CW 917 - Client Case Study, Adam Jackson 11 Properties in One Year - Memphis & Jackson, Financial Statements for Investing, Marine Corps Veteran

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Welcome to the Creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You're about to learn a new slant on investing, some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world's most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who's actually been there and done it. He's a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who's owned properties in 11 states, had hundreds of tenants, and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to your Financial Independence Day. You really can do it. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.

Welcome to another episode. This is episode number 917. 917. And this is your host, Jason Hartman. Thank you so much for joining me today as we have a great client case study for you today. Yes, another client case study. We love it when our clients come on the show. We've had so many on. We really appreciate your contributions and sharing your experiences with other people. So if you are out there and you are interested in being on the show and sharing your lessons and your experiences and your pathway to building a fantabulous real estate portfolio, please let us know. Reach out@jason hartman.com if you have an investment counselor you're working with, then reach out through the investment counselor at my company and we will be happy to have you on the show and we appreciate you sharing your experiences. I want to remind you we have this fantastic contest going. Jasonhartman.com contest, first prize valued at $4297. General admission ticket to Meet the Masters in 2018 and a $500 cash travel allowance. You can apply that toward your hotel, your airfare, whatever you like. And a Venture alliance mastermind weekend. One weekend for you and a guest, that's a $3,000 value. And this is not. You know, I love it when they have these contests or prizes or gifts or giveaways or whatever, bonuses and they say, you know, well, this is a five zillion dollar value. Well, no, this is real because people really pay this much for this stuff. Okay? So this is not some phony pie in the sky value. As you know, as I teach in real estate, you know, there are three types of appraisals, right? There's the cost approach, there's the income approach, and There is the comparison approach. The comparison approach is the most common for residential real estate, our favorite investment. In fact, I say it's the most historically proven asset class in the entire world. I always say that the best appraisal, the most accurate appraisal as to the value of any property is when you put the property on the market and you sell it to a ready, willing and able buyer. Okay? Ready, willing and able buyer, and they actually pay for the property. Then you have the world's most accurate appraisal right there. Only problem is you've sold the property. But hey, if you really want to know what your property's worth, sell it. Then you'll know. Okay? So that, of course, is the world's most accurate appraisal. These values of these prizes we're giving away at jasonhartman.com/contest, these are real legitimate values because people have paid repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly for this stuff at these prices. So first prize, basically $4,300 in value. Okay. Second prize, $2,100 value. Venture alliance weekend for one person and an Amazon Echo 100 bucks. And then third prize, an Echo 100 bucks. You know, that's the way it always works in life. It's the gold medal and the silver medal and then trailing way behind is the bronze medal. But hey, look it, like I've said before, this contest, your five year plan, contest, so easy to enter and thank you. For those of you who have entered already, it's really not for the prizes. This is for you. Because by declaring your goals, you are going to enlist some magical powers. Magical powers. There's this great song by Triumph, the Canadian band Magic Power. It's an awesome song. Check it out. It's an oldie but a goodie. That's what you will be enlisting magic power, right when you enter this contest by doing your video. So all you have to do three little steps, record a short video about your five year plan. Where do you see yourself in five years? What are your goals, your family, your finances, how many properties you're going to own, where are they going to be, et cetera, et cetera. What is included in your investment portfolio? And how will we here@jasonhartman.com help you achieve these goals? And then publicly upload the video, put it on YouTube and we will judge by the best video and the video with the most views. Okay? And you know, this can be a couple minutes long. You know, keep it short, two, three minutes, that's all you need. And then good luck, hope you win and win one of these great prizes. So jasonhartman.com contest, real easy. And again, you're doing this for yourself, not for the prizes. The prizes are just a little perk on the side. Okay, Another thing I want to mention. Earthquakes. Yes, earthquakes, folks. If you own property in the Socialist Republic of California, and I know many of you do, or any other earthquake zone, they are predicting some big earthquakes here in 2018, so be careful. I know most people with properties in the Socialist Republic of California, my home state for most of my life. Fortunately, not anymore, though, I'm happy to say, because I do not pay any state income taxes because I live in Nevada. And you know, who knows where I'll live next. I want to try a few places before I get too old. I want to try living in a few different places. But my criteria is if I move, I got to move to another no income tax state. So that's the idea. Okay. Anyway, you don't have earthquake insurance yet. One more reason to follow my advice and turn your castle into a kingdom. Liquidate your overpriced, overvalued California property, either through a sale or in a less formal liquidation way. Liquidate the equity by refinancing that property, pulling the cash out, getting control of that equity, and then using either the sale proceeds or the refinance proceeds to buy income properties that make more sense nationwide. And you'll be diversified. You'll have better rent to value ratios. And that's what our investment counselors can do. They can help you do a portfolio makeover. It's totally free. A portfolio makeover. So, Jason hartman.com fill out any web form on our site. One of our investment counselors will contact you and help you with that free of charge. Venezuela. Let's talk about Venezuela. You know, folks, socialism is a disaster. And its ugly big brother communism is an even bigger disaster. So socialism sucks. Yes, it does. I don't know why people in the west think they can do it better. Yes, they do. They think if we just keep trying, we just keep trying the basic philosophy, the political philosophy that is responsible for the deaths of about 150 million people in the last century. Yes, add them up. Chairman Mao, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and all the rest of these rotten, evil communist and socialist dictators. Okay, add them all up, right? And yeah, you'll get to around 150 million. There are some smaller ones in there, too. But you know, if this system was so good, why do they have to force people at the point of a gun to follow the system? Because it is a Disaster. So next time you think about voting for someone like Bernie Sanders. Well, you know, think about that. Yes, I get that Bernie Sanders is not an evil dictator, I understand that. But it's a step in that direction. And you've seen what a disaster it's been throughout history. At every time in history and every place on earth, it has been a massive, terrible failure. Well, Venezuela is another example. Now you know that I'm a big proponent of what I have dubbed inflation induced debt destruction. That is a very powerful tool for creating a lot of wealth and income. Property is the most friendly asset to enable you to follow my inflation induced debt destruction strategy. And Venezuela, Wow, what a an incredibly ugly, disastrous, disastrous scenario. CNN reports the economy in Venezuela is in a complete death spiral. It has gotten a lot worse in the last two weeks. So in the Venezuelan currency, the Bolivar, right Here's what it takes to buy US$1 to trade US$1 on November 1st. Yes, dear listeners, that was 27 days ago. It was only 27 days ago. It took 41,290 bolivars, the Venezuelan currency, to buy US$1. On November 15th it took 60,942 to buy US$1. On November 21st it took 84,372 to buy US$1. Ouch. Okay, the bolivar has lost 96% of its value this year. Now compare that to the US dollar which has lost over 96% of its value since the Federal Reserve was created just over a hundred years ago. Okay, so of course not as bad as Venezuela. Obviously inflation has increased by 4,000%. 4,000% in Venezuela. Well look at Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, the poster child for bad monetary policy has a new leader. Mugabe is out. That disgusting scumbag Robert Mugabe is out. And there's new leadership in Zimbabwe. Who the heck knows how that's going to work out? Probably not too much better. I'm not hopeful. But hey, I don't know much about it. So I will not comment until the disaster proves to be true. And then I'll talk about it all the time.

And that's the way it goes. So this is what happens. Look at folks, to a lesser degree this is what's happening. In the United States, it's a much lesser degree. But in the US you can buy 30 year fixed rate debt attached to commodities called income properties that are built and manufactured from these assets. These commodities that trade worldwide that aren't attached to any one currency. Things like lumber, concrete, copper wire, petroleum products, glass, steel and even labor. And these are not attached to any one currency. They are needed globally. Every human on earth needs these commodities. They consume these commodities. You can get three decade long, incredibly cheap fixed rate debt against it. And then you can take advantage of inflation induced debt destruction, the hidden wealth creator with income property. So if you'd like to learn more about that and you have not been a listener to the last 916 episodes of my podcast, just go to Jason hartman.com and type in inflation induced debt destruction and you're going to see all kinds of podcasts, articles and tools and information on that topic. Anyway, without further ado, let's get to our client case study today as we hear about acquiring all these properties in just one short year. It's a great story. So listen in right now to another client case study.

Yeah, it's my pleasure to welcome another client to the show. We always love client case studies and we so much appreciate our clients coming on the show and contributing and sharing their experience, their knowledge and just how they're building their real estate portfolios. And today you are in for a treat, everybody. We've got our client, Adam Jackson, who has been investing with us for just a little over a year now. He's coming to us from Connecticut. Adam, welcome. How are you?

I'm doing great, Jason. Thanks for having me.

Good, good. Hey, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it. You know, you've been working with one of our investment counselors. You're up to 11 properties now. I'm so glad to hear it. You've got five in Memphis and six in Jackson, Mississippi. And you're planning to move into a third market this year. You don't have much time. Oh, no, sorry, that's 2018. So next year you're planning to move into a third market. You're just doing an awesome job. So I really appreciate you coming on, sharing your experience. Thank you. Adam, give us a little bit of your background. You're a former Marine. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Absolutely. So I'm actually calling tonight from Shelton, Connecticut, which is a suburb about 45 minutes outside of New York City. Yes, I was in the United States Marine Corps for four years. From there I got out and I was working at Sikorsky Aircraft building Black Hawk helicopters. And then from there I actually stayed in the, in the aerospace industry. And now I do international trade compliance, which is just basically getting things in and out of the country legally. And then of course, on the side, I'm doing everything I can to build a solid real estate portfolio that is Excellent.

So you're one of the few and the proud Marines. And what did you do in the, in the Marine Corps?

In the Marine Corps, I was an M1A1 tank crewman. I'm not sure if you've ever seen that machine in action, but I highly recommend youtubing it. Maybe the main battle tank. I did two tours in Iraq, so I was, I went to Fallujah, so I actually got to use my training.

Uh huh. Wow. Fantastic. Well, I'm glad you got back safe and thank you for your service. That is amazing. So is the M1A one of the really, you know, badass tanks that we have? I don't know much about tanks. Yeah, tell us just, you know, quickly. A little side note about that. Some of those go really fast, don't they? Does that go like 70 miles an hour? And you know, I mean, it's just a huge tank and you know, some of these are just incredible state of the art machines that cost like many, many, many, many millions of dollars. Give us a little background on that tank.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, the tank is 70 tons when it's fully combat loaded.

Whoa.

It doesn't go. Yeah, it's pretty heavy. Doesn't go 70, but we've gotten it up to 42. Okay, 42 miles an hour, but it.

Feels like for 70 tons, 42 miles an hour is pretty fast.

Absolutely. It feels like it. The tank has 120 millimeter main gun. It has three machine guns. It can hold about 10,000 rounds of 7.62ammo and about 1,000 rounds of 50 caliber. But then it also has incredible optics. You can pretty much see better at night than you can during the day. And it's just an amazing machine. Yeah, I was, I was happy to be part of it and to be able to have that experience.

That is amazing.

Wow.

Wow. And two tours of duty, huh?

Two tours, yeah.

Wow.

I got back from the first one, volunteered for the second, and that's what I was looking to do. I was looking to be inspired and that's what I got.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Good, good stuff. Well, we're glad you're back safe. You got out of the Marine Corps and now you are in the aerospace industry dealing, I'm sure with all kinds of complicated laws. It sounds like you have a security clearance and all that kind of stuff. Tell us a little bit about your job nowadays.

So the job nowadays is dealing with international militaries, commercial customers, and really what it is, it's a layer of customer service where you're selling different aircraft and aerospace components to these customers. And in order to comply with U.S. law and other international laws, we have to make sure that all the due diligence is done and that we can import and export legally. And it's kind of interesting because international trade and the politics that we see, the geopolitical events that go on, those directly affect this job. So it's not exactly exciting, but there's definitely a lot of knowledge that you need in order to do this effectively and to do it legally, because the last thing that you want to do is go against international law, because the U.S. government can actually revoke your ability to import and export.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, yeah, that sounds like. I'm sure that is a very, very complicated position you have. And you are married with three young children. Just had your third, I guess. So congratulations on that. We're not sure if we'll see you at Meet the Masters because of the three young kids and especially the new newborn, but we hope to see you there. Tell us a little bit about your real estate point portfolio and stuff like that. First of all, maybe, how did you come to find us? Did you come through the podcast? And how long ago was that that you started listening?

It was the podcast I started researching on real estate investing about three or four years ago. Two years ago, I was lucky enough to stumble upon the podcast when I was doing a search. I listened to you for probably three or four months, but I was hooked after the first episode. Just everything from the real estate information, politics, the philosophy, the economics. And after about three or four months, I decided, you know, I'm going to put my information in and see what Platinum comes back with. So I plugged my information in on the website. Oliver contacted me a couple of days later. And by the way, he has been a tremendous resource for me, just pointing me in the right direction, especially as somebody with no prior experience to real estate investing. But he definitely pointed me in the right direction. Help to educate me and help to show me different sources of information where I can better myself as a real estate investor.

Good, good stuff. That's great to hear. Yeah. Yeah. I love our team of investment counselors. They really care for the clients. They really do a great job. And. And, you know, when it comes down to it, you know, we're. We're a middleman in our business and. And, you know, they really go to bat and stick up for the clients to get them good treatment from the local market specialists and the property management teams and all that stuff that we refer. And so, you know, it's really nice to have good people, but also to have a lot of leverage over these different service providers so that the clients hopefully get a good result. Again, this isn't always easy. It's no bed of roses, as they say. Where did you buy your first properties?

So the first properties I purchased in were in Memphis. I made the decision, okay, let's give this a try. And as soon as I put the first property under purchase agreement, just decided to start researching like crazy. And I'm the type of person that once I have the information I need, or at least I think I need, I go ahead and take action. So I didn't really need to be sold on more of the information about real estate investing just because I could see on its face, or at least after going into the multidimensional benefits, that it was just a superior investment. So after putting that first one under purchase agreement, I decided to do two more. I ended up closing on three. At one time I figured, why don't I get my feet wet here? So I close on the three within the first. I guess it was about three months after I talked to Oliver for the first time. And then I bought a fourth one in cash prior to the end of 2016. So I ended up with four in Memphis by the end of last year.

Yeah, fantastic. Good stuff. And so you've got five there now and then six in Jackson, Mississippi in another one of our markets now. Sounds like you bought, I guess, one with cash. Was that the only one you bought with cash? So far, out of the 11 properties you have through us, that was the.

Only one that we bought in cash. But we did do cash out refinance a few months later, so I pulled the money back out.

Yeah, don't you love that? I just love that about income property. You know, I always say the beautiful thing about it is that you can rewrite the deal all along the way. So the deal is one thing when you buy it because it's a cash purchase, but you can get the money back out or at least some of the money, sometimes more than the money you put in. You know, it depends. And then still own and control the asset. It's the best. It's the most historically proven asset in the world. It's just great. Why did you buy that one with cash though? And tell us about jumping through the hoops on qualifying for the loans? I bet that wasn't so easy, was it?

Well, since I have a W2 job or I have W2 income, it was actually pretty easy. The reason That I decided to do that fourth one in cash is because I believe at the time you could only do up to four Fannie Freddie loans with 20% down.

Right.

And I was trying to find a way to get my wife on board who does not have W2 income. So we decided to purchase that in cash, do a cash out refinance, but still have her name on the deed. But then I think shortly after I purchased that property, the rules of it got a little.

Leverageable. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's when I really ran with it.

Yeah, good stuff.

Once I, once I found out that they could all be 20% down, that's when we started to acquire the others.

You acquired those properties and then why Jackson, Mississippi? Did Oliver guide you to that market or did you look at some others?

This came from a discussion between myself and Oliver at that point. Kind of had to do with the amount of capital that I had. So in Jackson there are affordable homes. I felt like the rent to value ratio were pretty good. I mean, pretty much everything that I've acquired in Jackson has a rent to value ratio above 1%. And I just felt that it was another linear market. And after speaking with the provider and also seeing caliber of properties that I was getting in relation to the surrounding properties, I thought that it would have been another solid cash flowing market, which it has been up until this point.

Yeah, good, good stuff. So you've got the five in Memphis, that was your first market. Then six more in Jackson, Mississippi, that's your second market. Where do you think you'll your third market will be as you move into it to increase your portfolio again?

Well, after all the research that we've done, all the conversations we've had, looks like I'm going to Indianapolis.

Good stuff. Yeah. Well, I've owned several properties in Indianapolis and still have a share of one now with one of our clients. So that's a great market. And we've been in that market for a long time. So. Good, good stuff. Those are three good picks. What are some of the experiences or learnings you had? Did you have any big problems and hassles? You know, any, any tips and advice you want to share? And I do want to remind you to talk about the balance sheet and financial statement stuff that you did mention before we started recording as well.

I've learned a lot along the way. I mean, just from putting something under purchase agreement, sending in the earnest money, doing everything that I need to do to get the financing. But I've got to say that my advice is that it is not perfect, but nothing really is. But I do agree that this is much better. It's multidimensional as far as the benefits go. And I did deal with one eviction. I've dealt with other minor repairs. I've had a problem with one of the H VAC systems. But other than that, I mean, I'm able to look past that. I'm not saying that somebody who has the same issues would look at it the way I do, but again, I'm in this for the long haul. I'm in this to really just build a good portfolio and keep my emotions in check. So that is probably the best advice that I could give for somebody who hasn't purchased yet or who's dealing with a pretty perfect situation. It's not perfect, but it's definitely worth it in the long run.

Yeah, it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be better than everything else. That's the only. Yeah, that's the only thing we're striving for. You know, you just reminded me of one of my favorite quotes. You know, my mother taught me a lot of things in life, obviously, but one of the things she really taught me, I mean, she grew up pretty much. I don't want to say like, dirt poor, but definitely poor, on a farm in upstate New York. And she became wealthy after many years of struggle. And, you know, and she's so tenacious and so persistent. And one of the things she used to always say to me when I was a kid, and I, you know, kids quit too easily and don't have a lot of endurance. You know, she would always say, jason, finish the job. Jason, finish the job. That really, she instilled that in me. And I remember one of the awesome quotes that I later came to love is this quote that success. Success is largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. Success is largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. It really is that. It's. Life is just a game of attrition. You know, other people will give up easier. And who is the celebrity? Gosh, I can't. Maybe Denzel Washington or something. I can't remember who said this, but I thought it was a really good saying. And, you know, he said something like, you know, I may not be as talented or as smart as that guy or the next guy, but I'll outwork them. I will outwork them, you know, and that's the one thing we can all rely on at the end of the day, if we have nothing else going for us, we can just be more persistent and just outwork everybody else, you know, and that's definitely the thing you got to do. You got to see the big picture of the long term. And, you know, would you say, I'll bet you your military background contributed a lot to that thinking?

I would definitely say so. I mean, the military inspires you to go get something and never to quit until you achieve it. And that's one of the things that was instilled to me in the Marine Corps also. Another thing is just having the discipline to get started, continue with something, and complete it. Now, my mission with these single family homes is to acquire probably between 40 and 50 spread across those three markets that I've decided on. You know, at this point, all of the energy that I have, all of my resources is going into that goal. So, yes, I mean, I would agree with persistence and just making sure that you can complete the mission at hand. And. And that's really what I'm doing here with this real estate portfolio.

That's awesome. Good, good stuff. Okay, so you had an eviction, you had an air conditioner replacement, and those, those things bummed you out. That's not good news either of them. They cost you some money. But one of the things I remember when I was a young real estate agent and I was just started at ReMax and I was working really, really hard on this, what I call, they call a farm area, where you pick a neighborhood and, you know, when people sell their houses, you try to get all the listings right and you get to know everybody in the neighborhood. So I had this farm area called Windwood Townhomes in Irvine, California. And I remember I was working so hard, I was getting to know everybody in that area. And then one day, on what's called the hot sheet of all the new listings that comes out every day, you know, it came out of the computer, the hot sheet came out, and my competitor, Mark Sabahi is his name, he got two new listings, and I still hadn't even got my first listing in there. And I was just working so hard, and I was like 21 years old. And, you know, he was like 40. So, you know, he had, like, maturity going for him. I didn't. I remember going in and I was so disappointed. And I went into my broker and I said, tom, look at this. I mean, I think I'm just going to give up. And he says, jason, he said something really wise to me. I had a lot of conflict with that broker over the years, but he did help me in Many ways. And he said, don't suffer day to day. Add it all up at the end of the year and then decide if you're happy. Don't suffer day to day, Add it all up at the end of the year and then decide if you're happy. And I did that and I became the number one Wynwood broker. I sold like 90 some odd properties in there and, you know, it was a hugely lucrative farm area for me, but I could have easily given up, you know, had I not had that conversation with him. And, you know, for real estate investors, when you talk about the eviction, you had the air conditioning replacement. You know, when we have these problems, I would say modify my old broker's quote. You know, the don't suffer day to day thing, add it all up at the end of the year. You gotta wait a little longer in real estate and you gotta add it up, at least wait to add it up until you file your tax returns and you see how much money you saved. Because every problem like that, like the eviction, remember, the government is your partner. Yes, they get their cut of the profits, but not really in real estate, because it's so tax favored, but they also share in the losses. Okay, so really, you know, we're only paying maybe 60% of this. 40% is paid for by the government. Right. So the loss isn't as bad as it seems. And then of course, you know, if we can take the depreciation and the other tax benefits and, you know, some additional write offs, it's really good.

It's funny that you say that, because I'm not new to investing or at least the idea of it, but I opened up my first retirement account when I was 19 years old and I would contribute the max every single year. And then I started working for a company that also offered a 401k and I started to contribute to these accounts. And then one day I woke up and said, you know, this is not good. I'm handing my money over to Wall street, but yet I can get at it if I decide I want to take the IRS penalty. So what I did was I started crunching numbers, looking at the real estate investment, said, you know, it actually makes more sense for me to cash out these accounts and sink it into real estate. And that's a large part of what I did when I started building the portfolio. And then it wasn't until I filed taxes the next year, that's when I became a believer. So.

Believer. You kind of slurred that word. I want to make sure people heard that. You said you became a believer, right?

Yeah, it might have cut out, but I was a full believer at that point. Yeah. And really what it did was it touched on the four dimensions of real estate, but I actually call them four different types of income. And that's really how I'm viewing this now. You have the cash flow, which is the holy grail. This is what people typically keep score with. But then you have the depreciation. Okay. Which will eventually go to my income statement in some way, shape or form. Then I have the appreciation of the asset, which will eventually put money into my account. And then I have the loan pay down by the tenant. So there's actually four different ways that I'm receiving income here. And when I had those other retirement accounts, I would receive nothing.

Yeah, yeah. You know, Wall street is definitely broken, isn't it?

Absolutely.

It really is. It's. It's. It's pretty terrible. Yeah. And, you know, when you really. I always talk about how a lot of people are winning, but they think they're losing simply because they don't know how to keep score. It is so important to just understand how to keep score. So maybe that's a good segue into what you wanted to share with people about financial statements.

Yeah, absolutely. So over the last couple of years, I've become very interested in personal financial statements. So we always hear about financial statements in business, and those two would be the balance sheet and the income statement. But what I become more interested in is how the two relate to each other and how they talk to each other. So from the Rich dad series, I've learned that an asset puts money into your pocket, whereas a liability takes money out of your pocket. And what I'm doing at this point is I'm trying to funnel every resource that I have, whether it's savings from my W2 income, reinvesting cash flow. We're actually even looking to start a little side business just as another stream of income. And really what we're doing with. With all of this income, all of the savings, is we're dumping it back into the asset column on our personal balance sheet, which is in the form of assets or at this point, single family homes. So we do make sacrifices, there's no doubt about that. But I'm looking at this long term, and I believe that if we all pour enough money into the asset column on our balance sheet, eventually there will be more income coming in than time, that I'll have to be able to invest it.

Right. Well, that's a very good statement. You know, being willing to delay gratification, think long term, and just build up that, that asset column. Right. You know, one of the other things I just want to remind people, of course, I've said all this stuff before. There's nothing new under the sun, as King Solomon taught us. Right. But.

The other asset that a lot of people don't realize they have is their credit, their ability to borrow, their ability to gain leverage with that credit. That is another thing that should go in the asset column. And you got to make sure you use it. It's not an asset if you don't use it. Like, it's a shame to have that asset. Unused equity in your home is another unused asset, and that's a shame when people have, you know, tons of equity in their home or properties that they're not using. That equity is sleepy money. It's lazy money. You got to put it to work. So understanding what an asset is and what a liability is, and you know, back to the Kiyosaki comment you made either earlier, the rich dad, poor dad, right. Robert Kiyosaki comment is that your home is always, always a liability, okay? Whether you rent it or own it, it's an expense, it's a liability. You know, you might, depending on where you are in the market cycle, make money on your home through capital appreciation, but it's always a liability. You always have to count it as a liability and consider it a liability. So very, very important to understand that, that, that overpriced car that someone listening might have, you know, that's eating up money. I mean, you know, that's a house, okay? You know, that's like another house in your portfolio. If you have an $80,000 car or a $60,000 car, you know, you could just buy another house and, and that house would produce 7, 8, $900 per month in income versus costing you money and depreciating. Right? So it's, it's very important to be buying assets rather than, you know, wealthy people acquire assets, poor people acquire expenses and liabilities. You know, it's just that simple.

And symbols of wealth.

Right, Right. The appearances of wealth, going back to.

What you were saying about renting and also just, just acquiring liabilities, like things like a house. Well, When I was 24 years old, I purchased my first house and I wanted to pay this thing down as quickly as I possibly could. Wasn't until I started investing, understanding and learning about inflation, monetary and fiscal policy as you always go over. But what we decided to do was to use arbitrage to do a cash out refinance on all of the equity that was just sitting dormant in the home. We borrowed that money at 4.3% and then went and purchased additional income properties. So I think it's a beautiful spread. I mean, 4.3% on the cash out refinance to go make purchases and investments that are going to YIELD probably between 30 and 35% this year.

Wow. Yeah, I think that is a phenomenal deal. And you got to just keep acquiring those assets. Now. It doesn't mean to anybody listening that you should never reward yourself. I mean, the whole point of all of this discussion and everything we do is that you gain wealth so you can enjoy it and enjoy your life. It's not to be Scrooge. That's not the idea here. But there's a balance like there is in everything. And I was a huge student of the late Stephen Covey. I just loved his work and still do. And one of the things he talks about is the P versus PC balance. P is production and PC is production capacity. And it kind of reminds me of that, that in that it's the old thing. Was it Abraham Lincoln said, maybe George Washington, I don't know, you know.

I destroy everybody's quote on my show. But, but you know, if, if I had seven hours to chop down a tree, I would spend six hours sharpening the ax, you know, you know the quote. Yeah, I'm talking about. Right. I think it was Lincoln. The sharpening the ax is increasing your production capacity. Right. So that would be like delaying gratification and investing. Today you're increasing your production capacity. And in this example, the production, the P and the P versus PC balance would be, you know, actually chopping the tree. Right. But it also, in this, in this example, kind of to use it another way, it might be enjoying our wealth. Right. And enjoying the extra time we've gained in the passive income and so forth. So you've got to have a balance. You know, you need to reward yourself a little bit along the way. So I don't want to make the recommendation that we all just sacrifice forever and then die. That's not the plan. Okay, right thoughts about that. I mean, you sound like you're pretty young and you got a young family, so, you know, you're in, it depends what stage of your life you're in. Right. But I hope that you're rewarding yourself a little bit along the way too.

Absolutely. I mean, I just turned 31, so I guess I am on the young side. But at the same time, I'm not going to look at it as if I'm. I'm ahead of the game because I do have a lot to learn and I have a long way to go. But as far as, yes, we are making our sacrifices, but for instance, in order to get a new car. Okay, so. So I could probably use a new car. So this example would be. But I need to acquire four additional assets before I get that car. So this is sort of that discipline mindset, I guess, that maybe I got from the military. But it does a couple of different things. Number one, it allows me to delay that gratification. But number two, I'm also using my desires and my necessities to push me closer to those goals.

Right.

So it's sort. It's sort of twofold.

Yep. That's a great way to look at it. You're basically. You're kind of gamifying yourself. You're playing a little game with yourself and you're just saying, look, you know, you can have the new car you want. You just gotta acquire. Acquire four more assets first, and those assets will pay for the car. And then you have the best of all worlds, you know, but most people go out in life and they have no patience whatsoever. They're just. Everything is. Whatever's proximate, whatever's right now, you know, instant gratification, very undisciplined mindset. And they just acquire. It's like, I gotta have a new car today. You know, the way you're thinking of it is. Is great. I love that. Really good. Really good.

And then another thing to touch on, on the. The point about Scrooge and hoarding money and not. Not enjoying, you know, another thing that we are trying to do in our lives is to give more. And I give because it makes me feel good. I give because it helps others. But I also believe it's important because it's constantly revealing to us an abundance mentality. So it's not that I have to hoard everything for myself. I want to give to others as well. And not only, not only money, not only time, but knowledge and anything that I can do to kind of pass on some sort of happiness. So I'm trying to take the broader approach and improve in all different areas.

Yeah, that's a great outlook. I love it. You know, when we give, it sets up our mind to know that there's more. So that's another way we're gamifying ourselves. Right. Hoarding is not going to make you rich? No one ever got rich saving money. Okay, so it has never happened. But, yeah. So when you give, you set up your mindset for abundance, and the world is a very abundant place. I love the Zig Ziglar quote. He says, you can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want. It sounds like you're doing that. And, Adam, really, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your path to becoming a great investor today. We really appreciate that. Any closing thoughts you want to share?

The only closing thought I would say is if you're on the fence about it, if you're thinking about it, I would say do whatever you can to take action, get involved, get your feet wet, even if it's only two or three properties, because as soon as you do that, once you start seeing the different benefits that are rolling in, you will thank yourself and hopefully you'll want to keep going with it.

You know, Adam, that is a great closing thought, and I hate to spoil it because I got one more question for you. It relates to what you just said. So there is this type of person, this type of mentality that wants to understand every aspect of something and learn it all first. Many of these people turn out to be seminar junkies. You know, they listen to podcasts, they go to all the seminars, they read all the books. They know everything, but they don't do things. And what would you say, you know, I mean, you've acquired 11 investment properties here in just over a year, like 13 months, basically. And, you know, what would you say the difference between, like, learning first or learning well, doing? See, I think the thing is, we learn the most just by actually doing the thing. We got to just do the thing or we're never going to really learn it. It's all going to be like book theory. It's going to be like the professors that run the universities that sit in the ivory towers and have, like, no real life experience, and, you know, you just can't learn it from a podcast or a book. You got to go do something at some point, right?

Yes, absolutely. One thing I think. I think there's a mixture. We need to. We need to be exposed to the information before we can actually go and execute. But for instance, one of the early videos that I watched from you was how to Read a Proforma, and I thought that was a great video. It did explain certain things. But really what I wanted to do after that video was, was to review the pro formas and not just look at the numbers, but understand how the software got to those numbers. So, for instance, understand what makes up the loan to value ratio or what makes up NOI or even the cap rate. So, you know, because at that point, that's when you really go in depth and understand on a deeper level.

Mm, Good. Good stuff. Yeah.

And another thing is, is I. I believe that it's important to go in depth with certain things, to really study a certain person. So that's why I listen to all of these podcasts. I have other mentors and other gurus that I listen to and go in depth into. And I just find that focusing on a few things in depth is better than getting a little bit of everything.

Yeah, right, Right. You don't want to be a jack of all trades and master of none, so you got to pick like, you know, just a few things and really focus and go deep and concentrate on it. And, you know, that's what you're doing in your markets. You're not overly diversified, which is great. You got two markets. You're going to have your third market soon and build a portfolio of, you know, I think you said 50, 60 houses in those three markets. So I think that be an excellent plan and I just want to wish you the best. And Adam Jackson, you know, thank you so much for sharing everything today. We really appreciate having you on the show and, and hope to see you at one of our upcoming events. So thanks again and happy investing to.

You and you as well, Jason. Thanks for having me.

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