CW 158: Jason's Mom on Income Property Investing & Earning A Passive Income in Retirement
7 Dec 2025 · 25 min
Episode 158 (podcast) features host Jason Hartman interviewing his mother, Joyce, about her decades-long experience building wealth through income properties. The episode mixes real-estate investing lessons (buy-and-hold rental strategy, paying off mortgages, later refinancing and using leverage), personal biography (childhood in Bliss, NY; Berkeley education; early jobs; transition to real estate sales), and program announcements (preview conference call for the Creating Wealth Bootcamp, online course details, and a Masters Weekend event with an extensive agenda). Jason emphasizes cash-flow, long-term thinking, demographic tailwinds (Generation Y renters), tax advantages of income property, and upcoming opportunities (student housing, market timing). The transcript includes specific logistical details for events and contact information and a members-only note about accessing the full show.
Questions this episode answers
158
February 27, 2010
Wednesday, March 3 (6pm Pacific / 9pm Eastern) [year implied 2010]
Saturday, March 6 (speaker: Jason Hartman on 'financial self defense')
$109 per night at the Marriott Hotel in Costa Mesa
Chapters
Please note disclaimers at end of show.
Welcome to Creating wealth with Jason Hartman. During this program, Jason is going to tell you some really exciting things that you probably haven't thought of before. And a new slant on investing fresh, new approaches to America's best investment that will enable you to create more wealth and happiness than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine self made multi millionaire who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. He's been a successful investor for 20 years and currently owns properties in 11 states and 17 cities. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to financial freedom. You really can do it. And now here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.
Welcome to the Creating wealth show. This is Jason Hartman and this is episode number 158. Thanks for joining me today. So today I've got a really interesting guest and that is my mother. Yes, my mother, a successful real estate investor in her own right. I saw what she did growing up and how she built a lot of wealth through real estate just by doing it the old fashioned way. And there's nothing wrong with the old fashioned way, but there are ways to do it a lot better than that. And that's what progress is all about, finding a better way. So you'll hear her experience and I think this will be very valuable to you. I certainly saw her experience, her real estate investing career through the years as a kid growing up, start starting at age 11 and then going on there and saw her manage her properties and kind of deal with it and buy different properties and so on and so forth. So I think mom will be an entertaining and interesting interview. My mother is a, well, a rather zany person, I'll put it that way. She's funny, she's got a good sense of humor. And anyway, so we'll get to that in just a moment here with my mom on the show for the first time. You'd actually think that with almost 160 shows behind us now, we would have had mom on by now. But this is the first time. So anyway, we'll have that for you in just a moment. Couple quick announcements before we get into the interview with Mom. First of all, we have got a conference call, a free conference call coming up on Wednesday, March 3rd at 6pm Pacific Time, 9pm Eastern Time. And this one will be a preview of our totally new Creating wealth in Today's Economy Bootcamp online course. Now this is an online version of that course and of course that course is always updated and we always say to people, if you've been before and we've had a lot of people re audit and come over and over, you should come every six months because it really does change substantially every six months or so. We change with the times, we change with what's going on and constantly update you on what's going on in the economy. So this will be a preview call where we'll give you a good update on the market, on what's going on out there, and then also tell you about the online course that will start the following week. So if you've been listening to our show, there's a lot of stuff you don't hear on the podcast on the show. And that's because the show is more of an interview format and an educational format, but it's not in sort of a structured way, the way the actual boot camp is done. So we've got some special pricing where this is only $97 if you attend the call. So register for that@jason hartman.com the call is free. That's a preview call. It will be valuable and educational. And we'll also talk about what we're going to cover in the course over the following six weeks. And if you can't be on the call each time where you can interact with and the different speakers on the call. If youf Can't Be, we'll always have a replay of that for people who sign up for the online course. Now, the online course is in webinar format, so you have audio and visual with that. And we do have some special stuff that we give away for people that attend the online course. So don't miss that. That's well worth it. And we've had the request from a lot of you who say, I'd love to come to one of your live events, but it's hard for me to travel and I just can't get there or even if I'm local, you got the kids soccer game or whatever it is. So we design this online course just for you. And the nice thing about doing it as an online course, too is that we can get different speakers to come in and guest speak during the course from all around the country. And we'll be doing that. So I think that'll be valuable to you. And of course, the Masters Weekend. Now let me tell you folks, this Masters Weekend is shaping up to be so exciting. And the reason this one is really exciting is that it's unique in the sense that we're going to cover a little bit. I'D say it's going to be about a two thirds, one third ratio, two thirds on personal finance and real estate and getting ahead financially through your investments, making your money work for you, but then 1/3 on making technology and business and leveraging that stuff to work for you. So we're going to talk about personal entrepreneurship, Internet marketing there. Let me just go over a little bit of the agenda with you because I haven't done this yet and I know that several of you have asked. So we're going to start off with, with financial self defense in a world you cannot trust. That'll be Saturday morning, March 6th, and I will be giving that talk. Then we'll have Mark, who's been on the show before, the author of the book Lawyers Are Liars, talk about asset protection secrets on the cheap. And that'll be a great presentation. He's an excellent presenter. We're going to talk about hot deals in the Lone Star State. Of course, that's all about Texas. And then our next speaker will talk about secrets of credit enhancement and credit restoration. A lot of Americans are getting their credit beat up right now. A lot of them are doing it intentionally, as I've talked about on prior shows. And you know what, that is a bit of a risky game, but sometimes it actually makes sense to do it and that's why people are doing it. Well, let's talk about getting back in the game and repairing your credit. Then our next speaker will talk about incredible leverage on income properties and new construction properties. And that speaker is flying out from Missouri. So that'll be a really interesting presentation. And that's not Kansas City, that's a the St. Robert speaker. So totally new guest we've never had at any Masters weekend. And then our next speaker will talk about the Indy 500 property investment in rehab properties in Indianapolis. If you want cash flow, Indianapolis is one of the best places around for that, as you know as a regular listener. It's not just about cash flow, though. So there's multiple dimensions to a good income property investment, but cash flow is certainly one of them. And then our next speaker will talk about how to profit from the boom and bust cycles that are always occurring throughout our economy. So you want to buy low, you want to sell high. You want to know when the boom times are, to understand it and to see it. And I know that sounds easy, but it's not that easy when you're in it. Fish live in water, but they never notice the water. We live in air. And unless we live in LA or Some other really smoggy place. We don't usually notice the air, do we? But it's vital to our life and we don't always really notice when we're in in a boom cycle, when we're in a bust cycle. I know that seems simple, but there's really a lot more to it than that. So we're going to explore boom and bust cycles in depth. Then our next speaker will talk about the power of analysis. Now this is a repeat speaker who has spoken at every master's weekend and she just does a great job presenting this. So the power of analysis and really understanding what you're getting into and why you're getting into it. Our next speaker after that we'll talk about Rocky Mountain High. Now, I'm a huge John Denver fan. I'm not sure you know that, but that may sound a little geeky, but I know the lyrics to almost every John Denver song and I got to see him in concert before he died tragically. But big fan of him. And of course, Rocky Mountain High is all about what Denver, Colorado. We have 5280 reasons to invest in Denver. And so our local market specialist will be flying out for that. Our next speaker will talk about the power of exchange on residences, your personal residence and your rental properties and your income properties and how to defer gain and defer taxes basically forever. So pretty exciting. Income property is America's most tax favored asset. And that's what we're going to talk about. And then Sunday morning we're going to pick it up with Life is a marathon, not a sprint. The power of long term thinking. And then I'm going to talk about the ten commandments of personal entrepreneurship. And after that we'll have a speaker who will talk about Internet marketing and how to make extra income with Internet marketing. Our next speaker after that will talk about creative destruction, how innovation makes the rich poorer and the middle class and potentially the poor, the poor who have a vision for their future richer. So that'll be very exciting. And then our next speaker after that, Lisa, will talk about Juicy Marketing, creating income with Conscious marketing. So we're only at lunchtime on Sunday now, folks, can you see how packed this Masters weekend is? And next we'll have a panel of investors, actual clients who have invested in properties who have had good experiences and bad experiences. We'll talk about the school of hard knocks. We'll talk about Tales from the Edge. We'll talk about overcoming adversity, which by the way, is what a lot of this show is about that you'll hear when I interview my mother in just a moment here. And then our next speaker will talk about investing in real estate with your ira. And then we'll have a segment on Roth conversions and whether a Roth conversion is right for you. So that's a special opportunity that just opened up January 1st. There's a lot more to it. We did a prior show on that, but there's a lot more to it. And you'll be able to ask questions and meet the experts when you're live. And this is the Masters weekend gathering of experts. And of course, I didn't mention because we just booked him on the agenda. We just booked our expert on taxation. And you know, that's one of my favorite areas because I just love not paying Uncle Sam. That's what's so great about real estate, saving money on life's largest expense taxes. The There was an article in Forbes on Forbes.com and in Forbes magazine, and this was really interesting. It's about how new home construction is not keeping up with population growth. And folks, I tell you something, I have been predicting this trend for about two and a half years now because when the market really took its turn for the worse, the builders stopped building and our investors started buying property at or below or sometimes far below the actual cost of replacement or the actual cost of construction. And this is a huge opportunity. Now, we've seen in the last couple of years the population keeps increasing dramatically, both through people having kids, through immigration, and also through demographic shifts. And what do I mean by demographic shifts? Well, generation Y, who is just coming into their prime renting years, is the largest demographic cohort in American history. Think about that. It is slightly larger that demographic cohort than the baby boomers. The baby boomers had 76 million Americans. Well, generation Y is 80 million Americans. It's the biggest one ever to move through American history. And guess what? All of those people are coming into their prime college years. So student housing is a huge opportunity. And by the way, we were really lucky. There was an investment group who was trying to buy some of those South Carolina student housing opportunities, opportunities that many of our clients have purchased that had 30 of the properties tied up and they lost some of them. They weren't able to go through with the purchases. So we had a couple new opportunities open up there. So call one of our investment counselors, inquire on our website, Jason hartman.com phone 714-820-4200 to ask about the student housing opportunities. That's just A little side note because Gen Y, very good cash flow there. So we've got this huge demographic cohort that's moving into their prime renting years. Construction stopped two and a half, three years ago, populations increasing. And the particular demographic cohort moving into their prime rental years is phenomenal. Folks, this is about to really turn in the favor of the investor. Not to mention under the Obama administration and the tail end of the Bush administration, the disgusting amount of money printing going on. And what does that mean? Of course it means inflation, which is great for people who own what packaged commodities, investments and a lot of long term fixed rate debt. Remember that debt is a huge part of the asset, not a liability. When it's on an income property, it's an asset. So we're really moving into a very exciting time. In fact, I got to tell you, I'm getting goosebumps saying this to you because the opportunity is starting to get so interesting. So a lot of good stuff coming up. Be sure to join us for the upcoming conference call where we're going to do the preview of the Creating wealth boot camp and also the Masters weekend. We've got a lot of people flying in from all over the country for that. We got a deal at the Marriott, $109 per night. It's at the Marriott Hotel in Costa Mesa. And if you're flying in for that, it's five minutes from Orange County's John Wayne Airport, which is a gorgeous airport. It's just real easy. You can come in, you don't need to rent a car. We may be able to have one of our staff or investment counselors just pick you up at the airport, take you to the hotel, you can check, enjoy the whole weekend and fly out. It's just real easy. Also, we've got a couple more contest winners. We've been giving away a couple of freebie admissions and then a couple of discounted half price gift certificate admissions. So jasonartman.com contest I think we've got two more of those to give away before the event. And if you register and your name is drawn as a winner, we'll just refund your admission. So that guarantees the best of both. So be sure to register jasonartman.com and join us for all of those two events. They're going to be great. And here is the interview with my mother, real estate investor who did it the old way. And I tell you, when you invest in these income properties, time is on your side. We can make this a little better for you with the new techniques Now I have to tell you, my mom, she's just funny. But my mom, it takes a long time to convince her of something. I think when it comes to friends and family, they don't listen to us, even if we happen to be the expert. It's funny, like a total stranger will listen to my advice and follow it lickety split right away. But my mother takes a long time to convince her. If she heard it from a total stranger, she'd probably just listen to it. And so lately mom has been investing based on my plan the last several years, where she's using leverage, she's using long term fixed rate debt. But on her other properties, she did it kind of the old fashioned way. She bought properties, rented them out, paid the mortgages off, and lately she's refinanced them because she sees what I'm talking about here, what I've been teaching you on the show and through our other educational products and events. But mom did a great job. I mean, look, she retired what, maybe eight years ago, well over $200,000 a year in income from rents and $7 million in equity. And you just accumulate these wonderful little properties over the years and you put time on your side, you put irresponsible government spending on your side, you put inflation on your side. There is no better wealth creator than income properties. That is it. Period, point blank. It's the best opportunity in America. And there's no better opportunity as far as income creation than little sensible Internet businesses. So we're going to talk about both of those at the Masters weekend. Without further ado, here's the interview with Mom. We'll see you soon.
So I have an interesting person here in the studio.
You hear laughing and you know who that is. That, that's, that's my mother. So my mom, Joyce is here with me and she is really quite a real estate investor. And I'll tell you something before mom talks here and tells you kind of some of her real estate experiences. I remember that when I was a kid we used to always play Monopoly. You remember that, Mom?
Best game in the world.
Best game in the world, definitely. And I remember one time when we lived in Mar Vista in that crummy little one bedroom apartment when you were saving money to buy your first house. And I remember I was losing, you were killing me. And it was interesting because my reaction in Monopoly was always to have as much cash as possible. I liked passing go, I like collecting cash, cash, cash. And I would save the cash. And I wasn't really, I didn't have the propensity to buy properties. Now, I was probably seven years old when this happened, right? But I remember this, and I remember I was just getting so discouraged about it, and you just stopped the game and you said, look, Jake, if you want to win the game, you've got to buy more houses so that every time I pass, you can charge me rent. Do you remember that?
It was a best lesson for you, huh?
It was a good lesson for me. And so I started buying properties, and I started winning the game because I kept collecting the rent as you went by. And the story is here that my mom bought her first house when I was 11 years old, and it was in West Los angeles. It cost $62,500, and it was a fixer upper on Kelton Avenue. And tell the story. You started buying more rental properties. And how did it all go, Mom?
Well, that was the first one, and that is always the hardest one. It seems like the next one I bought was in the San Fernando Valley, and I bought it that was on Bassett Avenue on Basset, and I bought it exactly two years later. Now, sometimes you have to go out and take several jobs in order to get that down payment together, you know.
To support your real estate habit. It's like a drug habit, Right? But it's one that really does pay off.
Yeah, absolutely. And then it just seemed as though that this was really opening my eyes to how people should start running their lives. You've got to not live at the top of your income. You've always got to be a little frugal and start making some good investments.
And I will testify that when I was growing up, you were frugal because I never got enough money.
So you were executive director at the Leukemia Society. And that was back in the days when you always said you felt there was a glass ceiling more than there is today, Right?
Absolutely. You just. And I had this boss in New York, Confidential.
Mead Brown.
Yeah, Mead Brown.
I wonder if he's gonna listen to this show.
Who was the most conservative guy in the world? And of course, I had just moved to California. Well, not really just, but he called it being in the lands of fruits, Being in the land of the fruits and the nuts.
That kind of describes California fairly well.
Yeah. But anyway, I had two just kind of circumvent having a very respectable job. I took a sales job selling a space at the convention center. I worked as a waitress at Norm's restaurant.
I remember you worked at Norm's, and you used to work there at night, like after Work to save money for a down payment.
Yeah, you just do whatever it takes. Because once you get that in your head that, hey, this is really the way to make things go, you just put everything toward it.
You mean the way to make things go is what, to invest in real estate, to own rental properties.
Absolutely. And, you know, now I'm retired, but I'm so happy that I don't have to get up and think about going to work all day long for somebody else, because my retirement investments in the stock market, probably for most people, people, they're just cut in half.
And the 401k that became the 201k.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Real estate is just a totally, totally, always interesting profession or way to make a living because you meet all of these people when you have to fix up a rental house. You meet everybody new. You negotiate with them.
You always try, and you love negotiating.
You always try to get the best deal.
I will tell you, you, my mother gets the best deals on the planet, on everything.
Well, okay, so let's just kind of tell the whole story here because the listeners don't know. Okay, so I want to give a little biography of you. So, yeah, sorry about this. So you grew up in upstate New York, and you grew up on a farm. You're the middle of five children, and you grew up, I, I'm gonna say very poor. I mean, fairly poor.
Weren't rich.
Yeah.
But then neither was anyone else.
I mean, it was an upstate New York in the middle of nowhere. You were born in Bliss, New York. And you, you always say that the population is 300, including the cows and the cats and the dogs. And then as soon as everybody turned 18, all five of those kids, they moved to California. They just wanted to escape, right? Yeah.
Because there was nothing in that little hometown. And upstate New York was kind of a decaying area because they were highly taxed, right?
Yeah. So all the people were leaving upstate New York. So, yeah, there was an opportunity in upstate New York. And the weather was terrible. So all the kids left and they moved to California. And your brothers and sisters mostly went to Northern California, but for some reason you went to Southern California and you before you did that.
Yes, I came to a football game between University of California, Berkeley, and you, ucla. And I saw the climate down here and immediately decided once I graduated, I was coming here.
You like the sunshine and the warm weather. So that's what a Floridian would say from New York, too. So you went to Berkeley, and you graduated from Berkeley with a degree in social welfare. And Berkeley, of course, is a fantastic school, very good education. And put yourself through college. Right.
Basically.
I mean, I'm sure your parents didn't have any money to help you.
I worked every summer when I got out of high school, I went to business school for two years to become a secretary, because that's what girls did in those days. You became a secretary or a teacher or a nurse, and most everybody became a secretary. But after I sat in an office and typed for eight hours a day, I thought this was a terrible, terrible profession. So I decided I had to have. Have some higher education.
So you graduated from Berkeley and then what?
And I went to work in my chosen field, social work.
Okay, so you were a social worker. And what you do in that job, like, what's that really mean?
Really, all you did was go out and verify that those people were still receiving their governmental checks from the government.
Okay, so you were, you were. You were calling on people that were receiving welfare from the government.
Yeah. You were an eligibility worker, and you had all of this psychological training, and all you did was look at the report cards and make sure that the kids were sleeping in that house and.
Because they'd be allotted, like, a certain amount of money.
Yeah. According to the number of children. And it was just, you know, it was a ridiculous type of career.
And so did you actually discover, though you've told me this before, that the people you were calling on, some of them were living better than you?
Actually, this was really the truth because they were getting all sorts of money under the table. Some of them, you know, some of them obviously were not. But really and truly, that seemed as though they were living better than I.
And so. Okay, so you were a social worker. And then what?
And then we'll skip a little time. And I went to work for some charity. But always I just wanted this thing to have a business for myself. And I had a Pioneer Chicken store. I had two small businesses.
And those were both crappy experiences. I know, because I worked in them, Jason.
It was fast hair and fast food.
Exactly. You had, like a supercut style franchise one day.
What really happened is that I was in Pioneer Chicken Store. The area that my store was in was not. Was not very good. It was rather dangerous. And previous to that, I had bought a couple of houses from a real estate agent. And she said to me one day while I was sitting in my store, why don't you become a real estate agent? She says, I shouldn't say this because I know I'm going to lose a good customer. And that very afternoon when I left my store, I went to a real estate school, Lumblo.
And that was Married to Ford.
Right, married to Ford. And I went down to Lumblo, a real estate school, and signed up. It took me about three months to complete the course. And when I completed the course and passed the test, I invited Mary over to the house that she had sold me to cook dinner for her and she said, well, what are you going to do now with your real estate license? And I said, gee, I don't really know. She says, well, you've got to come down to my office. And so I traipsed right down to her office. I did exactly what she told me to do and went to work. And I sold my first house in a week.
Thank you for listening to the Creating wealth show. This is Jason Hartman, your host and we appreciate you following the show. We have many, many episodes, hundreds of episodes, and some of the older episodes have been archived and placed in our Members section and that applies to this one. So we include a sample that's about 25 minutes long. And then for the rest of the show you can go to our members section@jasonhartman.com Many of the other shows are still in their full length complete version. However, some of the shows like this one are in our Members section where you can hear the show in its entirety. And again, you just need to go to jasonhartman.com and you can get the full show there in the Members section, plus a whole bunch of other great members benefits and resources, whether it be documents, forms, contracts, articles, other video and audio content. Just a great resource. So be sure to join as a member@jasonhartman.com and thanks again for listening to the Creating Wealth Show.
This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. All rights reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews, please visit www.hartmanmedia.com or email mediaartmanmedia.com Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own and the host is acting on behalf of Platinum Properties Investor Network, Inc. Exclusively.
More from Jason


2482: AI Labor Displacement and the K-Shaped Housing Affordability: High-End Housing and the New Economic Divide with Adam Taggart


2482: AI Labor Displacement and the K-Shaped Housing Affordability: High-End Housing and the New Economic Divide with Adam Taggart


2480 FBF: Investor Mindset & DuckDuckGo Founder, Super Thinking Mental Models & Traction, How Any Startup Explosive Growth by Gabriel Weinberg


2480 FBF: Investor Mindset & DuckDuckGo Founder, Super Thinking Mental Models & Traction, How Any Startup Explosive Growth by Gabriel Weinberg


2478 FBF: Jim Rickards on The Death of Money, Aftermath, Currency Wars & The New Great Depression


2478 FBF: Jim Rickards on The Death of Money, Aftermath, Currency Wars & The New Great Depression


2477: Builder Profit Margins Hit 26-Year Lows and Solving the American Housing Crisis

