how to achieve financial freedom through rental properties

Achieving Financial Freedom with Buy and Hold Rental Properties with Michael Zuber

Sharon Tseung Personal Finance Leave a Comment

You may have read my other blog post about how Michael Zuber achieved financial freedom with buy and hold rental properties. Zuber was able to acquire almost 200 rental units which allowed him to retire from his work early! Enjoy this interview where we dive into his buying criteria and what his journey purchasing rental properties was like.

Achieving Financial Freedom with Buy and Hold Rental Properties with Michael Zuber

Show Notes

Michael Zuber was a Silicon Valley based employee for over 20 years. During his time working he built up a portfolio of rentals which allowed him to eventually leave work and still make income on those properties.

Why did Michael choose real estate investment?

After reading a book titled Rich Dad Poor Dad, Michal was intruded to a lot of concepts that shifted his paradigm on life. At the time, real estate was the primary thing Zuber knew of as an income opportunity that he was familiar with. So, that’s what he as his way out of the “rat race” invested his time into perfecting.

How does real estate investing compare to investing in stocks?

Because of how busy the stock markets are, if you cannot be as active as possible to keep up with the changes you will be at a loss. With real estate being something consistent that can build, without having to be overly skilled and involved, Michael was able to create a stable cash flow.

How time consuming is Real Estate investing?

Starting out, Real Estate investing does not have to be time consuming, especially if you’re working in a team. Michael and his wife (working together) collectively spent about 5 hours a week establishing themselves. Half of that time was spent acquiring and fixing up properties, while the other half was spent talking care of the financial parts such as auditing and budgeting. All in all, you have to be really dedicated to your cause and united with you team if you have one.

How did Michael choose Fresno out of all neighborhoods?

First starting out, Michael advice from many books he’d read, saying to invest in your backyard. However, after searching for a whole unsuccessfully for properties, he and his wife decided to expend their horizons just a bit. They chose Fresno because it made sense at the time with the market, and was just outside of their “backyard” while still being close enough.

Were Michael and his wife worried about the crime rates?

They did consider the crime, however after dividing Fresno into its sub-markets they were able to determine what parts of Fresno to stay away from and what parts were good for business.

How did Michael learn about the best and worse areas?

Michael learned these things through networking, asking people, double checking and cross-checking people and information they received. He set a goal of meeting at least two people a week that would help broaden his knowledge. He and his wife kept their business in the same small area for five years before they were sure, comfortable, and knew enough to expand. It was important for Michael and his wife to properly investigate all areas in person, not just trust online and word of mouth sources.

How did Michael get connected with his team?

Mainly through networking. The people Michael initially worked with at the beginning, he found he no longer worked with after five years. Everyone may sound good on paper but when it comes down to business, they may not fit the expectations or needs for the role they are expected to play. When building a team, you will want to find and work with people who are investors themselves. They have some investing knowledge, are ready to apply it, and are hungry for more.

Who do you need in a team?

Firstly, you will need a property manager who is well rooted with a lot of experience. This is a necessity. You may also need field agents who can farm for you, even if you plan on doing some yourself. This is so you have time for your own job and life, while still pursuing real estate investing. You may need some general contract contracts if you buy fixer uppers that will need major work done, however that is usually not necessary for buy and hold investments. You will also need financial contacts.

What is the B.R.R.R.R method?

B.R.R.R.R. stands for Buy, Repair, Rent, Refinance, Repeat. The concept behind this is that at the point of acquisition you buy a fixer at a steep discount. You then do the necessary repairs to it, refinance, and ideally get your money’s worth with infinite return. This does not work most the time, however, in today’s time. This is why even though it may work if you have enough time, skill, and resources, Zuber does not recommend using this method.

What is Michael’s criteria for buying?

It all depends on the investor. Zuber started out with a three-bedroom, two bathroom, and two car garage, but only because that’s what he knew. These days, his goal would be to get at least a 6% return on his money. If he can do so with a one-bedroom, one bathroom, so be it. A new investor would need to establish a few things, such as are they comfortable buying single family homes, and do they want the biggest bang for their residential loan.

How long did it take to get so many units?

Within the first five years, Michael and his team were able to get eight units. After 2008, they couldn’t buy unit number nine because prices no longer made sense due to the crash. They were able to figure out a way, and between 2008-2009 they accumulated 80 units through 1031 exchanges without any new capitals. Between 2010-2014 they gained another 75 units through buying wrecked, foreclosed fixers. Towards the end, Michael was able to leave work with 177 units and has added some since then.

What is a 1031 exchange?

A 1031 exchange is an advantage of the IRS. They say they want people to own real estate, bigger and more than they already have. So, you can sell a rental for a like-kind exchange. You are given a window of time to identify the like-kind unit you will buy with the money from your sale, then are given another window of time to close.

Were you (Michael) saving money to afford these loans?

The first three loans Michael and his team were able to get with their mere $40,000 of savings. From years three to five they did cash out finances because prices were going up. There was really no new capital or savings flowing at this point. After the eighth year, they did the 1031 exchanges. During the downturn is when they did begin saving to buy new units and living below their means because banks were not lending. Now that they are more settled and out of the game, Michael may use means such as cash, savings, or seller financing to gain new units.

What are some resources that Michael would recommend?

Michael highly recommends his book titled One Rental at a Time. In this book you can find his story, then steps on how to start investing in real estate yourself. He also has a YouTube channel under the same name where he posts informational videos every day.

If you are interested in passive income, entrepreneurship, the digital nomad life and much more, be sure to check out my YouTube and social media handles. Below are also Michael Zuber’s mentioned handles.

Transcription

Below is a transcription of the podcast. This transcription was taken from Otter.ai so it might not be completely accurate:

0:02
This is the digital nomad quest podcast with Sharon Tseung. teaching people how to build passive income, become financially free and design their best lives.0:15
Hey guys, it’s Sharon from digital nomad quest. And today we have Michael Zuber. So I was very interested in your background and I heard that you know, you achieve financial freedom was able to hit over 150 units. Very cool. So yeah, maybe you can tell us about yourself, introduce yourself. So again, thank you This is Michael Zuber actually had my wife just outside the door here. So I’m a Silicon Valley based employee, or at least I was for 20 some odd years. And what I did is I built up a portfolio of rentals over the course of 15 years and left the rat race quit PAETEC February 1 of last year so it’s been 16 months or so. And all of that because of rental properties bought while I worked right so I did it is is what is popular today’s call the side hustle. So that’s my story. Awesome.1:00
So why did you choose real estate investment out of everything I’m interested in it to. I’ve been also building like passive income online businesses. But this is something I want to do as well. But maybe you can tell us about it. Yeah. So my story began on my 30th birthday, which is closer to two decades ago, then then not so I’m older. But when I was 30, a book came along in my possession called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And it’s the only book I’ve ever read cover to cover five times because it just, it wasn’t a great book, right? It’s not written really well, right as grammatical errors and all of that, but it had enough concepts that shook me, that caused me to like go I have to read that again, because I wasn’t sure I understood it. And a couple of them were, you know, basically, there is a thing called the rat race. And nobody in my family or anybody had ever even hinted at something like that, right. I was doing what my family called successful, right? I’m the only college graduate in my family. I’m the only one with an MBA. You know, I was making six figures in my 20s far more than anybody else in my family.2:00
Right, I was paying more taxes than most of the people in my family make an income. So I was the successful one. And then this book sort of shocked me and goes, you’re in a rat race, you’re just making more money, you’re spending more money. You know, what are you doing silly? And then of course, it talks about the condo they bought, right, the first condo I think they bought in Portland or something where they made 50 bucks a month. And now it’s just like, Okay, I get it. Right, that that’s my path. So I didn’t really see another way, right? Shopify wasn’t around all these other business and apps and these things didn’t exist. Not to say that my skill set probably would have done those things. Yeah, but real estate was and I could understand it, I could see it, I could touch it, I could evaluate it. I understood buying at a discount. I don’t mind talking to people. So it kind of fit and it was something I could do on the side, right. I had a demanding sales job either as an individual contributor manager or second line leader. So I could be anywhere on the planet. And I was still able to build a portfolio off hours, you know, by outsourcing different tasks like property management stuff. So real estate was the thing I you know,3:00
I wasn’t going to create a company. I’m not an athlete. I’m not a singer. So I knew I wanted out of the rat race at some point. I wasn’t positive, it would happen, right? Because you live in Silicon Valley’s a big nut to get to, but we got there in 15 years. And I’m really glad we started. Awesome. So like compared to, you know, stock investment and things like that. Would you say it’s because it’s tangible that that’s what? Well, there’s there’s lots of different things. First and foremost, I come off of when I was 29, both Enron and world com being two stocks that blew up my portfolio to the tune of six figures, right. So I know about writing off $3,000 a year and a lot tax and losses on my tax return. Right. It’s terrible. So I haven’t touched stocks since then, in addition to stocks is you really have to be active during the day, right? You can have any any swings and if you can’t get out when something happens and like you can only do stuff out off hours. You’re kind of missing the momentum, right? So I couldn’t spend enough time to evaluate. I wasn’t smart.4:00
Figure it out. I knew I wasn’t Warren Buffett. So stocks really went away. It could it could store wealth.4:07
Maybe build some of it, but it wouldn’t give me the cash flow, because I don’t know about you, but my bills come in monthly, and I have to pay the monthly so I needed something that could become consistent and then build, and stocks aren’t an option, in my opinion. And you said like real estate was a side hustle and that you you had a demanding job. Does that mean that it didn’t take that much time? Like, I would say, for the first decade, right? When we were purely in acquisition mode, we probably again, this is a husband and wife team, right. So I would say collectively, we spent five hours a week, so 20 hours a month, that was roughly 5050 probably, I would say, half that time was acquiring or dealing with what we just bought because we were buying stuff that was rough that had to go through fix up and all of that. And then the other half is what my wife was much better at was was auditing the books looking for errors, really double checking the property managers because I5:00
was something we outsource but we always wanted to find deals and then control the spend and she was wonderful at that and deserves all the credit in the world so you guys both did it together Oh yeah. I fully recommend if you are in a committed relationship that you and your significant other sit down and go do we want to do this because real estate I promise you will have bad days. Yeah, right. I write about our first property we ever bought in the book called one rental at a time. And I promise you most people, if you’re not committed would not have bought a second property right? So this story starts with spending a year looking for something we find something we buy it we stick attended in we celebrate right? It’s working right? We’re now Rich Dad, Poor Dad because we have a house. Unfortunately, after two weeks, the wife leaves the husband decides to start drinking and never pays rent again. And this is California. So that’s 60 days to get them out. So again, think about that. Right? So we spent a year we finally find something we buy it we celebrate we never get another month of rent. We spend three months getting them out and then6:00
We spend 15 grand after he leaves, right? How many people would do that? And do another one. Yeah. And and Olivia deserves huge credit for doing that. And that’s why I think you have to be on board with your significant other because I truly hope it doesn’t happen to in your first investment. But it will happen if you do this long enough. And you’ve got to be on the same page or or you’re asking for trouble. Yeah, definitely. And let’s back up. So how did you choose friends now? Out of all neighborhoods? That’s a good question. So in fairness, if you rewind our story to just finishing Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I probably consumed dozens of books by then. And all the books I read at the time said invest in your backyard, right, which, you know, the book, say 30 minutes for your home. So I talked about spending a year looking and we spent every Sunday for 52 weeks in a row looking in the barrier for cash flow rentals. And then keep in mind this is 2003. Right? So it’s impossible then let alone 2019. So that’s it forced us to decide. So I remember sitting around the kitchen table and I’m going okay, Olivia.7:00
What you want to do, we can either go out of state look at Texas at the time was hot and in Vegas was hot again 2002 2003. Or we can pull out a California map and see what else makes sense. So we decided that we were type A and also I traveled for a living. So the last thing I wanted to do is get on an airplane to see my rentals, something out of out of states off the question out of the question. So we pulled out the California map and started drawing circles in in Fresno was the first large market at the time was about 800,000 people. That made sense, right? We could buy $100,000 house that would rent for $1,000 which is the 1% rule. So that’s why Fresno It was only after we looked in our backyard in our backyard didn’t make sense. Okay, did you look on like red fan or what kind of size they didn’t exist?7:45
Let’s not forget whole how did how did you do it then it was actually just a California map. And then whatever the the equivalent of realtor.com was back in the day, but there was also agents just putting out stuff on the web. So I actually found a local

8:00
agent that put out a screen of the MLS and I used that, you know, sort of a client login kind of thing. So that’s what we used back then. And then I would have I would have agents actually email me my search criteria, like actual people, like, know that I’d have to print. So it was definitely a different time. Yes. Interesting. And, okay, so I know for us now has like a decent amount of crime. Right. So were you guys worried about that at all? So we we certainly looked at that. But if you break down Fresno into sort of its sub markets, it definitely is dominated in certain areas. Right. There is a certainly back in 2003 was far more gang related in what’s called the west side. So guess what we ignore the west side, right. There are actually very nice sort of middle income. What what in the Bay Area we would call Sunnyvale. There are many, many places in President like Sunnyvale, right? Yeah, bread butter, two bedroom, two bath. One story college is built in the 50s. And that’s where we focused. Okay, interesting. So, how did you I guess, learn about the best and worst areas in Fresno. We

9:00
Again, you need to network you need to ask people you need to, you need to double check and cross check people. That’s something we did a really good job of. So I was in sales. So I set up a personal goal of meeting two people a week for a long time. So I did that for almost 10 years. But in the beginning, it was all about asking people and then double checking. It was like, Okay, this is ok, we heard so and so say this. Alright, so take that piece of data and double check it with them and double and then you know, you start driving around and again, we went probably three times a month for several years. What now is called driving for dollars just to figure out neighborhoods we started really, really small, right? We’re talking probably 20 square blocks is where we started right trying to learn and you can drive that in an afternoon. And then we just started to grow and grow comfortable and grow up. We stayed in that same call it a mile square for five years. Before we started get feeling comfortable going else. So mainly It was like, go to the location meet people figure it out that way, not like online. No, well online. I mean, what you have today was Zillow.

10:00
Google Maps and street views all that stuff didn’t exist. Sure, come on now. But still, even with those tools, it would still be hard to gauge. I believe there’s a bunch of people using that stuff today as a crutch and they are making horrible decision really horrible decision. If you want to start there and go and pull out a map and color code and go Okay, I’m going to look here. If you don’t get your butt on the ground, and actually go see it you’re going to get taken because I can tell you I’ve been to these other cities and Cleveland and these other markets where if you like our half a block away I mean, it’s like 90 go you go cross that stop sign. Yeah, I mean, you’re getting shootings every night and you can’t tell that stuff on on you know, when you just look at they all look the same, right? They’re all 50 year old houses your key. You get off your butt get on the ground. And, and again, there’s a lot of people doing turnkey investments in the center of the US and some now in the south that are taking advantage of California investors who are being lazy, right. I don’t want to go to Cleveland. I don’t want to go to Detroit but I’m only to put my money that

11:00
Oh, yeah, you have to go. And I’m actually thinking about investing in Fresno too. I mean, after you know, heard your talk, I’m looking for like a cheaper first project, and then I do have a place in Antioch. But my parents kind of guided me through the whole thing. I just put my money in it. Yeah, I

11:21
got one. But I didn’t learn anything from it. So I guess, okay, if I’m gonna do one in friends now, I guess what are some of the actions? Well, let me ask you this. What is do one mean? Does it mean fix and flip? Does that mean buy and hold whatever he wants to do? One mean, I would take buy and hold. Okay, I’m, I mean, this whole this whole channels all about like passive income. And I’m all about that. Okay. And maybe flipping down the road, but I feel like that might be a little more complex. Yeah, and I think buying hold would be a good first way to go. And my brother and I are both interested so we can like throw down money. Oh, nice. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, so I guess it was a couple things. So first off, I would probably look at different areas.

12:00
Like there’s an area called the tower district 937 to eight it’s, it’s it’s it when you drive it right if you have experience with Palo Alto University Street, it’s kind of that view where every house is kind of built older, but they’re all different. That’s not like, you know, like a standard row houses, solid rents middle income, you could also do what’s called North Fresno, which is the richer area and you’re just going to get a feel right. So you’re going to get newer builds in the richer areas, but you’re also going to pay for that right? You can probably pick something up a project in the tower district for 150 ish, right plus minus whatever depending on condition, but if you’re going to go north Fresno, you’re talking to 50 to 75. rents in the tower are probably 1250 1300 North fed knows probably 1450 1500 so you know for the extra hundred grand you’re not getting a lot in rent, right that person but again, in the beginning, it’s about knowing where your comfort zone, right, I’ve talked to some people and they go, Oh, I love Palo Alto, so they’re all over the tower district. Other people are know some people say hey, I want to live in I want I want a what what’s the Cupertino of Fresno

13:00
It’s actually called Clovis, right? It’s the award winning schools and all that you’re going to pay through the nose, right? There’s nothing in Clovis for, you know, sub 300 of any kind of condition. Right? So you have to figure out what kind of investor you will be. And then you’re going to be meeting teams and property managers and, and all that because I you least I would never want to self manage, right. It’s about I don’t want to meet my tenants. I don’t want it to you. Yeah. Yeah. I have a property manager to like, I don’t want him. Yeah.

13:27
Yeah. So segregation of duty. I pay you to do that. Yeah. Okay. So you talked about your team, like building your team. So how did you get connected with your team? So again, it’s it’s really by networking, I would say of everybody I worked with my first five years, maybe my first say, first three years. I hadn’t worked with them in year five. Right, I met people. Everybody sounds good on paper, they tell you sweet stories. But then when push comes to shove, they either don’t step up, or they lie to you or they try to say you didn’t say that or I said this. So you just have to build time. The thing that I have now, looking back

14:00
seem to be successful is I want to work with other people that are investors. So this is the big fine for me is my property manager after firing the first five, I found a guy. He was young, he was hungry, but he’s an investor, right? He owns now as much real estate as we do. And he owns a property management firm. So he does that because he wants the tax advantages and savings for himself. But he thinks like an investor, he’s investing in the company’s hiring more people he’s expanding, as opposed to some property managers who are real estate agents, and property managers on the side or real estate brokers and property managers. I’ve seen that model break, like when the crash happened, I had I was with the team, I was relatively happy. But then the principal who I was, I was his biggest account, started getting all these Aereo assignments and that’s all they wanted to do all day was BP owes and make 500 bucks per report. And suddenly property management fell off the radar. I’m like, What are you doing to me, man, I’m trying to buy stuff why you turned me away. So you got to find somebody who’s investor would be my experience. So I mean, if they aren’t investor will

15:00
stop them from like, just doing it all themselves. And there’s so many deals out there. Nope. Yeah, that’s the whole scarcity versus abundance. mindset. Yeah, it’s a mindset thing. I mean, that’s, I mean, what why do I talk about Fresno with everybody who asked this? Because I want everybody to be successful. Lots of deals, right? Yeah. If you’re, if you’re talking to First off, the guy wouldn’t be a property manager and look to get more units. You could do all the deals themselves, right? Some people act that way. There are companies in Fresno that are between five and 1000 doors that are all owned by the principal, they do it simply as a tax shelter. Right? They have a scarcity mentality, right? The people you you’ll run into in real estate and once at least the good ones that will be around for a while they definitely have an abundance mindset. In terms of your team, do you only really need like a property manager when it comes to buy and hold? I think I would think a property manager who has been in that area for you know, decades and they have roots there. They’re going to be your linchpin, there’s no question. You will need others like getting a few real estate agents that can farm for you because again, you have a tech job right. You’re in your two and a half hours away. Best

16:00
case so having agents that understand appreciate you and will farm for you right to it even if you’re going to farm yourself and having more people farm for you just increases deal flow now that we do some some flips on the side, right we buy junk like really bad junk and we flip to landlords, I do have some GC contacts or general contractor contracts, right? But that’s not stuff you would do as a buy and hold person property manager number one, maybe some agents, you’re going to have some financial contacts or bankers, but those can all be local, those can be all Silicon Valley based. Okay, interesting. So what would be your Buying Criteria when it comes to maybe for me then like, if if I have maybe 40 grand or something?

16:38
What What do you think I should look for? So what I would tell someone in your situation and I do this all the time, it’s actually I actually create stuff that I should have bought in the beginning for people like you. Because as I look back at my career, one of the things that I did wrong that caused me to stay in the game or stay working longer was I bought cheap, right? So I would you know, like there’s a house at 150 and the next door one was 120.

17:00
Just pretend they’re the same. But the one that 120 needed 15 or 20 grand, I would buy this cheap one. But here’s the math right? So okay, so again, 115 120 I buy 120, I get alone figure, I put 20% down and for 24 grand down. But when I do that, I know I have to spend 20 grand cash, which now breaks 24 plus 20 is 44 grand. So I’m into this place $44,000 cash. Now, yes, I have some artificial equity and maybe someday in the future, I could burn out and do all of those fancy things. But in reality with interest rates in the fours, I would I should buy the 150 house because it’s only 30 grand down, right 20% of that. I’m going to get a four interest rate for 30 years, and then I’ll have money left over so I can get ready for the next one. Okay, right. This whole I think the burst strategy worked really, really well five years ago when everything was at the bottom. But in today’s market where we’re far closer to the peak and you can’t get those 70% discounts

18:00
All those ARV stuff. If I was a tech worker working 60 hours a week, I would buy clean, I would buy already least in already with a property manager, I would want to remove all the headaches as possible. So that’s what I would do get between a five and 6% return on your on your money, but you and have no headaches, and ideally no repairs for three to four years. It’s a much better business in my opinion. Real quick, can you explain the method for the viewers? Sure. So verse something that was popularized by I believe it was Brandon Turner on bigger pockets. It stands for by repair, rent, Rifai repeat. So the idea is, is at the point of acquisition, you buy a fixer at a steep discount. Let’s try to do some math. Let’s say the house is worth 100. Perfect, you’re going to buy that thing for 60 grand, you’re then going to take 15 or 20 grand and put it in hence the repair. Then you’re going to lease it and you say you’re going to get $1,000 rent, which is the rent portion and then they’re going to go back to a bank, and you’re going to refight out and you’re going to get it again when they say

19:00
This to you that you’re going to get all your money back and you’re not gonna have anything in the deal and infinite return. It doesn’t work most of the time today. But that’s the story. And then you repeat hence. BR right. So the whole idea is with the limited capital you could use for keep recycling your capital. I think it worked great from 2012 to 2017. It has worked a lot less well recently. And I actually know more people have been hurt by burb because they’re tying up money. They’re using hard money, because they’re buying stuff that banks won’t lend on. And then they’re tying up capital at 10% or 12%. And they just can’t get their money out. Because it’s very different market today, so you don’t recommend. Well, again, I’ve used bird I still use bird today, but I have more time. Yeah, right. I have more relationships. Is it possible? Absolutely. But I just did a video The Dark Side of bird on my YouTube channel, because there’s a lot of risk in that and I believe in today’s market where we’re closer to the peak, then the trough burn is going to hurt a lot more people than it helps really

20:00
Need an accelerating market to have bird cover you because in an accelerating market, like from 12 to 16 if prices rise 3% a month, you’re sort of protected if you overpay, but in a market that rolls over where they’re flat or they’re declining 1% you could get in trouble pretty quickly. And going back to the Buying Criteria, so is there a number of bedrooms like you recommend or like number? That’s a good question. No, I mean, you mean it’s all about the investor right? Right. When I started it was a 322. Right? Three bedrooms, two bath, two car garage, right? But why? Because that’s what I lived in. I didn’t own it. Right. But in today’s market, what I do is I you know, if I was starting is I’d want a 6% return on my money. If I could get that in a one bedroom, one bath house built in 1950 and take it if I get that in a you know a four Plex I take it right it that’s that’s the that’s the measure. So I think a new investor needs to decide a couple of things in my comfortable buying single family homes, yes or no? Do I want my biggest bang for my residential

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Alone right because there is a residential loan limit right which is one to four units right? Some people are fixated there I got talked to people at least once a week all i wants a four Plex all I want to I don’t care if they’re overpriced. I just want a four Plex. I’m like okay, overpay, and then some people going only I only want I want to chase Grant Cardone and do bigger is better, and they want to do commercial. So I think investors need to figure out where they want to be. I know that some people talk down single family homes. I think for the first time in my investing career, single family homes are better investments than multifamily. There is truth to bigger is better. Most of the time. I believe so many people are chasing bigger is better that Olivia and I are net sellers of apartments because people are paying 30% more than they should. And if you want to do that, I’ll take the money and we’ll move it in the houses. So then again, I’m saying this as it’s recorded in you know, the summer of 19. Right if if you watch this in 23, the story may be different but in the summer of 2019 single family home is going to produce a better, more consistent return because people

22:00
stay longer. That’s what people don’t get about multi families is yes. Oh, if one person leaves I get, you know, 75% around all that nonsense. What you’re not talking about is you have a turn. Right? I just did a video today talking about what happens to C class apartments in a recession, because the argument is a C class apartments going to protect me in a recession because occupancy is going to go up. Well, yes, sorta occupancy is going to go up. But what is going to actually happen because we live through it is, what’s going to happen is the people that are in your building today are going to leave, like 20% 30% because they’re going to have their living paycheck to paycheck right there. They barely qualify for an apartment. So one of them loses their job they’re done. So what they’re going to do is they’re going to group up in three or four friends and house hack somewhere. Right? So boom, leave, right then you got to turn to for six grand whenever that takes and then the people that were renting A or B class apartments are going to move in so your occupancy will be higher, but you’re going to form

23:00
A 30 year units to turn in, like 2012. We had the highest occupancy ever in our apartments, but we lost money, because of all the turns. And it’s going to happen again. And I don’t want people to get hurt, because they believe the story of C class apartments is where you should protect yourself. It’s not true.

23:20
And I asked how long did it take you to get 250 units? Maybe like, maybe even just 10 units? Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that I had to do when I got done is I wrote that book. Right, one rental at a time. Yeah. So we went from one to eight units over eight years. Okay, so in the first eight years, we had eight units. I think it was seven houses in a duplex. So basically buying one a year, then the crash happened. So this was like 2003. I guess it was five years. So 2003 to 2008. We had eight units. Then what we did is we couldn’t buy unit nine because the prices didn’t make sense, right? That first house I told you about earlier on Norris drive that had that whole problem with the first tenant. We bought

24:00
For 107 and we sold it for 263. But here’s the problem. It’s still rented for 1100. So while it made sense at 100 grand, it didn’t make sense nearly 300 but we sold it because somebody bought it right. But what we did is we did it was called a 1031 exchange in the small apartment buildings. So 2008 2009 was a big year for us because we went from eight units to 80 no new capital, no new money simply 1031 exchanges. And then what happened is the crash happened. So between 2010 and 2014, we bought another 80 units or so 75 units anything from houses to 18 unit apartment buildings that were just totally wrecked, right we were buying foreclosed stuff, but again, we had to find ways to buy because banks turned off so we did hard money and private money. But that got us to roughly 150 units and then out of the you know when it bounced off with the hedge funds came in the world was different. Everybody was buying this the junk. You know, we bought a few more things over the next couple of years and I left work at 177 units and we’ve added some

25:00
Since then, so we’re just shy of 200. Wow, can you explain like the 1031 exchange how you went from eight to 80? Yeah, yeah. So this will do one real example. So that first house we bought a Norris drive. We bought it for Reduce, Reuse simple math 100. And we sold it for 275. So there’s a gain of $175,000. Right? Let’s just say we put $25,000 down. So we have 200 K and equity. What we did is we did a 1031 exchange, which allow again, it’s an advantage of the IRS, the IRS tells you what they want you to do. So what they say is we want people to own real estate when we want you to own bigger and more. So you can sell it for what’s called a like kinda exchange. So basically rental for rental, right so you can’t sell it for rental for my primary residence, not like kind rental for rental. So we sold the house, we move the money into an intermediary because I can’t touch it. If I touched it, I’m taxed. Right so it sits in this little bucket. We have 90 days to identify and then we have six months to close. And what we did is we bought a five unit building for 223 grand and move them

26:00
Money over and that rented for $3,000. So think about that we sold a house for 275. In this example that rented for 1100 we bought a five unit apartment building for 223 that rented for three grand. Okay. I mean, yeah, that’s crazy, right? So we’re very simple, especially me, it sounds good, more is better. So that 1031 exchange worked so well, that we bought more, right? We sold every house or exchanged every house and moved it into 510 seven or 13 another 10 we just we just bought more apartment buildings like multi. Yep. units. Okay, and after that you like were you saving a bunch of money to be able to afford all these like loans like how does that work? Yeah, so the first three loans we bought with our savings. Yeah, we put 20 grand down 10 Grand 10 grand. That was our 40 minutes all we had to start 40 grand. So that was about three years in then from year three to five. We did what’s called a cash out refinance because prices were going up. we refine our first house pulled 50 grand out we bought two more, we refined the second half.

27:00
We took out like 25 grand bought something else. Then we did the third one. So that was all just bank lending. We were saving some money but that’s how we got from one to eight right was cash out refinance and the only the only 40 grand we had was in the first three houses. Then what we did is we did the 1031 exchanges again no new capitals all IRS money and then during the downturn because banks wouldn’t lend we certainly were saving money and living below our means because a lot of our cash would go to buy some of those. But yeah, those to get to 80 units that was really that first 40 grand and then efficiently using cash out refinance and the 1031 exchange to get to the last like few and the 200 I guess so is it still that same strategy?

27:43
You know, now that we’re done we do we have a we have a decent savings. We did liquidate a couple of apartment buildings so we’re we depend on what we’re buying right if it’s cat You know, sometimes cash is a yes. So we you cash we have done some bank lending. What we really like is doing seller financing today. We’ve added

28:00
The most units with seller financing in the last 18 months, we’ve added about 30 doors with seller financing, which means you’re like there’s an owner of this water bottle, who’s owned it for 30 years has zero cost basis. But they’re 70 years old, they don’t want to be a landlord anymore. If they sell it, they’re going to have a huge tax hit. Right? Because they have their cost basis is zero. But if they do a seller financing on what’s called an installment loan, they can sell it to me, maybe they take 20 grand, so they have a little tax hit on the 20 grand and then I give them a $500 payment every month. So I’m spending a lot of time trying to do seller financing today, because I can get them for less down. I can control the interest rate. I have no problem dealing with tenants because most of these older stuff have delayed deferred maintenance and the tenants are renting below market so I can deal with that stuff. But I really like seller financing today. Yeah, it’s like crazy to me that you can scale to that many. And I didn’t think that was possible, which is like you started your own money, but then you probably use different strategies to get there. You certainly can you know, and I’m not the only one I’ve

29:00
met many, many people over time. It does it apps and I remember sitting on airplanes at 30,000 feet when we had five units or 10 units or 13 years ago. And when is this going to turn around this little drip? Right? I can’t live on $100 What the hell? I can’t live on $300 What the heck? What the heck? You know, I like a year 11 Olivia retires, right? So you know, just over six figure income. We replaced it with that, you know, and fast forward three or four more years later, we place another six figure income and just it scales, but it does. It’s so frustrating those first 567 years of just drip, drip. Yeah. Sounds like I have a lot to like study. So do you have any resources you recommend? Well, first you got to go out and buy my book, of course.

29:44
Yeah, it’s called one rental at a time. It’s on Amazon. It’s basically two sections. The first two thirds of the book are my story in the four segments basically how we went from one to 175 and then I give you recommendations, how to get started, how to do all of that, like

30:00
You have a YouTube channel, guess what it’s called the same thing one rental at a time. I post videos every day. I also take subscriber questions. So people like you, who maybe can’t interview me, but you had a question. You just go to any of my videos. Put in your question into date. Other than one topic. I’ve been able to answer it in three days. And the one topic I missed it because I had a vacation. That took me about a week to get to but I answered them all. Okay, cool. Yeah. So do you have any last Ord? So this is very informational for me. Yeah. Yeah. I would tell you that again, sort of like we touched on there at the end is real estate investing is absolutely going to work. Actually the Sean’s presentation. I think I started with this I have these five uncomfortable truths, which are all can ruffle feathers, but they’re true. And the last one of the uncomfortable truth is, everyone can be successful at this business. Real estate is a physical asset. It doesn’t care about your age, your race, your history, your sexual preference, whatever it is, it doesn’t care. Everybody can do this. I’ve interviewed teenagers and 50 year olds getting started. I’ve interviewed PhDs and ex cons who never

31:00
graduated high school, you can be successful at this business if you commit to learning and move forward at a diligent rate. Awesome. Thanks so much, Michael, for joining me on this show. And I’ll link to all of your resources that you mentioned in the video. And yeah, thanks so much. You got it. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Please make sure to rate review and subscribe. It really helps our podcast grow. And thanks again. I’ll see you guys in the next one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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About the Author

Sharon Tseung

Hi, I’m Sharon Tseung! I’m the owner of DigitalNomadQuest. I quit my job in 2016, traveled the world for 2 years, came back to the Bay Area, and ended up saving more money and building over 10 passive income streams on my digital nomad journey. I want to show you how you can do the same! Through this blog, learn how to build passive income and create financial and location independence.

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