From NFL to Real Estate: The Inspiring Journey of Alvin Scioneaux Jr

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the podcast, the New and Experienced Investor Podcast, the number one live real estate podcast in Laguna Hills.

I like that.

That's real.

That's nice.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, but really, uh, we're a real estate investing podcast. that bring real estate investors from all walks of life together. I'm Alex Barnett. I'm one of your hosts. I'm the new guy.

And I'm Joe Homs. I guess that makes me the old guy. Oh no, no, experienced guy.

That's right, the experienced one.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're not ageist around here.

No?

No.

Oh yeah, you can be. It's okay.

Well, yeah, the experience comes in handy all the time.

What'd you say?

Say what? Uh, we have an amazing guest here today. Uh, his story is absolutely, uh, inspiring, so make sure You guys stick around. I'm gonna— we're gonna bring him into the studio here in just a second. Before we do, let's talk about our meetup we have coming up August 26th.

Thank you for telling me the date. Yeah, I never remember. August 26th. Stephanie, is it?

Or Natalie?

Natalie.

Oh man.

Wow. Sorry, Natalie. Natalie, the CPA, is going to be speaking.

Yeah.

See, that's why they call me the old guy. But anyways, Natalie's gonna be speaking 6 o'clock at Hangar 24. Be there. It should be very exciting. Everything you wanted to know about a CPA, she'll be there to answer your questions. I mean, you know, for free, you can get your questions answered.

So it's pretty amazing.

Why not show up?

Yeah. And we're, we're calling it Tax Tricks Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know.

And she knows all of them.

She knows all of them. Because you can, you can make a bunch of money in real estate, but if you're not keeping it, then what's the point?

You know? That's right.

That's the whole thing.

That's in anything, really.

That's really in anything, you know, but Especially in real estate. Yeah. Because there are so many tax breaks. The government really is just saying like, we wrote all these loopholes in here. If you buy real estate, we're gonna hook you up.

Nice.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, and she knows 'em all.

And she knows 'em all. So that's great. And that's actually where we met our in-studio guest. Let's go ahead and bring him on in. Um, he's all, he's down here from LA, made the trek after looking at some properties today. Alvin CNO. How, how's it going, man?

Hello, hello. Doing well, doing well. Glad to have, have be here, Alex and Joe.

Yeah.

Looking forward to a great time.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, geez. Um, I mean, we just met a little bit at the meetup and, um, I think on Facebook before.

Yeah.

Um, as you're like doing so much, getting into flipping and all that kind of stuff. And then you sent me your bio and I was like, dear God, how have you done so much in a short amount of time? It's insane. So, um, let's go ahead and jump into it. Why don't you let everybody know kind of your background, how you got into real estate, and then, um, kind of what's going on right now?

Yes.

Yes.

So very diverse background, originally from New Orleans, Louisiana area, the 3rd of 8 kids. So a really big family. And my parents, they kind of, as they bought properties, like we moved into a property every 3, 4 years, they would, my parents would buy another one. Right. And they just rented out the old one.

Nice.

And they did that for the last 20 plus years of me living. at home. And I kind of got used to the monthly people stopping by, giving checks and bringing cash to the house. I'm like, this is some nice living. I could get used to this.

That's a good example.

Yeah.

So real estate always was in the back of my mind. That's something that I really wanted to do. Went on to start doing physics and math in college, was a nuclear physicist for a little bit. And after college, Doing another thing.

Another thing.

After college, actually played football in college, was All-American, Hall of Fame inductee, had a lot of success and got the opportunity to play in the NFL. Was with the LA Chargers for a couple years, 2014, 2015, before I tore my ACL, unfortunately. So I had surgery on that. So I did one year in Canada and Pretty much my football career came to a halt a little bit shorter than I wanted it to, but life goes on, right? So I went on to get my master's in engineering from San Diego State and was working as an aerospace engineer for about 8 years until just last year. I retired from the W-2 corporate life altogether and went full-time into real estate.

That is amazing. You've already like retired out of like 3 industries and you're just going into real estate. That's so cool, man. Wow.

I got a quick question. When your mom and dad were flipping and you were moving, you know, every once in a while, whenever. Yeah. And you had 8 kids.

Yes.

Did they ever forget one at one of the other houses?

Yeah.

Because that's what I would do. You know, it's like, how many? Let's count them.

7.

Yeah. That's what we had. 7. You know.

I, I do remember going on vacation, like one time we went to, uh, Mississippi. And yeah, every, everybody, you, we had, they did a roll call, right? So, you know, Ashley, Alvin, Aaron, Ashley, all my siblings, right? They gotta stay here. Like we, like we in class.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was a fun time.

I bet. I bet.

Oh my gosh. That's so cool. Okay. So real estate at the very beginning, learning from your parents and then how, Did you joining the NFL bring you out to LA?

Yes.

That's what brought you out here?

Yes.

Okay, nice. And then, so are you learning real estate along the whole time or is it really, you're like kind of segmenting everything and then picking up new skills like that?

Yeah. So when I was playing with the Chargers, I was pretty much all in focused on the Chargers, focused on football, eat, breathe, sleep football. So I wasn't really doing any real estate at that time, which I wish I did.

Sure, sure.

When the income was really coming in. But after, when I started working as an aerospace engineer, that's when I picked up my first property on my own out here in LA and just started repeating that process until my real estate, the passive income superseded the engineering income. And at that point, it was kind of like, yeah, it's about time to just go full-time into real estate.

Heck yeah.

Nice. Okay, so what did that passive income look like? Was it rentals? Was it flipping? What was it?

So it was all rentals. I initially just did all buy and hold, co-living, renting out a house, single family house, but renting out each room, which allowed me to double pretty much the rental income I would've been getting otherwise. And it didn't take that long. A couple properties already was enough annual income to supersede my engineering income.

And where were those properties at?

In LA, Norwalk area, and then the Hawthorne area by LAX, by the airport.

Wow. Nice.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

Who says you can't cash flow in California? You say that all the time. Who says?

Who says?

Hey, if you guys have any questions, we are live right now, so make sure you jump in the chat and ask Alvin anything you want. It seems like he's a wealth of knowledge, so drop it in the chat and we'll those up real, real soon here. So you decided to invest in California. Did you have people in your ear saying like, you gotta go outta state? Or like, what made you kind of pick California as your first market?

You talking about just, just this week? I mean, people always saying it.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you know, California, the, the rental laws, landlord laws is not as advantageous for landlords, obviously. But I always tell people, you really have to know how to maneuver it. I mean, as far as rental markets, there's cash flowing and appreciation markets, right? And California's one of the best appreciation markets you'll find. So if you can be creative on the cash flowing side, you kind of get the best of both worlds. And that's why I always say either don't do, if you're going to stay invested in California, don't do too much long-term unless you got like a multifamily commercial stuff. But on the residential side, if you can do any type of co-living, if you can do any type of creative income approach and hold the asset to appreciate it, you're winning. Like my one property I got in during COVID of course appreciation was going crazy during that time, but within 9 months I already had $100,000 in appreciation that I can tap into, which a lot of other markets, in the US, they, they, the property's probably worth $100,000, yet alone appreciating. Yeah. $100,000. So, absolutely. And of course it was, it was my backyard. I lived here. It's hard to leave 75 degrees and sunny.

Oh yeah.

All year long.

For sure.

So it, it was close proximity. So that's why I kind of chose the, the SoCal market.

Okay, nice. And did you buy those on market?

Yeah, those were on market.

Okay, cool. And then how did you know to do the co-living? Like how'd you get interested in that?

So initially when I still was working as an engineer, I was staying at the property and then one of my coworkers, his rent was going up. So I was like, well, I'm about to get this 4-bedroom property and you could just rent out one of the rooms. Instead of you paying $3,000, you could pay half of that, $1,500. And he moved in. as a coworker. So somebody I knew and kind of just doing due diligence online and this co-living thing is, people are actually doing that. So I ended up renting out the rest of the rooms and then eventually I moved out, rented out my room, and then I got another property, started doing the same thing over and over.

Okay.

And it's just kind of a snowball effect from there. So you can kind of say stumbled on it, stumbled upon it and researched it a little bit. So I always try to figure out what is the optimal path forward, right? In real estate, there's a million ways to make a million dollars, I always say. So just figuring out that one path that's optimal for you.

That's great. Yeah. Because I'm seeing that that's like now the new buzzword, the pad split and sober living or whatever. The co-living, I think, is going to be definitely a big thing here. So the fact that you kind of went from house hacking, I guess is what they call that.

Yeah.

Are you renting out room by room? And then you're like, okay, if I just move out, I'm gonna be making even more money. So let's just keep it going. That's, that's great. So, um, how about some, uh, some things you wish you did differently? Like maybe some, some, uh, obstacles you came across and you're like, now if you were like, oh, I wish I would've known, you know, something like that.

Yeah. Uh, it's a learning experience. So my first property, I actually, Trying to save money, did half of the work myself.

Okay. Yep.

And I'm in the backyard, I'm taking out all the doors. So my dad, he's very handy. He's an electrical engineer by trade and I'm an engineer. So just being hands-on, doing things with our hands. So growing up, I would always help him work on the AC and painting, doing a lot of the renovations for the properties. So he did all buy and hold. He didn't do any flipping. He just, as he moved out, he renovated and rented out. So I kind of had that same thought process, like, let's save money. So for my first property, I literally painted half of it. I had somebody do the kitchen. I did all the trimming, a lot of the electrical finishings, things of that sort. And I told myself, never again.

For sure.

Real quick. And it took a lot longer. I mean, the whole, I saved money, but I could have been renting out the property for at least 3 months, right? That rent I lost. So it's a double-edged sword. Just get it done and get somebody in there.

Yeah. And honestly, because I know Joe comes from that background too, of doing it yourself, which I didn't. We were always just hiring people, but Then when I had to do some of the work myself, it's like, now you, you know what to look for. At least when you're doing like the flips and stuff, you know what is right, as, as opposed to maybe someone who's never done any of the work themselves.

Bro, I heard you guys were, uh, repaving a driveway.

Oh yeah, we have a driveway project.

We have a driveway that we need repaved. I'm like, let me, let me see how much it is. Joe's like, no, we're gonna do it. And he's like, like, you and me, you're gonna go out there? He's like, yeah. Yeah.

What, what, what was the good, the bad, and the ugly about tenants? Especially because, like, you were living there as well. So what, what was the dynamics? What was your experience?

Yeah, the, the one thing with tenants, uh, you never know what to expect, right? You get the entire spectrum the entire time. Um, so when I was house hacking, Like I said, the first guy was a coworker, so we were already cool. And then the next guy was actually somebody I knew previously from engineering organization NSBE. So we were cool. So I would say when I was staying there, most of the people I had a good relationship with, even the one guy that moved in last. I had my frat brother move in. So initially it was pretty cool. When I moved out and then started having to screen tenants, was where you run into the whole entire spectrum. So I always try to make sure I meet them, talk to them on the phone, see, come to the property in person so I can talk to them in person. And I would say that I've dealt with one guy actually was a little bit, I don't know what's the best way to say this. He had like, he had, he took medicine to have, he had episodes, so to speak. Right.

Yeah.

But I didn't know. So, you know, just casually talking to him, you have a regular conversation, no problem. And about 3 months after he moved in, he ended up having an episode for the first time. And my neighbor called me like, hey, you're one of your tenants just drove into the house. Oh God. I'm like, what do you mean drove into the house?

Yeah.

It's just not an everyday occurrence type of thing.

Right.

So I'm rushing over there to see what's going on. And he's basically outside, he's not fully there cognitively. So I'm kind of talking to him, seeing what's going on. And, you know, he's still, he's, you know, talking but not really making sense. So, you know, that was a whole ordeal. I don't know if y'all really want me to get into the full story. But, but basically, the The police came, they talked to him, but they couldn't really do anything because he's obviously a tenant and living there.

Mm-hmm.

The firefighters came and he didn't pass their standard for having a maniac episode. So he ended up staying. And then I think later on that night, he ended up— the firefighters came back and ended up taking him to the hospital. And then, you know, I was talking to his parents and, you know, a great guy, you know, he played sports in college and everything. I'm talking to his parents and, you know, his parents was very apologetic, you know, hey, he was supposed to tell you that he actually takes medicine. So I'm like, I'm figuring all of this out in the moment.

Yeah.

Right?

So I end up having to go find his medicine in his room to make sure he takes it. And so he's at the hospital, right? So I'm going to the hospital and they say, oh, he's not here anymore. Oh, I'm like, what you mean he's not here anymore? Like, yeah, he left.

He's on Hollywood Boulevard somewhere.

He's somewhere. I don't know where. So I'm talking to his parents like, oh, I don't know where he's at, trying to find him. Drove around for a little bit. Nowhere to be found. The next morning, he ended up walking back to the house. I don't know where he was at. But, you know, long story short, I pretty much came back to the house, made sure he'd take his medicine, tried to, you know, basically tricked him into taking his medicine. He ended up, you know, coming back down to his normal state. And he was very apologetic as well. You know, he was trying to figure out what was going on. Like, well, let me show you.

Yeah.

So I took him outside, drove into the fence, Uh, you know, knocked down 2 fences. My carport was all messed up and everything. So yeah, that, that whole situation was, uh, extensive.

Yeah.

I'm curious, do you, do you, do you still do house hacking or no? You're, you're kind of— Yeah.

Yeah.

So for now, uh, I'll do the co-living but no house hacking.

Okay. Um, so co-living situation, like if, if I were to rent a room and let's say I'm the first guy there, Um, do you have a specific contract that you have with me in particular? I would be asking you, like, are you going to rent out these rooms? And obviously you'd say yes. Can I have a say-so in who's coming in?

No.

What?

No, no, no. Yeah, I want to say so because if I don't, then, you know, I don't know if I'd want to stay.

You don't know who's there, right?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, if you want to do a JV, we could do that.

Exactly.

We could do that approach. So now every individual person has their own individual contract and they have their own private room and bathroom. So you're really only sharing the kitchen area, right? So it's very similar to in college, right? You got your own space, but then you have some shared space. Uh, so for the most part, you have your privacy. Um, I, I typically will— if most of the time someone's there already in, in living in the place, so I'll introduce like, hey, just so you know, uh, this is so-and-so, he's living here, this is what he does, you know, he works. Everybody's pretty much working professionals or in some type of transitional period. So a lot of guys, they're not even home that often, right? Either just graduated Or maybe just got divorced. Even some older guys stay there at some of my properties. So various different backgrounds, but pretty much everyone works. So nobody just hanging out at the house.

Now, when you just said older guy, were you looking at Alex or me?

Just a couple older guys.

Okay.

Just a couple.

You're only a couple years apart.

Yeah, that's right.

That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah, that's, um, that's the thing. Uh, like you mentioned, uh, you go into it thinking you're— it's gonna be all this passive income, and then all of a sudden you just get that call out of the blue. They're like, your house is being demolished right now.

What?

Right, right. Yeah, one time my neighbors called me saying my house on fire. Yeah, dude, I'm like, what do you mean?

You gotta explain.

You can't just stop there.

Yeah, I know. I'm coming down right now. Jeez, you're like, I gotta go real quick.

Right.

So what, I guess, how have you, I guess, what sort of skills as a landlord have you had to learn to make things better as each, as you go along?

So I would say the number one thing similar in real estate, we know you make your money when you purchase the property, right? Not when you sell. So you have the purchase, right? And buy and holds with dealing with tenants, you eliminate your headaches when you screen your tenants. The same process, right? So I have, like I mentioned before, try to meet them in person, talk to them on the phone, background check, credit check, income check, all that good stuff. And just get a good feel for them as a person. What's their plan moving forward? I always talk to them about that. Hey, Is this something that you're just looking to have a quick place to stay for 6 months and dip out? And I also offer that as an option, 1-month lease, 6-month lease, 12-month lease. So they have that flexibility. And then I kind of just see how will they mesh with, to your question earlier, Joe, how they mesh with the existing tenants in the property, right? Because obviously you don't want to— have someone that is, they work all night and they going in and out the house at night, whereas somebody else, they got to wake up at 6:00 AM in the morning.

Right.

So just considering things like that. But first and foremost, the screening is the foundation. You live and die by your screening of the tenants for sure.

Okay.

I love that you actually interview them. I've always done that, you know, and it's like, you get so much more information when you're talking to somebody. And so I'm talking to somebody and, Joe, Joe, yeah, my FICO score is like super, super low, but here's the reason, you know, it's like, okay, strike one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Joe, Joe. Yeah. Don't worry. I can make, I can make that rent payment every month. I just got laid off last week, but I have another plan to get another job here in a couple of days. Strike 2.

Yeah.

And do you hear things like that? Because I've always heard things like that.

Yeah, I, I've heard, uh, you know, just moved here from out the country, already got a job but no proof of income. You know, I've heard, you know, parents paying for, for the, for the rent. Uh, you know, I've heard I have a savings, so I'm just going to be using that until I find a job. Various different stories. And people always ask me, what's the income limit that I need? What's the credit limit that they need? All these different things. And I always tell them my fail-safe answer is it's a holistic application. Nice.

That's good.

Just apply and then we'll discuss from there. Yeah. You know, so I'm not writing them off one way or the other because, uh, it is a holistic application, right? You know, you can have a, a very poor score, but if you got good income and I, you know, from me talking to you, having that conversation, okay, they trying to get things situated, I can work with that. You know, I have no problem helping people out as long as you don't just mess over me at the same time, right?

Is there, uh, Not, not an individual, but a group that you don't like, really like to rent to? I'm talking about their job.

Okay.

Is there like a certain—

They got laws around this, right?

Don't go there.

It's like this person comes and says, I have this job, am I good?

So in regards to jobs, there's no job that automatically gets you approved.

Disqualified.

Disqualified. There's no job that automatically gets you disqualified either. I would say as long as I can see that you're consistently making income and can pay the rent, then that part is checked. Then we can go through the rest of the process and application.

So what if I'm a 1099 employee, which means self-employed? Are you checking, no, I don't want you, or we'll talk about it? What other proof of income do you get in that case?

So I would just go back 3 months to see, okay, well, the 1099 is fine. How consistent have you been in the past 3, or even I'll go to 6 months, uh, to, to get a good estimate, like, okay, If you've been consistently bringing in income for 6 months, I, I can see at least that you, you have a consistent stream of flow. You know, of course, 1099 may be go— may go up, may go down, uh, depending on the seasons and the type of career and such like that. But if, as long as I can see that in some way, shape, or form, not just you telling me, right? Because anybody could say anything. But as long as I can see that, then I can work with it.

Do you ever ask them for their tax return?

Um, I like getting a loan, right? Yeah, I—

it is, especially nowadays in California. You can only ask for 1 month deposit now.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, we used to be covered with 2 months deposit, first month's rent. That's pretty good. We can, you know, we can work with that. But now it's literally 1 month.

Yeah. So you definitely have to take more precaution because of, you know, laws like that. Um, I have not asked for their, their tax return, but I might.

Oh, you should, especially 1099 employees, because, you know, if they can prove that they made $200,000 last year showing you their 1040, then I'm more likely to consider them. But, um, I, I, I'm not— that the 1099 is not on the top of my list because, you know, Just depends on what you do for a living, but you can make $100,000 in one month and then sit around for the next 11. Okay, great. Hopefully you have enough income to do that, but it's just not consistent.

For sure. Yeah, I mean, I would definitely say W-2 from a consistent income standpoint is certainly preferred.

Yeah. Just like a lender would ask for. And the firstborn as well.

Yep. And a draw of blood.

Yeah. Draw of blood.

Yes.

Hair follicle.

Yeah. All that.

Wow. It's tough out there, y'all. Good place to live.

I feel personally attacked. Yeah, I've been 1099 since I was like 22.

We are very 1099.

You, you would be a tough—

I know, tough. That's why every place I go, I know somebody that gets me in. That's the way to do it.

That is true.

Who do you know?

I know.

But yeah, a workaround would be, here's my You know, 1040 or, or your business account showing that this is what I made last year, this is what I've made for the last 2 or 3 years. You know, you don't have to give them the whole return, just front page that says this is how much I made.

We didn't, we didn't have to do tax return on our last move, but we had to supply 3 months of bank statements, and we pretty much showed every bank account that is applied to us or our business so that, yeah, we're like We can do it.

We swear. Yeah. I, you know, I, I bring that up because we were, Alex and I were in court today. I, I take care of other clients, other real estate agents' evictions. Uh, I've done that for a long time. And this guy that stopped paying was a 1099 employee. And I told Alex, I, you know, that's strike 3, right? Right away. I would've never rented to him. And here we are in court. And, um, you know, I think we're honestly, at least in Orange County, I can't talk about LA, but in Orange County, we're back, kind of back to normal. Um, it, you know, once we filed, it took like, uh, 60, not even that long, 45 days to get a court date. We're in court today and, you know, he's, he has to pay $4,200 within the next 2 weeks. If he doesn't pay, the sheriff is coming. You know, that's the delay in Orange County is the sheriff takes 6 to 8 weeks to schedule a lockout.

And you only have one court date?

One court date. Yeah. Okay. That's it. So it's filed. They're notified. I'd say, I'd say 50/50, maybe 75/25, uh, don't move out right away. They'll contest it.

Mm-hmm. They got extended.

And so then that's when we get the court date and we go to court and everybody, you know, has a chance. Most of the time it's negotiated, which is what, what happened today. Again, it's negotiated like right away that, okay, here, you pay us this. And then we even gave him a really big break. I mean, it wasn't my idea, it was the attorney's idea. If he pays everything in the next 6 weeks, he, he can stay. We'll reinstate him. Yeah, you know, and it was, uh, $25,000 that he owed, that he was behind. So it was a big amount. Yeah, I mean, I'm predicting here on this show that he's not going to come up with that money. So if you want to check back in next week, we'll talk about it.

Yeah, yeah, that's— yeah, maybe he can.

Yeah, so anyway, we're back to normal again. COVID threw everything off.

Yeah, yeah, everything was backed up.

Everything was locked. Was locked up. And, uh, but we're back to normal.

Back to normal.

Did we have a good time today?

Yeah, it's really fun.

We had a good time.

It's a good time. Yeah.

Went to court, Central Court in Santa Ana.

Yeah.

Nice.

Nice. Um, so now you're, you're helping people, other people now acquire assets as well, right? Is that kind of something that you're doing as well? I saw you, um, you have a group or it's like an app. You're helping athletes. Yeah. Is it investing? You're helping athletes with investing?

Yeah. So Financial Athlete Capital, pretty much helping with the knowledge side of it, what options they have. So they have that foundation, then also opportunities either investing in syndications, multifamily syndications, or in fix and flip opportunities, various different real estate ventures to where they can actually take that knowledge and now apply it.

I love that because I mean, absolutely, it's become a thing where, and same thing with musicians, because we have a music background where it's like, You're focused so much on this one thing, and then when you get that chance and you make it big, you don't realize like, okay, I gotta take this money and invest it. You're just like, yeah, I did the thing. But then you hear all these stories about when, when the people are older and they, then they have nothing. And you're like, but you made so much. It's like you just, you were so focused on this one thing to get to that pinnacle that once you get there, it's like you just don't have the knowledge like you're saying. And that's all it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's huge, especially in sports. Uh, I mean, Like it's what, 5 years after retirement, 80% of football players don't have any money left. I think 5 years after retirement, NBA, 50% don't, don't have any of their money. So it, it's, you know, like you mentioned, being able to, once you make it to the top of the mountain, allocate your, your, your money to start, have your money start working for you is, is huge. If, 'cause like the average, NFL career is 3 years.

Wow. Oh my gosh.

If you start playing at 23, 26, now you're like, all right, what's next? You know, the average, you know, NBA career, 5, 6 years or so. Yeah. So sports, you don't— it don't last long. I mean, unless you're playing golf or, you know, some sport like that. Yeah. Ping pong or something. You know, nobody is playing 35, 40, 45, outside of like Tom Brady or those people. But, you know, for the most part, people aren't playing into their 40s in any sport.

Yeah.

So, and you got a long life to live. So being able to allocate your money, put your money to work, get connected with the right people is huge for people on the flip side of that professional career.

Absolutely.

How much at the beginning of your career What's your— the amount of friends that you have? And then as you were talking, you know, 5 years after retiring, how many do you have left?

The people that are still playing?

No.

Or the people—

Your inner circle. Why are professional athletes losing all their money in 5 years?

I would say probably the number one reason is, uh, oh, so overall it's just a lack of knowledge. I mean, in, in general, and growing up in school, nope, we're not taught about financial literacy in elementary, high school, college, even unless you study finance, you know, pretty much everyone else, a large percentage of the population do not know anything about financial literacy. So that's just across the board.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, 80% of people living paycheck to paycheck, right? So specifically in sports athletes, they, they really get accustomed to the high-profile living, right? You know, friends, friends, you know, influence. People can influence you to do, to go out and about and live it large, or they can influence you to, uh, just live your needs, you know, not going crazy on doing things. I can remember as a rookie, I would— I was driving my college car, a Nissan Altima, a white '05 Nissan Altima, and I'm pulling into the players' parking lot and, you know, they got a red on red Ferrari, uh, in the parking lot. I'm parking next to, uh, there's a gold Bentley I'm parking next to, right? So it is very easy.

The gold Bentley would've got me.

Right. It's very easy to just succumb to the lifestyle, right? You know, and these are veterans, so they've been playing 5+ years. They are stabilized, where as a rookie, you're just starting to see money and you're like, well, you know, my teammate's doing it. Like, let me just ball out. Let me just go, you know, nightclub and make it rain and all this other stuff, which I wouldn't personally do it, but you know, if you wanna just do it one time, get it outta your system, okay. All right, one and done.

One and done, all right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then from there, now we need to put our money to work. So, you know, trying to make— making it a habit is certainly not sustainable.

Okay. So where did that discipline come from? Was it mom and dad?

Mom and dad had a huge impact on it growing up. Like I mentioned, with third of 8. So, you know, my parents definitely wanted all of us to take care of our grades first and foremost, right? You know, A's and B's, nothing less than that was expected. Also playing sports, you know, it was not necessarily forced upon us, but encouraged to be active and involved in some way, not just sitting at home. You know, the saying, my mom and dad Christian, so, you know, the saying is idle time is the devil's workplace. So, and, and this is true across the board, you know, regardless of your religious belief. Whenever you're just sitting, sitting around hanging out thinking, your mind starts to wander. And next thing you know, your mind naturally has a tendency to go into, okay, you know, fearmongering, go into, okay, what are some, um, things that may be interesting but in a negative way?

Mm-hmm.

Versus having, having your mind naturally go to, All right, what are, what are some, some positives? What are some discipline things, some, some ways I can evolve and grow? So, you know, parents had a huge impact on me in that regard. And I would say football, like just being involved in sports in general.

There you go.

You know, if, if, if you're not, if you're not one of those players nowadays that just, okay, you don't get your way, you quit the team. If you can stay on the team and go through a full training camp, go through a full season, Have the coaches going yelling at you for whatever the case may be. Sports teaches a lot about discipline.

It does.

So that was another foundational piece for me.

Yeah. Awesome. That's awesome.

Are you seeing any changes within the league of them teaching financial literacy, or is that completely just not talked about? I feel like there's a difference now where people are becoming more aware, but I don't know. What would you say?

Yeah. People are definitely becoming more aware. I would say like even before my time, sports, '80s, '90s, 2000s, it wasn't like the World Wide Web. You know, they didn't have the internet with TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and everything else just right there in your face. So now everyone is so connected and we hear about the stories of this athlete went bankrupt. Like, what? Didn't they just, didn't they make $50 million over their career? How they went bankrupt?

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, these stories are more prevalent now. Now guys are, even in college, you get NIL deals, name, image, and likeness deals to where you can get paid earlier. So people are certainly more privy to it. I would say even in professional sports, you know, as rookies, we go through a rookie symposium. So just talks about financial literacy, how to be a professional, things of that sort. I mean, in all honesty, you know, guys are 23, 24 years old. They're not really—

Trying to hear all that.

They're not really that focused on that aspect. A lot of guys pay attention to it and, you know, some take it more serious than others. But I think that there definitely needs to be a continuum process, you know, even after they're playing, you know, once you're done professionally, then You're on your own.

Yeah.

There's no league support outside of like the Players Association, things of that sort. So I would encourage guys to really lean on the Players Association to get them different type of benefits, different knowledge. And, you know, that's kind of what I've been doing as well with my platform, just putting out that knowledge for athletes to learn different opportunities.

I love that. And are you doing any sort of syndication with that? Are you getting these guys to pool their money and then you guys are going to buy assets or how's that working?

Yes. Yes. So have done a couple syndications already, 42-unit, 96-unit in Nebraska. Awesome. With a couple partners local in that market. Actually have another syndication that's coming up in about a month or so, a short-term rental portfolio in the St. Louis market. Heck yeah. With seller finance as well. All right. Creative financing on that one with some real big players in the syndication market as well. Okay. So definitely keep an eye out for that.

Yeah.

That's cool. Nice.

Oh my gosh. How are you acquiring these? Like, how are you getting these leads?

And so pretty much all the leads, the syndications, even fix and flip and all, everything has been relationship-oriented.

Okay.

I mean, I always say real estate, there's, it's a huge industry, similar to engineering. There's 30 different types of engineers in real estate. That's 30 different type of people that can help you or ways you can invest. So for me, it's been a matter of just investing in my network. And my network. So I've spent over $50,000 just on knowledge and mastermind groups, for example. Nice. And that has led to a lot of the syndication opportunities and to just grow my knowledge and get involved in different types of deals as well.

Right on.

Nice.

Cool.

Very nice. Yeah.

So you are looking at estate, I mean, for the bigger projects, I'm assuming. Yeah. You can find some good deals with I guess good returns out of state.

Oh, yes. Absolutely.

And then a short-term rental portfolio.

Yes.

That's cool. How many properties in that one?

So it's 18 properties consisting of everything from single families to up to like 10, a 10-unit.

And they're all being run as short-term rentals?

Yep.

Heck yeah. Very cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It, it, it, some great returns.

Yeah.

Awesome. Okay. So you, and then you already have the money, like, You already have the backing, so all you got to do is put it together. And then are you kind of like managing the whole thing or where are you fitting into that?

Yeah.

So helping out with the capital raising and the asset management. So right now we're pretty much, we did the pro forma, all getting our docs and stuff like that situated. We'll be probably going live here soon within a week or two.

Okay.

I'm actually going to Walk the properties next week. So a group of 5 of us going out there to do our last walkthroughs and then we'll start pushing that out here soon.

Heck yeah. I had a deal come to me. It's like a short-term rentals. It's a fourplex in Venice. Do you want to do something on that or?

We can make it happen.

Okay, cool.

I'm hoping. I'm hoping.

Okay, sweet.

This is the first I hear.

It just like happened.

Like what, 2 minutes before we got on the air?

Yeah, like earlier this afternoon.

Wow.

Yeah, some guy sent it. I was like, I'll take a look at it. I don't feel bad.

Don't worry, I don't feel bad.

It's okay.

I'm not gonna talk to you anymore. I'm gonna talk to your wife.

No, I was like, I don't know if this is gonna be anything, but then once you're talking about it right now, I was like, oh, maybe, maybe it'll be something. So that's why I brought it up.

Venice is pretty rough, by the way.

I know. Yeah, yeah, we can go in, we can do the work. We got, we got some muscles.

Yeah, a lot of muscles, of course.

Exactly. Joe knows how to clean up the streets.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, we can all look at it after, but, um, uh, we got some videos.

So we—

this is the, the portion of the show where we bring up some videos and we have you react to it and Okay. Give us your thoughts on what you think.

Okay. The first video is How Rich Athletes Stay Rich. Oh, hold on. My bad. Try that again.

Athletes do it the other way. When you're rich, you need to stay rich. You don't need to get rich. Trevor Bauer's rich. He doesn't need to get richer. So it should be on what's called capital preservation or preserving it. Most athletes are competitive by nature. You know what? I just got $100 million. I'm gonna do something risky and make this $200 million. No, no, no, no. You're already rich. You don't need to be risky. So now after that, after he's put away $10 million in very safe investments and he makes $1 million for the rest of his life just for existing, he needs a home. Buy a house in Arizona, $500,000 cash. Don't have a payment. Don't have anything like that. The reason why I say Arizona, that's where the Dodgers spring training site is. So every year in February, February, March, have a place to live. You're not living in dorms. And also too, I think half the teams have them. So even if he switched teams, more than likely he can go to Arizona. Athletes do it.

What you think about that?

Uh, I would say that's huge. That's huge. Uh, you know, going back to the story about just splurging on cars and making it rain in the club and all this other stuff, right? Being able to, uh, Preserve your money. So, so think of it from an investing standpoint, the stock market where everyone is taught to diversify, which is great for capital preservation, not actually so great for increasing your capital. You need, you actually need to focus if you want to grow your capital. You look at, you know, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, whatever, all these different people. Elon Musk focused on, uh, you know, Tesla, SpaceX. Uh, Bill Gates focused on Microsoft. That's how they grew their wealth. Now, to preserve it, you want to diversify. So in, in the video, after you— yeah, after you make $10, $50, $100 million, you're already in the 0.1%. I mean, what you want to be, the 0.01%?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, you already made it. In that sense, you know, and, and even playing sports, if you make it as a professional athlete, you play the average 3 years, you made it in life. No matter what, you know, people talk about, oh, you're a bust. You made it in life. You're already in that, that 1% or 0.1%. So I would say diversifying, making sure you have, you know, risk returns and analyzing deals is, is what will help you a whole lot more than Oh, let me, let me just put it all on black, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, he mentioned he, you take $10 million and then that's just, you get $1 million a year just existing.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a pretty good place to be.

Exactly.

So, um, I mean, what, what's the difference between how many of those guys are making $100 million and then like, is everybody else making like a small amount or how's that?

Yeah, it's not, I mean, on ESPN and SportsCenter and things like, you see $100 million new deal, $200, $500 million. Like, that's one person.

Right, right, right.

We got, we got, you know, 53 people, uh, that's, that's dressing up and playing in the game. So, um, it's, it's similar. I would say entertainment in general is pretty similar, um, spread as far as you got your top 5, top 10% that's really making, killing it. You know, the Denzel Washingtons in acting.

Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift type of people and artists singing.

Yeah.

You know, and the same thing in sports, you know, you got that top 5, top 10% that's really killing it. And then you have the, you know, you have a middle, a middle ground, usually veterans that, you know, they get, they get some playing time, maybe, you know, 5 years in. So they're, they're comfortable, you know, very, very much so comfortable, you know, $510,000, $515,000 plus. And then you have, you know, the, the, the larger majority are on that, that bottom end of the spectrum. I would say, you know, the, the bottom 50 to 60% still doing well.

Mm-hmm.

You know, like the, I think the league minimum $800,000 or so right now. So, you know, one between that $800,000 to, to $5 million, Like, you're still, don't get me wrong, you're still in the 1%, the top 1% of income earners. But you can't just say, oh, I'm retired and let me just live off the interest. You're not that set.

Right.

Because you still have 40 years ahead of you living your life. So, and those type of guys, I would say you definitely want to put your money to work. And those are really the guys that I kind of cater to as well to help them put their money to work to where Hey, you know, you made $5 million in your 3, 4 years of playing. Now, how can we take that and turn that into $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 per year, every year?

That's great. That's really good. I mean, and it's insane to say that, I mean, especially in California, $5 million isn't that much.

I saw something on, I think, Twitter. I don't remember who was quoting it, but they said $5 million is the new $1 million.

Dear God.

Like when we were kids, $1 million was like, that's it.

Right now you're buying like an 800-square-foot 2/1 in LA for like $1.3 million.

Right.

So that's your house, and then you gotta live off the rest. So yeah, gotta be smart with it.

Appreciate— or, um, Inflation is a killer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, that's great. All right, what do we got next?

Athletes investing badly.

Okay. It's real clear that these athletes, when they come into this huge amount of money in their payday, they're making terrible investment decisions. You know, we talk about asset allocation, asset diversification. I mean, these guys are putting money in private equity investments that have a high risk of failure and putting way too much of their portfolio in these private equity investments. I mean, that's just not the right thing to do. It's real clear that these athletes, when they come— What do you think about that side?

So I would say, you know, he's right in the sense that, I mean, I just came today from talking with a player that they bought a commercial building out in the Valley in LA and they've had it for about 3 years and had a hard money loan on it, 12+% on it. And they're trying to figure out what to do with it. But for 3 years they've been paying 12+% on this property trying to figure out what to do with it. Right?

Mm-hmm.

So you really, Like I mentioned, at least along as well as the entire society, they don't have the foundational financial literacy needed to really understand what's a good investment and what's a bad investment. Most people in general, they don't invest. They actually speculate. Even in the stock market, I think it's going to go up and it goes down.

Yeah.

So understand that investing is really having a secure, a security of principal with a high likelihood of increasing in value. That, that is investing, a security of your principal with a high likelihood of that asset going up in value. Private equity can be a huge upside, you know, especially if take a company, it goes public and things of that sort. Like exponential upside, but maybe 1 in 20 actually do that.

Oh my gosh.

So you have 19 of all these 20 options. There's only 1 of them that's going to get that return that you're hoping for and seeking. 19 of the other ones are not going anywhere. So being able to really understand how to analyze the opportunity, And choosing the risk-averse option is huge.

Absolutely. I mean, I saw, uh, recently I saw like this thing about this guy who went on Shark Tank and he tricked Mark Cuban. He came up with this little device, he put it in here, it was a breathalyzer for your iPhone. Mark Cuban's like, yeah, I'm all about it. Then he like, he saw him like once they made the deal, um, He, he's like, how much was it for?

Like $40 million?

Yeah, it's like $40 million. Then he's like on this guy's Instagram, he's like seeing him going to Bali and like Vegas and he's just like partying and stuff. He's like, aren't you supposed to be like making the thing come out?

Turns out the whole—

yeah, it turns out the whole thing was a scam.

Never worked.

Didn't work. So you gotta imagine if Mark Cuban's— yeah, exactly. Mark Cuban's getting like— he's— and he's one of the top investors. It's like, it's gotta happen if you're just a guy that's got so much money and then somebody comes up to you and is like, I got this great idea for for a business.

Yeah.

Like I can get sold on any business with a really good presentation. I'm like, yeah, of course it's going to work. So, um, I can see people maybe targeting athletes too. Does that ever happen?

Oh yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, because we hear all the stories, right? Of athletes going bankrupt and such. So, you know, a lot of, um, a lot of people just throw themselves at from an investing standpoint. Hey, I got this opportunity every day. You know, I, I can remember playing every day, somebody reaching out for something or some opportunity. Right.

Right.

So it's, it's a dime a dozen to where the, the smooth talker or the, the, the slick salesperson will be the one that will get over the, the hurdle, but they got the worst deal or the worst opportunity outta everybody.

Yeah.

Right. So, So yeah, it really, it really comes back to, you know, having that trust factor, having relying on people that, you know, and then kind of working your way from there. Most athletes, they, they only work with people through recommendation, you know, word of mouth, just for that specific reason.

That's great. Yeah. And then, and that's great because you have the background of this and you're into the investor. So I think you have a You know, special talent there.

Yes. Yes.

Awesome. Next up.

All right.

We got a couple more. This one is, I mean, Joe, I don't know if we would ever do this. $80,000 cash for keys.

Wow. Where, where at?

Let's find out.

Wow.

God, they can give it to me.

I know.

Wow.

What's up guys?

I'm tennis.

That was you.

That's coach. Investment decision.

You know, we talked—

Okay, sorry.

This is like, uh, Shorts Inception.

What's up guys? I paid these tenants $80,000 to vacate and they destroyed the property. They left trash everywhere. These tenants were horrible tenants and the homeowner could not get rid of them. I came in, I solved the problem, I got the house under contract, paid the tenants $80 grand. They destroyed the property. They didn't even take any of their belongings. But guess what? They got out, the homeowner sold the house, and I made $250,000 of profits. Look at this, they left food in the kitchen, on the stove, in the fridge.

Cooking.

What is going on here? But they took the money, they left, the homeowner sold the house, flooded the toilets of course, and I made $250,000 on this flip. Guys, this is not easy, but if you want to learn how to do this I do it all day long. They stole the water heater. Not sure if you saw that. $250,000 profit for them to destroy a house that I bought and flipped. But let's go. You want to learn more? Follow for more.

That's got to be California.

What's up?

Yeah, that's crazy.

Laguna Niguel or something like that.

I, I, I don't believe it. No, no. Oh nope.

Joe's calling clickbait.

An experienced investor flipper is going to give Anybody $80,000 without that house being spotless at the time that they leave. I mean, cash for keys is literally, here's $80 grand in cash. Yeah, bring a bag for that. And if I see a mess, you ain't getting $80 grand. Sorry. You know?

Yeah.

And in the contract it says it has to be broom finish. You know, I don't— this is clickbait. And I thought I had saw in there where it said he only got— he only paid $10,000.

It did.

He said something.

He said he made $250,000.

Yeah, he said he made $250,000.

Let me bring it back up.

And the thing, yeah, it says $10,000. Um, how about this though? The homeowner says right there, $10,000. Yeah. Oh, what is it? Chaos to cash, $80K to evict tenants. I don't know, maybe he messed up.

Okay, so maybe he paid $80,000 to evict them and then he gave them $10,000 of the cash for keys.

Yeah, even $10,000 for Yeah, that's the purpose of cash for keys, right?

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like a drug deal basically. Like, here, here's your cash, give me my product.

Exactly.

Well, I mean, what if the spread is so good you're willing to— that's just part of your numbers. I gotta pay these guys $100 grand.

Wouldn't it be easier to just like pay the YouTube squatter guy $80 grand and go like Yeah, I think he's like $10,000 or something too. Yeah. Have you seen that guy? He like will go camp out in the house with their squatters.

I have seen it. I have seen a guy in California, or I have seen a guy on YouTube talk about, you know, he, you'll pay him and he'll go squat on the squatter.

Yeah.

Where is it? In California though? They have a, they have one that's in California.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's a few guys I think now.

Nowadays.

He's had, he has a whole crew.

Okay.

Not just him. He has a whole crew knocks on the door. Hey, we've got a lease. He has a lease from the actual owner. We have a lease.

We're gonna come.

We're moving in. And then everyone's him and his crew move in.

Yeah, send me send me his contact.

Just in case.

Just in case. No, no. For actual story, true story. One one of our flips that just got on the market, we actually almost. had squatters move in.

Oh God.

Almost. It was literally like within 24 hours of catching them. We, so one of my partners went there on Saturday. Everything was good. We had a cleaning person come in and get it ready for the showing and everything. And on that So they left. I was out of town, so I'm hearing about this all on the phone, right? I'm like, bro, give me a heart attack. So on that Monday, he went— 2 days, he went back to the property. We had a lockbox for the key on the front handle, and it was gone.

Mistake.

I know.

You live and learn, right?

Yeah.

So it was gone. And so he, he was telling me, he said like, well, I don't know where, where, where the, the lockbox went. So he went through the back and he, he noticed that the windows, all the blinds were down and stuff.

Yeah.

So it had like curtains blocking all the, all the windows. So he was curious, like, what's, what's, what's going on here? So he ended up going through the back. The front door was locked, but the, the back door was open.

Oh, okay.

So he ended up, he ended up breaking, getting in through the back door. And they had a little kid just in the living room, you know? And, you know, he was like, yo, what are you doing here? Where's your parents? And they got, there's the upstairs to the property. So there's the parent come down from upstairs down to the ground floor. And he's like, you know, they like, what's going on? And then my partner like, what the hell you mean? What's going on with you?

Yeah, really.

What you mean what's going on?

Yeah.

mattress in there. They had a sofa in there. They had all kind of pots and pans. Literally.

Yeah.

Like they actually, they lived there. They had a made-up fake lease. So my partner ended up calling the police and instantly just started dragging their stuff outside to the front yard. And you literally would've thought that they lived there.

Right.

Like a bed, kitchen supplies, everything. So the police ended up coming And, uh, the police basically said, hey, good thing that you got their belongings out, you know, because if their belongings would have been in the house still, technically, you know, it appears as though they, they lived there, right? And they had a fake lease and everything. I don't know, I don't know if there's like professional squatters, but yeah, they're sophisticated.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Making up signatures and everything.

There's people helping them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was a whole— it was a whole—

he's the governor of California, he's helping.

Yeah, exactly.

I like that.

There's like full-on TikTokers that break down how to legally squat and stuff, change the locks, put all that stuff in there. And it's really messed up.

I mean, if you're not visiting the property that often, I think— thank goodness he was there. Yeah, stop by.

Yeah.

What do you mean, what am I—

yeah, oh my God, all within 24 hours.

Yeah, it's crazy.

And they're all like, what's going on? They're just acting.

My son-in-law Ryan has properties pretty much all over, but in San Bernardino especially, he hires a guy to basically live in the house while they flip it.

Mm-hmm.

Because if not, people move in.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's, I, I know a guy that do that as well. You know, multifamily deals, they, yeah, they'll pay someone just to stay there overnight. And the whole process during the renovation, they live there.

Yeah.

Got their electrical socket, you know, air mattress, the radio.

There you go.

Doing everything.

Just watching Netflix.

A gun.

Yeah. Netflix and gun.

Right. Right. AR-15. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh boy.

All right. We got one more video if you guys want to do it.

Sure.

Okay. This one is best way to flip a home in Los Angeles.

Half a million dollars in profit and paying zero taxes. That sounds too good to be true, but it is true. And here's the strategy that I suggest to a lot of people that are just getting into this. This strategy is actually being subsidized by the government. Government tells you, hey, please do this because we do want you to be a homeowner. Half a million dollars in profit.

He didn't tell you what it is.

Didn't really explain anything there.

Yeah, just half a million dollars.

I mean, that's a lot.

Half a million dollars in profit, you pay zero tax. How does that work, Joe? Finish the rest of the video.

What was he warning for?

Fraud.

Yeah, he's like, you just moved to a B city.

How many people actually viewed that video?

Oh, um, I can pull it back up.

Well, I wonder if you live in the house and you're married for 2 years, I don't know, something like that.

Um, it's only got 5 likes. So it doesn't seem very good.

So he's not getting paid.

Just dislike it.

Like a lot?

Dislike it?

$500,000?

Dislike it live on air?

You're right. That's what he's talking about. He's talking about buying it and it appreciates $500,000 and then you, you know, long-term capital gains after a year.

Exactly. And you can sell it for $500,000.

That's what he's talking about.

Okay. I could very well see that.

Yeah.

But now you gotta like it.

Yeah. All right.

They're like, all right. We take the dislike back.

We take it back.

But he makes it. He said flipping, but I guess that's long term.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Clickbait. Everything's clickbait.

Got me. Everything gets you.

Everything gets you.

I love all the clickbait. They say I'm making money. How do you make money? This way.

Oh yeah.

Joe, look at this.

Yeah.

Fraud. Yeah. I know.

Joe just. Were Alex being like a sales guy? He falls for every sales guy.

Oh, yes.

Yeah. I want to listen to all the presentations.

That's normal. Sales guys, you know, because you work so hard at what you're doing, selling other people.

Yeah.

That people can sell you easily.

Yeah.

You know, you know, I, I took a call last night from this lender who said he was going to send me something, but he never did, which is fine, uh, because I really didn't want it anyway. But I'm just— I'm courteous. I'm listening to his conversation.

Yeah.

I don't want to keep you a long time, Joe, you know, but this is what I have to offer and stuff. And I'll send you an email, you know, what should I send it to? Joe@joehomes.com. And I know they never spell my name correctly, so I never get it, right? You know, but I do tell them the truth, you know. Here's my email, whatever.

What was he selling? Leads?

I, you know, I don't know what he was saying. I'm just being courteous and listening to, you know, his 1 or 2 minute elevator speech and then Moving on.

Yeah, you know, that's nice of you.

Bored last night, so I answered the phone.

Normally I would listen to sales calls. Yeah, entertainment.

Normally I would.

Oh man. Uh, okay, well, there's, there's other tax strategies and we're gonna learn about them all August 26th. Yes, at the meetup.

Yes. So, uh, yes, so that's just one.

That's just one.

That's a good one though. That is a really good one.

What do we got as far as like people, if people want to like partner with you or what, you know, what's the best way to get ahold of you?

For sure. So I'm on all social media. You can, you can go on, you can also go on the website, financialathletecapital.com.

Nice.

And I'm on all social media, A1Ciano, my last name. So letter A, number 1, Ciano, S-C-I-O-N-E-A-U-X, all social media.

Heck yeah.

And he is on social media. I see him all the time.

I know. I know.

Yeah.

That's good.

And you have somebody that does that for you.

You gotta have a team.

Yeah.

You definitely gotta have a team. You know, no, no, like your team, they're doing a great job.

Appreciate it. And I think I told you that before.

Yes.

Yes. They're doing a great job.

Thank you.

Nice.

I noticed it.

Yeah. Oh, I know.

Yeah.

What was going on there?

You can have the best deal. You can have the, the most trust. But if people don't, they don't have, you don't have visibility, it really doesn't matter. So you gotta put yourself out there.

Okay.

So people can DM you.

Yes.

Did we have any questions on the—

slide into your DMs?

There was one question wondering in your pad split setups, are the rooms furnished?

So great question. I give the option. So similar to the lease term, whether it's 1 month, 6 months, or 12 months, I also give the option. of if it's furnished or not. Obviously, the shorter the lease length, the more the price will be. And of course, furnished will be more costly than unfurnished. So I give them the option, the flexibility.

And then the common areas, obviously those are set up.

Yeah.

The common area is a sofa, you know, a little side table, TV.

Nice.

What are you seeing for, sorry, the, like the amount of people that picked furnished versus unfurnished? Do you see like people—

Initially, so when I first During COVID 2020, '21, more people were doing furnished for sure. Uh, recently, people are just bringing their own furniture for the most part.

Nice. Do you get the furniture from a staging company or do you actually go out and buy it?

Uh, no, I have it. Yeah, I buy it. I just, yeah, I'll just put it in storage until somebody want to use it. Like, I got some furniture, just put it in there, in the room.

Nice friends.

Yeah. Nice. Like IKEA or something? Or what do you, what's your go-to?

Uh, just online.

Okay.

You know, Amazon or whatever. Any, you know, it's mostly wood, metal frames.

Yeah.

You know, durable. Yeah. Durable stuff. Uh, the cooling mattresses, things like that. So I normally do a bed, um, a desk, and then a, uh, a dresser.

Nice.

And with a chair. So.

Cool. There you go. You got any vacancies you need filled?

Co-living, they're all, they're all filled right now.

Oh, sorry guys.

That's great.

All right.

It's good to hear.

Yeah.

That's good to hear.

0% vacancy.

That's awesome.

How we like it.

Yeah. Very cool. Thanks so much, man.

What a great conversation.

And like, you're just a very impressive guy and I'm hoping to do deals with you coming up here. And make sure you tune in next week. We're gonna have Morgan Keem on next Thursday and, you know, We'll just continue the number one live podcast Laguna Hills here. Thank you guys so much, and you can find all of Alvin's information in the description box, and we'll see you next week.

See you next week. Appreciate it. If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one on one.