reviews on Amazon now.

And yes, before you go on the next one, what's the gist of the book? What's the idea? Who should be reading it? It's about money management. So it's the basics. It's saving debt investing. And I really wrote it for female millennials, although all different types of people read it. But that's who I'm kind of speaking to.

OK, very cool. And then we can't think of a better person to write that book for millennials than the one who was reading Rich Dad, poor dad while her friends were reading Twilight.

Yes, thank you.

And then my second book is called Passive Income, Aggressive Retirement. And I just got so obsessed with this concept of passive income money that is earned with little to no ongoing work. It's definitely not a get rich quick scheme. It sounds that way, but it's not. I mean, it takes time or money to create passive income. But the epiphany I had here was once your passive income exceeds your living expenses, you're retired, you're financially independent. And to me, it felt so much easier to generate five or six or eight grand a month in passive income than it does to try to save a million or two million dollars by age sixty five in order to retire.

So that's what that looks about. I basically outlined twenty eight different passive income models. So trust me when I say that anyone at any age can absolutely create passive income.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Well, congrats on the book. Thank you. Do you have a theory or a definition of the three levels of of retired free jet one.

Yeah, my jet one. Yeah. I always say like there's like three levels of financial independence. There's like you can like flying a jet mean you can get and go and do your thing because you don't have to have a job. You can be a jet setter. I go whatever level two is like you can buy a jet. So those are like the David Osborn's that I know like that, like the super wealthy people who just go by jet.

And then there's like the I can buy the New York Jets. I like that level of financial independence and wealth. And for everybody that's different. Some people want to be the guy that owns a private jet. Some people want to be the person that owns the New York Jets. And some people just wanted people to travel and be able to hang out their family more often. So having that self-awareness to know which level you want is just super, super important.

I mean, that book right now by Patrick, but it's called Your Next Five Moves. And it's all about like like this. The first section's all about that self-awareness, knowing what you want and what you're willing to work for and what pain you're willing to put up with to get there. So, yeah, but that level one financial freedom that just be able to quit your job, pay your bills, it's not unattainable if you want it bad enough, if you have a plan in place, if you work hard to get there and if you're aggressive, like you said, I like the word aggressive.

That's that's a good one. Aggressive retirement. Thank you. Nicely done. Thank you. All right.

Well, let's move this thing along toward the next segment of the show. It's time for our deep dive.

OK, before we move on to our next part of the show, let's take one last break to hear from our show sponsors. Are you having trouble finding profitable investment properties? Unfortunately for many investors, the best deals are rarely found. Locally successful investing has to be done with the right properties in the right markets. Well, Narada real estate investments can help connect you to cash flow properties with over 2000 properties in their pipeline. Narada real estate investments provide everything you need to invest in some of the best deals around the country.

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Or if you just want to learn more about creating wealth and passive income, download a free copy of the Ultimate Guide to Path of Real Estate Investing at turnkey real estate investing dotcom. That's turnkey real estate investing dotcom. This is a part of the show where we dive deep into one of your deals. Now, I know you've kind of explained all of them, but I thought maybe we'd pick one to dive in a little deeper. So let's go there now, number one.

By the way, do you have one in mind that we can we can dig into the party talks about a couple something let's do.

Yes, I have one in mind. All right.

So first question, what kind of property is that and where they're located? That's really two questions. All right. So this is in Louisville, Kentucky. It's one of the now 10 to 12 unit buildings that we have. But when we bought it, it was a duplex. So we converted it into this. Wow. Yeah, it was a huge I mean, it's over, I think. Three thousand square feet. So we converted it.

I like big houses and I cannot lie. How did you find it?

I this was the one where I found it on the MLS and it came up and it was one hundred twenty five grand.

The top floor was a duplex that was being rented out. The bottom floor was an office space. And when I saw the potential, how cheap it was, first of all, that was a I don't know why it was listed for so low. But then when I did the math and I realized I could convert those spaces into like five or six bedroom units, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is going to be the moneymaker. And it has a whole third floor that's unfinished that we haven't even gotten there yet.

So that's that's what it came in at was one hundred twenty five. I was down there at the property literally within 30 minutes, making an offer on the phone for full price.

That's awesome. All right. So how did you how did you find it? Just MLS yesterday or something? Yeah, it just happened to come up. I had to search saved or whatever I just happened to be looking at at the right time. All right.

And the negotiation, was there any other negotiated other offering full price? Did you have to go back and forth at all?

Not really. I don't remember there being any intense negotiations. I mean, I made a strong offer because I recognized if I didn't, they would be getting other offers that day. I just knew. The other thing that complicated the situation a little bit is that because it was an office space, it was actually zoned commercial. So we we did have to get a commercial loan on that, which I didn't realize at the time, but I kind of learned later on going in.

Okay.

All right. So how did you fund this deal? This was just from savings. So we came up with a 20 percent down payment and then we got a commercial loan, or it might have been a twenty five percent down payment because it was a commercial loan.

OK, and what did you do with it? You then divided the bedrooms upstairs. How that all work? How many total units did you get out of it? And then what's the average rent on a bedroom?

OK, so it's now eleven bedrooms and the renovation process was an absolute nightmare. This was the worst renovation I had ever done. And it sucked because that duplex that we bought, that first one, we had this guy do the whole renovation. He was amazing. The thing I did then, though, is I was out the property every single day. I was bringing them Gatorade and bagels and they loved me and they knew that I was going to come and they knew they better be working at this property.

By the time we bought this, we were so overwhelmed. We absolutely could not take time to come to this property every day. So maybe we got there once a month, which is horrible. I mean, that's a really hard thing to do. And what was supposed to be I think, you know, a four to six week renovation was like a four to six month renovation. And we went way over budget, not to mention the holding costs, but we went way over budget on the renovation itself.

So luckily, though, the way that I run my numbers, I estimate things so conservatively that it's still ended up being pretty close to what I initially projected. So it still ended up being an amazing, amazing deal. What was the initial question? That I answer it?

Yeah, just yeah. It's what you do with oh, and what what the rent is. So, so we, we, we renovated it into eleven bedrooms and there on average I would say there are one hundred thirty dollars per week.

We do weekly rental so it adds up to something like it's almost 80 grand a year in revenue. Wow.

Do they pay, they pay weekly or do they still pay monthly. I mean there's every week they drop off a check, they pay weekly, it's all online now.

It used to be like our onsite lockbox, but now everything's done through online. That's how long and I'll work on a little bit deeper maybe than we usually do, but how often do people stay at a thing like this? Like how bad is turnover? It depends.

I thought that turnover would be horrific, but we most of our tenants stay for years. I mean, we even bought some of these properties that still have tenants in them from the previous sellers and they've been there for three, five years. So I would say half of them end up being really long term tenants. The other half, maybe they end up lasting there for six months or so.

And then and I want to be careful this question about what type of people are these? I mean, are these are really, really like dirt poor, like just out of rehab, kind of like people or these like, hey, I just work at a job and I want to live as cheap as possible.

So, yeah, it's it's it's definitely a mix. We don't have students, we've had one student, but it's mostly blue collar worker workers. So and we've had travel nurses before, travel doctors, because they're looking for a short term lease and we can offer that to them. Furnished bedroom, all that stuff. It's easy for someone to move into, but it's just it's normally somebody that, you know, they're not making a ton of money and they just want a simple solution.

They want a place that they can live where it's furnished. They have a TV, they have a nice kitchen and bathroom, and they don't have to worry about any of the other costs except for paying the rent.

OK, so what was the outcome? What the outcome is that this building is one of money.

We made a ton of money. Yeah, this building is probably worth three hundred grand now because of how much how much income it's generating. The cash on cash return I think was literally thirty percent for us and it's been just an enormous moneymaker for us. So all in all, a great investment, even with the horrible renovation. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So what lessons did you learn from this deal overall? What can you pull out and say? This lesson just demonstrates this.

I learned this just, I think, be creative. Don't take something at face value. So when you see a property in the way it's being run now, that doesn't mean you have to keep running it that way. It's like, how can you either increase the rent revenue of what they're already doing and how can you decrease expenses? So I think if you can approach it that way and just be creative and imagine a way that you can run it where you can generate even more revenue, that's when you can start finding good deals because you're thinking outside the box and you're going to do something with that property that another investor wouldn't.

So you can pay a little bit more for it.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What really what I like about the strategy is it's like it's like buying with the whole thing, like buy, buy the yard, sell by the foot, you know, like you're taking a property that you're just taking the whole thing divided up. It's cool. I mean, it's obviously a lot of work to renovate and to be able to get the system right to manage it. But especially, like you mentioned earlier at your level, like where you were at at the time, it was perfect for it.

And now, like you're thinking, OK, now we're at a different level, a different spot in life. Maybe we'll unload this and get into something different. And that's just like the life of an investor. Right? I was actually just talking with my property manager, Jesse, who we sold our mobile home park that was in Maine, Bangor, Maine, the one that Mindy Jensen and her husband, me and Ryan Murdock, bought together. We sold that.

We made a really good return. It was it was amazing. It's one of the best deals I've ever done. And we're talking to Jessie, the property manager, about it. He goes, yeah, the guy who bought it is so excited about this thing because it's perfect for that right now. And it's investing, even though you guys like it was perfect before. And you got to a point where it's stabilized. It was fully occupied.

We took it from 30 to 50 units or whatever, like we that was our that was our thing. And then it became, you know, the next guy that his thing was a different level.

So in other words, like what's great about real estate is it's all like it's different phases of investors career work for different types of investment at different points in that investment thing. And so there's in other words, there's so much bloody opportunity out there for people because like even in a hot market like today, there's things to do because you're at a different stage in somebody else's. So anyway, I think that's encouraging.

Yeah, no, I agree. One hundred percent. And another lesson from that, Ranin, is don't invest based on what other people are doing, like don't see this amazing successful real estate investor with this huge empire and think I'm going to do exactly what he does because he has different values than you. He has a different time versus money trade off than you. So it's about, OK, what are all these different ways I can invest and which one works best for me?

With that, it's time to get to the last segment of our show.

It's time for our famous for the famous for.

As a part of the show, we asked the same four questions every week to every guest we're going to throw at you right now. Rachel's Facebook question number one. Now, book number one, I just gave a hint of what the question is questionable. Well, yes, I think most people do at this point. Number one, what is your all time favorite or current favorite real estate related book?

Well, everyone says Richard, poor that. So I'll go I'll go with something different because I'm so obsessed with syndications right now. It's the Brian Burke hands off investor. Oh, my gosh, that book should be fifty dollars. There is so much value. I'm not even finished with it, but I just can't get enough. So a big fan. Yeah, it is.

It is phenomenal. Brian Burke's like the man. He's a good friend of both Brandon and a very trustworthy guy. I like Brian quite a bit. You know, it's funny about that book. I don't have to tell this story. Maybe Brian would want me to. I've got anyway worth it outside. This restaurant, the Coola Grill out in Lahaina, and this is like three years ago, and we're talking about him like raising money for his his his syndication practice capital.

And I'm like and I don't like you know, if you do Briain, you should write a book on like how to like how how to evaluate syndications and how the whole thing, because then everyone who reads the book is going to be like like who do I trust now how about the guy who wrote the book on how to evaluate syndications and raise money. And I don't know if it's worked for him, but it was that was the idea behind it originally.

And then he just got carried away and actually made like an incredible book. It wasn't like a teaser like, hey, here's a few things to know. You should invest with me. Like, he was just like legitimately wrote like the best book ever written on the topic, which also speaks to. Yeah, that's just like Brian's personality. It's like I can do something or I can do it the best anybody has ever done it ever.

That's Brian Burke for you. So he's a good dude. That said, question number two, David Greene, your favorite business book.

My favorite business book is The Millionaire FastLane by MJA. Marco Oh my gosh, that book is so good. It's such a classic. It just sucks. Oh it's so good. It really helped me transition my mindset from like a consumer to producer mindset and understand why we're running a business. And being an entrepreneur can help you build wealth so much faster than doing like a nine to five job. So it just opened my eyes totally.

Have you read his follow up to that? It's called unscripted. Yes. Yeah, I love that one, too. Yes, that one was really interesting as well.

We're going to get MJ on the podcast at some point. We just scheduling around, but it's going to happen. So awesome. I can't wait to get here. Yeah, that guy is legit.

I know. Now I want to read these books. They're so good. They're so good. Yeah. That millionaire FastLane, I think that was one of the books that changed my life, so. All right, Rachel, what are some of your hobbies? Hiking and traveling.

So we moved to Colorado essentially to hike. I went on a nine mile hike yesterday. Am I seeing my foot now? And I'm trying to climb my first fourteen or fourteen thousand foot mountain in the next couple of months. So that's what I love to do.

Josh talking and I went and hiked to fourteen year. I'm not a hiker at all. I hate hiking with a passion, but he forced me to get up like three a.m. and hike a fourteen year in Colorado back like a year and a half ago. And it was as miserable as it sounds it was.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I'm excited or dreading it, probably dreading it, but I still want to do it.

Brandon can do that in 12 steps. It was hard to breathe. That's what the crazy thing was. It was so weird to breathe. That said, so Josh went and told me. He told me that he's now climbed several of them and he started doing the women half breathing exercises, which if you guys know him half at all. He said it made nine day difference for him climbing. He said it was never out of breath. So, wow.

Do a little Imhoff YouTube searching. Yeah, I'll do that on my next hike. That's cool. Ron, random story. We were on top of this fourteen year. I got to tell this in the podcast before, but I love the story. Josh over the top. Just being like Josh and I, which if people remember the podcast before David was here, it was Josh and I just basically making fun of each other for an hour and a half every week straight anyway.

So we're just being ourselves like just whatever. And some guy turns around because he recognized our banter with, like, Josh and Brandon and like knew us from the podcast. So, oh, my parents are super cool. Yeah. Apparently the way we are in the podcast is the way we are in life. So random.

Yeah. All right. Moving on, last question. So Josh had enough breath to just rip on you the whole time and you couldn't breathe, so you couldn't really say pretty much outside of that.

Don't take it story of my life. I last question from me, Rachel. What do you think separates successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail or never get started?

I think it just comes back to that knowledge versus execution, right? Knowledge is nothing without acting on that knowledge. That's really the ability to implement and to take action. There's this quote by Ziggler that I love and he said, You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.

Thank you very much, Rachel. For people that are fascinated with your story as it's very cool, where can they find out more about you?

Well, thank you. My Instagram is money, honey. Rachel and my books are money, honey and passive income, aggressive retirement. So you can find those on Amazon. And add what I love to do with your listeners. Just to add some value is give them my passive income starter kit for free. So even if you without reading my book, you can see all the twenty eight different passive income streams. I talk about deadly mistakes to avoid and a bunch of resources and tools.

So if you want to download that you can go to money. Honey Raichel Dotcom slash bonus.

Very cool. Thank you. We'll put that link also in the show notes of course that bigger pockets that comes to show for fifty four, it'll be there as well. But yeah this has been awesome. Thank you so much Rachel. Really, really good stuff today. Thank you both so much. I appreciate it. Great job.

This is David Greene for Brandon Mountain Trekker Turner signing up. You're listening to a bigger pocket's radio simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from bigger pockets. Dotcom, your home for real estate, investing online.