How To Leverage Turnkey Real Estate Investments To Increase Cash Flow with Jason Hartman

What's up, fastlanders? Welcome to Freedom fastlane. Today we're with the king of cash flow, Jason Hartman. What's up, Jason?

Hey, Ryan.

Good to have you.

Dude, this guy is hilarious. Do you know that? He's got a good sense of humor.

He's saying that because Jason has spent all day here in my house. Here in my apartment.

I'm getting punchy. I gotta get out of this house.

And he's been trying to convert me over to using.

Here we go again.

He's the king of seven hour hacks, which means he spends seven hours learning how to save 20 minutes. It's the most bizarre way of time management ever. But the reason he's able to do this is because he has cash flow coming from all these different sources. He has. What is it, like, 300 rental properties has millions of dollars flowing in passively. So he has nothing to do with this time except learn new iPhone apps that don't make any sense at all. So today I want to find out how we can make so much cash flow that you will waste all of your.

First of all, if it was only half as good as Ryan said, it would be phenomenal. It's not that good.

Your primary mode of making money is real estate, Correct?

Real estate in the business side of it, doing it for clients, helping them invest.

That's your primary source of cash flow.

Oh, for income. Yeah. Business trumps actual investments.

Okay, tell me about that.

Because you need way more capital to have investments.

But you do have hundreds of units that have passive cash flow and that are appreciating in value, right?

Hopefully they're appreciating in value still. Yes, but you make capital improvements to them. Like, for example, one that I bought a mobile home park a couple years ago with a client of mine, and we just upgraded and made this. It's on water, so we made this beautiful beach and front mobile homes. Yeah, it's pretty swanky. You ought to check it out. Maybe you can come there for a weekend sometime and, you know, get on your trailer trash costume and you'd love it.

I have no idea what to do with that comment.

So why does he make me laugh so much?

It's the beard.

It's the deadpan, like, face. And then he says the weirdest things like, you have an irrational hatred for Voxer.

Voxer.

I don't get it.

Okay. No, I don't have it. Context. Jason Hartman is obsessed with this iPhone app called Voxer, which you spend two hours figuring out how to use, and then you Realize it's a text messaging app. You can send text messages to people. It's the most amazing thing.

He actually. His email.

I think I just need to eat lunch. I'm getting really punchy.

Email autoresponder. If you send him an email, says, don't send me email, send me a voxer.

What in the world?

What is. You have so much time on your hands because you have so much passive cash flow.

Hilarious.

What is the business side of it? Of real estate? You said?

So the business side is basically, I stop laughing.

Bring it in the business. This is no laughing matter.

Your videographer wanted to do this. With the bar as the backdrop. We should tell people we're not drinking.

It looks like you spent too much time at the bar.

My house. No. So basically, financial services firm for real estate investors. We apply financial planning principles to the most historically proven asset class. Real estate. I actually said that seriously, without laughing.

That was pretty good work. I'm very proud of you.

Yeah. And then, of course, I invest for my own portfolio. But I started that business because I was going around the country in 2004 looking at these different real estate markets, and it was so freaking difficult to find anyone to help me. I was flying here, there, and the other place. I'd research all these markets. I'd try and work with realtors, work with developers, and buy properties. And it was. It was just such a headache. I couldn't believe it. And I thought there got to be other people who want to invest from a nationwide perspective that want someone to make this easy for them. So typical entrepreneur find a need and fill it, usually out of one's own frustration.

So where do you actually make your money in the business? Is it from the selling of property? From the. Okay, cool. So you basically sell the turnkey solutions to investors.

So we started doing that mostly with live seminars and events in my hometown back then of Orange County, California. So we had an office in Newport Beach. We do live events. And then I started a small radio show that was on a AM radio station there. It wasn't that great, you know, not that good an audience. But then I discovered podcasting, and I started podcasting in 2005, I guess, and that's something that after a while of doing, it really took off. And one of the things we've talked about before, Ryan, is this concept of personal brand, Right. A lot of people want to develop a personal brand, and they think that's an end in and of itself. But you teach, and I think rightfully so, that the personal brand is just a means to an end. And maybe you want to elaborate on that.

Well, I think that most people think it's really sexy to have a personal brand. And the people that I have studied, both of us included, that actually have successful personal brands do it to support some other business. To make yourself the actual business, I think is a quick way to get stressed out, burnt out and broke because selling yourself, I think has diminishing returns because you have to be the business. But it can be an asset that supports what the actual business is. So for me, I develop physical products brands and I invest. And having a personal brand gives me access to deal flow. The reason that we do the tribe in the first place is because I teach a model. I then sometimes invest with our students and because the platform I have, I can actually make those businesses grow so I'm able to speed up my wealth generation process faster. Gary Vee is the exact same way. VaynerMedia probably would not be $100 million a year agency if it wasn't for.

Gary's, wasn't for Gary's fans and his awesome speeches and videos that he does.

It would probably still be successful, but it probably wouldn't be.

It'd be like a traditional PR firm or ad agency.

And knowing Gary, he would be super successful at it. But it definitely gives him the leverage to be able to close and serve as a case study. This is what we can do. And it's the same thing with me. Because of my authority on the topic, we're able to acquire certain types of brands or able to grow them. I'm networked with people who can open up opportunities for myself and our clients. So I think it's a mistake to just have a personal brand. To have a personal brand. What is that?

Overall, it's a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Now, the interesting thing about Ryan is that you're very successful at a very young age. You're doing an awesome job with all this stuff and I love how we're actually being serious here For a moment. We got off the laugh track and. But imagine how much more successful you could be if you'd use Voxer.

What do you think?

I'm not even going to address that.

Are you going to edit that out?

Probably.

Voxerator. Even the videographers laugh.

Jason, where do you think we are in the market cycle? In the real estate.

In the real estate market cycle? So I divide, as you know, in my teachings, the real estate market into three basic types of markets. And this Applies all over the planet. It's not just in the US Linear markets, cyclical markets and hybrid markets. And the linear markets are the boring ones that don't make the news. They sort of chug along and just appreciate slowly. The cyclical markets are the ones you hear about all the time. They're the west coast, they're the Northeast, they're South Florida. Those expensive markets that are in the news constantly because they're reaching incredible highs. And when they crash, they have really ugly lows. So it's the roller coaster ride pattern. And then the hybrid markets like Austin, Texas, where we are sitting now, is more of a hybrid market. It's becoming more cyclical though, I think, because Austin has obviously been a very popular destination for the last 15, 20 years. It's getting more and more crowded. And so these markets act differently. So you can't just talk about the national real estate market or the housing market as if it's one single entity. In a country as large and diverse as the United States, There are about 400 local markets divided into those three categories. Applies around the world as well. So the question is, how do you know what type of market you're in? Well, you know, by the rent to value ratio. That's a very reliable indicator of knowing where you are. Right? So if you want to know where you are on a map, you know, nowadays we use gps. It's a great tool, right? Well, the simple rent to value ratio, or RV ratio for short, can tell you what kind of market you're in. So if you're getting our target RV or rent to value ratio of somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% per month, meaning 1% of the value of that property, the current value, not what you paid for it 20 years ago. Okay? It's the rent to value ratio. If you're getting 1% per month, you are in a good linear market, okay? A conservative market that just has the sort of chug along type pattern.

So the numbers on that would be.

$120,000 house renting for 1,200 bucks or somewhere in that range, give or take a little bit. A cyclical market on the other end of the spectrum, hybrid, of course, is in between the two. Cyclical market is like Los Angeles, California, where I'm from, my original hometown, growing up in LA. A million dollar house rents for $4,500 a month. Okay, that's less than half a percent, and maybe it rents for even less than that. And so that is a very cyclical market. So to answer your question, in A very long way. Where are we now in the cyclical markets? Those markets are way past the point of fundamentals. They are overvalued. There's no question. They're into bubble territory. Problem is, how long can you blow a bubble up before it pops? Nobody knows. Not even the Federal Reserve that has more information than anybody. Janet Yellen at the Fed should know exactly where we are in the cycle. And if they knew exactly where we were in the cycle, they could manage the money supply and the fiscal policy and the monetary policy. Well, they don't manage fiscal, just monetary. To control the market and even out the big ups and downs and the recessions. But they don't. Right. Because they don't know either. Nobody really knows.

So how are you investing and how are you advising for people to invest right now?

The older I get, the more conservative I get, and I think that's true of most people. You realize you just don't want to go through the trouble of earning that money all over again.

When you don't respect money enough, when it comes too easily, you kind of blow it. You're not as careful with it. And, you know, just look at Hollywood for examples of this. Right. Amazing how celebrities or NFL players that make all this money go bankrupt like you. You wonder how is that possible? Right. But I just like the. The conservative linear market. So basically I invest in three things. Linear market, cash flow properties, simple real estate, like that, income properties. And then I do some hard money lending, which is not as good, but it's simple and I like the simplicity of it. The returns are lower, though. And then business, you know, I invest in my own businesses and I want to become better at angel investing, investing in other people's businesses.

And do you have like a total. Either a total goal or a total strategy that is leading that focus, or is it just about maximizing the opportunities that are in front of you?

I don't think I have as clear an overall strategy as you do yours. Anybody could say it publicly. I want to own the Cleveland Indians. Right. You have a very nicely defined plan, and I love it. I mean, your vision's great like that, but the personal brand feeds into the real estate brokerage business, which is essentially a referral network. And that's my most profitable business. And then that allows me to do more personal investing and to do some startups and experimental businesses.

So you make your money in business and you invest it into other places.

Yeah.

By the way, I've always said two steps to financial freedom. Build a business. Invest the Profits, you make your money in business. That's where you get your high upside. And then you put 90% of your take home money into other investments, meaning your investable cash into cash flowing investments. And if you want to take 10% and waste it on bitcoin and other speculative investments, go for it. But the majority of what you invest should go into other sources of predictable cash flow. Predictable, reliable businesses that you don't have to manage that go up over time.

The more boring something is, the more reliable it's going to be. The boring real estate markets are the more reliable ones. You know, I guess it's the difference and I hope I don't offend anybody by this, but I probably will. You know, here we go. It's the difference between a wife and a mistress. So, you know, hopefully your wife is a nice reliable person and hopefully you don't have a mistress. But if you did, that's probably the exciting, crazy one that gets you into lots of trouble, right? And listen, I'm not married, so no, I can make these observations from the outside. But I think you're right. There's two mistakes that I see people make a lot. One mistake on one side of the equation is you see a lot of these sort of wannabe investors, right? They have big dreams and everybody starts as a wannabe, right? I started that way as a dreamer. And they go to all the real estate seminars and they want to become this big investor, but they don't make any money. You've got to have an income stream, you've got to have a business or a good job, one or the other. And then on the other side of it are the people who are successful in business who don't pull some of their chips off the table and put them aside into some nice, conservative, sensible investments. Two mistakes there. @ one end of the spectrum, it's the dreamer who thinks they're going to step right into becoming a real estate mogul. And on the other end of the spectrum, it's the business mogul who is not investing. They've got all their wealth in that business and they need to diversify that because a business is a tender, delicate animal. A business can change like that. You teach people about that. Don't be just dependent only on Amazon, for example. Have your own E Comm business outside of that and you teach lots of good diversification strategies. But you know, you could have a product liability claim. I mean, there's a lot of things that can happen. New competitor, someone knocks you off. That's what you.

Teach. You know, I want to put myself on the spot here and I want to tell you, you know this, that I sold one of my businesses. I got a nice big.

Check.

Congratulations. Thank you very much. I basically at 29, was, you know, I made it to the top of a mountain according to a lot of people's.

Standards. Most definitely. Most people would be considered hugely successful if they did that 20 years after you. So you're way.

Ahead. So for me, I am investing. I invest in web businesses, I invest back into my existing businesses. I've invested into a couple of real estate backed funds. When the timing is right, I invest in dividend paying stock. Would you recommend that I change anything about that strategy? And are there other asset classes that you would encourage me to consider? Because I'm not the only person in our community who has come into a large windfall as a result of business.

Success. Oh, I've met some of your students and they've done incredible things. I mean, giant exits, we were talking about a couple of them this morning. I mean, it's just phenomenal what they've done. When I went to your capitalism event, I just couldn't believe the stories I heard from some of those people. People. So it's awesome. So when it comes to investing, you know, I teach something I call the ten commandments of successful investing. And number three has definitely been the commandment that has struck a chord with the most people because almost everybody that has disobeyed this advice, including myself, and I still disobey it once in a while and usually regret it. Not always, but usually. And it is commandment number three, thou shalt maintain control. So when investing, it's not just about asset classes, as you mentioned, but it's about the vehicle you're using to be in that asset class. So for example, you could say real estate, right? And there's lots of ways to invest in real estate. You can invest in a fund. You can invest in, you know, someone's private placement memorandum for a deal. It can either be a blind fund or it can be a single property deal that they're doing. It could be a tenant in common deal. It could be a real estate investment trust or a reit. It could be a stock of any company that's essentially a real estate company. They're not always called that, but a lot of times that's what really they are. McDonald's would be a great example of that. Largest real estate owner in the world, apparently. And you can do a lot of ways, but I like being a Direct investor, where I own and control the property directly. Because when you're a direct investor, you don't leave yourself susceptible to three major problems. Number one, you might be investing with a crook, okay? And you know, there's no shortage of crooks in every industry in every part of the world, right? That can simply rip you off. But number two, assuming they're honest, you might be investing with an idiot, okay? And just because they're so stupid, you'll lose your money, right? So assuming they're honest and competent, you pass those two hurdles. The third problem is they take a huge management fee off the top for managing the deal. And so when you're a direct investor, you eliminate most of those problems. You do create a new problem, though. The new problem is more work. You've got to be more engaged, you've got to be more involved as a direct.

Investor. So I want to interrupt you because I disagree and I want you to poke holes if I'm off.

Base. Well, definitely Voxer, you're wrong about.

That.

I say, especially when the market is where it is, my chances of competing with professional real estate investors is slim to none. Real estate is never going to be my full time business. Real estate is my investment vehicle. It's where I want long term wealth and cash flow. So it's my job to vet the people that I'm investing in and to court those relationships and to invest in the professionals that I feel comfortable with and enjoy the cash flow and the upside that I might get from a syndication or investing in a fund. And, and that allows me to be an investor without making it my business. And that frees up me to just focus on making my money in my business. Sure. You are a real estate professional. I mean, your business is real estate. So am I wrong or are you just biased because you're a real estate.

Professional? Well, no, I mean, you know, I think part of the issue is that you didn't say this, but I'm going to guess that you meant it to some extent and that is that, you know, when you say you're never going to come compete with these people is that it's like you're competing for the best deals. I think that's what you might be saying, right? Which is kind of like in the stock market. I mean, certainly you can't compete with. I mean, that's a giant industry of really, really expert people. You know, the quants, the high frequency traders that, you know, all the insiders. I mean that, that industry, it's impossible to compete and that's why I hate stocks generally. But.

You know, you're trying to invest.

If that's kind of the thinking. You're trying to invest by getting the deal that nobody else can get. And I say just get a good deal where the property makes sense the day you buy it and don't expect to sell it. You don't need to sell things that produce a good yield. Just be a yield investor versus a capital gains investor investor on the capital gains side, you know, you can do some speculative stuff. Like you said, take 10% of your money, put it in Bitcoin, and hey, hopefully, you know, you'll do great. Or put it in a cyclical real estate market and hopefully you catch the cycle, right? And you make a bunch of money and you can make money faster that way, there's no question about it. But if you hit it wrong, you can also lose money very quickly. I remember when I used to have wood shop in junior high, right? And we had this very traditional teacher and you know, we'd make things in woodshop and stuff and you know, we'd have the electric tools, the sanders and you know, all this stuff, right? And we'd have the hand tools. And he would say all you do by using the electric tools is you just make a mistake faster. You just speed up your mistakes. So if you're not going to be a good craftsman at first, you know, with the hand tools, you're not. You're going to be worse with the amplification of the electric tool. And that's what happens in speculative markets. You just amplify results either.

Way. So you're buying for cash flow and not for speculation, which I completely agree with. I think if you are actively in real estate, you could probably make more educated decisions about what speculative markets you want to be in. But if you are a casual investor who just wants cash flow, I think avoiding the cyclical markets is your best.

Bet. I agree. Couldn't agree more. I mean, I think even look at the experts get it wrong all the time in cyclical markets. They lose their shirt constantly on every cycle. You will see people buy properties in Northern California, in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, San Francisco. You'll see them do the same thing in Los Angeles and San Diego, in Seattle, in Miami, in New York, Boston, Austin, Washington, D.C. around the world. They'll do it in Hong Kong, they'll do it in Dubai, they'll do it in Paris, and it's just too dang risky. And you don't have what I call sustainable investing where when you buy properties that are these good cash flow, sensible properties, if you have a storm, you can weather the storm because cash flow is pretty reliable. Appreciation is just not reliable. Okay. Nobody gets it.

Right. And am I remembering correctly, Jason, that you love debt.

Right? Yeah, I do. It's my favorite four letter.

Word. Tell me why you love.

Debt. Well, I love debt because now, of course, when we say that, we're talking about high quality, long term, fixed rate, investment grade debt at interest rates that are arguably below the rate of inflation or close to the rate of inflation, okay. When you look at real inflation versus what the government tells us, inflation is okay, and that's a whole other argument that I'm happy to have, but I don't know how much time we have. So with negative interest rates or close to negative interest rates, that debt becomes a huge asset. Most people think of. Well, you know, you've got your balance sheet, right? You've got, your asset is the equity you have in the property or whatever, right? And then you've got your debt, which is the liabilities against the assets and the net of that is your net worth, right? And the debt, though is an asset as long as it's high quality, long term, fixed rate, investment grade debt against assets that are indexed to inflation. That, and this is part of what I call the ultimate investing equation, where you can outsource the repayment of that debt to a third party. We usually call them tenants or renters. And that, among other things, is what makes income properties such an amazing investment. It's a multidimensional asset class where you earn your return from several different dimensions rather than just if you buy a stock or a property in Los Angeles, you're only buying for capital gains appreciation. Now you might buy a dividend paying stock and that's better. So you'll have two dimensions, but income property has many.

Dimensions. And what you mean by this is if you can have fixed debt at 4 to 5%, which is kind of a going rate right now, and you can have that debt paid for by someone else, meaning a tenant you outsource or a customer. Even if you were able to borrow to pay for inventory and you sell that inventory, that debt is paid for by the customer or the tenant or the other.

Source. In businesses, it works too. You know, in businesses, you know, in the corporate takeover world, they do LBOs or leveraged buyouts. It's the same.

Idea. Yeah, I have a podcast on this. This episode is called Only Invest in Multipliers. And it goes through my strategy for Leveraging debt to grow a business or to put in other investments. So what I'm hearing you say is if you can predict the receivable interest rate, and that is more favorable than the payable interest rate, why would you not make that trade all day.

Long? I'd make that trade any day in the world. And that's essentially what banks do. Okay. And why is banking such a lucrative activity? Well, it's complicated because of fractional reserve lending and fractional reserve banking. And that's down the rabbit hole. It's a long, long topic that, that I don't even understand even now after studying this for so many years. But you're basically arbitraging the difference between the two. So if a bank can loan out money because people ask, well, why would banks loan money out at negative interest rates or where there's no margin? Because they're not loaning against inflation. They're just loaning against what they're borrowing at from the Federal Reserve. Right. And so, you know, money is basically lent into existence, which is a very hard concept to really get your head around, but that's the way money is created in our system. Okay? And what I say is align your interest with the most powerful entities the human race has ever known. Governments and central banks. Those are the most powerful entities humanity has ever known. Okay? And so many other people out there are trying to bet against them, and I think they're crazy. They buy cryptocurrencies, they buy gold, they buy silver. And all of these things seem sound because. And I've fallen for these arguments myself. So, you know, now I hope I know better. Right? But those things are fine to have a little bit of. To have your hand in it. You know, I own some precious metals. I bought one, Bitcoin. I wish I would have bought a thousand more. You know, right. Now I say that, but it will turn because you're betting against the Fed. Okay? The Fed is in the business of creating fake money. Fiat currency. Fiat, meaning by authority or by decree. Right. They say the dollar has value because that's what they say, because it's the law of the land that, you know.

Legal tender laws. And.

Another currency, whether it be gold or Bitcoin or any other currency that competes with, that is competing against the most powerful forces the human race has ever known. And people say things like, well, and, you know, I used to say this and believe it and invest in this way. Well, the dollar is not backed by anything. The. That's why I like gold. Oh, really? It seems to Me. The dollar is backed by aircraft carriers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, fighter jets, the most powerful military the human race has ever known, and the biggest brand in the world, America. That's the world's biggest brand, if you ask me.

Okay.

I never thought of.

That. It's. It's a. It's a powerful brand. You know, a lot of people say they hate America, but they still wouldn't mind living here.

Okay. Or owning the currency or owning the real estate. Yeah. I have a slightly different take, which is I personally do not invest in cryptocurrencies because I think they're speculative and they're not very. And they're. And they are not backed in anything. Someone asked me, well, name an investment investment that's backed by something. And I said, real estate businesses are backed by cash flows. These are the things that I invest in. Now, if you want to speculate about the disruption of the technology, Meaning, could cryptocurrencies actually make an impact on the monetary system? I think that's a fun.

Conversation. Great point. You know, I'm so glad you mentioned that, because when people talk about cryptocurrencies, they're really talking about two things, not one. There's the currency Bitcoin, for example. Then there's this underlying technology, which is really cool. The blockchain. Right. And the blockchain gets people interested.

They justify the currency, the bitcoin currency, because it's got the blockchain. But the blockchain can be used in all kinds of ways. I mean, it's a brilliant thing, but the Federal Reserve will probably someday create a currency that has a blockchain. There's all kinds of applications for blockchain. It's a wonderful idea, but it's not to be confused with the currency. And another currency can be created tomorrow using a better version of the blockchain. It already has. People would argue. Right. And so there's no limit of supply of cryptocurrencies. You know, things have value because supply is limited. Why are diamonds more valuable than sand? Well, there's lots of sand in the world and very few diamonds. They have value with scarcity. And why is real estate so valuable? It's scarce. I mean, it's not really scarce when you fly over the country, but it's scarce in good locations. It's scarce in Austin. It's scarce in Newport Beach. Okay. It's scarce in San Francisco, and to a lesser degree, it's scarce in these boring, linear markets like Atlanta and Memphis and.

Indianapolis. Yeah, I completely agree with you. So where Are.

You? Except on.

Voxer. I do not agree with your assessment on Voxer.

Correct. I make no money from.

Voxer. So where are you personally investing right now? And where are you suggesting that people look in today's unpredictable, also very expensive economic.

Climate? Look, every guru out there is predicting a crash, it seems like, because bad news sells. I don't know if they're right or wrong. I've had Jim Rogers on my podcast several times, and he's obviously an incredibly successful person. Also a great author, hedge fund manager, etc. And. And he says, beware, the crash is coming. Peter Schiff has been predicting a crash all his life.

I mean, James Rickards, who is super brilliant and interesting. I have not interviewed him on my show yet, but I want to. They're all predicting a crash. The answer is I don't know and nobody really knows. But I'll tell you, one of the things I'm always saying, Ryan, is it's an amazing time to be alive. And it really is. The technological innovation we're experiencing now, at least to me from my limited lifetime perspective, feels like a hockey stick. Like we're really at an inflection point. And at your last capitalism and freedom fast lane event, you had Peter Diamandis speak, and he would tell you, it's an amazing time to be alive. So. So when we look at how to invest, we really always have to invest with this fundamental concept of inflation versus deflation. Okay. That's a fundamental thing to think about when investing because it really determines the strategy. So there's this war going on, and who will win the war? We do not know yet. One side of this army is the army of technology. And technology makes things better, cheaper, faster, and more accessible. It's an amazing time to be alive. Right? And then on the other side of this war is government. And government is a fricking mess. Okay? And I'm not just talking about the US Government. Yeah, And I'm not just talking about the US Government. I'm talking about, like, every government virtually, right? And. And all government issue fiat currency and they inflate it away because inflation is a fantastic business plan for governments. It is a way for them to basically eliminate their debt. They spend more than they take in and they give a lot of goodies to their people. I mean, Venezuela is a great example of this. Hugo Chavez did it and people loved him. And now look at Venezuela. Eventually you have to pay the piper, but when you have the reserve currency of the world and the biggest brand the world has ever known, and the biggest military the world has ever known to keep it that way. Like America sitting in this very enviable position.

You can probably inflate for a long, long time without ever paying the piper. Possibly centuries. We don't know yet, right? So on the one side of it is fiscal and monetary policy of governments around the world causing inflation by spending, okay. And creating fiat money. On the other side is technology, which is deflationary. So which one will win? I don't know. You know, I wrote an article a long time ago called I can't. Right after the ipod or iPad was released, I can't eat my iPad, okay? And someone copied that title. I saw it out there in the media later. And basically you look at how good and amazing that technology is, right? In all these iOS products we use and love.

But at the same end you think, well, look at it's deflationary. Life is so much better now. My car is so much better now than the car I would have had 10 years ago. And it's the same price or cheaper, but it's a lot better. Right? So that's true. But you look around and you look at assets. And assets are a lot more expensive, and nobody counts assets when they consider inflation. A home in Austin now is much more expensive than that same home 10 years ago. And that's true almost anywhere in the world. Okay? And stocks are more expensive than they used to be. So why does stock influence matter? Well, it matters because if it's more expensive to acquire assets, then a whole new swath of people are left out of the investor class. They don't get to be investors now. So why do you think there's this just hollowing out of the middle class? Part of it I say is because it is too hard to access the investor class. And if you can't access the investor class, you can't get.

Ahead. So what are you investing in right.

Now? Was that the.

Question? That was the.

Question. Oh, okay.

Long answer. Okay. Which I've never been known to be short winded.

So income properties, linear market income properties, hard money and businesses. And I'm not acquiring as much properties as I have before. And you know the main reason? Limited inventory. And every time I buy property through my own network, I keep one of my clients from buying it. So, you know, I. I'm not investing aggressively in properties right now. I'm letting the price take.

It. Prices are.

High. Well, yeah, but it's not just that. My dynamic is different than everybody else's. See, I can, my business can make money selling those properties to clients. So if I take from that pool, then I take from, you know, the clients. And the problem with real estate is it's got that built in scarcity. Right. I can't create it. I'm subject to the whim of the market. And that puts a ceiling on the amount of business we can.

Do. Final question. When you do invest, I know you like debt. How do you prefer your debt? Do you like it from public sources, from private investors or.

Elsewhere? My favorite debt comes from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Well, not directly, but yeah, the government.

Sponsored entities, right. That have basically subsidized the cost of real estate financing since the Great Depression are the best deal ever. Okay. After that, the deals, there's other options out there, but they're not nearly as good. And so. So that's the best kind of debt. I absolutely love that conventional financing. And think about it, you know, that kind of leverage can make you grow five times faster because you could put 20% down on a property versus if you want to buy a mutual fund, you got to put 100%.

Down. Well, Jason, one of the amazing things about where we are in this world, why it's an amazing time to be alive, is because we literally have access to all of the human capital, the brains in the world who put information out there. And I know you put a ton out there. So where can people follow.

You? Jason Hartman.com on Twitter Jason HartmanROI but just JasonHartman.com and then my podcast is on itunes and all the usual places. Just type my.

Name. Cool. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Dude. Thanks.

Ryan. As perfectly outlined in this chat together, I believe the fast lane to financial freedom is two steps. Build a business and invest the profits. You invest your profits into other asset classes that give you predictable cash flow. This is the model, that's the plan, and this is what we talk about pretty much exclusively here at Freedom Fast Lane. So make sure you are subscribed to the Freedom Fast Lane podcast over@freedomfastlane.com iTunes and you're subscribed here on YouTube as well. If you're looking for the fast lane to financial freedom, it's those two steps and we break it down into exact step by step detail inside of our trainings and here in the free content that we give away. But ultimately that has been the predictable path to financial freedom is building a business and investing the profits. Thanks for watching. Please share this with an entrepreneur who is on their route to financial freedom and we'll see you on the Next Step episode.