He Turned a $35K Job Into 80+ Properties (Without Quitting His 9–5) with Cory Jacobson | Episode 90

House hacking was the single best decision I ever made, allowed me to save money for the first time ever. And then springboard into the next thing. And you're right. Tim, like people are renting, and I think there's a couple good reasons to rent. If you're able to really increase your income and like you're able to make a ton of money, if you live that entrepreneur nomadic lifestyle and you can go make a bunch of money and dump it into real estate on the side, sure. But for the average person, I really think that owning real estate, even if it's just a primary residence that you can pull a home equity line of credit from, you're gonna have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equity that you can play with. And that's just simply by paying your loan down with principal pay down. So it was the best decision I ever made, and I would recommend it to anyone. I don't care if you're 21 or if you're 55 getting in for the first time, if you can house hack, the key is you need to think, hey, it's not about what I deserve. It's about delaying my gratification so that I know that I can live better in the future.

There's a big pain point there, Corey. Yeah.

It's just like delayed gratification. Oh. I know. It's it's a big thing. And I'm still doing it, by the way, probably to a degree that I don't need to anymore, but I'd rather be on that side of it than trying to catch up on the other side of like spent all my money.

We're in our mid 40s. We're still doing it. I'm 50. Right. Welcome to the podcast dedicated to real estate, insurance, and building your business. Join us as we take you along our own business building journeys with additional wisdom from our network of local and national experts. Welcome to Bricks and Risk.

This episode is brought to you by Property Management Redefined. PMR is not just managing properties, we're creating partnerships that build long-term success for property owners. John and his team can be reached at manage at gopmr.com or by phone 267-753-6005. Tim. Yes, Sean. Who's a good client for PMR?

Property management redefined is looking for property owners who value three things accountability, reliability, and a results-driven approach. You want to maximize returns, but still provide client and tenant satisfaction.

There's a lot of property managers out there. Yes, there are. What does PMR do really well?

Biggest thing is they're seamless and they're worry-free. So with that approach in mind, it allows the property owner to put their trust in PMR and know that the results will be there. The other thing I think a property owner is really going to value because they do it so well is that they have a local expert team, boots on the ground, managing your properties and your tenants' expectations every day so that you feel good about your investments.

We have millions of listeners out there. Tens of millions. If they want more information, how do they find PMR?

Right here, guys. Reach out to John Stacks and his team at Property Management Redefine. Take good care of you. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Bricks and Risk. I'm Tim Garrety. And I'm Sean Mooney. Today, Sean, we have a local guest, an investor, someone who is in kind of your space and kind of my space, and also in the podcast space. We have Corey Jacobson, the co-founder of Juice Enterprises, as well as the co-host of the Wealth Juice Podcast. How are you doing today, Corey? I'm doing great, guys. Thanks for having me. Welcome on in. Amen. Welcome on in. So a little background Corey Jacobson and Ryan Bevelacwa have built a real estate portfolio of over 80 units spanning across multiple markets. Their portfolio encompasses long-term rentals, short-term rentals, multifamily apartments, and even a large multi-purpose resort. They started out with a single house hack, which I want to get into, and they've grown from there. Their podcast is called the Wealth Juice Podcast and is currently ranked 1% globally. They've done over 250 interviews. Super impressive, man. Yeah, thank you, man. That's what we love to do. All right, let's get started with some of the basics here. Cause, you know, what I really want to talk to you about is kind of like, let's call it like residential real estate, like getting started, like building wealth. That's part of your podcast. So you started out with a simple house hack. Give the audience like your definition of what a house hack is. Yeah.

I can give you some background on here on how this came to be. So I was actually working for the 76ers. My background's in basketball. I was making a whopping $35,000 a year, which um I was living paycheck to paycheck if you if you didn't know.

We won't get into the ace Bailey yet too. Yeah, we can talk about all that stuff too.

Uh I I've kind of tuned them out and just go birds from now. So but so I had a boss there who was one of my mentors. He was great, he was awesome. Uh, and he's like, you know what? We can pay you a little bit more. We're gonna get you up to 40, 45. Wow, right. So, but he said, you know, another way for you to stay here longer, because he wanted me to stay, and I wanted to stay. He's like, you should buy a five-bedroom, four-bath, and rent out one some of the bedrooms to people that work here because they're all 23 to 25 year olds in the sales team. Yeah, and he was a real estate investor himself. And I was like, you know, that's interesting. I've never heard of that. I'm I was single at the time, and I didn't take his advice. He's like, We can't pay you more, but you can save more money. We can go figure it out. You can live off of more. He was really trying to get me to stay. And uh, and I love him for that. But so I didn't take his advice exactly, but I bought a three-bed, two bath, and I lived in one of the bedrooms, and I rented out the two bedrooms to friends. I brought them with me. We were paying $1,000 a month each in rent, and they were just like, hey, if I'm gonna pay this landlord, I might as well pay you. So my mortgage was $1,500. They paid $750 each, and I was able to live for free. For the first time ever, I was able to save money. I was living paycheck to paycheck. So I was able to save $1,000 a month. And to me, I was like, this is this is amazing. Like real estate's awesome. And then I allowed me to go buy a duplex in South Jersey for $125,000 that we can get into. Um, but that was what springboarded it. So house hacking to me is really like, hey, can you buy a three-bed, four-bed, live in one of the bedrooms, rent out the other bedrooms to offset your mortgage or at least reduce it to some degree? Or you buy a duplex if because we we tell people that are, you know, if you're engaged or you're married, or even if you have a kid, you can buy a duplex or triplex or quad and live in one of the units and rent out the other units to help offset your mortgage. And that was like, it was a lot easier when the interest rates were low to live for free or to make money while you're doing it. But now, think about it. If you live anywhere, if you buy a two-bedroom in Philadelphia or if you rent a two-bedroom in Philadelphia, you're paying $2,000. Can you maybe pay $700 or $800 to offset some of that? Delay gratification for a couple years because I hate to break it to people, but you cannot retire off a 401k anymore. It's just the average 401k balance, I made a reel about this, at 65 is $250,000. The 4% rule is $10, $10,000 a year. What are you going to do with that? So real estate was the way for me to get ahead of that while I still maintain my job. And that was really how it started.

Interesting. So I think you said you're 33, right? 33, yeah. So you're you're a millennial. And we've talked about this on our show before. The average age of a millennial buying their first home these days is about 38. So what I find interesting about that, like if you end up going to school, even if you go to trade school, if you're not buying your first house until you're 38, you've probably rented for anywhere between like 15 and 20 years. But what's interesting about what you did, and I kind of did this too, I did it at 24. The first place I bought, I was renting somewhere else prior to that. And I had buddies there. And I said, look, if I buy a house, would you would two of you want to come with me? Did the same exact thing. And again, you charge him fair rent, but you're looking at it in a way of like, I believe in owning real estate and sticking with it for as long as I can, whether that's five years or 50 years. And I think the reason I wanted to make that point is because unfortunately, your generation has been very stuck on renting. And again, there are some things like, you know, a lot of people in your generation went back for master's degrees, or they're just like, hey, I want to travel, or like, hey, I want to like go on vacation twice a year. Like, there's nothing wrong with any of that. But unfortunately, if you lose 15 or 20 years of your youth spending your money in rent, if you go did the math on that, what you paid someone else for those 15, 20 years, and the lost equity you could have had by owning real estate yourself. I mean, house hacking to me is one of the smartest ways, whether you're single, married, doesn't matter, to start building wealth at an early age.

It's the most simple way, and to me, it was the best way to get involved. You can get in as little as 3.5% down. So you can buy a $500,000 property. Yeah, with a $500,000 property with $20, $25,000. I mean, to me, to be able to control an asset that's $500,000, if you put $25,000 into the stock market, you're controlling $25,000. Right. If you put $25,000 into a $500,000 asset, the appreciation alone, $3%, $15,000 a year. I saying this off the top of my head because I just made some content about this. But I'm like, to me, house hacking was the single best decision I ever made, allowed me to save money for the first time ever, and then springboard into the next into the next thing. And you're right. Tim, like people are renting, and I think there's a couple good reasons to rent. If you're able to really increase your income and like you're able to make a shit ton of money, and you're able to if you live that entrepreneur nomadic lifestyle and you can go make a bunch of money and dump it into real estate on the side, sure. But for the average person, I really think that owning real estate, even if it's just a primary residence that you can pull a home equity line of credit from, you're gonna have hundreds of thousands dollars worth of equity that you can play with. And that's just simply by paying your loan down with principal pay down. So I I mean, it was the best decision I ever made, and I would recommend it to anyone. I don't care if you're 21 or if you're 55 getting in for the first time, if you can house hack. The key is you don't you need to think, hey, it's not about what I deserve, it's about delaying my gratification so that I know that I can live better in the future. Because everyone's like, oh, I want to 3500. Yeah, it's just like delayed gratification. Oh, I know. It's it's a big thing. And I've still doing it, by the way, probably to a degree that I don't need to anymore. But I'd rather be on that side of it than trying to catch up on the other side of like spent all my money.

We're in our mid 40s, we're still doing it. I'm 50. Right. But it's like the funny thing is that um I don't want anyone to feel like they're not enjoying their life to the fullest extent. Like, especially when you're young. Because when you're young, you have the energy, you have the health. A lot of people have the time. Maybe they're not tied down by relationships and things like that or family yet. And I would encourage anyone to go enjoy their life. But as you said, in a world where things just get more expensive, where sometimes a 401k won't cut it, it's smart to diversify your wealth, your your income, your how you want to live and how long you want to do that so that you can take those steps. And like that first house that I bought at 24, I ended up buying my second home with my wife, and we rehabbed that. We kept the first one as a full-blown rental. We've talked about this on the show. You still have that property today? I don't because now we're in a third property, which we shot for the moon on this house, but the number one priority was for our family. I have a young daughter, I have a dog. We just we both work out of the house. We wanted room, we wanted peace and quiet and a yard. And we had to sell both of our first two assets to get the one that we have now. But there's no way I would own the asset that I have today as my primary if I didn't buy those two assets in the way that I did and held on to both of them as long as I did.

I think Barbara Corcoran says this. She says, You can own the house on the hill or the house on the whatever that is, but you have to start out buying crappy homes first. And then you can trade up, play real life Monopoly. So the idea for me was to buy one property a year for 10 years. I didn't think I was gonna start a podcast. I didn't think I was gonna get to 80 plus units. By the way, we don't own all of those, just me and Ryan. But like, I didn't think I was gonna get to this point. But the the momentum that you build with the first one and the second one and say, I'm gonna hold on to this for 30 years. Well, maybe your return on equity gets a little bit low and then you want to trade up, but you can own the property and live the amazing life, but you have to buy the $125,000 duplex that nobody wants first. You don't have to, but that's the way I do it. It's a ladder.

Yeah, it's climbing the ladder, you know, different positions, different chapters going through it. First one allows you to get in the second, second, third, you know, taking the equity and and moving those pieces around. It's unlikely that I guess for some people they can just go right to that. Could but uh for the vast majority of people, it's positioning yourself financially, leveraging the equity, pulling all those levers to make it happen to get there.

100%. And that's why we've leaned on mentorship so much. It's because the what I found is I started listening to Bigger Pockets, and shout out to Bigger Pockets, they're great. But uh what I was doing is I was listening to people that had built a thousand units in 1997 or started then. So I was like, I just can't relate to I don't know how how did they do this, right? What I needed, what Ryan and I needed was somebody who was a few steps ahead of us to be like, hey, I got eight units, this is what you should do. And then there are so many questions that you have, and this the fear is what stops people from getting into real estate. I don't want to take calls at 2 a.m. I don't want to be fixing toilets. Well, you don't have to, but you don't know that if you don't talk to somebody who had right who's a cup a couple steps ahead who can kind of point you in the direction. So mentorship was huge for me in the beginning.

But isn't that like anything in life? Yeah, right? There's fear because you've never done it before. And I don't care if it's real estate investing or taking a new job opportunity or whatever it is. But if you're able to talk to someone and lean on someone that has done it and can give you that roadmap, it number one makes it so much easier. But the acceleration through that is it can get you there so much quicker.

I found that most people that are ahead of you want to lend their hand down and help you in any field, in any aspect of the world. It's a pay it forward kind of thing. Yep. And what the people that are talking shit on the internet or the people that are like negative are typically steps behind you. And they're they're just projecting their own fears upon you. But people that are ahead of you oftentimes, and I because I I'm at a point now where I want to help people because I know what it meant to me in the beginning. And I know how much that first or second property changed my life, and I genuinely care. I genuinely care about not having somebody be 65 and not be able to retire. And my dad is in that position and I love him to death. He was an entrepreneur his whole life, and he didn't have the exit that he thought. And now it fuels me because I'm like, he's fine, you shouldn't feel bad for my dad. But it's just that he can't, he didn't ride off into the sunset. And he's like, I still have to work. And I'm like, that's one, that's not gonna be me. What two, I'm gonna help you out, and three, I want to help other people out. And that's that's awesome, man. It's it's a fuel, yeah.

It's funny. So, like part of the when we started juice, yeah. When we uh when we started when we started this uh podcast, you know, what one of the three main reasons was was to to help people. And it's it's really is like you said, Corey, it's people have helped us, people have helped you, Sean, myself. And it's because we had the guts to ask and we were patient and open-minded enough to listen to what they had to say. As much as we were maybe young and dumb and thought we had the answers, we were still being like, Well, tell me what you did and why did you do that? And I think not enough people do that. What's great about the podcast uh medium now is most people have Spotify or Apple Music or whatever, even YouTube. YouTube's free. Everyone can get it on their phone. Android music, you know, if you're weird. Um, and basically you can listen to anything you want more or less for free. You can watch it for free on YouTube, and still there are people that just will bash you online. And again, there's nothing wrong with doing that because people sometimes need to vent. Like, I get it. But to your point, the people who are a lot of the people making these podcasts, you know, doing things, putting themselves out there on social media, Instagram, you know, whatever it is, LinkedIn. A lot of what fuels it is what you just said, what also fuels us. We're just we're just trying to help you, you know, hit a few less potholes than we did when we were your age or at your stage of your career. Right. And I've had so many people reach out to me since the podcast start and say, can I just like grab coffee with you? Can I just do like a 30-minute zoom? I wanted to run this by you. I'm like, a hundred percent. I'd love to just the fact that you even asked me makes me feel really good. And the fact that you want me to just help you get to where you're going next, is that's also reward a rewarding feeling.

Yeah. I I also think that if you, if Tim and Sean, if you have the tools and you have the skill set that is needed to help somebody build wealth, you're doing a disservice by not sharing it online and by not putting it on social and by not doing that, and you're you're gatekeeping that. So for people that are like, I don't want to brag on social media, it's like you're looking at it the wrong way, in my opinion. You're looking at it like through a lens of, hey, as soon as I put my message into the universe and started telling other people about it and just being like, hey, I'm a real estate investor. Before I was, we started our real our podcast when I had two units. Right. Who am I to talk about real estate to anybody? I just said, hopefully people will follow along the journey with me. Hopefully they'll want to hear what's happening with this property and maybe that'll relate to them, as opposed to being like, hey, I already have a hundred units. This is what I did 10 years ago. So I felt that I would be doing a disservice by not telling people what was going on because I know there are people that are asking these questions. And then you maybe take it to the next level with the in-person stuff or you know, mentorship.

But that is But to take it even one step further is if you have that mindset of I I have two units, right? The pool of people that you're able to help is actually way bigger than the guy who has 250 units. 100%. Yeah. Right? Because there's so many there's a hundred times the pool of people that I'd like to get started in real estate. I'd I'd like to make my first investment. And rather than the smaller pool. So so you're actually your ability to help people is way more at that level than the person who's way ahead.

I just think you have imposter syndrome at that level. But by the way, I have it now because now I'm in rooms with people who have who have dyed units this year. You know, like, what are you talking about? And they don't talk down to me, but they're saying, like, this problem isn't a problem because I've already dealt with this problem. And then you level up and it's never-ending like looking up the mountain thing. But I think that as long as you're celebrating the wins along the way, and that's where the delay gratification gets to like, oh no, I can I can go on a vacation, like I can celebrate this, I can buy the car that I wanted to if you take those marks along the way. But yes, I totally agree, Sean. Like helping people when you're at three units, that's the person you actually want to talk to when you're starting out, or the person that has seen what you're looking to do and is willing to help. I mean, to me, it's I I've just real estate's a people business. It's not a it's not numbers, it's not doors, it's not, it's people. Well, yeah. A little bit. It's both.

Yeah.

All right. So I got one for you. So for biggest struggle, you guys had said building great teams and trusting the right people within partnerships. And you had mentioned, you said before, I think it was pre-show, that um you don't own all of your units, just the two of you, that you're in partnerships. So why has trusting the right people been a struggle through your journey?

I think that you have to get to a point where you can have honest conversations with yourself and with um people that you're looking to partner with. And because we mentioned the benefits of social media, but there are sharks out there, you know, or what's the word, something, you know, devil in angel's clothing or whatever. And there's people out there that will take advantage of you. So you have to find the people that are the real ones. And by having a podcast and uh amplifying other people's voices, we're being able to essentially date people over a two-year period and be like, hey, like, let's meet your family, let's, let's, let's meet in person, let's do 15 zooms a year, let's really get to know this person so that when we ran out of money, which every single investor does, we ran out of money at like eight units ourselves, and we're like, how do we how do I grow this faster? There's a couple of ways to do it. And for us, the best way for us to do it was to meet people organically who are a few steps ahead of us on our podcast. And then what where could we fill the void in their in their business? And for us, it was investor relations, raising capital, underwriting, marketing, and helping them bring the people into the deals and their operators on the ground. So we were able to get general partnership stakes in an 18 unit, um, a 43 unit, most recently a 10 unit, and they're out of state, they're not in Pennsylvania or Philadelphia or Jersey where we started, but because of the relationships that we've built, the reason why it's been a struggle is because there's shiny object syndrome every single day. And there's this thing that can make you money, and there's Amazon and that like you know, it's all it's flooding to you because if you're looking to build wealth, you're drowning in opportunity. Exactly. And the Alex Ramosy says this the most important skill set that you have once you get become an entrepreneur is the ability to say no and know when to say no. So that has been the biggest challenge is like this person's not a good fit for us, even though the opportunity is great and I can make X amount of money, it doesn't matter. I'm this is taking me away from this thing that's aligned with what I really want to do and who I really want to be. But finding that took seven years, like I didn't just happen overnight because when you're young, you should just try everything within reason. But try a bunch of things to see how it works, see what you like. Jump off a cliff without a parachute. Exactly. Well that that might be a little bit of a risk. Yeah, I kind of like to say jump 85% of the way down, you build it. But it's yeah, it's the thing is you don't want to get stuck not taking action. So if there's a balance. But talk to people who have done it before you. That's the biggest thing.

I saw a post the other day it said, sugar and salt look identical. Choose wisely.

And it was like sometimes you just don't know. That's some moony wisdom right here. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you don't know. And and the hardest thing about that is I think the fear of failure is like, or the fear of losing money. Contact will be made in this sport. Like that's how it's going to work. So you have to kind of expect that you're going to take bumps and bruises. As long as your first deal, you don't lose everything that you have, you will be fine. And that's the biggest thing. So about education too, right?

Even your losses, you're you're almost paying for the education of the process of the know-how of how the deal's put together. Or like maybe it it cost you uh $12,000, but that lesson that you can now avoid in the future may cost, may save you $50,000 or $100,000. That's like two weeks of college these days.

I have an example just based on pretty much what you just said. I mean, Ryan and I had a duplex in South Jersey. We uh we had Section 8 tenants, they were great tenants, they were awesome.

What town in what town in Jersey?

Siclarville. We had property in Sicklerville. One City Siclerville.

I actually sold a property in Siclerville last year.

Yeah. And it was a nice town. Probably like a C plus neighborhood, working class, but everyone was very friendly. We just put in $9,000 worth of new flooring because the Section 8 office said, hey, actually, these need to be half inch instead of, or they need to be three quarter inch instead of half inch, whatever it might be. Two weeks later, the property burned down. Now it wasn't, it was the property next door that got caught on fire and it went over to the city. They were attached. Gotcha. Our our tenants got out fine, everyone was safe, but we took a $9,000 hit and it ended up working out. We had insurance, as you would know. Like it ended up being fine, but that sort of thing can stop somebody in their tracks if they don't know who to go to. Like, oh, real estate sucks. There's no, what am I doing? Why did I do this? Yeah, exactly. It's like this is gonna happen every time I invest in real estate burn. Yeah. So I say, like, were we crying about the $9,000 hit? Maybe for 10 minutes, right? But then it's like, okay, like this is this is what happens in this game. And as long as you're committing yourself to playing it for long enough, it's hard to lose in real estate. If you if you stay in long enough, it's hard to lose.

It is. It's uh I've even said this about being a real estate agent because we were talking about this briefly. Um, and I say this to new agents all the time. Time is your friend. So the longer you're a real estate agent, the easier it gets. Now, again, it's either going to be easy because you're more of a farmer, you've built relationships, and those relationships just continue to bear fruit over the years, or you're a hunter and you just get better at hunting as you get, you know, 10, 20 years in. No matter which way you look at it, the longer you do it, uh, the better, the easier it gets, the more money you'll make, and the more convinced you'll be that this is what you're probably gonna do for the rest of your career. The ones who do it for five years or less, which happens to be 87% of people get licensed, they don't give it enough runway. They give it a year, they give it three years, they're like, I should be making a hundred thousand dollars. It's like, no, you shouldn't. And if you are, then you either got rich family members who just fed you something, or you got a team member, you know, running you ragged, and then you're just giving away half of the money you're bringing in. Now, there's nothing wrong with either of those, but it's not that common. And a lot of people just join a team, you'll make all this money. No, you won't, because if your head is not in the right spot and you understand that this is a marathon, not a sprint, you're gonna fail out in five years or less, just like almost 90% of people. And the investment and the development is no different. Like even owning your first house, like that first property we were that we're talking about that I bought at 24, I owned for 17 years. People were like, How did you how did you sell that? Because I stuck with it. Like I never I had to put money into it every time it turned over. There's a rental for nine of those 17, and I had four or five different tenants. So every time they leave, put a couple grand in and then spend time and money finding the new ones, and then they come in and it's up and then it's down and it's up. So what you're doing is no different than what Sean's doing or what I'm doing. It's mindset. And if you're patient and you want it bad enough, and you're committed to your mission, like where you want to go, I mean, no matter what you're doing, any of the three things that we're doing, it will get better and it probably will turn into a career.

Yeah, and Tim, I think most people focus on cash flow, and that's what they think about. Like, this is gonna allow me to escape from my nine to five. Like, I hate my life, I hate my job, I want to get out of it. Real estate's the savior. Well, it could be if you have a really good system, but here's the problem is that cash flow is probably the least important metric in real estate. Now, when I say least important, I mean it's important to play defense and hold on to these properties as long as you possibly can. But it's not the thing that's gonna make you extremely wealthy. Principal pay down alone is gonna make you extreme appreciation and building that equity. Like, for example, my second property I bought, $125,000 duplex, cash flowed $300 a month. I wasn't leaving my job over $300 a month. But what it taught me is that I was able to, I inherited tenants, I did everything wrong, I didn't know what I was doing, and I fixed up some bathrooms. There were problems all over the place. Three years later, I sold it for $100K profit. And I was like, That's amazing. Hmm, $33,000 a year. Can I save that in my job? I couldn't save that in my job. So I was then I moved that. I own a property in Tampa, Florida. I moved that into a short-term rental that I'm able to go visit, the lifestyle play a little bit. That cash flows $1,000 a month and has is a higher price point property, so it appreciates more and like move the equity. So now if I sell that property, I might have $400,000 worth of equity. It can move it into something else. But it started with the $125,000 duplex that I was getting texts from the tenants on flip phones that it was raining inside my house. And I had to go through those days of like, this is terrible. Like, what am I doing? Like, why am I dealing with this? I didn't have any systems, I didn't have any processes. But I think the cash flow is what people get hung up on. And I want a property that's gonna cash flow $800 a month, they won. It's probably possible. I that's not the metric that we look at. I mean, like, I think if you can find a property that cash flows $200 to $300 a door, that's good, I think. You know, on a long-term rental. But that cash flow at two to three hundred is gonna be six or seven hundred five years later because rent's gonna go up, you're gonna stabilize it. Um, but it's again back to delaying gratification and knowing that, hey, if you buy five properties over a 10-year time frame, you're gonna retire a multimillionaire. Yep. Period. Unless you're buying $50,000 properties.

But it doesn't, and and to that equation, it doesn't matter, like literally doesn't matter where the house is, what the price point is. If you have five properties, you're gonna have a million dollars.

At least and the thing is, is you could do something as simple as buy, let's say you're 30 years old, and uh, I'm gonna buy five properties between now and when I'm 40. When you're 40 years old, even if you dump two of those, you take out a couple hundred thousand dollars in equity and you put that into index funds, by the time you're 60, that's gonna be close to a million, like you're in a position where you can make it more passive later. Right. Real estate is not a hundred percent passive. I have I have properties that are more passive than others. Yep. But I think it's the understanding of getting into it, like you have to treat it like a business. And if you're the one taking calls at 2 a.m. and you're going over there and you're fixing things, you're buying yourself another job, which most people, the best way to do it is get really, really good at your job. Yep. Do this on the side as long as you possibly can, and then maybe one day you decide to flip the switch and go full time, but not until you have like a really good base and you understand the game.

Hey everyone, this is Tim, your favorite bricks and risk co-host. But don't tell Sean. I hope you're enjoying this episode, and I'll get right back to it in a moment. Our audience grows through word of mouth, so if you would please take a moment of your time and give us a review on the platform you're on, that would be fantastic. Please also help spread the BR word by sharing your favorite episode with a friend. We greatly appreciate your time and trust. Now, back to the show. All right, this is a good pivot because you had talked about you didn't even stop your full-time job until the end of last year. Um, what were you doing while you've been building your investments in real estate? What was your job? So I worked, uh, I mentioned my dad earlier.

I worked for our family's business that he um actually had to close down. Um I won't get into the details of it, but I worked there for seven, six years, um, and I was in sales, business development, and I learned a lot about family business, which some good, some bad, some ugly. I love my family to death. But there were some things I didn't like about it. I wasn't, I was the third generation. I knew I wasn't gonna take it over. Typically, the third generation ruins businesses, so I guess I I kind of fit in that bill there. Dump the shark. Yeah. So um, but I worked in sales and I learned people, I learned negotiation, I learned how to communicate, how to make eye contact, how to like all these like little nuances that kind of business was it? It was signage. So we'd made signage for hospitals, education institutions, yeah. And it was it was making the signs, like actually fabricating them, cutting them. Yeah. So it's a you're in the construction world, it's manufacturing. It was they've been doing it for 60 years. Wow. So kudos to them for being able to have a business for 60 years. I mean, like that through from 1962 to now, like what how much has changed? Uh uh just about everything. So I did that for a long time, and that was when Ryan I, in 2020, COVID hit, uh, April 2020. I remember sitting in my house and I'm thinking, like, I'm not gonna do nothing. I don't know what's gonna happen right now. So we're gonna start this podcast. We had three, two to three units, I forget which podcast, social media platform that went along with it, and Ryan and I started buying real estate together. Those first two deals were on my own. He said, I want in, let's do this together. Um, so we built up to that like eight, nine units. Still not enough to leave my job at all. But what changed things is once we started partnering with other people, getting into larger deals, the cash flow started to increase, the equity started to increase. And then the leaving the job was hey, I want to start a mentorship program to teach other people how to do this, and I'm gonna use that income plus my real estate income to fund my life and grow that as big as I can. So I don't know if I totally answered your question there. No, you did.

No, it's that's I mean, I love that story. So you got entrepreneurialism, entrepreneurialism in your blood. Yeah. Um, how did you and Ryan meet? Like, what's what's the backstory there?

So I mentioned to you I was walking up on the elevator, um, I went to Temple University. Yeah, uh, Ryan and I met there. We were in a fraternity together, and I just something about him, I was just like, I think there's something here. I don't know we were gonna be partners.

Like we both like to funnel beers. Yeah, yeah.

You know, we like to party on the weekends. Yeah. But we yeah, those were those days were a little different than now. Sometimes I miss them, sometimes I'm like, I'm glad we're gonna have to. What fraternity was it? Uh Kappa Sigma. Okay. Not even there at Temple University. We were in the same fraternity at LaSalle University. Okay, cool. Yeah, I know Temple and LaSalle are known for like big fraternities, right? So somewhere like Alabama and Georgia, right? Yeah. But they they were fun either way. Like I had a great time. I met so many good friends. Um, so we met there, we we lived together after uh school, and we ended up working for the same company and coming home from a nine to five, just like, is this it? Is this like what we went to school for? Like, is this the now? I know I have to do it because I gotta build income, but like is this like the thing? So we kind of just cracked heads and decided we're gonna do this together. And he's been my business partner for five plus six years, and it's been the best decision I ever made to have somebody to bounce ideas off of, somebody that I can know like and trust that has my back over any monetary value that we ever bring in. It's me and him, and I I care about him and his wife and his daughter more than I do about any amount of money that we make. And I think people have always said partnerships are bad. Don't go into partnerships. You lose your shirt. For me, I've seen nothing but um prosperity from it because I I have bad days and he has bad days, as long as we're not both bad days together on the same day, things are pretty good.

Yeah, you pick you pick the other one up when the other one's down. Yeah. Well, it's the alignment. That's the beauty of a partnership.

Partnerships can be horrendous, they can be terrible. But if you can find that person that uh you can align with that has the identical vision, I think that's the key component, right? Because if you have one person that wants to go this way and one person that wants it'll at some point you're just destined to the fork's gonna split you both. It's gonna it's gonna it's gonna come undone. But it but if it's like a parallel line where your vision is right there and you're both heading toward it and and you're able to just push everything else aside, I think that's where it's best.

I think that most people tell you that partnerships are best suited when you have um complementary skill sets. Yeah, but I don't know if that's as true as what you just said with the vision. I think the vision is more important than the complementary skill sets because you can you can bring people into your business that can funnel in to have complementary skill sets. But if you guys are aligned, you guys, gals, whatever, if you're aligned together and through the ups and downs of life and marriage and kids and all of these things, if you're aligned, then I think you can win at any level, even if Ryan and I are both, which we are, we're both outwardly extrovert, but he's adopted the integrator. And I that's I would there's no way I could do any of that stuff.

I've got EOS traction guys, a little bit, you know. So I I functioned off that for my my brokerage.

Yeah, and I I like that aspect. So he's been the integrator, I've been the but that didn't happen for years. It was the vision that carried us to the point where now we can delegate. So I think people's lives are gonna change. Right now, like we're we're basically married, you know? So it's like to to divorce that, we would have to have something major happen that would shift us in an opposite direction. And so far, we've been able to handle any bumps in the road. Um, and I think it's the best decision. You can go further together.

So I think it's the best decision that but you have to make sure you curveball at him, like to tell like so in your mind, you're like, oh, we're a line. We're gonna like is there ever a scenario where you're like, put Ryan on his heels? Yeah, like let me see how he responds to this to see if we're every single day when I wake up.

That's what I yeah. That's true. Yeah, that's definitely true of a partnership. Yeah, I think it's it's like we're we're brothers, so it's like it's beyond that at this point, I think. But it's no, it's uh we joke with each other, and I've I've told him recently, I was like, dude, we need to like we just went down. I mentioned we went down to Florida, uh, because uh I stayed in my place, we were on some podcasts, we did some work down there, and I got to enjoy like our friendship again. And sometimes that gets a little blinding. Like it's Barry, yeah.

It's like remember like two years ago all the time.

Yeah. When we went and did this. I think that's why it's like, dude, we got a vacation together, and he's like, Yeah, well, I know. I see every day. I'm like, but when we do it, it's like, oh shh, like this is what we're like, we're actually friends before business partners.

It brings it all back to like kind of like what what bonded us to begin with, exactly. And and obviously being able to like take a step back and say, like, like, look what we've already accomplished together. Let's take a weekend or a week to enjoy that without worrying about what's what's the next marketing tactic? What what do the numbers look like? You know, where's the next deal? Where's the next partnership? Like, you got to turn it off. That will forever be there. Yeah.

Forever. And I I've gotten a little bit better recently of like taking a look behind in the rearview mirror and saying, like, myself today would be ecstatic five years ago if I knew that I could get to this point. Ecstatic, even though my mountaintop has now moved and I have a false summit of like, oh, uh, once I become a millionaire, like I'm gonna feel this way, or once I become like that's not true. And I can tell you firsthand, but I I will say that if you're able to turn around and look back and enjoy and delay gratification to a point, but then enjoy the future fruits of your labor when it's like, hey, I can take some days off. Like I've built this life that has allowed me to do this, like enjoy it. Because, dude, I could walk outside and get smoked by a bus. So you have to remember that too. It's all a balance, and I think that's probably the entrepreneurial conundrum that most people suffer with is that in order to press forward and build a business, you have to always be on. And then I hang out with my fiance and I'm like, man, if I could just do this more often, like she keeps me grounded and she's more into like the you know, we this is finite. So that's the hardest challenge that I probably have. But I think the older you get, the more you spend time with family and you realize that like, hey, like, it's not like 20 years left I have with my parents, it's like 57 times seeing them left. Right. Or whatever that is. 122, whatever. Like, you're like, oh, like, all right, I really want to grind, I want to grind as as hard as I can to build a business that allows me the time freedom to do what I want. Money is a byproduct, and I don't need to I don't need a Bentley. Like it just doesn't like I it sounds cool, and like maybe if I have an unbelievable amount of income at some point I will, but it's all a balance. So I know I went a little off the side there. That was awesome.

I was like cousin Sid. We were on the beach one day, and he said, you know, like cousin Sid. Sid. Yeah. Um Sid Mooney? No, Sid Hodgson. Okay. Um, but it was when you have your children, you have like from birth until like 14 or so. So you have like give or take 15, 16. 14, yeah. 14 summers with your children. And like to make an impact, right? Or like to have that time child time. Because 15, 16, they don't want anything to do with you, they're gone, or you know, doing that.

Yes, yeah.

But like during that, so so like you have that finite amount of summers to enjoy that time with your children, and then it's gone. Yeah. And so like approaching it from that perspective just really kind of changes your mindset of yeah, how you both have kids?

You said you do. Do you have kids? Yeah, I have one, but he's got three. He's he's in that boy.

Oh, you're in the in the mix. I don't have kids yet, but I learn them through other people. Like, I'm I'm 33, just got engaged, like that's coming. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Um, but I I've learned through other people that that I'm watching them, their entire perspective of life change. So it's um, I agree with you 100%. Though you have 14 summers to I I now I'm getting the algorithm on Instagram that's like uh, you know, like the spending this time with your kids, like how precious it is from two to five or whatever that is. Just like that's when they really, really love you and want to be with you. And it's just um you know, you take bits and pieces from people that you've uh that you aspire to be like, and that's how I'm trying to live my life.

Do you know what it is? It's like this all brings me back to just like an overarching theme of like being present. And if you go too fast or you think too far ahead, you're probably gonna get burned somewhere, personally or professionally. Doesn't matter. If you go too slow and you let fear dictate you know how fast you could go if you really wanted to, then you're gonna live with regret. So I think at the end of the day, like all these things are seasons of life, stages of life, and it really is about enjoying it. Like there are gonna be things that you will miss, like a kid's sporting event or a play or God forbid, a birthday party or a holiday you got to work. Like, you know, my mom was a nurse for over 40 years and she missed holidays. Like that's what she signed up for. But my mom was always present. So you look at as like as much as I can't be there, or when this for when we have uh, you know, Christmas lunch or whatever, I was still there in the morning when my kids opened their presents, and I'm still gonna see them before they go to bed on Christmas Day.

I have a good framework that can help people with this. I think um the thing that is I'm fully addicted to my phone, and I'll I'll be the first one to admit that. I think what I've told my fiance and what I've told like people in my life is that like I have time block and I have periods where I'm like all in on this. And then it doesn't have to be the holiday or something specific, but it's like when I'm with you, i.e., like we're in this room together, I put my phone aside. If I put my phone into another room and I'm here and we're in this conversation, there's nothing else that I'm more focused on than this. So I can do that at periods of my day. When I go to the gym, don't talk to me. I'm at the gym. Like I'm focused on this thing. When I'm at family dinner, my phone is not even within reach or in sight because I will be like squirrel, like on it, you know? And I think maybe it's Apple does that by design. I'm sure they do. But the thing is, is like you can do it in little moments as well. It's like uh you don't have to save up for the weekends, but like if you can remove yourself or time block and put yourself in a scenario where, like, hey, these next six hours, like I'm gonna be dialed into my work, and then at lunch or at dinner, like I won't even look at it, and I'll get back to it and it can wait. And I have trouble with that, like saying it can wait, because as this type A personality, it's like and I'm sure a lot of people listening have it too. It's like you kind of feel like you always have to be on, but um years go by yeah if you do it that way. Years go by and you turn around, you're like, How did I what what happened? Did I even did I even enjoy the process of getting to the point that I wanted to be, or is it just a blur? And I I'm trying to avoid that, and it's not easy. It's a good outlook. Yeah. Let's get into the podcast. I want to hear more about the podcast.

Yeah, and also want to hear a little bit about the coaching program, too. So talk about the podcast. You've been doing it for like five years now. It's called Wealth Juice, and then kind of talk about how it's kind of become like a community and like coaching and everything you guys are doing now.

Well, you mentioned earlier, Tim, that people were asking you to get coffee and they're asking to pick your brain. And I love that. I love doing that. But it got to a point with me where I was like, hmm, I wonder if I could synthesize. This information for people so that one, I didn't have to spend all this time out of my day just giving away value, like maybe that they could come to a hub and find this stuff. So we started it as an a way to just document our journey. The podcast was like, hey, we're just documenting what we're doing. Come listen along if you want the steps in the journey that we're taking. Maybe it'll help you. Episode 30 20 is when we started to have some guests on. And Chad Carson, who you mentioned before pre-recording, he's an investor in Tennessee. He played college football. He's somebody that we looked up to, and he's like, Yeah, I'll come on your show. Like, nice. Uh, and he at the end of the show, he goes, You guys are pretty good at this. Like, and I that's all I needed. And then episode 50, we had David Green on, and he said the same thing. And I was like, Oh, like maybe we have something here. And you're like, That's right. Uh we know what's going on. I was like, maybe we have something here. So then that was a fuel that we needed to not stop. So we used to do one podcast episode a week, and now we're at two a week. Um Wow, you guys do two a week. Two a week. And uh so every Wednesday and Saturday it comes out. It's either Ryan and I talking about this place that we're at in our business or bringing on a get an expert guest. And then people started to say, hey guys, is there another layer to this? Like, could you actually help me in my journey? I've been listening to your podcast for years, but I actually haven't bought that first deal yet. Or maybe I'm on deal two, but I really want to get to deal three or four. What we've been able to help people do is go, if you're looking to buy your first or next rental property in the next three to six months and you have the dollars or you're have a way to get the dollars and you have the right mindset, we can help hand hold you to get there. If you have seven properties or 31 properties, you want to get to 100, there's somebody else that can help you. Like I, but I know I can help you get started. And once you get started, hopefully we build a relationship enough that you want me in your corner. And that's really what it is like a confidant of somebody that's like, this person's done it. They care genuinely about me. And that's where our mentorship program started. So it's like if you're if you're in the beginning stages of your game and you want someone to kind of just steer the boat for you and give you a roadmap to help you achieve your goals, that's where the mentorship started. We started it in August. Um, and it's like what I focus most of my days on now is trying to help people see the light of what we saw in the beginning because I went without mentorship for a couple years, and I would be a lot further along if I had it. Um I just remember once I had it, how much those people impacted me. And then I got to see them happy about them helping somebody else. So there's an unselfish slash selfish part of this as well. It's like that person got to be like, yeah, I made an impact on Corey and Ryan. And um, so the podcast is like free. Come listen to our podcast, and then the mentorship's like, hey, do I want to, I want, do I want to layer deeper? And that's how we provide that. That's awesome, man.

And is the mentorship, is it them coming? Is it like more like you building the class as to like here are the steps, or is it more individuals coming to you saying, This is what I have, how do I get through this?

And you give me one-on-one to like go over my situation. It's both. It's both. So what we do is we have like an entire outline roadmap course, if you will. I don't like to call it a course because that gets kind of like you have some structure. Yeah, we have structure of like, hey, these are the seven things you need to do to start. Okay. Once you go do them, you talk to our lender, you start an LLC, you do these things. Then it's every single week we meet uh in a small group setting and we're helping people move the ball down the field in different areas. And it depends on your goals. Like, what are you looking to do? Are you looking to buy, hey, I want to get out of my job in five years? Is it a different strategy than hey, I I want to um, I want to buy short-term rental, or I want to buy something that I can go visit with my family, or I want to do this on the side. I like my job. I want to do this on the side for several years and build another stream of income that I can help, you know, I can retire on one day. So it depends on your goals, but basically it's structured to a point where uh we have these modules and these steps, and then we actually hand hold you through the process as you have questions as it comes up. And we've helped dozens of people get their first or next rental property, and then as a byproduct, they want to stay and hang around with us. And so once you're in the community you're in, um, for as long as you'd like to be. And then we just look at it as like the next phase of this is gonna be in person, and that's when the real relationships start to like really blossom. And people have partnered on deals in this community too. That's like the best part about that's awesome.

Yeah, you're build you're building community and they're building their own relationships.

Yeah, it's like you want one, you want to get two or three and you want to get two or three, yeah, and putting them together, that's cool.

Yeah, that's where, and it's really rewarding to watch people like go through this process and just be like, oh, I've I didn't know how to do this before, and now you guys have helped me. And and the other thing is people have partnered in our deals on it, and that was just that wasn't the intention, but they're like busy professionals that are working long hours that have cash set aside, and they're like, I bought this first rental property, this is great, but I also have this cash sitting on the side. Maybe you guys can help me put it to work, right? And then there's a good ecosystem in there that's and it's fun.

I love doing it, dude. Incredible conversation. So before we shut this one down, why don't you tell our watchers and listeners more about you and everything that can learn about what you got going on?

Yeah. Um, so you can follow Ryan and I. The place that we're most active is uh is Instagram, and it's at wealth juice official or one word on Instagram. Um and we post content every single day, and that's whether it's teaching you how to buy your first and next rental property, motivation, some we're trying to throw some humor in there as well to keep it engaging. So that is where you can find us. The Wealth Juice podcast is twice a week. Uh, wherever you listen to podcasts, you can come listen to us there. Um, and then if you want to, the next layer, if you like want the the fast track, if you will, shoot us a DM on Instagram. That's how we communicate with everyone. Uh, but that's the best way for you know for people to get in touch with us, and we hope we can help you, even if you just follow along from a distance, just like to add to uh just keep adding value to people's lives. We appreciate you, Corey. Thanks for thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it.

That's all we have for this one, folks. Thank you for tuning in again to another episode of Bricks and Risk. See you next week. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and Risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets, and we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today. You can find all BR episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content. Until next time, keep learning and keep growing.