The SECRETS Real Estate Gurus Won't Tell You w/ Rich Fettke

You know, this world of real estate, there's some scammers in it and you know, that's why we called our network Real Wealth.

I need to be investing in a rental property every year or part thereof. I could partner with others. I could do it in my ira. I could do it all myself.

I was diagnosed with melanoma, skin cancer. The doctors thought it had spread to my liver after a couple CT scans and ultrasounds and oncologist told me I might have six months to live. So it was my wife Kathy who you know, and she was a stay at home mom at the time. We had two young daughters and she's like, what am I going to do if Rich passes away?

Welcome everybody to the Main street business podcast and show on YouTube and we get to interview another Main street influencer. I am so excited and honored to welcome Rich Fetke. He is co founder of Real wealth, the author of the Wise Investor. Incredible on stage influenced if not thousands, hundreds of thousands of people around the country over his career. What I love about Rich is that he's got his financial hat on and he's got his real estate investor hat on. I love he is a double threat. I want to say more about you Rich, but thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me. Looking forward to this. You bet.

No, now on a personal, I need everybody to know I've been personally tutored by Rich. We did a, a couple's retreat at their home slash resort training facility in Malibu. Beautiful place. And it was such a neat experience to be with he and his wife Kathy for two full days of just training and on life. And Rich has a really unique exercise where he puts you into a kind of a meditative, thoughtful state and you think of what's my future and what's it like and, and we work backwards and build goals and, and strategic plans. Anyway, I'm going to ramble on, but I just love the experience. And Rich, you really have helped me in my personal life.

Thank you. Likewise. Man, it's like just from reading your book to working with you personally, it's been quite the blessing. Yeah, you just took, took it to a whole new level as far as tax advice and financial advice and all that stuff. So I'm stoked too. Yeah.

High five. Okay, the bro fest is over. Now. Let me tell everybody. Here's our plan. I have been teaching for years. Years. And I've been trying to live the mantra myself that I need to be investing in a rental property every year or part thereof. I could partner with others I could do it in my ira, I could do it all of myself. It could be commercial, it could be residential, it could be multifamily, it could be raw land. But I need to be buying real estate every year. And I learned this for years and years for my successful clients that that's what moves the needle in our long term wealth and wealth building. Well, Rich has a network of brokers and realtors around the country and is real wealth organization. That along with their financial planning which includes buying real estate. Obviously he and I are on the same page to helping them find rental properties. So we're going to get there everybody, because you're going to love their approach and I'm going to really recommend you have a kind of an introductory discovery call with one of their team members to see how they may be able to help you getting a rental property. Because they've helped us. We love it. I've talked to their different agents or brokers around the country and it, it's, they're amazing. So anyway, Richard, spoiler alert if that's okay.

Yeah, it's absolutely okay. I love it. Yeah, it's. We do things differently and we do them. We're, you know, we're a conscious capitalism company. So we're all about doing things the right way. And you know, this world of real estate, there's some scammers in it and you know, and that's why we called our network Real Wealth. It was about being real. So you know, 20 years ago we put the stake in the ground and said this is what we're going to be about and it's worked out pretty well.

I was gonna, that's where I was going next. I wanted to ask kind of, yeah, tell us a little bit more like your vision and when you started and what were some of the founding principles that you. And you've stuck to them from what I've seen. Maybe describe some of those.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean it wasn't really an original vision. You know, I was, I was diagnosed with melanoma, skin cancer. The doctors thought it had spread to my liver after a couple CT scans and ultrasounds and oncologist told me I might have six months to live. So it was my wife Kathy who you know and she was a stay at home mom at the time. We had two young daughters and she's like what am I going to do if Rich passes away? And for financially. So she went on this tear in this focus of what can I do here? And we were both coaches at the time. I was A successful coach. I had a thriving coaching practice. I'd been coaching for 10 years. I had a book deal with Simon and Schuster. Everything was going awesome, but then it was just going to be the end of that income. So Kathy had this small kind of a hobby radio show in San Francisco where she would have guests on and talk about coaching principles, about being your best self, about staying focused, about self care, all that. And so she just pivoted and said, I'm going to start having financial experts on this show to find out how they grew their wealth. And most of those experts were real estate investors. So that's when she came home and she's like, I know what I can do here. Thankfully, the doctor's diagnosis was wrong. The melanoma had not spread to my liver. They call it a false positive. And after a PET scan, I was cleared cancer free. But that was the impetus for us to start looking at real estate investing. And, and that's, that's what we did. We went out, we found. Yeah.

If I can interject, what's just amazing is it takes a wake up call like that to understand what wealth building is about and passive income, because we talk about it. I know you coached on it, but then when it's real and it's for you, you're like, holy crap, we got a pedal to the metal. And what a blessing that you had that knowledge and you knew how to do it. But it's crazy that we need that kind of, that kickstart in our lives. Wake up call. Yeah.

And you know, I think it's because we go through life thinking, well, everything's been fine so far. You know, it's like my wife is stay at home, mom is just great. I'm bringing in the money and, and everything. It's like we look into the future and we think it's always going to be that way. And so yeah, sometimes you get a slap in the face like that and it's like, oh, wait a minute, maybe the plan that we had is not the plan that's going to be working out here. So absolutely, I think you have to do that scenario planning and think about in your life. If all of a sudden your income source evaporated instantly, what would you do? So, yeah, I think that's where the passive income and that's, that's where we just love real estate. Wow.

I'm excited for your upcoming event. You do a number of events, not only just couples retreats and your team doing daily financial advice. What, how, how often are you on the road. Like, do you plan on doing more events? Where. And I mean, I'll say it now, I want people to be able to get to some of these things. It's all real wealth.com, which. I love your site. Yeah.

I mean, we. We used to do events every month. One in San Francisco, one in L. A before COVID You know, we're a remote company and have been for the last 12 years, so it's cool to bring everyone together into one place in a live event. Then when Covid hit, we just shifted to webinars. And so now we've kind of shifted that model where we just do weekly webinars to help educate people and introduce them to property teams and markets around the country. But this event that's coming UP is our 20th anniversary event. So we're super stoked on that. And it's in Los Angeles, and we're going to celebrate 20 years in business, but also have 10 of our property teams from around the country come and present about their markets, the properties they have, all that good stuff. And then we got this guy, Mark Kohler, who's speaking on tax and tax and financial planning. So it's going to be awesome.

Oh, it's gonna. It's an honor. I'm bringing. And for transparency, I want you, my followers listeners, to know I'm bringing two of my kids. I want to hear Rich and Kathy, and I want to see them, I guess, hang out with and network with people that are making a difference.

And so it's super powerful.

It's so powerful.

Yeah. You know, our daughter's 31 now, and our younger one is 24. Our older one bought her first investment property at 24. And our younger one, who's now selling international real estate, is saving up those commissions to buy her first real estate investment. So, yeah, it's bringing your kids around it and introducing them to it and young, it's like, man, I wish I. My parents did that back in the day. I would have been awesome.

So, yeah, and it's crazy. Well, before we get to the. The. The. The teams you have around the country and how that process works, which I think is just so innovative. That's the book. It's over your shoulder. I got my copy right here. It was my coffee. I'm not lying. It was on my coffee table this morning.

Right on.

And I was like, where am I at? I'm like, I had a little fold of what chapter I'm in right now. The wise investor, a fun kind of storytelling format. And I. I'm gonna reveal Rich is a climber.

He can.

He's climbed incredible mountains. He's done Half Dome, which. Oh, you did have ropes, though, or did you free climb it? I want to make sure.

No, no, no. Absolutely not. No, we. We climbed it. I climbed the nose of El Capitan, and. But Half Dome, we actually jumped off it. My brother and I. Yeah, we jumped up with a. With a bungee cord hooked to our ankle. So that was. That was pretty cool. I think we're the only people to ever bungee jump off Half Dome, so I'm gonna beat my chest on that one.

Gosh. Wow. I didn't know that. I knew you'd done so many. I've seen some of the routes Rich has climbed.

He is.

There's video or photography of it, and it's just phenomenal. So you talk. There's a little bit of a climbing parable in the story, too. Tell us about the book. I want to recommend it to everyone. It's an easy read, and I love the message. But what was your goal with the book?

My goal was to write a story that would. That people would finish, people would be engaged in, and people would actually take the lessons and have them sink in. That's why I wrote a parable. So, you know, 20 years running real wealth and meeting our. We've got over 70,000 members now at Real wealth that we've helped with their financial intelligence and getting investment properties. And so over the years, Kathy and I have interviewed a lot of these couples and individuals on what's worked, their challenges, where they were stuck, and what they did. And so I wanted to take all that instead of writing another nonfiction book, like my first book. I wanted to write something that would be engaging and that would emotionalize the information. So that's why I wrote a parable. So the subtitle is basically, it's the Wise investor. It's called a modern parable on creating financial freedom and living your best life. So that's where the climbing comes in. It's the mentor in. It is also a climber. He's kind of like me in 20 years. You know, if I. If I keep getting in better shape and keep getting smarter and wiser, and that's the mentor. And so he. He meets this guy who is kind of a struggling family man. He's working his 9 to 5 job, or more than that, for hours, and he has no time for his wife and his kids or even to live. He's out of shape and, you know, just not feeling Great about life. And then he can relate to that. Oh yes. So, so many, right? Yeah. So it's weaving these lessons that I learned from coaching clients over the past 25 years and even before Real wealth started. And then also the lessons that we've learned from the members in Real wealth on really how to create that financial freedom in your life, how to get out of your stuck job, how to be job optional, if you will, how to create that passive income. And at the same time, it's also that holistic approach to wealth building. That's what we're about at Real Wealth. It's a, this holistic approach that it's not just about making a lot of money that's important, but it's also about being able to live life on your own terms. So that's, that's what I wanted to communicate in the story and have it

stick my love it. I, yeah, it's been, it's, it's a really fun read and I can see your personality just coming through. It was super cool. Okay, well, so I think this is the, that really the, the climax of the show for me because I know how I'm a big action item guy. I like, I like the mindset, but I need to know action items and oh yeah, earlier on I, I want to take action and be looking at real estate and I want my clients look at real estate. We got four months left in the year. There's plenty of time to take action on properties. Could be a great tax write off opportunity for many of you. And of course deploying assets in a proper way. What was the concept with these different units that I call kind of these 10. You referred to 10 different groups or units around the country that are all feeding, you know, learning from you and getting direction from you and real. It was so innovative. Tell me what the concept was to help people find the right property and using this more national presence.

Yeah, you know, it started small. Like Kathy and I went. And this was back in 2003. Yeah, 2003. We first went north of Dallas, a little town called Rockwall, and we bought five investment properties. And so that's when we had people in the Bay Area saying, how are you living in San Francisco? You know, remember this is 2003 before, you know, today's technology and all they were saying, how are you living here and investing in Texas? And so that's why we decided to form Real wealth because we were like showing people how to do it already, helping and mentoring some people and coaching clients and people. Listeners of Kathy's radio show. So that's where the model started, helping people invest. And so we connected with a broker in Dallas, and that's where we first sent people. And then people wanted start to say, hey, what about this market? Do you have anyone there? And so Kathy really became an expert in forecasting, in market research and data. That's what she's known for so much. You know, she's on Bigger Pockets on the market podcast and. No, no for that expertise. So she started to go out and find these different markets that were emerging that had over a million people, where the jobs were going, where the people were going, where there was growth and where they needed more homes. And she would go and find a property manager and say, hey, we're looking to bring investors here to buy rental properties. Who do you know around here who fixes and flips or does new builds? And she would get a connection that way. So fast forward to today. Now we have these 18, 18 different property teams around the country and markets where we first vet the market, you know, our people moving there, our jobs moving there. And then we will meet with a property team and we'll look at the quality of their rehabs. If they're. If they're rehab properties, we'll look at the quality of the new builds and the neighborhood. We'll see where they are. So these are separate companies that we refer to and separate brokers that they're the boots on the ground. They understand their market, they know it well, they know what areas of their market are solid for investments and where you want to stay away from. And so that's what we've done. So they're separate companies and we're just a referral. So I'm a real estate broker, so I can refer investors to these other real estate brokers and then we're paid like any other real estate agent. You know, we get a broker to broker referral fee for sending them someone. But we're kind of like the yelp for real estate, where we're like, if. If these property teams don't deliver or their property management doesn't deliver, then our members will come back and say, hey, I'm not too happy with this. And we're able to go back to that property team and say, hey, you need to clean up your act. You need to take good care of this member, or we're going to take you off our referral list. And easily they will step. They'll step up.

Now, the interesting part is that's not where it starts. What I really, correct me if I'm wrong, is you've got your advisory team. You know, I love advisory, you know, teaching, my certification. We got your advisory team that actually does that initial discovery call and builds a relationship with anyone interested in this and just says, hey, let's make sure you're healthy. Are, you know, are you in debt? Are you this. Do you have to deploy? What type of property should we look for? What market does speak to you? Where do you travel? Where's your fame? And to me, that was really a wonderful thing because a lot of people would maybe watch this podcast, go, oh my gosh, this is awesome. I've got to, I got to take action. You're not just going to get a phone call from someone in Dallas or Miami or Cleveland. You're going to, you're going to get some support and vet, vetting through your advisory team. Is that, am I, is that fair description?

You're 100% on track with that?

Yeah.

You know, that, that really came from our years of coaching. Kathy's also a certified coach, you know, before we started this company. And so we brought that coaching aspect into our investment counselors. They're all experienced investors. They all own at least 10 investment properties. They've been investing for over 10 years, some of them 20 years. And so they, they walk the talk. They know what they're talking about. So that's exactly what we do. We've, since day one, we've always provided our education for free. We don't, we don't sell any courses, we don't sell anything online. We don't do any back of the room sales, none of that stuff. It's all been educating members. And that's part of the process is these investment counselors sit down with our members and they'll say, just like, they'll ask a lot of questions first, what's your goal with investing? Where do you want to be in 10 years? Where are you now? What experience level are you at? How much money do you have to deploy? What's your risk tolerance? You know, all the, Are you looking more for cash flow or appreciation or kind of a mix of both? And then they'll make a recommendation of, oh, these three markets are probably the best for you. And then they'll make the connection with the property team or the broker in that market.

I love it. Well, of course we can sit here and have a bro fest and high five all day and I can do

that at the live event.

I know we're going to do it at the live, but Let me ask if I could now it's hard to say three or one or two. I'll let you choose. But what, what advice would you give to yourself? You know, 15 years ago and, and as you may be looking to, to build your real estate portfolio and build wealth is after this you, maybe someone is having a life changing event, a wake up call and what, what advice would you give to someone? So they, they're, they're deliberate, they're careful, they're intentional. How should someone get started and really remake their life financially?

Yeah, it's a great question. I really, you know, I have a lot of friends or several friends, I should say not a lot. Several friends who have been talking about buying real estate and rental properties or investing somehow for the last 15 years and they still haven't pulled the trigger. And it drives me crazy, you know, and then they see what's happened with the appreciation especially in the last five to seven years. You know, they're looking at, you know, one friend was looking at investing in Florida and he didn't. Now he's looking at what, what he would have gained, you know, how much is his net worth would have increased and his monthly cash flow. So the advice I would give to myself or anyone is take action. I love your approach of getting at least, you know, one or two investment properties every year. I like that. It kind of like, it kind of tempers it. You don't have to go nuts and buy 10 properties all at once and bite off more than you can choose. So I love that just you know, growing that and getting up to, you know, you can get 10 investor loans as an individual. So using those 10 investor loans that you can get. And I would, if I could go back in time, I would probably use those 10 investor loans to get more small multi families like duplexes and quads because it's one loan for that property and you could have 40 doors today that are all bringing in monthly cash flow and appreciating and, and all that good stuff.

I like, I didn't expect you to say that. That's really insightful. I like that I, I own or part thereof to duplexes and yeah, I like, that's interesting you say that.

It's a great event. Kathy and I just bought it in a duplex like less than two months ago on Palm Coast Florida. Brand new build from one of our property teams, this beautiful brand new duplex. And the cool thing is we got an interest rate 4.75% for a 30 year. It's amazing. Because what they do is the builder wants to move more inventory so he negotiates with the loan company and he buys down the rate. So they put money upfront, they buy down the rate. So more investors are interested because they can see that instant cash flow. Pretty.

That's an important, important message and I'd really like to make sure we have a sound bite of this as we promote this show. You can get great interest rates still. There are builders and developers that'll pay down the mortgage for you because they need buyers and yeah, so that's the secret right now, the loophole if you will. And we need to not just listen to national media talking about high interest rates.

There's options 100. Yeah, that's. I mean that's what I love about that on the market podcast that Kathy's on because they take the, the headlines and this, the fear monger headlines and they break them down and they're like really no new home. You know, new home starts are down that much. But it's like compared to one year ago or compared to last month, you know, it's funny how they'll take those percentages and, and really they'll scare investors and, and, and it works.

It's crazy. Well, what's, what's just a little glimpse into your future. You know, you're a mentor to so many people. I'm. You're a hero of mine. I love to hear what you're doing. What, what's the future? Another book, another company, a bigger, just more real estate. Just doing, just hitting base hits every year. What, what's your plan?

Sure, you know, I'm, I am kind of a base hit guy. You know, I've had some big wins. You know, it's like when you go for the base hit, sometimes you hit a home run, which is really nice. But I'm definitely more of a, a base hitter always, you know, growing, you know, creatively and over time. But Kathy and I working on a book together right now through Bigger Pockets, all about scaling your business without losing your soul. So excited about that. Have to have that done by the end of the year, the manuscript and we're continuing to buy investment properties. We're kind of going more into a class. Kathy and I are buying like we bought a property we're building in Park City, Utah. So working on that one. Just was up there last week, walking through it and so exciting. And then with our company, really what I've been working on the last five years is turning real wealth into a self managing business. So we have amazing leaders, amazing people on our team. We only have about 20 employees, but it's really empowering them to run the business. So Kathy and I just come to quarterly leadership meetings and look at how we do with goals, how we deal with numbers. You know, any input from us. So that's it. So freeing up our. I'm about to turn 60. So looking at, you know, freeing up our time by having a self managing business, I love it.

Well, I still want to hit the, hit the waves with you. For those that know Rich surfer, we, we almost were able to break away and go take the boards out.

But soon, yeah, we'll make it happen.

Rich, you're awesome. Thanks for being here and thanks for sharing those insights and wish you the best. I hope to have you back. I'm going to see you soon here at this event in la. You know folks, you're going to see a lot more, Rich, because I just think it's such a great relationship, our company with yours.

Yeah, definitely. Very good synchronicity. I love it.

Thanks for being with us. And everybody, please continue to believe in the dream. Believe. Listen to Coach prime of Colorado, right? You can believe the future is bright. You can build wealth. And I love what you just talked about, base hits and Rich fact. Here is a great example of that. Get his book, get to Real wealth website and I'll say this now, what's it going to hurt to do a discovery call an interview with one of his investment advisors and just say here's what I'm doing. What do you think? Maybe they go rubber stamp, you're cool.

Sounds good. Doesn't cost anything, so might as well. No loss there.

Well, and we just send them to Real wealth, the link down below. Right, Just real wealth dot com. And they're in.

Perfect.

Okay, we'll do it. Thanks, Rich. Have a great.

Thank you. Right, see you. See you soon.