He Has Quietly Amassed a Massive Portfolio while working his 9-5. Matthew Wang Multilfamily Strategy

Hello and welcome to the Owner Meeting Podcast by Multifamily Strategy. Today I am joined with Matthew Wang, a friend of mine. We are here in person in Texas. Matt, I rarely do in-person podcasts. Welcome to the channel.

Well, thank you for having me on.

I am so excited to have Matt on. He is a programmer at a massive company that will not be named, but he has done some very cool things in real estate. Started in single family, has joined Multifamily Strategy, and has bought a bunch of units by himself with partners. The scale at which you have sped through this is fairly impressive. And by impressive, I mean incredible. So welcome to the show, Matt.

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Matt, tell us a little bit about where you started before you bought any of the multifamily, before you had 1,007,000 units like you have today. I'm just kidding. We'll get to that real number here in a minute though. Where did you actually start with your real estate journey?

Yeah. So 4 and a half years ago, I bought my first home. So first-time home buyer. It was a large 5-bedroom, 3-bathroom home, single-family home in Burien, Washington, which is near the airport, near the Seattle airport. And it— I actually ran as a house hack. I copied a guy named Todd Baldwin who did house hacks a lot in the Seattle area. I saw his videos on YouTube. I said, let me try that, get my foot in the door on real estate. So I lived in that single-family home and I house hacked it for 4, 4 years.

So I love the house hack. I started in a house hack condo, 2-bed, 2-bath. I had a roommate, got married. My wife and I kept that roommate for the first year of our marriage. That kept our cost basically zero. Roommate paid about 80% of the mortgage. For those who aren't familiar with the house hack, and if you've ever heard BiggerPockets, you've probably heard of this strategy, but you can do it in multifamily, you can do it in single family. Give us the 30,000-foot view of what is the house hack and how did you use it in the single family?

Yeah. So the house hack is, there's two versions of it. Version one is you buy a single family home, you live in one bedroom and you rent out the other bedrooms. So you have a bunch of roommates. The other version, which I'm not talking about here, is you buy a multifamily unit or multifamily property that has 1 to 4 units, you live in 1 unit, you rent out the other units, but they're not your roommates. I did the former. 5-bedroom home, I lived in the smallest bedroom, uh, and I rented out the larger bedrooms. I had 4 roommates, so 5 of us living at the home. I played landlord, I played roommate, I played friend. That's, that's what I did.

So one of the weird things with roommates, mine was really good for a long time, and then they got a little bit weird, a little bit depressing, and changed the vibe of the whole house.

Yep.

That was right around the time it was me and my wife and a dog, and I was like, I think it might be time to live by ourselves. 5 roommates, or I guess 4 roommates, 5 people. How did the roommate situation— did you have any weird roommates?

Yeah, so overall it went well. Okay, um, good, good. I— the hardest part and the most important part that I think I did pretty well was finding the right people to bring in.

Very important if you're renting to your roommates. They are people you want to live with.

Part of my criteria, which I listed and vetted for when we did a walkthrough and I did a tour of the home, was personality and culture fit. Like, that mattered. It did make lease-up harder. It took a lot more effort to find the right people, but it prevented major problems. That said, I did have, I did have 2 roommates that were problems. And in 4 years, I cycled through about, I think the number's 12 people. So it was a lot as a landlord. Is, and 10 of them were great. 2 of them were problematic. One of them ended up being an extreme alcoholic. It was a nightmare. I could talk for 8 hours about all the things we saw. He lived with us for only 1 month.

So how do you get rid of a roommate? You have like, you have an extreme issue, he moves in. What were the signs of the extreme alcoholism? Except for, I assume, all the alcohol disappeared instantly.

Yeah. Uh, well, things started out great. He lived at the home for 10 days, no problems. And when I did the background check and everything, he passed with flying colors. Stable job, money in the bank, good credit score, good communicator, checked all the boxes. Things were good for 10 days. And then he came home one day, middle of a Thursday workday, and he was just off. Wasn't sure what was going on at first, but then after, you know, the next few days, we learned he went on a multi-day bender and it just got worse and worse and worse. And we realized something is extremely wrong with this guy. And then things just proceeded from there.

Okay, so he lives with you and 3 other people. Assuming you were fully occupied at the time, correct?

So there's 4 of us normal people and then one of him. 5, 5 people total.

How do you get rid of a roommate? This isn't like a normal eviction process, I assume. How does this work?

The simple version is him and I actually had pretty good report when he was sober. When he— when I caught him when he was sober, I essentially prepared how do I talk to him and get him to agree that the correct thing to do is move out. And when he's sober— and part of why he passed with green check marks and flying colors is he was super friendly, very caring, very nice and understanding when he's sober. And so I caught him sober. I told him, hey, based off what's going on, this isn't working out, not a right fit. The other roommates are uncomfortable, I'm uncomfortable, I don't think we can continue forward. And essentially he understood. He actually felt really bad and agreed to, okay, I will move out. So I got lucky. It could have been worse.

I was going to say, in Washington State, on a technical level, is that— do you have any legal recourse? Or if he said, no, I'm not moving out, what would the situation have been then?

So I'm still not a Washington legal expert on tenant laws, but I did consult an attorney briefly. And the attorney said, with the way the lease was written up, I don't remember the exact details, but along the lines of, because the way the lease was written up, because you didn't give enough notice ahead of time, he's eligible to like renew his lease so that now on the next lease you can give him proper notice before he gets out. And it was something along the lines of if he really wanted to push it, he could stay another like 9 months.

Just a casual 9 additional months.

Yeah. It was some combination of because I'm not giving proper notice in time, he has the ability to renew. So once he's renewed, now you can give proper notice in time. And then additionally, I think If you were to take it to court, there's a long wait to get through court. And then even after you get the judgment, there's a wait to get the judgment executed. So like add it all up, it could have been—

and is it the same process of evicting a roommate as evicting any other tenant? More or less?

I don't think so. When you, when you live in the home, you actually have more control.

Okay. That's good.

Yes.

Okay.

So for example, one thing I know for certain is fair— not to say that I didn't do this, but like if you want to be extreme, fair housing laws don't apply the same way. When you're looking for roommates. So in roommates, I can pick and choose who's approved and lives with me. Whereas if I'm renting out that home as a whole building, the first person that applies and is qualified, they're in no matter who they are. So I get to pick and choose who my roommates are, which is good. Like I'm looking for like culture fit, right? So not that I, not that I, you know, was, was mean and selective, but just an example of how the rules are different.

Attempting not to rent to raging alcoholics.

Yeah, exactly.

Reasonable things.

Exactly. And you live there. You have the ability to pick and choose a little more. Yeah.

Okay. So you did the house hacking strategy. Do you still house hack?

Technically, yes, but in a totally different way. So I just bought a duplex at the start of the year. I moved in Olympia, Washington, which is, for those who aren't familiar, that's an hour south of— it's about an hour and a half south of Seattle.

Yep.

And Olympia is the capital of Washington state.

Yep. Same, same bad politics, a much prettier area in my opinion.

Yeah. And, and so I bought a duplex. I live in one side now and I have a tenant on the other side. So I've now switched to the other house hack model I was describing, but no more roommates. I think while it went well for 4 years, I believe my roommate era has come to an end. I don't, I don't foresee a need to ever have roommates again.

That is excellent news. I, I've, I felt the same way. When the roommate era was done, I think that the, the live-in, like the roommate house hack is a fantastic way for people to get started.

I would agree.

I, I had a much smaller property than you did. I made like $120,000 on that in a 2-year hold, 2.5-year hold. Awesome, awesome project. Did a little live and flip there. I did all the reno myself. It was a little project. First time I ever made 6 figures. You had a full house with like 5 roommates. Do you still hold that house or did you end up selling it?

I do. I still hold it. I really like the home. I actually really like Burien. I think it's kind of an undiscovered gem of the Seattle area. And so I want to own that home because I like it. I like the area. I like the home. It is currently now under property management and just leased as an entire home.

That's awesome. That's awesome. How much actually do you think that you've built in that through your time holding it from where it's at today?

Yeah, it grew. I think grew about $200,000 in equity.

There we go. And did those 4 roommates, did that completely cover the nut there? Were you living completely for free or better?

It was just shy of free, but that's still a massive win. So with me living in one unit, it might have been negative a few hundred bucks in cash flow a month.

Okay, so, so, so net-net, you can live in the Seattle area, one of the most expensive markets in the country, for $200 a month. Ish, $100 a month.

Yeah.

And you're building all this equity at the same time, and you make $200,000 to do so. Yeah, that's an incredible deal. That's a great way to get started. You cut down one of your largest expenses to basically nothing, and you get a property in a high appreciation area in a very expensive market basically for free.

Yeah.

How much did you put down on that house, by the way?

I actually did the minimum. I did 6%. Uh, that was the minimum I could do at the time to meet The maximum loan amount for the King County area at the time.

There we go. What was the total amount down?

I think it was around $60,000.

So for $60,000 in the Seattle area, you can get a house that costs you almost nothing per month to live in. What a great strategy.

Yeah, thank you.

And you're going to hold that a lot longer and it will keep growing. That's the hope. Excellent place to do so. While I don't love living in Seattle, which is why I moved to Texas, Seattle is a market that has always done consistently well in appreciation. It has continued. It never ever bet against Seattle as a real estate market. It has always done well.

Yeah. And even though I've made the 200 in growth, I've seen Burien not appreciate as much as Seattle proper or rent nearby. Over the past 3 or 4 years.

I think it's coming because there's nowhere else to—

I think it's coming. And I think if I just hold on to that property for worst case 5 years, but another 2 to 3 is my rough approximation, I'll probably make another couple hundred thousand doing nothing just by holding on to it.

So we're going to get into the dozens of other units that you have. You've scaled unbelievably quickly and it's been incredible to watch the journey. But you're in Olympia now.

That's right.

That's not the Seattle area, correct? You are significantly south, actually closer to my resort.

That's right.

Why Olympia?

Yeah, so I joined your mentorship and it became clear through the lessons for people like me trying to get started, it's recommended go find a secondary or even tertiary market. Lower barrier to entry, less competition, yet still plenty of money to be made. I think that's the misconception a lot of people have. They think small market tiny market, somewhere between small and tiny. Like, ah, there's no money to be made. Turns out there's a lot.

The margin is higher. The difficulty is a little higher in managing, but the ability to buy—

I think barrier to entry is lower.

It's all about the margin. It is so much easier to cash flow in those markets, right? We've consistently found—

and you can still make tons of money. So with that in mind, tons of money is good.

We like tons of money.

And with my goal, I'm all in on this rocket ship ride to hit my goal. So I said, okay, I'm going to take that to heart. Combine that with, combine that with, I've also heard through the mentorship and that Robinhood event last year with our guest speakers, you have a— can you manage and run properties from afar? Absolutely. But you will have a competitive advantage if you live in your market.

Yes.

So I combine the two, go find a secondary or tertiary market. You have an advantage if you live in it. I'm trying to move really fast, my goal. So I want to maximize my advantage. I settled on, I got to move towards the market I want to build a portfolio. And I settled on my goal is to build a portfolio in the triangle of Olympia, Washington, Aberdeen, which is 50 minutes to the west of Olympia. Yeah.

And Brandon Turner started in Aberdeen.

Yeah. That's what I've heard. That's what I've heard. And then 30 minutes to the south, Centralia. So it forms a triangle. I've settled on those are my target markets and target area. And Olympia is nicest and smallest city I'm willing to move to to pull it off. I could have moved to Centralia. I could have moved to— I wouldn't have moved to Aberdeen. I settled on Olympia. So Olympia, because Olympia is not too small, is quite nice, and it's actually only an hour to go back up north towards Renton where my family lives and go see them.

All right. So Olympia, dude, I'm a huge fan of being close to your properties. I just realized everyone just realized we took a break because if you're watching this on YouTube, my hat just flipped around magically.

Matthew and my hair might have moved.

Well done, Matthew. You look even better. Thanks, dude. So you moved to Olympia, you're growing there. Talk to me a little bit. I'm going to talk about Aberdeen next. Talk to me about your larger portfolio. You own in Washington State, you own in Burien, you own Olympia. Where else do you have properties?

Yeah, so I have 5 single-family homes, a house hack in Washington, 3 small single-family homes in Central Florida, and 1 single-family home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

How hard is it to manage that many markets?

So with the property managers I have, easy. I do little to nothing. I've just had to approve some decisions, maintenance requests, replace an oven, help set expected rent. That's it. Otherwise, they're on autopilot with property management out of state.

Dude, that's awesome. Now you joined Multifamily Strategy, and I always mention this whenever I have someone from Multifamily Strategy on. This is not an ad for Multifamily Strategy. This is the thing that you did. Why multifamily? Yeah, you were succeeding in single family, right? Your property, you're basically living for free. You're buying rentals that are cash flowing, that are basically hands off. At what point did you go multifamily is the path?

Yeah, I didn't at first. I had just learned, okay, single families work. They'll be slow. But if you buy a single family, hold on to it, in 5 years you'll look back and go, well, I don't regret that decision. So I thought that let's do it. I started to shift from— up till about a year ago, I was predominantly stock investor. I still believe heavily in stocks, but I've come to learn over time, especially after the house hack, I think real estate's the better way to go, more powerful.

Strongly agree.

And so I've been shifting more of what I have into real estate. So I was doing single families. I found a way to buy them out of state through a company that kind of provides white glove service for buying out-of-state investments to get them set up. That's why it was easy. And I was going to keep going on that path of more and more single family. But then I actually got persuaded by Cody to try the mentorship. This is back when Cody was still part of the mentorship. And I had known Cody a little bit because I'd run into him in a couple real estate events. There's a funny story about how he actually showed up at my house unexpectedly for New Year's as a friend of a friend. So that was totally wild that it happened.

Is this the Berrien house?

Correct.

Oh, that's so funny.

He showed up out of the blue New Year's Eve. As a friend of a friend bringing a friend over. And I was just like, I can't believe this. So I got to know Cody a little bit.

Yeah.

Already. And then he reaches out to me, tells me about the mentorship. I eventually sign up going, okay, this is by Cody and Christian Osgood, who are the real deal. I'll take the leap of faith and see if it's something that can really change my trajectory in real estate. Given that I'm already very interested in real estate. Once I started taking the course, I realized, okay, this course is the real deal. What they do is What Cody and Christian have done and continue to do is phenomenal. And I think I could go really far, really fast with what they teach. So then it clicked and it went, okay, multifamily is the way to go. I think, you know, in some of, it's either your words or Cody's words, I get them mixed up at this point, but go bigger sooner.

Yes.

You probably both say that.

I absolutely believe that. I wish I started bigger sooner. So duplexes, 8 years later.

Yes. And if I were to do it all over, anyone watching who's getting started, if I were to do it all over, start with a quadplex. House hack or quadplex. Because it's the combination of house hack, which is a good way to get started, and you start bigger right away. That's going to speed up your journey in many ways.

I really like that. I really like that.

So if I were to start over, that's what I would do.

And don't limit yourself to a 4.

Correct.

If you happen to find a great duplex while you're looking for the 4, still buy it.

Absolutely.

If you happen to find a great 12-plex and you can buy it, little to no money down, still do it.

Don't—

I see a lot of people make the decision like, 4 is the biggest residential, I'm only looking at 4-plexes now, right?

Yeah, keep your options open. But if you're able to find that quad, that's— I think that's the perfect way to start.

That's— I absolutely agree.

But do the duplex or the quad. I just bought a duplex in Olympia. That was my first ever multifamily.

So case in point, there we go. Shortly after that, you closed in Aberdeen, right?

So my life has been a rocket ship ride since I set out on this really aggressive goal on a super short timeline. In January, I closed on the duplex in Olympia. In March, I moved into it. I had to get the existing tenant out so I can move in. A week or two later, I closed on my quadplex in Aberdeen. So it's just boom, boom, boom. Yeah, the quadplex is the largest building I have myself so far that I, you know, I found, I bought, and yeah, it's out in Aberdeen.

And then you have one more market. Well, two more markets. You have Washington. You worked with me on a project in Texas.

Yes.

Now, I don't partner with a ton of people, especially from the mentorship. The goal of Multifamily Strategy is solely that people learn how to buy their own stuff. It's perfect replication. That's the goal. You can build this business yourself. It's not easy, as you've learned, but it's ludicrously simple. Very, very simple to do. We worked together on a 44-unit in Texas. What made you, after you're already, you know, you're starting to buy stuff yourself. You've bought a bunch of single-family, you're actively closing your multifamily. What made you go, hey, I'm also opening to partnering in a brand new market on a 44-unit building? That's a crazy new arm of the rapidly growing real estate business of Matthew Way.

Once again, that's another big jump because I have, you know, prior to doing that deal with you, I'd never been part of an LLC. I've never done LLC. I've never like given individual money or, you know, yeah, an individual money to run a deal and invest it. Like, all that's new to me. I was familiar with other types of investments, more traditional stocks, bonds, high-yield savings accounts that you're giving to a company, right? Or buying a slice of ownership in a company. Totally different than giving an individual that you trust, right? So all that was very new. And of course, there's a lot of hesitation at first. I don't know. And, you know, early on, I didn't know you as well as I know you now. So of course, Of course, I'm still like, okay, do I trust that this guy Christian and Caleb can execute? I'm not familiar with how LLCs work. I've never done a legal review of an OA. How do I do DD on a property I've never seen before? Right? So there's a lot of hesitation, a lot of concern, but I think it all starts with you're really good at pitching and you pitch an offer that's hard to say no to.

By the way, if you want your offers approved, do an offer people can't say no to.

Yeah. So once you laid out like, here's, here's the property, the plan, and the expected return, it's like, okay, this is so sweet. I want to lean in and figure out how I can get to my point to say yes. So then I go through all the things I just described. How do I do OA? How do I do DD on a property I've never seen? How do I learn about LIHTC? I didn't know anything about LIHTC.

So it was as much a you wanted to add these skills of being in the partnership as it was, it was also a great financial investment.

Yeah. I mean, being totally honest, it's the financial investment. The great financial investment is the hook that gets me really interested. But then I'm someone who likes to, both because I'm doing the real estate myself, I want to learn as I go, as opposed to super hands-off investors that are just like, here's money. I don't care how it goes. So I'm, I dive into it because it's, this is a perfect opportunity for me to learn to go do it myself, um, and, and also do due diligence on, on the investment at the same time.

Oh, that's incredible. Now you're, you're personally buying by yourself in Aberdeen right now?

Yes.

You are working on multiple projects there. I know you're working on going under contract, so we won't, we won't say anything's happening before it happens, but you're absolutely absolutely working on trying to expand in Aberdeen.

Yeah.

For those who don't know, Aberdeen is the middle of nowhere. Like, my resort's in the middle of nowhere, Washington. Aberdeen's— you drive another 30 minutes. Why Aberdeen, Washington?

Yeah, it's kind of funny. You know, at first I wasn't going to do Aberdeen. In fact, I was cautioned by both in the mentorship. I was cautioned by both yourself and Cody. You guys said we wouldn't do Aberdeen, we don't recommend it. And so I wasn't going to do it. But I partnered up with, um, maybe I won't say partner up, but like I found a broker who's also an owner. You know, we all, we talk about owner relationships. We've become really good friends. I really like her as both broker and she's a very experienced owner. And this is 6 or 7 months ago when we were trying to find on-market multifamilies in that triangle, in, I'm sorry, in just Olympia and Centralia at the time.

Yeah.

Those were my two target markets at the time. There were very few on-market deals at that time. We looked at everything that was on market, nothing, nothing penned up. So then she suggested, have you considered Aberdeen? And I even relayed my concerns. Well, I was cautioned, don't do it. She kind of nudged me towards, well, at least take a look. I look at on-market deals there and suddenly it's like, whoa, while things aren't panning in Olympia and Centralia, the opposite is the case in Aberdeen. There's a lot of very interesting deals in Aberdeen that might math and be a good opportunity. So now I'm interested. But there's a reason. There's a reason they math well.

Yeah.

Aberdeen is not beautiful. It's definitely got its challenges, but mostly water.

Lots of water. Lots of water on the ocean in a rainforest.

Yeah. And it did have at sea level. I forget what decade it is. If you go look at population graph of Aberdeen over time, it did have a huge decline. I very recently learned that was when the logging industry changed. Change there.

Um, so there's a lot of old buildings down there, right? Logging buildings, right?

And so population has leveled. It's not declining, but it's leveled off. So my initial worry was— so even though my broker nudged me in that direction, I said, let's go look at a deal out there. When I drove through Aberdeen, I went with the mindset of, let me drive some neighborhoods and get a feel for the area to see how does it look and feel. Because I think you learn a lot by just literally walking or driving the streets. Yeah. And that's when a lot of my fears got abated, which is good. I was originally concerned that Aberdeen is a dying city, and you— I would absolutely not have invested in that market if it's a dying market. But when I got there and I walked the streets, I looked around, I saw positive signs. Every like fourth home in neighborhoods has been remodeled, renovated. Every fourth or fifth home. Uh, the shopping area, there's a Walmart and a lot of stores around centered around that Walmart, that area looks fresh, updated, modern. There's tons of people there, parking lots full. There's a lot of activity. And there's a couple of those signs that just showed me, okay, by no means is it dying. In fact, people are putting time and money investing in this market. There are new construction builds going on, new apartments. They've got, they've got a few key players that keep their job market going. They've got the largest college in Grays Harbor, and that college is actually really nice. So there were signs of, okay, Not a dying market. It's definitely at least a stable market. And that's a good place for me to just get started. If it means I can find a small win quick, quicker, I'll take it.

Yeah.

So that's kind of why I settled on— all right, Aberdeen.

That's awesome. And the fun thing with settling on specific markets, you're able to expand again and again and again. And what ends up happening is you get some control over rents, you get to use the same renovation teams, the same property management, exactly, the same legal teams. You get all these efficiencies of scaling in one location. Matt, how many units do you currently have in your entire portfolio, partnered and personal, just combined? How many doors are you currently a part of?

Okay, I have to break it up because I don't think about them together at the same time. Personal, I have 11 units: 5 single-family, duplex, quadplex. Partnered up, I've never counted them all together.

You got a 44, which would be 55, 26, Yep. Then 26.

26. We're working towards—

was that 81 units right now?

44. Math is hard on, on camera.

Uh, 44 plus 11, 55 plus 26, uh, 70, 81.

81.

I did it.

Okay. Although I will say those partnered ones, I don't, I don't know mentally. I don't feel like they are the unit count that, you know, that I can add because I'm not, I'm not the main operator.

No, but on those, you're an active member. It's a joint venture on those ones. Those are interesting. And I think this is important to recognize on a podcast. A lot of people flash unit count. Yeah, you know, some podcasts, I don't usually— oh, you have hundreds of units. I have what I own of hundreds of units. Nothing beats owning your own real estate.

Yeah.

And most of my LLCs, not every single one, but most of them, I have a clause where at some point in the future we'll refinance and I own 100% real estate. That's a lot of analysis, right? Some of them are just straight joint ventures with other operators who you know, like, and trust, and that comes with its own set of pros and cons. I like the way that you mentally handle that though. These are mine, and they're mine, and this is my business, and my business has 11 units right now. And you're about to go potentially under contract for another—

I have an offer out for 13 more units in Aberdeen right now.

There we go, not bad. So you'll more than double that portfolio.

That's the goal.

But you're treating it like I think you should. This is my one business. Then I also have a business where I invest with other people and I do joint ventures. And you do kind of keep those in separate silos because it's not like you have the exact— your 11 units here are 100% yours. That is a different thing. That is a completely different business, a partnered real estate business.

Exactly. And, you know, here's how I like to think about it. We like to use the word investor a lot in real estate. I actually don't like that term for the way it's currently— it's typically used. If you buy and own real estate, they'll say, oh, you're an investor. I actually like to say, like we call it mentorship. If you're buying and owning and taking care of and running and operating real estate, you're an owner. To me, maybe this comes from my stock and bonds and high-yield savings account background, I like to call it investor when I hand off money and I don't have to do much and it grows.

Yeah.

Whether it's through someone else, a company, a business. So I feel like I'm an owner of my 11 units. So when someone asks, how many do you have? I own 11 of them. And then I invest with you because I help make decisions, but you're the main operator. So I'm pretty uninvolved in the most day-to-day. So I feel like that's where I invested, whereas I own over here.

If you want to drive down to our senior living facility, they love you on the day-to-day. You'll have a blast and you can play bingo.

Let's do it.

If that's not the highest and best use of your time.

Yeah, last time I was there, I got soaked.

I got absolutely drenched last time we were down in Stephenville, Texas, and it flooded. Apparently it's all over the news, and we just chose a random Sunday to go down. There's rivers of water. They're closing lanes of the freeway. We're just bombing down in my Toyota Tundra. This is all good and fine. We get there, Matt's like, man, I'm kind of worried about some of the drainage on some of these properties. They're like underwater. Turns out this is like a historic flood where there shutting down parts of the city. People are like boating in the streets. And we're here just walking the properties outside and like, oh yeah, no, you know, occasionally rains in Texas.

We tried to cross the parking lot and I'm pretty sure both our feet got completely just like we stepped in water up to our ankles.

It was, it was a pretty wild experience. You don't have to do the day to day on every property you own and you have property management on a lot.

The goal is to not have to do the day to day.

Yeah, but there is a difference. There's absolutely a difference in being an owner and being an investor.

Right.

And I would say this to all of my investors. I'm super excited to make all of you a ton of money together, and we're going to make some decisions together. I'm really happy that you guys get to be investors because being an owner has a lot of extra stress, has a lot of extra work, and it is my favorite job in the whole world. It's fun that you're growing your personal portfolio. That is a great thing to do. If there was one takeaway that you've had from all that you've done. So quick summary. You've house hacked, you've done single family, you've done multifamily, residential multifamily, you've done commercial multifamily, you've bought buildings by yourself, you've professionally managed, professional management in and out of state. You've been an investor in larger multifamily deals, senior living, renovation, and stabilized. You have done an unbelievable amount of things in real estate in a very short period of time.

It's been a rocket ship ride.

If someone had a similar goal, of I want to get to an income level where my passive income is similar to my active income, which I think is a great place for a lot to be because magically the job that you love becomes optional then and it's different going to work. Even if you love your job, it's different going to work knowing that, hey, if I left, I'd be okay. I'd be okay. It's a magical place to be. If someone else wanted to get to the same place, what is one thing that you would share to them that would get them there faster?

I'm gonna repeat what I said before because I think it's the most important thing you can do early on. Go bigger sooner. Don't limit yourself to my first property or my second property has to be a single family or duplex. Push that first or second property to quadplex, or if you're feeling really ambitious, you go commercial, 5 units or more, because that will speed up your journey real rapidly in many different ways, from income produced, equity gained, learning how to scale, learning how to manage more at the same time, the size of the repairs and renovation project. Like, the list goes on. You're forced to go faster in many ways, learn quicker, and go. And at the end of it, you go, you know what, that actually wasn't so bad. I can go big, even bigger now. So go bigger sooner.

There we go, guys. This is another episode of The Owner Meeting with one of the fastest growing owners. I've ever met here at my house in Dallas. Matt Wang, successfully through the mentorship program. I do want to point out one last thing. Everyone in the mentorship program would have been successful with or without us. The goal is exactly what you said, help people go bigger, faster, with less mistakes. If you can play the best game you can, I absolutely recommend you get in community with other people, whether it's multifamily strategy, whether it's someone else who has a different strategy that aligns with you better. Get around the people that allow you to move faster than you can by yourself, and you will play this game at a much higher level, much quicker, which is why we do the owner meeting. If you're busy, you're at work, you're listening in the car, we'll do the owner meeting for you. So guys, this was Matthew Wang. We'll see you all in the next episode.

Thanks for having me.