In this segment of the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily, host Mike Milligan introduces a clip from his Ideas by Mike podcast featuring Dr. Axel Meyerhofer. Dr. Meyerhofer, author of The Ideal Wealth Grower, explains how he transitioned from a 22‑year career as a fighter‑jet pilot to real‑estate investing in his mid‑40s. He argues that investors who start later need to make money work for them, and that residential real estate is the most common path to financial freedom. Because he could only invest thousands—not millions—he discovered the turnkey investing model, which lets investors retain title and control while a specialized company sources, purchases, and manages the property. He describes his research process before AI tools, the trade‑offs of syndications and REITs, and how he identified reputable turnkey operators. Dr. Meyerhofer shares his first investment experience: while stationed at Holloman Air Force Base, he helped build housing for 800 military families in Alamogordo, NM, and bought a property three rows down the street as a proof‑of‑concept for his peers. He frames his investment philosophy using Maslow’s hierarchy—food, security, shelter—highlighting shelter as a timeless need. The segment ends with a brief plug for the full podcast episode on AI’s future and contact information for One of a Kind Financial.
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Welcome back to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. We are one week away from Christmas. Kids are excited. People are frantically rushing out to get those last-minute gifts. Other people are getting ready for their Hanukkah celebrations or Kwanzaa celebrations. Happy holidays to you all. Over the— over today and tomorrow, we're going to highlight A fascinating conversation that I had on the Ideas by Mike podcast with Dr. Axel Meyerhofer. He believes that we are living in the age of— I'm gonna let you figure that out because on the podcast we cut up a couple little small clips. That the full-length podcast is episode 39. It was released back on December 5th. It's got a lot of great play action on all of the major podcasting networks because We talked about AI's future. Is it friendly or not? And I wanted to bring that, some of those details here to you today. Enjoy this little small segment from that where I asked him some really tough questions about what's going to happen with AI. AI, is it, is the future friendly or not? Enjoy this segment from that podcast. Axel, Axel, welcome to the Ideas by Mike podcast.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Mike, for having me.
So you, you, you wrote a book called The Ideal Wealth Grower. I want to start there, um, because the, the book takes on real estate and how it can impact your financial future. And as a financial services company, we have, we, we have to talk a little bit about money first. Um, so, so talk about like, uh, your journey with real estate and why you see that as a key component of somebody's portfolio and lifestyle?
Yeah, well, it started out basically realizing that one way to hopefully get to financial freedom when you start really late, like I did, I started basically in my mid-40s, early 50s. So it felt like I don't have like the full 40 years ahead of me anymore, is to make the money work for you and not just assume that you can basically make enough money and through your own like time exchange for money kind of approach. Then I looked at, okay, how can I make the money work for me? And what have other successful people done? And my research at least showed that the vast majority of them do at least some of it in real estate and residential real estate. And I wanted to do something that I can learn that I can really deep dive, become an expert and see Where is the performance of the money, the investment that you make in the context of real estate the best? And when you look at the United States, the nicest areas to live at are not necessarily from an investment perspective, the best performing areas for regular people like me.
Right?
If you are like, I was initially kind of fascinated by Arnold and the Terminator movies and the big money that he made and the amazing real estate portfolio that he created in But the enabling, you know, the enabling thing was that he made millions and he could invest millions, and I made thousands and I could only invest thousands. So I needed to go places where with being able to invest thousands, you can still build something.
So, so when you, when you did that, right, I mean, you obviously weren't living where you invested. It doesn't sound like that. Where, where did you go to to find investment opportunities when you decided that real estate was going to be a key component of your, of your, of your journey financially?
Well, the first place I went was into research at the old-fashioned way when we didn't have AI and Google too much and so forth.
And the research basically showed me that to be able to do investing in real estate, when you're not anywhere close, when you're not within like an hour's driving distance from where your assets are, either means you have to give up a lot of control. So you can go into syndications, or you can get into REITs, like real estate investment funds or stuff like that. But those assets are controlled by other people. So if you want the combination of I want to be in control, I want it to be mine, I want to hold the title, and you want it in locations that are high performing, you need to have a different system. And what I discovered through the research was the fundamental idea of turnkey investing, where you find a company that finds a property or builds the property, puts the property on the market for a fair price that actually appraises, and then also manages it for you all under the same roof. That was the first step. And then after I identified a bunch of companies with good reputation, Then I started to invest with them.
I want to go back just a little bit in your timeline, right? Because you're speaking like a true pro right now when you talk about an hour away from where your assets are, having a turnkey approach to building wealth, investing thousands when others are investing millions. Those are Those are like, it's gold from a concept standpoint. Uh, your background is not in real estate though, is it?
No, I, I had my first life career, so to speak, was in military aviation, flying fighter jets through the air and protecting the country.
Right. So you, so I mean, like, you, you, you flew over your, your experience in real estate is you flew over a lot of it and most of the time very fast.
Very first, yeah.
But then, but but but then, like in a in like a second or third act in your life, right? You're you you realize that like real estate is something that for you was sound and secure, and something that you wanted to not only research but secure your family's future with. Is that correct?
That's correct. And you can go a little cheeky and say, okay, I looked at the bottom of Maslow's pyramid of needs, and it has three things.
It literally says shelter, security, and food.
And so I've always liked gardening. So I always do a little bit of food for the family. I did security for 22 years in probably the most amazing way you can. And then shelter was the other fundamental thing that will most likely always be needed. So it's in that sense, a little bit of a logical and natural thing.
So So, what's the first year you got involved in— do you remember the first deal you ever did to get started?
Right. Yeah. So, I was at the last assignment base, basically Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, where we were stationed. And I was responsible for bringing 800 soldiers and their families from Germany to that base to build a co-located flying training center between the German Air Force and the US Air Force on that same base. The decision was made to say, okay, we don't want to build like some little thing where everybody is in a ghetto. We want the people to be integrated in the community, which meant a whole bunch of real estate needed to be built because that was the city next to— or the town next to the base is called Alamogordo, New Mexico, and was at the time a 25,000 people town. And so we needed to find a way to, with government funding, to get all these houses built. And the interesting thing was that the government guaranteed these houses to be basically paid rent to the people that occupy the houses for 19 years, because that was the contract that I had negotiated on behalf of the German government with the US Air Force.
And still, even with that guarantee, very few people were willing to basically buy one of those houses and then rent it out to the people from the base.
And I thought, well, I need to be a good example. So we, my wife and I, literally, in this case, bought one like 3, 3 rows down the street. And that was our first investment property that taught me a lot of things. But yeah, I very much remember that one. And it actually worked in a sense that a lot of my friends and Fellow officers, both US and German, ultimately said, well, if he's doing it, then we can do it too. Oh, wow.
That's a great story about how you saw a need, how it was at the bottom of the pyramid and you saw opportunity coming. I hope you enjoyed that segment with Dr. Axel Meyerhofer and me from the Ideas by Mike podcast. If you want to learn more about how AI is integrated into the One of a Kind Financial And how we're using it in our practice, I encourage you to reach out to us by texting the word ideas to 600-700 or calling our office at 757-909-7151, where you will get one of our friendly staff members to, uh, get you connected with me or a member of the team. As a reminder, Mike Milligan is an investment advisor representative with Advisory Alpha LLC. Ideas by Mike, doing business as Wood Oak Financial. Mike Milligan, LLC, the media company responsible for this, and Mike Milligan. The contents are— we, we are all unaffiliated entities except as investment advisory reps to Advisory Alpha, LLC. All opinions expressed by me and Dr. Axel Meyerhofer are those of us and do not reflect the opinions of Advisory Alpha, LLC. For tax advice, please consult a CPA or enrolled agent. And before making any investment decisions, please consult a licensed financial pro.
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