How Elissa Miller Bought 1000+ Properties Without Any Money?

My dad happened to say, hey, you know, you want to come to a real estate meeting with me? And I'm thinking about doing this. And I said, sure. I got, I got nothing going on. And there's a speaker, this is 20, 22 year old me at this point, the speaker talking about how you could make $5,000 with no money and no credit in two weeks. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I have no money, I have no credit, and I've never seen $5,000 in one spot. You have my attention, sir.

Hey, everybody flipping Danny here. We are super excited about another episode of the Freedom show. And today we're talking to Alyssa Miller.

Yeah, Alyssa Miller has been in our network for a really long time. And when we bought our first 56 unit apartment complex, we talked to her on how to do some value add items in order to get that forced appreciation that we were looking for. So we had some ideas and a business plan in our head. And then the ideas that she gave us allowed our business plan to grow even bigger and forced the value on that apartment complex. And we are so excited. So we're going to talk a little bit about that today in our episode and we hope you enjoy it.

Enjoy the show. You're tuned into the Freedom Show. We are in the studio having a conversation. We're really excited to share with you. Today's guest is Alyssa Miller. The crowd goes crazy. Alyssa Miller began investing in 2000 at the age of 23. She has a BA from Purdue University in psychology, sociology and English. She was a bartender after college before she started real estate. Over the last almost 24 years, Alyssa has purchased, sold over 1,000 homes and apartments. She has lots of experience purchasing with none of her own money. Alyssa currently focuses on rentals, single family to large, multifamily and fix and selling single family houses. She is a member of the Cincinnati Reia. Hey, I think we're a part of that too. And won several years of their most creative deal of the year award. We've never won that one.

No, we haven't.

Welcome to the show, Alyssa. We're so glad to have you.

But wait, there's more. Page two, and this one's huge. Alyssa is a wife and mom of six kids, ages 4 to 26 and three grandkids. Two of her kids were adopted from foster care and she has done foster care for many years. She enjoys gardening, baking, traveling, talking about real estate and adventures with her kids. Well, there's six of them. That's a lot of adventures. Holy smokes.

Okay, now, welcome to the show, Alyssa. Yeah, thank you so much. I like the baking part because I've seen your cakes and your cupcakes on social media. So as soon as he said that, I was like, I've seen them. Well, we're super. Yes, you have many, especially with six kids. So we're super, super excited to have you here. We have kind of, we have different segments to the show, but our favorite segment is the freedom story segment. We're all here because we love freedom and we love sharing freedom stories and all of us have different types of freedom that kind of is our number one. Like I told you, time freedom and geography freedom, you is flipped in minds. Obviously financial freedom is up there too, but we really wanted to live in Florida where it's warm and you're in Ohio and it's cold. So we're not envious of you right now. We like Florida. But can you tell us what freedom is important to you, how you're achieving it and just share your freedom story?

Sure. So I love the question because if you would have asked me this when I started my real estate career, the answer would have been much different than it is now. So I think what is important changes as, as we learn about ourselves and learn about life. And you know, financial freedom certainly is, is a very big part of what I feel is freedom and was probably the biggest part as when I, when I first started and kind of I had a very one track mind about reaching this, this, you know, your expenses are less than your passive income kind of situation that a lot of people have as a goal. And when I got there, it wasn't what I thought it was, you know, it was, you know, I've had a couple of those moments in my life where I've reached, you know, a big achievement of, of the goal. And I'm like, wow, I put a lot of effort into this and this wasn't what I thought it was going to be. So since having that kind of, that wake up time, freedom of time is, is the, the most, the most important freedom for me I think right now. So when I, when I started real estate, I was, I started learning when I was 22, the year out of college. I had all the, these degrees that I ended up making more money as a bartender than using my degree. So I was like, well, this isn't where I thought I was going to be in life. And my dad happened to say, hey, you know, you want to come to a real estate meeting with me? And I'm thinking about doing this. And I said, said, sure. I, I got, I got nothing going on. And there's a speaker. This is 20, 22 year old me at this point, the speaker talking about how you could make $5,000 with no money and no credit in two weeks. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I have no money, I have no credit, and I've never seen $5,000 in one spot. You have my attention, sir. And, you know, I. And it kind of went from there. So real estate was never the goal for me. You know, when I went to college, my degree was in psychology. I thought I was going to be a school psychologist in my junior year. They said, oh, no school site. I thought I was going to counsel and help kids. And they said, no, no. School psychologists do testing and evaluation and paperwork. And it's like, well, that's not, that's not what I want to do. So I end up. I'm like, well, what can I do? And I said, you know what? I'll be, I'll be a teacher. And I, you know, I, I really enjoyed coaching basketball and volleyball. And I said, I'll. I'll be a teacher and that's how I'll make my money. And then I can do all this coaching that I enjoy, which is how I ended up with a myriad of degrees that don't make any sense. I was just confused. So then when I, you know, I'm bartending, trying to figure this out, and when real estate kind of hit me as an option, I was like, you know what? I could do real estate. And that can be how I pay my bills. Because all of the, the coaching and, you know, that's all volunteer and, you know, mentoring and working with kids, that doesn't pay your bills. That's what I wanted to do, but it didn't pay my bills. So I was like, well, real estate's it. This is the answer. So real estate was never anything that I was, you know, oh, money driven by. I was like, this is how I get to. It was the tool, it was the, the vehicle. It wasn't. Turns out I really like real estate and I was really good at it. And, you know, I learned. I learned as much as I could. And we bought our first house six months later. I was 23. And I mean, it was all she wrote after that. I think we bought 10 houses in our first year. And she ended up building a portfolio of almost 400 units. And most of it we used. We used our own money at first because I didn't know that Many strategies yet, but we were able to buy like one deal because that's how much money we had. Like, and then you have to figure out now what, how do I buy other deals? So since then, I, even to this day, I rarely use my own money for acquiring real estate. If I have to put money into a deal or if I'm doing, you know, a 1031 exchange or something where my money has to be involved or the government will take it all, then, you know, yeah, it is, but I, I don't, I don't want to use my money at all if I, if I can help it. So, yeah, so that's where I got a lot of this experience with creative financing with real estate and whatnot. But to speak with, you know, kind of the, the freedom story aspect of it. So, you know, we built up this big portfolio and. And then in 2017, a realtor was showing me a building and he said to me, have you ever thought about selling? And I was like, no, I. I hoard property. I don't ever sell it, buy it and keep it. Like it's going out of style. And. And I went home like that night and I was thinking about that. I'm like, well, what, what would life look like if I did sell? You know, what, what if I. What if I could sell all of it? And I called him back a couple days later, I'm like, let's do it. Let's list it all. We'll do it as a package. We'll just sell it all and see what happens. And, you know, six months later, we had it, sold all, all of it. And we did a 1031 exchange because that was what was the financial thing to do. And ended up transitioning into apartment building one, one complex that, you know, the manager kind of ran it and we collected the money and that's. And that's where I thought my freedom story would begin, you know, that I don't have to work. You know, I'll just, I'll just do whatever I want to do. And my husband and I, we had two kids in 15 months, so we did that. And then as my youngest kind of started getting older, I was like, oh, boy. I always thought I wanted to be a stay at home mom when I grew up, but. And, and this is no, nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom, but I was really mentally struggling, mentally struggling with like, life purpose. And you know what? You know, I love my kids wholeheartedly, love my kids, love spending time with them. I need adults to talk To. I need problems to solve. I need, I need more mental stimulation than, you know, let's learn colors. And that's all very important. But for me, I needed more. And that's kind of where the whole, the whole. I was like, wow, financial freedom, it's great, but it doesn't solve all my problems. You know, I think a lot of people have that kind of, you know, if I win the lottery, life is fun, or if I get to this goal, you know, I can, I can do whatever I want and I'll have no more life problems and life will be easy. And that's just a crock, I'll tell you that, because, you know, it's. And, and, you know, and the other thing I kind of learned is that life is going to throw you problems that money can't fix, you know, so it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You know. Now financial independence is important. Financial freedom is. Is important because it gives you more options, you know, but it's not, it's not the end all. Be all of. Of. Of things. So I, you know, I, I realized that, you know, maybe five years ago. And so since then, I've been focusing more on my time and being very intentional with what I want out of my life and how I want to spend my time. So, you know, and, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about this because after we sold the portfolio, I, you know, I was. I was, like I said, really mentally struggling with what do I do with myself at this point. And, you know, I was like, life is like this giant buffet. So many options. You can, you can live where you want to live, you can work where you want to work. You can. The. The people that you want to be with, have kids, don't have kids, get married, don't get married, go to college, have a. Have a. Don't go to college. You know, do stuff with your hands, work on your education. I mean, this giant buffet, right? And I think there's a lot of societal pressure about what options are the best, and that's not the case for a lot of people, you know, and I, and when I started realizing. And this. And I think what I'm about to say next is something that I've. It's taking me a long time to realize, and I'm still working on, but what other people think you should be doing doesn't matter at all. Just set it aside, you know, what do you want to be doing? Know what brings joy to your heart and, you know, what does success look like for you? Because you know, society is going to tell you it's the house, it's the car, it's the vacations, it's all the fancy things that fancy dinners you post on your social media. You know, that's what society is going to tell you success is. But you know, is that really what's going to make that, is that what's going to bring you joy to your heart and. Probably not. Probably, probably not, you know, so you have to be really intentional about what brings me joy and what do I have to say no to in order to get to that joy. And a lot of times that no is going to be disappointing for your parents, disappointing for your spouse, disappointing to your friends. You know, but you know, it's, you're the one that has to live with this life. So you know, I, you know, if you're, you know, I was sitting there, there's that. I'll just give you an example. And this, this example is from when I was much younger. So I got married when I was like 25, I think. I had dated this guy, we dated like, you know, I don't know, two or three years and he proposed and that, and you know, getting married was, that was next. After you date that long, that and you get married, that was next. And I wasn't intentional about who I was marrying. He was a great guy, you know, he was a great guy, great person, you know, and, and, and I, you know, and I think it was just what I thought was supposed to be like the next step in life when in your 20s and you know, we got married and he had a very different view on what his life was going to look like than what my life, what I, my vision for my life. And very quickly I realized this isn't going to work and ended up getting divorced 18 months later. And yes, and the thing was, was that, and I don't say I'm proud of that, but I am proud of, I am proud of 25 year old me because I realized this isn't where I want to be. And yes, I realize that getting divorced 18 months later when you're 26 is going to have like social stigma. My parents aren't going to be happy, my friends are going to be like what the hell, you know, his friends are gonna be like, what the hell, you know, but you know, it was what's best. It was best for me and best for him. You know, why would I.

Yes.

In that marriage and just try and file through because that's what you're supposed to do, you know, so it was better, you know, to come to that realization than act on it and speak, you know what? I'm not on the right path. Let me switch paths. There was a, you know, so it was, it was around then that I was just like, you know what? I gotta stop thinking about what other people think.

Yes, yes, yes. That is so, so powerful. One of the things I've heard a couple times now is that when you're choosing how to live your lifestyle, that lifestyle, Flip and I talk about lifestyle design and how we kind of made similar mistakes. Like we went down this path not quite sure exactly what we wanted to do. And so it wasn't intentional. We were just kind of exploring and running without asking the right questions. And a few people that we've talked to on podcast now, they have said I had to answer what I did not want. I did not want to travel unless I chose to. I did not want to, you know, go down this path because it was just. It didn't mean I got to spend time with my family. It took me away from them. So I think what you said is so, so powerful.

Well, and, you know, and I, I love, I love that, you know, what do I not want? Because a lot of, a lot of people, you know, I still don't know what I want to do with myself. I'm still trying to figure it out, you know, and so I know you're right. There's a lot of things I know I don't want to do. I thought I wanted to be a stay at home mom. I don't want to be a stay at home mom, you know, but, you know, the next step of that is that you have to get out and try something. There has to be some action, you know, because you're not gonna know if you like it or you don't like it unless you, you move forward. Give it a try.

That's right. That's right. As long as it fits in your box. Yeah.

And that's fine. Stop and start something else. And don't worry. Somebody's like, oh, you're, you know, you're, you know, you're flighty. Okay. Yeah, I am flighty. I'm figuring it out though, aren't I?

That's right.

I just, it's the quote that I read last or heard last week. And, and it just keeps going on and on and on in my head as you're talking. And it was, success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.

Yes, yes. Yeah, I love that too.

And you know, happiness is not some kind of destination. Happiness is what you're doing right now. And if you're not happy right now, then, you know, make some different decisions right now. You know, about.

That's right.

Think about it. I mean, you don't just randomly decide, but, you know, put some intentional thought into, what do I want my life to look like? What do I. What I don't want my life to look like. I know I don't want to. I don't want it to be like this right now, so. And then change something and it might not be right, you know.

Yeah.

The beauty of it is you change it again.

Yep. Yep. One of the things that you had written to us about as we were preparing for this podcast was freedom is something you need to find in your day to day life now while you're working on attaining the bigger freedoms. So what are some practical applications of finding that freedom right now? Is it really just getting out there and trying and being okay with saying, I didn't like this, I'm going to try something new?

I think that's part of it. I think really a lot of people struggle with just even thinking about, what do you, what do you want? You know, you just struggle with that. And, you know, so, you know, when I was 29, I bought. I bought a house. It was my dream house. I was single and 29, and it was six bedrooms. And my parents were like, what are you doing?

I was like, it's such a big house.

Let me. Yeah, I'll fill it later. You know, it'll. It'll be fine. And then 2008, nine happened, and I wasn't as financially stable as I was when I bought this dream big house. And so I found this house was like stretching me and I was stressing about being in this house. You know, there were a lot of times that I was thinking, gosh, if I would have just, you know, if I would have just stayed in my apartment, you know, I would be at financial freedom right now because I could lower my expenses. And I. And I didn't end up selling the house, but I had a lot of thought about what do I want, want? And I ultimately decided, you know, I am willing to trade the time and the stress that I'm going through right now. I am willing to trade it for this house is what I ultimately decided. Yes, I'm going to work harder, I'm going to work longer because I want to, I want this house. But I think, you know, some people don't, don't spend time thinking. You know, they're, they're, they're, they're paying the bills, they're working, they're working two jobs, they're, they're just running. You're like, why? What? You know, look at, look at your life, you know, and, and sometimes it's, it. Maybe you need to move. You know, maybe you need to change the people that you've surrounded with. You know, maybe you just need to tweak your lifestyle a little bit. But, you know, be, be intentional about what it is that's, you know, and then like you said, if you know what you don't want, well then at least change that. And it doesn't have to be everything all at once. Just, you know, start changing some little things and you know, you know, speaking of like 2008, you know, just, you know, just some of the little things that we, we were deciding on, you know, we, we had a lifestyle and then the real estate market changed and then we had a different lifestyle. And I, you know, I remember one of the things that my dad and I used to do was we would go, we would go to a restaurant every Friday and just kind of powwow about the week and, and what we were doing. And it got to the point where I was like, you know, this is really going to even stretch me any more if we are going out to eat every week. And I had made the decision that the house was my priority, so I would rather have the house than go out to eat. Right. And that, that decision. That's freedom. That's your, that's freedom. I had the freedom to make that. Did I like, did I like the decision? No, but I had the freedom to choose it. So. And then what we ultimately decided was, you know, we can't go out to eat every Friday, but we can get a five dollar Little Caesar's pizza every Friday because we would have spent $5 on lunch even if we would have packed our lunch, you know.

Right.

That's every Friday. And we'll have Little Caesar's pizza and a pop every Friday instead. So, you know, just trying to, you know, I can't have exactly what I want, but I prioritized what I wanted at the time and then tried to find, well, you know, you can't. I'm choosing not to go out to eat, but what can we do? So for several years we had lots of.

I love it.

You know, you got to realize you have the freedom of those choices in the moment, even if you don't like your options. You still have the ability to choose, you know, And. And when you make. When you make that conscious choice, it makes the harder times a little easier, you know, because you know what? I am choosing to stay with this house. So, yes, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm gonna have to work a little harder, but it's because I'm working for something. I'm not reacting to things that are happening to me, you know?

Right, right. I love that you just said the words I choose. It's something that Flip and I, we got rid of the word I should. I should is a punishment type sentence. I should be doing this. It doesn't. It doesn't give you any power. So every time we do something, it's. I choose to do this because that's where the power comes from. And the reason I mentioned that is because the quote that you sent me, I love learning what people's favorite quotes are. And so the quote that you sent me was I. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. And that's Marianne Williamson. So why do you think the fear of the light might be even greater than fear of the darkness?

You know, people are afraid that if I succeed, my life is going to be different. You know, my friends are going to treat me different. Yeah, they might. You know, you know, I know some of my friends treated me different, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and your life might shift in unexpected ways, so. Or you might feel like, gosh, if I'm super successful with this, God, that's more responsibility than I want to have. So I'm just not even gonna. Gonna try. But I think you gotta remember, you know, you. You choose, so choose what you want to have. And if it comes with, you know, people that can't handle your success, you know, then you can choose whether you want to keep them in your life or not, you know, but don't bury. Don't just barrier light because of all of the possibilities of all the scary things that could happen if you succeed.

That's right. Yes. Yes. I love that. So, so let's talk about that. So we are. Get Real is like. It's important to us. Like, everything that we do, it's about getting real. It's about talking about the lessons learned. It's about talking about the failures. We truly believe that anybody has the power to do exactly what they want to do in life, and we want to Be the type of people that encourage people to, you know, step out and, you know, take that first step and do what they want to do. And I love surrounding ourselves with people like you. That's why this freedom show is very much starting off with our internal network is who we're inviting on this show. The people that we collaborate with and are on this freedom journey with, on this real estate journey with. So when it comes to the Get Real Talk, can you share with us some of your just failures, some of the moments that maybe a lot of people don't talk about and that you really struggled through, but the fact that you kept on going is why you are where you are today?

Well, you know, I mentioned first, my. My first marriage, you know, real estate really kind of was one of the deciding factors on that. You know, he was very nervous about. About me buying property, even though I was in real estate. When we in real estate, I was trying to be in real estate when we met, you know, this wasn't anything, you know, that. That was new. And I remember at one point he said to me, you know, I don't know why you're so working on this so hard. I'm never going to be a millionaire. And I was like, wow, we are on two different pages because I'm gonna be one. You know, I don't know how this. I don't know how this works, you know, so that, you know, that. That marriage kind of felt like a failure. And then later on, you know, I'm realizing time, time failures. So my. When my grand. My grandmother was alive, at the beginning of our career, my. My father spent every. Every Wednesday having lunch with her. Every single Wednesday. And there would be times I was super ambitious at the time, and I'd be like, oh, my God, we got this deal. The only time they can show it to us is Wednesday. Can't you just res. And he was like, no. You know, no, no. And I would get so frustrated with that and be like, you can. She doesn't do anything. You can literally have lunch with her any other day of the week, you know, and I didn't understand how important that Wednesday lunch was. And, you know, there were many Wednesday lunches that I missed and didn't go, and she's not with us anymore. And I. And I. There's just nothing I can do to get that back, you know?

Yeah.

And I can make more money. I can't make more lunches with my grandma, you know.

Yep.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, so, you know, that, that, that That's a failure. And you know, and I can talk about all sorts of, you know, failures with business and you know, I should have never bought that and you know, oh, I messed up on. I, you know, I got cocky and didn't look at the school district and just assumed this house was in the school district. I, this was, this was this month's mistake, by the way. You know, I, I, this one's, this.

One'S still a little raw.

Than, yeah, school district. And I went to list it and I'm like, sure, it's not. And that's a five thousand dollar difference in price on the house, you know, so, you know, those are mistakes I, you know, I'm still making now, but you know, I don't regret that mistake. You know, you can always make the more money, but it's, it's the relationships, it's the time, you know, we hired my sister to be our bookkeeper as we were growing and getting bigger and then ended up hiring her husband to be our maintenance guy. And I thought, oh, this is great. You know, we're supporting our family and we're all working together and, and you know, as I mentioned earlier, there's going to be people that think they're maybe entitled to more of your success than you feel that you're entitled. They're entitled to your success. And I haven't spoken to my sister in six years because of that, you know, and, and I'm not, I'm not, I don't know what I could have done differently. Maybe not hired her at all. Don't work with family. You know, I thought I was, you know, I went in with good intentions and, and it, and it didn't, and it didn't work out well. And, and, and that's, that's a huge failure. I haven't spoke with her, I haven't seen my nieces and, and she just wants nothing to do with me at this point. And wow, you know, I don't know.

Yeah, that, yeah, that's tough. We actually made the same mistake hiring family. So if anybody's listening and you're thinking about hiring family or hiring friends, like it was a mistake. You know, we loved it for the same reason you did. We were like, we're all just gonna, you know, make money together and, you know, build these companies and we just thought it was just dream and it didn't work out. And fortunately it's not as bad as, you know, your situation. We are still, you know, friends, we still talk to everybody and I'm Thankful for that. But it could have gone, you know, worse. So. So now, like, I love that you, like, you talked about various things about, like, the get real portion. So what would you tell people who are. They're afraid of starting or they're in the middle of it and they're in a, like, you know, they're in the crap hole right now, like, going through something that's horrible and they're thinking about quitting. What would be your advice?

While I'm a giant fan of never, never, never, never, never quit. Yeah, don't give up. Sometimes it's appropriate, you know, Sometimes if it's not working for you and it's not bringing you joy and you're throwing yourself at this, maybe. Maybe it's appropriate. So it's okay to quit if it's not for you. It's not okay to quit if it's hard, you know?

Yes. Right.

Everything you do is going to be hard. There's nothing that you're gonna do that's worth anything, that's not going to come with its challenges and its learning curve and. And it. Your giant mistakes. And sometimes you're going to make giant mistakes, and sometimes you're gonna not have a clue how to get out of this mistake. I have no clue how this is playing out. Take one little step forward. You don't need to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

That's right. I love that. That was awesome.

Yeah. I think there's a period in our lives that every time I would say this next line, Danny, the first, I don't know, months or so that I would say that, she would get mad. But then after that, she would finish my sentence. But I would always say, well, if.

It was easy, everybody would do it.

She didn't like that the first couple times.

I love that. Yeah. That is awesome. Well, let's roll into your superpower. So there is a reason why we connected. We actually started Mastermind in the local Ohio area. We wanted to work with people who were in the multifamily space, even single family. And we're just doing a lot of deals, like we're doing volume. We want to understand the challenges, collaborate with others when we were struggling. That's, I believe, how we met initially, at least in person. And then at one of those meetings, you actually talked to us about, you know, this package on how we could, like, you know, implement it in our multifamily properties. And actually, you know, it would bring up the noi, and that makes your property, like, value it more Value more. So I don't know that you would call that your superpower, but I definitely want you to talk about it. So you also have said it doesn't necessarily take money to make money. Like, you are a very good creating deals that didn't allow or you did not have to pull money out of your pocket to get them done. So if one of them or both of them are part of your superpower, I'd love for you to start talking about that.

I think, you know, as you're kind of phrasing it that way, I thrown off when you said superpower at first, but I think my superpower is figuring out how to get it done. So a lot of people, when you have, you're presented with, you know, x opportunity, I think it's human nature maybe to go through all the ways it's not going to work. Well, I could, this, this could happen or this could happen, or this could happen or this, you know, it could blow up horribly. Yep, yep, it could. You know, but I think my mind kind of goes to, gosh, how can we make it happen? You know, how do we, how can we do this? How, how do I buy 52 houses a year when I don't have any money? How do I do that? You know, there's an answer, there's an answer to that. And you could totally do it, you know, and I think with, you know, with, with the, the utility piece that you and I met with, you know, kind of got together on with, with our apartments was, you know, somebody had come to me and said, oh, hey, you know, you can, you can be, you know, choose your own electric or electric provider, which I had heard of before, and then, you know, get, you know, commission and do this. And I was like, okay. And they're like, what do you think? And I, and instead of going to, you know, oh, I don't have time or, you know, I don't have time to fit this on my schedule. I said, well, how, you know, just entertaining it. How do I make it work? And I was like, oh, my gosh, we can really make this work. You know, you add the utilities to the rent. You use the electric provider, you increase the rent because you're providing additional amenities with your electric. And you now you've got additional income. You've got residual income from the electric bills that are coming in. It increased your noi. And I've just created seven figures worth of net worth change by, by listening to this conversation with this person who was presenting me with an opportunity that at first blush. Didn't feel like, you know, oh, you know, I. I'm not. I'm not doing this. But instead, I just took just a. Just a hot second to think, to just say, well, what? How could I make it work? How could I make it work? And that opened a door to, you know, a lot of other opportunity and then sharing. Sharing the opportunity and having the opportunity, you know, and then now we get to meet and we get to connect, and you're. And you're sharing information with me on, you know, virtual assistants and all this other, you know, other things that help, you know. You know, I'm struggling with. On my. You know, I'm like, I hadn't thought about that. You know, thank you. You know, and it's just this giant collaboration of network all by thinking, how can I make it work? Instead of. Instead of why it won't work.

Yes. Yeah. I think that is a superpower. So I'm glad that. I'm glad that I phrased it that way, because I don't know that I would have gotten that answer. And I think that answer is really, really powerful, that sometimes you can just take a minute and take a hot minute sometimes when you really don't think something's gonna work and just say, hey, am I sure that I've actually thought this, you know, all the way through? And are there some questions I haven't asked? Are there some answers I still need to go searching for in order to see if I've given this the full chance? Because there's some people I guarantee that have turned down things, and I'm one of them. Sometimes I move so fast, I'm proud of being a quick decision maker. That's not always a superpower. Sometimes it's kryptonite. Right. Because I say no to something or I say yes to something. That should have been the opposite answer. I should have taken more time to either say no when I said yes or say yes when I said no. So I think that that's really, really, really powerful. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so. Oh, I love this part. Okay, so we always research, like, hot topics, and we love real estate, and you are in real estate. You're in our network. So we thought this would be a good topic for us to hit on. So we're going to talk about one of the most popular questions that is Googled on. On Google, on the Internet.

She said that?

I did.

That's awesome. So between the three of us, I want us all to kind of talk about this. Answer the question Is. Is real estate investing better than stocks? And since, Alyssa, you are our guest, we're going to let you start. Yeah.

Heck, yeah. It's better than stocks. Oh, my goodness. You know, they're. I, I. A piece of real estate's never going to go to zero. There's always value in the land. You know, a stock can go to zero, and you have no control over it going to zero. You know, real estate, you've got control. Sometimes you don't have control, the house burns down. Whatever. You don't have control over it. You know, leverage. Oh, my goodness. I can't buy. I could buy $20 million worth of real estate with none of my own money, but I can't do that with stocks. I mean, I guess you can do leverage with stocks, but, you know, you can lose your butt on that, you know? So, I mean, I, I don't want to monopolize. I don't want this.

Well, I was. Yeah, us too. Like, all. I would say, 99% of our money is in real estate or real estate businesses. And then Flip likes to play a little bit of change in the stock and crypto market just because he thinks it's fun.

Yeah, but you, you make it. You. That's 99. You said that's 1%. I have way less than 1%.

Just given, like, guesses.

No, it's like 99.999% is in real estate. And so I decided it would be fun. I got, well, whatever the account is on my phone, the app or whatever.

Robin Hood or something.

Robin Hood, Yeah. And I bought. And no, we're not sponsored by Robin Hood, but. And so I bought. I bought a couple, sold one of them, and bought something else. And I bought them because I like them. I have no idea. I don't know anything about anything. I buy the two stocks I bought are because I like them. I have no idea. I like the company. That's it.

Yeah. So on that point, every now and then, we're at dinner, and he shows me his phone, and for a long time, they are going up, up, up. Well, just the other day, literally the other day, he goes, look at what that. And it was going down, down, down. It was taking. And I was just like, you know, this is one of those important pieces of stocks versus real estate. Like, it's not like we can jump on the phone and call the company and say, hey, what the heck are you guys doing over there? Because you're losing my money. Whereas, you know, real estate, you over it. And if you're working with real estate investors. Like, I'm sure you use private money lenders, right, Alyssa? And if you're working with somebody and we have something going wrong, the private money lender can go, hey, what's up? What's going on? Like, we've had deals that were like, taking longer than expected. And we reach out proactively and just say, hey, this is taking longer than expected. We can pay you off on time if you really need that money back, but if you don't, we'd love for you to extend and keep that money working for you. We'll keep paying interest. And they, I would say like 100, nearly 100% of the time. I don't personally know of anybody who said, I'm going to cash out. They just want their money working for them. Right. And that's the difference between stocks and real estate is like, you actually had control. You could actually talk to somebody, whether you're an active investor or a passive investor. So that's my two cents. What's your two cents?

Yeah, everything both of you said. It's just, there's, there's, I don't know how I could add anything else to it, you know? You know, like, so the stocks are going down, right? If we had a house that was going down in value, well, we go inside the house and re vent it, renovate it, and we build it back up and put value back in the house. You can't do that with stocks other than look at your phone go, no. You know, so I don't know what else. I mean, the only, only thing that was worse than stocks is, is crypto.

I mean, we made that mistake.

I threw, I threw money, I threw money in that. I went, wow, I own crypto. And it's already lost value. So, yeah, yeah, Bitcoin wasn't whatever, whatever. It was bitcoin into something else anyway, so.

Well, I love, I love the, I love the real estate versus stock conversation. I've heard so many people have it and it's just fun to go back and forth talking about it. Okay, so you are listening to the Freedom show with Flip and Danny. Our guest is Alyssa Miller and we are going to be right back after this very short commercial break.

Add new income streams to your financial statement. Freedom Family investments can help own property and get paid rent. Join funds and get paid interest. Wealth is well being. Own your own future. Freedom Family investments get more time to focus on what matters. Learn which investing path is for you, where to start, and who to trust. Visit freedomfamilyinvestments.com welcome back to the Freedom.

Show with Flipping Danny. Our guest is Alyssa Miller, and we're going to do one of our favorite parts of the show. This is real quick with flip.

All right, so what I'm doing is I'm going to give you two options. I call this, this, that, or the other. So I'm going to say Lucky Charms or Cheerios. And if you don't like either one of them, you can say, you know, Frosted Flakes or whatever. Whatever. So I'm going to give you two options. You can say which. Which one of the options, or you can say something else.

Else.

Got it?

Yep. And.

And unfortunately, she's already answered one of these questions from earlier in the recording. So I'm, I'm going. I'm going to ask her. But I know what the answer is real quick. And that's why one of the. It's why this question's on here. Okay, so football or soccer?

Basketball.

There you go. Dogs or cats?

Dogs, yes.

Okay, so I know we talked about your superpower, but imagine you have a real superpower. Would it be able to fly or to read minds?

Read minds.

Okay. Vacation on a beach or vacation in the mountains?

Beach.

Okay. This one might be a little close to home. Indiana Hoosiers or Notre Dame? Fighting Irish.

Oh, Purdue Boilermakers. Come on now.

Atta girl. Friends or Seinfeld?

Friends.

80S or 90s?

I. They're both great. I can't pick. Depends on the mood.

Well, I guess the other would be both. Sunrise or sunset?

Sunset. Yeah.

Okay, here it is. Soda or pop?

Pop.

Is that what you heard earlier?

You said it earlier. I went, oh, man.

We had Little Caesars and pop, right?

Yep. Yep, you're exactly right. I grew up in Michigan. Everything was pop. And then we moved down to Texas and Florida and everything. Soda. So it was very interesting. And then here's a location question for you. Skyline or Gold Star?

Skyline.

And for those of you that don't know, I found this out when we moved to Cincinnati area, that there's this huge thing for chili. Now, if you live anywhere else outside of Ohio, you wouldn't call it chili, but they call it chili. I don't know why, but. And they put it on noodles. Again, don't know why, but there's all. There's skyline and Gold Star, the two biggest one. There's a few others that aren't as big as that, but it is. It's. It's like a cult thing. It's. It's. It's bigger than McDonald's and Burger King. It's crazy.

We have it on our. We have it on our meal plan for this week. Skyline chili.

Nice.

For dinner tomorrow.

I love it. Well, I'm glad that you asked the sunrise or sunset question. I also am a sunset person. Flip loves sunrises. Whenever in a hotel or at a beach or anything, he's always out on the beach or outside on the balcony whenever he is watching the sunrise. But it reminded me of some of the pictures that you post on social media of all the animals. Like, you tend to see, like, animals towards the end of the night, and they're, they're. They're just like, sometimes you're feeding them or whatever. So have you officially moved? And you know, how is that all going in terms of, like, do they. Do they get close to you? Do you still feed them? I'm just curious.

We haven't. We haven't moved yet. So we have.

Have.

We have 36 acres that we're trying to build on. And I actually have a city council meeting tonight that I'm going to. This will be the second to last one, hopefully before we get permission to build. But I've got trail cams up. So those are the pictures I post are from the trail cams. We have. We have. I think we counted at one point, like, 12 different species of wild animal. Saw skunk on the camera last night for the first time. So we have skunks too. So that's awesome. We've named some of them. We have Wiley Coyote that shows up. He's got a girlfriend, you know, that's adorable.

Well, I know you have dogs, so we have dogs here in Florida. We have alligators and bears literally in our neighborhood. And so we actually put a fence around our yard. So what are you doing for your dogs? Like, you think they're gonna be okay back there? Are you gonna fence in your yard?

What does that look like? Part of it fenced in? Yeah, we were ex. We're thinking about invisible fence. And I was like, well, that helps keep them out of the woods, but it doesn't help the coyotes.

That's right.

Yeah. So we'll have part of it fenced in for sure.

Nice. Well, I can't wait to see it. I forgot that you were building and that it was still in the works. So I'm excited for whenever it gets done. That is going to be so fun. It's going to be party at Alyssa's when we come into town. I'm just saying.

Yeah, I loved how you you named them too, because the gator that's in our pond behind her house, his name's Tater the Hawk. The. Yeah, the hawk that always lands on our back fence. His name's Henry. You know, so, yeah, we've got names for them all, too.

It's just fun.

Yep.

I love it. Well, I just want to thank you again for coming on the Freedom show with us. Like I said, we really wanted to ring our network and just kind of introduce our network to the people that know us because we think it's so powerful and we get to share, you know, who we love working with, who we love collaborating with, who we call. Sometimes we call when we're having a win, but most of the time we call when we're having a bad time and we need help. So we really just appreciate you. You've been a great friend. You're an incredible real estate investor. You've certainly added value to our lives. We thank you for being on the show. If anybody would like to get in touch with you, how would they do that?

My email address is E L I S S S A at R as in Ralph, F as in Frank Miller Homes. H O-M-S dot com. I am also on Facebook. That's the only social media that I am able to keep up with.

So I know the feeling.

Message me first, though, because I don't friend complete strangers that think I'm cute and want to take me to dinner. That's not happening.

I love it.

Ain't that the truth?

Awesome. We will have that information in the show notes too. So again, thank you for being here. We really appreciate it. We wish you a wonderful week and we'll see everybody next week on the Freedom Show. Thanks, everybody.

Bye.

Oh, I hope you guys enjoyed that show. I cannot believe everything that she does in real estate and she has six kids.

I know, it's crazy. So every single week, we let you know at the end of our episodes what is going on in our real estate business right now. So right this moment, this morning, I was actually messaging the team. We're getting ready to send out some emails to our entire list list about private money lending opportunities. We typically have a very, very long waiting list for private money lenders. And our transaction coordinator, Tiffany will have a deal come up and she'll run through her list to see who is the next one there and then she'll offer it up to them in order to fund a deal. And so all of our private money lenders want to keep their money working for them. All the time. So she tries to get them deals as fast as possible. Well, I'm telling you about this right now because we have a volume of deals coming in, so we need more private money lenders for the first time in years. So we're gonna go ahead and tap out for everybody that's on our waiting list. But if you want to be a private money lender with us, maybe you were on the waiting list before and got tired of waiting, then please reach out and talk to us. Their interest rates are anywhere between 8 and 10%, sometimes 12%, depending on how much capital that you are deploying with us.

So reach out.

The terms are 12 months or less. So very liquid. It's backed by real estate. You have a first lien position at all times, and the process is super easy. Tiffany sends you a private funding packet. She's going to tell you what the deal is. It'll have all the financials and all the numbers and all the pictures and you just let her know within 24 hours, hey, yeah, Tiffany, I want to do this. And if you're not ready yet, don't worry. That's why she gives you 24 hours. You can just. She'll just send it to the next person in line until we get that deal funded. So it's very simple. It's usually the way that most passive investors invest with us for the very first time because it's so simple, because it's liquid and has a high rate of return, plus the first lien position on real estate. So if you're interested in learning more, email us@investreedomfamilyinvestments.com and write private lending in the subject line and we will get you more information besides that. Then we just look forward to seeing you next Wednesday.

See you in the next episode.

Bye.

Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions and information on the show are not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss.