Transcription
All righty, folks. Let's give credit where credit is due. The idea for this particular video comes 100% from Ken Maroy. Ken Maroy is somebody I follow. I follow him specifically on Twitter or X. And yesterday he put out a simple tweet talking about the five ways to five, excuse me, five proven strategies to skyrocket your wealth.
Now folks, if you don't know who Ken Maroy is, first off, what are you doing? Second, he is an apartment/multifamily investor. I believe he has over 10,000 units and almost 30 years of experience. So again, someone we should at least be listening to and asking about. What we're going to do with this list of five because again, Ken is very much multifamily, is we are going to try to bring it down to the everyone. Somebody like one rental at a time fans, Dion Talk, Lumberjacks, you know, buying rentals, duplexes, house hacking and the like. So, we're going to do our best to translate that to us. But again, Ken Maroy gets the credit.
Let's welcome the fellas. Uh, lumberjack Matt, you were first to join. How are you?
I'm doing super. Excited to see Dion. Glad he's getting all the sun that he needs with his vacationing.
He certainly does look like he's getting a lot of sun. It does.
Now, is that sun or is that alcohol giving him that little rosy glow?
It's probably both.
Probably both. At least he is honest. A 40 ounce of beer here is 30 cents. So you've had a few.
Why wouldn't you?
Yeah. He's like, I don't think you understand. I have 16,000 bucks to blow through every month.
Yeah. Why drink water? Just drink beer. I get it. Water costs three or four euros. Three or four dollars.
Water's expensive.
Yeah. Yeah. Just stay hydrated with beer. I like it. Good. And uh Europe beers, I recall much higher alcohol content.
Yeah. Uh I don't know. I pretend it's it's it's just really low.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Anyways, I I digress. Well, let's get into Ken Maroy's list because again, I want to take this list of five, which again was with a guy that does 10,000 units and bring it down to the every person.
Number one, cash flow is king. I really do appreciate the fact that Ken Maroy started there. I know there's a lot of gurus and gurus talking about buy for appreciation, nonsense and crap. So, we are starting with buy for cash flow. I'm going to change it up and go to Dion first because I think Matt wants to just leap off the screen on this one. So, I'll go to Dion first.
Well, so the thing I really like about Ken Maroy is is he's you know, he's got the 30 years of experience. He's really in tight with uh you know, Gammon, Kiasaki, like he's in that realm. And every Monday on his channel, Ken Maroy here on YouTube, him and his now wife, uh, Denal do a about a 45 minute or so video a live with an intro.
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, what I what I really like is is Ken has all of the experience and he has that strategy. I don't want to emulate. I don't want 10,000 properties. I don't want a hundred properties, you know, right? I want the right amount of cash flow from the least amount of units. So when I watch it, it's Denal with her. She had three paid off properties. I think she's added a fourth one since then, uh, since I started watching. But it's how does he relate his information to where it would help her portfolio for the small and mighty investor. And cash flow in both of their realms is king. You know, it's when we talk about is this a good deal or a bad deal, I like to harp on there's about 20 criteria. One of those criteria is the math. And the math is about cash flow, not appreciation, not net worth, not principal payown. Tax benefits are nice, but what is if it doesn't cash flow, why would you buy it? So, I love that he starts with cash flow is king. Cash flow is why I'm in Logos, Portugal today. It's not because of net worth and it's not because of the tax benefits. It's because of the money that's coming in. I love this.
Again, Matt, this is something that was near and dear to our hearts. is why we got started in this game nearly 20 years ago was cash flow. Cash flow is how you get that financial independence. But you and I both know there's a lot of people that don't like to do the work and take the easy way out and just say, you know what, buy for appreciation. Screw cash flow. What do you say to those guys?
I'll say I I look forward to owning your property sooner than later. That's what I would say. Um I think that the biggest challenge in this is that you know for 14 years the market's taught everybody that things only go up. Yeah. And so if you've only been investing in the last 14 years, you know, Dion's smart. Dion's done all the work. He's had all the conversations. He's seen what down markets look like. And so he's taken the opportunity to capitalize on that runway by having massively cash flowing properties over those 14 years of appreciation. Not only rental appreciation, but also property appreciation, building appreciation or asset appreciation. I think where it becomes a challenge is, you know, folks that have gotten into it in the last 14 years, but especially the last four, they think that things are just like all you do is buy it and it goes up, you know, kind of like people that bought the S&P. All you do is buy it and it goes up, guys.
Yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't. Um, and so I think the the challenge that people have to make sure that they understand is that appreciation is a wonderful thing, but it's a byproduct of the market, which you can't control. What you can control is the quality of your unit, the quality of your asset, and understanding your buy box and your rent box of this is what I can afford to pay for it based on what this is what my maximum rents are. So, I think that uh, you know, Ken obviously brilliant investor. Um, I love that he relates what he does to what his wife does because they're two obviously completely different things. You can't run a 10,000 unit empire like a four-unit empire, right? Um, and vice versa. And so what people really need to watch out for is recognizing that we have seen unprecedented growth and an unprecedented run uh over the last 14 years. And so you should probably at least augment who you're watching to capture somebody that's been doing it for more than 14 years. You should capture at least some of that because we will tell you all the nasty, horrible things that happened in the great financial crisis and we will tell you how little appreciation mattered to us then. It was all
You're absolutely right. It's it's really wild for me as a guy who's been in the game nearly 25 years now. Um, I was investing before the great recession. And let me just tell you, 2005 and six, everybody and their brother was acting like appreciation is the only thing that mattered because it was for a minute. For a minute and then, you know, I've told this story before. I had a guy that was worth 10, eight figures, 10 million. This is like 2007 10 million. So that might be like 20 million today, right? Like 16.
It's a lot.
Yeah, at least 16, right? So he um he believed in appreciation so much he he failed to take a $50,000 loss on a million dollar flip. He he was just adamant that it would have sailed and he you know just like all the 20 he did before that or 30 or whatever he did and uh he he lost his empower empire lost his wife and uh has been out of the game for forever. So again betting on appreciation is a fool's game. Um, you know, I tell everybody and their brother three steps to wealth is is you got to hold for a decade, but cash flow is how you hold.
Uh, Dion, well, I could tell you how important it is to get your information from somebody who's been through something like the Great Recession is I listen to you guys. Matt had mostly construction um tenants and they went from who was paying and it cycled down. So, that's kind of why I have the one-third military, one-third Section 8, one-third working or retired. you talked about uh the market has only had an 8.9% drop in any 12-month period, but there are some local areas, Silicon Valley, Detroit, or whatever that tank 75%. So, that's kind of why I I target those properties that are at least 10 miles from the others, and spread them out so that I'm not in one market.
Smart. And then the other thing that Ken does say with number one, he's got four more, folks. Stay tuned for those, is it allows you to reinvest profits to facilitate scale. This is what I thought about Dion when I read this is like the income snowball, right? It took you two years to get the first, a year and a half to get the second, a year to get the third. That is absolutely the income snowball and really an underappreciated thing, you know, during that first 10 years is just recycling capital. Whether that be what Matt and I did via cash outs or 1031s or simply build cash, buy again, build cash, buy again. So Dion, hit the uh income snowball.
So when when you start and not only is it slow, but it feels like it takes forever because you have the element of time. Yeah. And a lot of people talk about if if so I have eight properties. It produces over $20,000 a month in pure cash flow. So if you bought eight properties, you would think, well, I will have that. That's not how the income snowball happens. It happens because the first property you buy, you have for a few years. When you add the second one, you have that one for a few years. So right around the fifth or sixth year of investing where you're adding properties, you've had opportunity for rent increases, opportunity to refinance to a better rate, opportunity to do value-add like convert a den into a bedroom. So it does those first five years are super slow because you don't have the income snowball happening. You don't have multiple sources of income or the years for those properties to change the the income because we we calculate the numbers every time. What's going to happen year one?
Yeah, exactly. It's year five that things start looking like a snowball. Yeah. Time duration sometimes called duration, right? The duration of the whole. That's why cash flow is so important.
All right, let's go to number two of the five proven strategies to skyrocket wealth. Skyrocket wealth. Thanks to Ken Maroy. Number two is leverage other people's money. OPM. Now again, this doesn't necessarily have to be private money. This could be banks, right? Coming in with 20% down, coming into a a house hack with 5% down. The the beauty of this system is you're only putting a fraction of dollars down, but you're getting all the appreciation, all the cash flow, all the tax advantages. It really is magic. Matt, what do you think of leverage other people's money?
Yes. I mean, that's what propels growth. Yes, please. Yeah. Like, that's what propels growth. Like, you can do it in the cash strategy that, you know, Dave Ramsey has. However, you know, you're going to be in your 30s in all likelihood, um, you know, before you actually are really making moves. Um, and I didn't want to wait, you know, 15 years. I started in my early 20s. So, yes, absolutely. Using other people's money and then when they see that you're good with that money and managing those assets, they'll line up to give you more. Um, one of the other things is that it in that is speed. One of the things that we talked about in the last one too, you know, in using other people's money, it gives you the ability to scale. In the first five years that all three of us will tell you absolutely suck. I did I had five buildings at the end of year five. I had five buildings. I had in 20 between 2020 and 2022, I had five months where I bought more than five buildings. Five-month periods where I bought more than five buildings. Now, did I ever think that I was going to be in that position back when I when I was struggling on the struggle bus for 5 years, killing myself with those five buildings, living in the great financial crisis? I was just hoping I could keep those five that I had and that I wasn't going to lose, right? Like cuz I was like, you know, I went from eight paying tenants to three to one. So, absolutely using other people's money um is is a key to that. And the other thing is along with using other people's money, they will always you there's always people willing to give you that money. What you need to make sure you're doing for yourself is making sure you understand the proper amount of leverage that allows you to sleep well at night. Some people they want to live on razor's edge and other people are just like way too conservative. That's up to them. You need to do what you know push yourself a little bit past your comfort zone. Other people's money is great, but you're likely able to get more money than what you actually need.
Mhm. And keep that in mind because you you have to pay it back. It's kind of like college debt eventually.
Yeah. One of the things I think when I think about leverage is all the people out there that are like 100% max leverage go. Yeah. And you know if you you can quickly forget rule number one which I suggest you never forget cash flow. It's really hard to cash flow with 100% debt. And you know I think a lot of people are attracted to that because they don't have any money. So what do you think about leverage?
So debt set me free. That's like a mantra in my world. And the idea of debt is I owe someone else money, so I'm I'm using their money. And it's it's kind of like running. Like we can all I think basically admit that if somebody went jogging for most people, it would improve your health. But you don't just go run 500 miles.
Yeah. Right. You have to think my age, my shape, my prep, how far, you know, is it 50 feet? Is it a quarter mile? Is it whatever? What can you jog to get the health benefit before you get those negative returns? Leverage is the same thing. When you borrow 100% or 105% to wrap the closing costs into the loan, it's a lot easier to get into real estate because it's none of your money in the game. But not only is it hard to cash flow, it's very easy for values to go down, rents to soften, expenses to go up, because that's the the double side of that sword. When rents soften, it's not like you just keep making the same amount of money. your expenses continue to go up and your rent stays the same so you start making less money. So that margin comes in of not having maxed out leverage, figuring out what is your best. For me, in growth mode, I wanted about 70% loan to value. So if I bought a million-dollar place, I want 700,000 in debt, 300,000 in equity. Just round numbers. And when I retired, I wanted a safer position. So I shifted to about 50% loan to value. I don't want to pay off my debt. I get this question all the time. They say, "How much how much more would you make if you paid off all your debt?" Well, if I work for nine more years to pay off the debt, I would increase my cash flow $5,000 a month.
Yes. Just by focusing on paying off debt. Or I could save a down payment, buy another property, start levered appreciation, and I'm gaining value on the total value, not just what I put in it. Lever depreciation. Still this year, I thought I was going to. I didn't have to write a a check to the IRS on rental income. I did on some other income. Uh, but I'm carrying forward a loss again on passive income from one year to the next. And I I'm thinking it's got to be getting close to that's the last year. I'll I'll happily write the government a much smaller check than Matt did this year because it won't be from a 1031 mistake. It will be because I make too much money. Uh, if it wasn't for debt, if I was saving up to buy all cash, I possibly, no, not because of the growth in the last few years, I wouldn't own one duplex currently.
I'd be working.
Yeah, that's that's that's the thing that people don't get, right? People say, "I'm gonna be Dave Ramsey. I'm gonna buy a unit." Most of us can't save enough money fast enough to buy it because it just runs away from us.
That's right. Right. Right. Yeah. We were looking to get on the beach for years. Couldn't do it because no matter how And I had a business that was pretty successful, throwing a lot of cash off, and I still I was like, "What do you mean it's now 3.3 million? I'm not spending that. That's insane. We're not going to get there, guys. But one thing that Dion said that was really important, too, is, you know, people talking about refi and things like that. They always forget one really important element. The fact that housing values are down likely when you're needing to go and tap into that, meaning that you're not going to have the equity to tap into. And the banking margins and reserves, guys, that is not a thing that happens in a recession. The banks stop doing refies because you don't have enough equity.
Yep. Yeah, banks can get tight. That's what a lot of people don't realize. Um, just because banks put out an interest rate doesn't mean they're going to do that loan. No, they have every right to not do that.
All right, let's go on to number three. We've got two more of the total list of five. One was cash flow is king. Number two, leverage other people's money. Number three, force appreciation. Now, this is something that obviously all of us have done. We've bought fixer-uppers. In fact, Dion, I think about the thing that you just bought, did your first potential burr, I I don't know if you actually ever exited that, but again, we have all bought value-add properties. Ken Maroy would say force appreciation. Uh Matt, we'll go to you first on this one. You bought a lot of properties, you know, 2020 and on. I'm guessing most of those uh is because you saw opportunity to force appreciation. Tell us the story.
Yeah, I mean I think you know the we all try and pick the thing that identifies us most, what identifies me most as a value-add investor, right? I want to add value. I want to find value and that can come from a a property that's in bad shape that you can, you know, restore and make a whole lot better and so you're not going to be at the bottom level of rents. You know, it can come from acquiring an asset that you see that the rents are really low and that quite frankly it just has the wrong tenant roster. Um, but I think the idea is there's a number of different ways to look at any asset. The only idea is what value can I bring to the table? And the only value that I can bring to the table is I can look at it and say I can rehab this. I can upgrade the tenant pool here. I can't change the location. Um the other thing too is is like where are you finding your deals? If it's only MLS, that's a lot tougher. It's possible. It's just harder. Um and you know, for me it was about that forced me to create a lot of relationships that I I don't like creating relationships because quite frankly largely I hate people. Um and so what's that was a really challenging thing for me. But that was one of the things I recognized the business was going to require it. So, I did what I had to do and created a bunch of relationships. But then you start doing a bunch of deals where there's a whole lot of opportunity to add value because of some sticky situation the seller's in or because uh they're just finally tapped out and done and tired. So, yeah, I think the biggest advice or best advice that I could give anybody is, you know, be a value-add investor. Always look where you can add value, but you have to be realistic. Not everybody can just walk in and go, "Yeah, in 30 days all the rents are going to be 60% higher." No, you need to add value first. No, ours is a six to 12 month period. And that's why a lot of banks look at seasoning of of assets. Yeah. And and again, if you really got to turn a roster, I got to tell people, especially if it's multifamily, it's going to be a couple of iterations. You're not going to go from the low end to market. You're going to go there'll be a step function. So, get ready for a couple of turns.
Uh you Dion, tell the story. You bought a duplex, got 100k off as I recall, and you're never going to do one again. So forced appreciation can work, but maybe it's not right for you and your your season of life.
So I there's two versions of forced appreciation that I've used. Um one that I don't like and won't do again. I made $3,750 an hour while doing it and still don't want to do it. And that was the burr where I I still could do a cash-out refinance, take my money, redeploy it, buy another property. I'm probably going to do that. I thought of maybe I'd live there two years coming up in July. I could do the IRS 121 rule. Sell it, take the money, buy something bigger. So, it's nice to make money, but it was I lost a year of my life. I lost an entire winter. I could have spent in Thailand. I went through all the things to make money. It was good. Here's the forced appreciation that I do love. And every time I see these numbers, I think, wow, I did that one right. Like, that came out good. I have bought a duplex and a triplex. both uh the duplex was a two-bedroom each side with a den each side that had an existing closet. All that was missing was a wall and a door and a light switch.
Yep. So, I bought it. I didn't do any changes. When this one tenant goes away before the next tenant comes in, I add a wall. It's now three-bedroom. Same thing on the other side. So, now I have a duplex with a mortgage about 1,300. Each side's rented out for 2,300 and 2400.
Woo. That's like I look at that and I go, it made sense when the rents were 1,400 each side. I was okay with because it was about a 300,000 purchase. Then I bought the triplex. Same thing. When tenants move out, I took a den that had everything except no closet. Paid $700 to have a handyman put in a closet, you know, frame, tape, mud. I think I painted uh increased the rent there about $1,300 a month when it was done. Uh, that's the value-add I like when you're buying a property without having to actually physically add square footage or do a complete rehab. What small thing can you do at a wall, add a closet that turns a good deal into a screaming home run?
Scream. Yeah. I' I've done a version of that probably 40 times. Yeah. Uh, it's, you know, anytime you go from a one to a two, a two to a three, just cash flow just racks up. So, love that.
All right, let's go on to number four. Tax advantages, depreciation, and I'll throw in 1031 exchange. We'll go to depreciation first because Dion really did bring it up. He is having what is called a carry forward loss. He has paid no taxes on his real estate income flow because of depreciation, which a is a cashless expense. Uh Dion, depreciation, pretty good stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. So, just a quick example. Usually people say if you make a 100,000 from W2 or 100,000 from this how it works. But here I'll break down the numbers. With uh eight properties, 18 units for the people who like math, there's about 35,000 a month coming in in rents, 9,000 a month going out in mortgages. I set aside $5,150 because that's an inside cop joke. Um for future expenses, about 60 grand a year. So I'm left with $21,000 a month in profit. today. Still, I've paid zero dollars in rental income tax. With YouTube, I make $800 or $900 a month. So, close to 10, a little over $10,000 a year. The taxes that I'm paying $1,000 a quarter
For this year is based on YouTube income. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit, zero taxes, less than $1,000 a month, thousands in taxes per year. Depreciation is amazeballs. Yeah, love that. Well, we'll skip depreciation on this one.
Matt, you and I have done a couple of 1031s and really there's just simple magic in the tax code if you're a real estate investor because of the 1031 exchange. Uh, what do you think?
Yeah, if you're not a dumbass, you don't use one like I did this year and so I run a big huge check. See, the problem is is that that's going to be on that's going to be on like you guys see that report where you pay your taxes every single year. That's gonna be in my purview for five years. And so every single year come tax season, I'm gonna remember that this year I had to write a big huge check, which pisses me off because it was a 100% self-inflicted wound.
Yeah. Now, did was it timing? Was it failure to exit? What was the reason you missed?
No. So the so the issue was is I thought I thought that I had a lot less in profit on the asset than I actually had.
Oh.
And so I was just like, "h," it's like I was like, "it's not that big. It's I think it's like about I think it's about 40k, right?" And then and then I and and so I was just like, and again I I always check I always check you guys hear me talk about it all the time. I always check with my my accountants. I check with my accountants all the time and I'm just like, "hey, just want to make sure, let me know, you know, blah blah blah." And for some reason on this one I didn't and I was just like oblivious to it and I just I I I don't know what was going on. It might have been around the time of retirement. I don't know. Something happened. I did it wrong. And I didn't have 40,000 in income. I had like 115,000 income or something like that on the asset. And so, yeah, I mean, even with adjustments and things like that, we were still able to get it down to, you know, only five figures.
Freaking hell. Um, but that was 100% my mistake. And the the value of a 1031. It's the only 1031 I didn't do in the last decade. Every other one I 1031.
It hurts. It hurts.
Here's a question for you, Matt. As much as that irritates you.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Is a five-figure check a recognizable percentage of your income?
That's immaterial.
Yes. Exactly. It's Listen, when you're when you're writing a five-figure check to somebody, that's that gives that's a that's a long-lasting effect like that. And it's and it's because I remember what it was like to be poor. I really do. I re It's not that much of a scratch to get to that itch to remember how bad it was being poor. So to write that check, if it had been something where it was like, "Nope, I did everything right and I still owed the check." Yeah, fine. But if I but I made a mistake and that's why that's what irritates you. It's the mistake. That's what That's what I look at is like, hey, I don't make mistake. I hardly ever make mistakes, but boy, when I do, they are doozies.
Yeah, that was just funny. That was a bucket of stupid soup right there.
That was awesome.
It's funny you bring that up. I I um I think it was last year. It might have been the year before. So, it might have been 22. I had to write a six-figure check.
Six figures.
Yeah.
Yeah. That was Was that six properties in two years?
Yeah.
Yeah. I flipped a bunch of properties and we to your point, there was an exit on a triplex we used that we didn't 1031 and the profit on that one was several six figures. So, you know, you can plus depreciation recapture and Yeah, that was not fun.
Anyway, well, yeah. So, yeah, DN answer your question.
Yeah, blows. Especially when you It's your fault.
It's your fault.
Yeah. Well, let's go on to number five. And I will admit, I was so happy to see this on Ken Maroy's five proven strategies to skyrocket wealth. Uh, I have admitted to you guys and my audience probably a hundred times that this was an error in my journey, especially my first five years. And Ken says, "Number five, build a network."
Build a network. Dion, we'll go to you first on this one. What do you think of that one?
Uh, it's if it's only five, it's missing the one I would have thought would have been number five. All right, we'll get to that in a minute, but let's talk about the importance of building a network.
Um, yeah, I think so. Millennial Mike covers this really well when he talks about investing at a distance. You know, say your property manager is important, your lender's important, your contractor's important, blah blah blah. All the normal things you hear on Yeah. The core talks real estate. The core four. Exactly. So, that's a bigger pockets. I think David Green used to say that a lot. I think he's got a book. Maybe the core four. I forget the name of it. Um I am a David Green fan even though he's not a bigger pocket. I don't know. Uh it's the other investors that you can get to know that Millennium Mike talks about the way he's so successful. in another thing it was for him it was Mark Matsky investing there for months and you know what do you call testing the waters letting to see if he's going to sink or swim and once he doesn't uh I've I've learned from the investors that I interact with constantly not just you guys but all of the investors that I work with so that's the network I think that matters to me more I know once you're beyond 10 conventional loans the network the relationship with lenders and those kind of things can really matter uh I'm still at the size where I kind of don't want a relationship with my lenders but I want relationships with other investors.
I mean, yeah, I wouldn't have heard about house hack. I wouldn't have heard about how to find a a lease or how to screen a tenant. None of that came from any of my contacts that it takes to buy a property. That came from who already owns properties.
Yeah. The big thing about the network for me is again, if you really want to do something and do something new, something that wasn't in your family, nobody in my family had rentals, you know, wealth of any kind. Um, you just got to get in new rooms, whether those be virtual or in real life. And the network, the network is everything. That's why I love the school community that we're building day after day after day.
But, uh, Matt, you're a lot like me. Tech job, demanding career. How important is a network for you? You're the only one who built one slower than me, so I love you for that.
Yes, I won.
Yeah, it was true. Like, it was, you know, it was um, I certainly spent, like you, I spent a lot of time with my spreadsheet. I spent a lot of time analyzing the market. I spent a lot of time analyzing assets. Um, and then you know what you realize is you're like, "why is this talentless douche getting more deals than me, right?" And it was because they were going out with other investors. They were hanging out with other investors and they were like, you know, getting the getting the crumbs off of the other investors and those crumbs eventually had ended up to a cookie. And we know how much I like cookies. And so when it was all said and done, the thing that I needed to do better was I recognized it was needed for the business. And I didn't get my first off-market deal until my 14th or 15th year of investing.
It was
Oh, yeah.
Me too. Probably. Yeah. 14 15 years. And so now that's what turbocharged it was I had all those relationships in place when COVID happened.
Exactly.
Yeah. And that's what all of a sudden all these my phone's ringing off the hook. Everybody's looking to get out of an asset because it's the end of the world. And I'm like, "Hey, listen. There's the fire. let's run in because I'm dumb." And so that's what I did. And so, you know, we did we did like 20-some deals in 19 months. And that was solely from network. I think maybe four of those, five maybe were on the MLS, maybe six, but it was a small number. It was maybe 25%. So, the value of the network, and that's one of the things I love about I know all of our communities, Dion with yours and Mike with yours and and mine, and then how they also converge together. There's a ton of relationships there where you never would have found the other guy investing in Pittsburgh.
Yeah.
Or you never would have found the other guy investing in, you know, uh, Dallas. Like that's how it happens. So the network I I would be I would say that if you want to grow the fastest, the most important thing is going to be your network.
Oh yeah. You want to grow the fastest, you want to skip errors, you want to have support, you want to get out of the dark days because some days are very dark. It's the network, right? Because we've all been there.
But yeah, I mean to your point about the the pandemic, you know, Dion brought it up earlier. I flipped like 55 or 56 properties in three and a half years. All of them except one or uh network.
Yeah.
Right. People People were just handing me 50 grand, right? I was like, "Okay, I'll take it. Okay, I'll take it."
Right. So, it's a lot of paperwork, but I guess so. I guess I got you gotta I gotta sign my name on this, you know, whatever.
Uh, so there you go. That's Ken's list, but it sounds like Dion has at least one more that uh should be on there. Maybe it's number six. Matt, I'll go to you after if you have one that you think should be on there. But Dion, what's what's number six?
So, how mean would it be if I rethought sharing what number six is because I want to do a video tomorrow where I talk about the one that Ken missed and cover.
Yeah. So, I will absolutely share with you guys off camera so you don't have to wait till tomorrow, but this will come out tomorrow. I'm gonna make a video talking about the one that was miss the tease.
What a tease.
All right, there you go, folks. Just to be clear, that will be on April 24th because this video actually might be posted on the same day. Uh so again, he is saying Thursday, April 24th, you will get that missing six. So Matt, do you have one that you've thought of?
I do have one. I do have one and I think it's something that uh a lot of people of Ken's size uh because of the amount of success that he's had. He is not just a uh he's a builder of companies, right? So he built an amazing massive juggernaut, right? And I think that a lot of people forget one key component to that which is we want to look for when when I'm doing these types of things, I want to know what I'm talking about. So too often people delegate something and they're just and they only know this much. Well, I know my business inside and out. There's a reason why a lot of people that leave their businesses to their kids or have their kids start working up through the company. It's because they want them to know all the different aspects of the company because if they don't, it'll do exactly what Mike just did, which is it'll tank. And so for me, I think one of the most valuable things that us as investors can do is really truly understand all the business. Well, I don't really rehab. You still need to know how much a piece of sheetrock installed costs. Understand what all these things costs. That way, if you're not managing, I can manage my entire company from my phone, my Android phone. However, that being said, one of the things that people are really lazy about is they don't understand all that it all the different components of their business. And you should. And the reason that you should is because if you're not the one self-managing it, you need to understand if you're being taken advantage of. And the only way that you'll know that is if you actually understand and know what those things cost. And you need to think more relatively when it comes to rents going, "Ah, well, the cost of stuff hasn't really gone up." How would you know? You don't know how much a 2x4 costs. I can tell you right now what a 2x4 cost because I bought a hundred of them two days ago. So, this is the thing that people need to recognize and experience themselves is you need to understand all the different facets of your business and then decide whether you want somebody else to manage that and you manage them or you're going to manage them yourself. That's that's I think something that important that Ken left out because let's face it, I don't know that he was ever doing the work, but it certainly hasn't certainly had been doing the work for the last 30 years.
Yeah. Again, if you hear his story, he likely was doing it like all of us in the beginning, but yeah, when you have 10,000 units, uh, you probably haven't bought a 2x4 in a while.
I will close on my number six. Again, it's kind of subtly blended into all five of these. The five were again cash flow is king, leverage other people's money, force appreciation, tax advantage, and build a network. And that is simply the concept of time, wealth, success, it is all time based. I've always told people that if you do these things and you do it for a decade, your chances of getting wealthy are really, really high. Uh, but with if you try to do it in 10 minutes, not a lot of luck. So again, for me, time is number six.
Matt, where can people find you?
Lumberjack Landlord 900 PM Eastern time on Thursdays. Do a show for free. Bring your questions. You don't need to bring anything more. Bring your questions, ask them, and I'm happy to answer them on live on the stream. Um, and you can even do follow-ups. We don't just limit you to a question. So, love to have you come and hang out with the group. It's a pretty cool group of people. And like I said, get your questions answered for free from an expert. So, call.
There you go. Hey, Dion, where can they go to see this number six and missing component from Ken Maroy?
Right here on YouTube. Deion talk financial freedom where yes uh I guess it's tomorrow for me today for future land people watching this. Uh but I also do a live stream every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Pacific where I do the live as long as the questions last even when I'm in Portugal and that starts at midnight for me and I can keep my brother awake the whole time because he's joined me for the last couple. We'll see if he makes it next to next week. You guys are amazing. Take care.