Secrets to Active income with Vayna Jerabek

YouTube, we are back and we are here with Vayna today. Vayna, welcome to the channel.

Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to get in here and talk with you guys.

Well, we are excited to have you on. Um, as all of Cody and my content is pretty much about managing properties, motivation, and passive income through real estate, one thing we talk very little on is active income in real estate. And quite honestly, We're not the authorities on that because we don't pay ourselves all that often. Um, life would be easier if, uh, if we could figure out the liquidity part, but, um, that's something that you've done really, really well. You have built a network and you have multiple streams of active income, uh, that have appeared to have given you the life that you want to have right now, which is just incredible. First question for you was, what is your motivation behind this? Like, for you, what, what drives you to do all that you do?

What drives me? It's a good question. Um, really, when I was in high school, I was— the bottom line was like, I didn't want to work. So ultimately I was like, how can I just not work and live the life I want to live? I want to live like luxurious. I want to go do fun stuff and be able to do whatever I want whenever I want. I really love freedom. So I figured out what I could do and I worked backwards. And ultimately I thought rental property. So if you have enough rental property and you have enough passive income coming in, then you can do whatever you want and your bills will be paid every single month. So I thought, okay, rental property, I need money to buy rentals and I need a lot of it. You know, 20% down to buy investments isn't a joke. So I saw real estate. I saw that there is no capped income in real estate. You can work whenever you want basically. And your income is up to you in real estate. So I decided to get my real estate license straight out of high school. I skipped college. I had the privilege of doing so. I was still living at home. My bills were pretty low. So I just decided to skip the whole rat race and just try real estate. Ultimately, I was like, even if I just do real estate for a year and if I fail, I can still go back. But like This passion drive, it's now, so let me go do this while there's no risk. So that's, that's how I got into real estate. But I would say before is you guys have totally skipped that step, which is why what you're doing is awesome on your YouTube channel. There are plenty of people talking about active income and real estate and become a real estate agent, it's so easy, you know, but you guys are circumventing that and you're just going straight to towards, um acquiring property. And that's awesome.

Oh, I was going to say it was, it was a little ironic.

You wanted to not work and, and here I am hustling.

Exactly.

But that's phenomenal because it allows you to go hit your targets and do what you want to do.

I figure that I hustle now. The big goal is like, I'm going to hustle 18 to 20, and then I'm going to be like doing whatever I want in like my 20s, you know. Um, that was like my lofty goal when I was a teenager, but Yeah, I mean, the goal was to build the capital in real estate and then go buy the properties.

Well, there we go. You are, uh, you're going a lot faster than I did. I am, uh, I have a week and a half left in my 20s, so I, uh, I won't be able to attain your goals. It took me too long to figure this out, uh, which is, which is really cool. I love that both you and Cody had massive success in the real estate space while skipping the college route. That's something that, that I did, and I feel like it put me behind like 8 years. I made great money and I didn't move forward. Um, for you, do you ever wish that you went to college, or—

absolutely not. I'm sure Cody agrees.

Yeah, a total agreement there. When you got started though, I'm sure you got maybe some pushback from family or friends.

You know, luckily I was very supported in all aspects, and I know that that's something that a lot of people struggle with, is that people discourage them from being an entrepreneur. But I think that because I got a lot of support, that's what really drove me and let me believe that I could do this, you know. And that's actually a really interesting thing that speak upon because people, when they hear things, like when they get discouraged about doing what they want to do, then they stop doing it. And it's a lot harder for them to grow. But when people around you are supporting what you do, then there's really nothing stopping you.

So you got started, were you just jumping in? I actually don't know this. Did you jump straight into wholesaling or was it, I'm going to go be a full-time agent?

Yeah, I started just real estate agent. I wanted, I knew about wholesaling and I wanted to do it. And I still do more agent activities than wholesaling, but I just started as an agent to kind of learn the industry. And that was kind of the low-hanging fruit. It was a little easier to get into than wholesaling at the time.

So what made that switch? Did you find the right mentor? Was it Just right opportunity.

Yeah. Good question. I always knew that wholesaling, you could make a lot more on like the same price point houses. So eventually while I was, I'm big on cold calling. So that's my prospecting strategy. I have been cold calling since day one or like month 3 when I got over my fears. So I was cold calling for like 6 or 8 months, just looking for sellers, for the opportunity to list their house. And I had some success with that. And eventually I was like, I've just found out about wholesaling. I thought about it more. I was like, I can optimize this cold calling strategy for wholesaling just by changing up my script and my approach. So, you know, like 8 months in, I switched up and I started going for wholesales and just learning that and practicing that. And then when I first, and I did my first wholesale deal back in like August, September 2021, The fee was like so high. And I was like, all right, I don't want to sell real estate anymore. I just want to wholesale.

What'd that deal look like? If you want to dive into that.

Yeah. So it was a $450,000 house. And we ended up, I was with a partner at the time. He was helping me through the process. And we locked it up for about, Gosh, I got to remember something around $420,000. Market value was $450,000. We got it for $420,000. And then I believe we assigned it at $500,000.

Wonderful.

I think that's right. We actually got really lucky with this buyer. It was a really unique situation because they had to satisfy a 1031 exchange. So they ended up kind of overpaying for the property. But that was really lucky for us that we made a really big fee.

Luck or right place, you know, you, you were ready for the right opportunity. You put yourself there.

Yeah, that's true.

You had mentioned that you're doing still a lot of brokerage work in addition to the wholesaling, and you switched up your script. When you are calling, are your calls now about wholesale and then you weave in brokerage, or do you make two separate calls? How do you manage both? Streams of active income without them running into each other?

Yeah, so agent investor is actually pretty easy for me to manage. Um, I'm not sure why, and a lot of people, a lot of agents do struggle with being agent and investor, but my approach is I call people looking to buy first and foremost, and then if they're like suspicious or whatever it is, I always end up mentioning that I'm also a licensed real estate broker And really the big pitch is, hey, I can make you an offer to buy your house. And we can also talk about what you would get on the market and just explore your options. So with that, people are a lot more willing to talk to me because it's like less pressure. We just go through and talk about what they could do.

Do you find that that script—

I was just saying listing out solutions. That's awesome.

Does that script, does that bring you in more brokerage work or more wholesaling work? Just going down that train of conversation with people.

It's brought me a lot more wholesaling I've had with this script. People have really, the people I've been working with just prefer to sell off the market. I make it really easy for them. I save them a lot on the commissions and closing costs. And time-wise, I give them all the time they need to move. So I make the process really easy for the people I wholesale from. And just with that approach, I end up wholesaling more than listing, which I prefer. And then, you know, I have my buyers as well that I work with.

That's awesome.

What I will say though, actually, is in addition to like deals, I get to build my off-market inventory of people who would sell for the right price. So then when I have a buyer come in, you know, come to me looking for something— market's freaking crazy right now, we all know that. And so So I get to offer this list of potential properties that would be willing to sell to like a retail buyer who doesn't need to get it way below market value. So that's something I get to offer to my buyers just out of doing that prospecting.

That's wonderful. Have you learned some of this stuff from a mentor? Has there been anybody that's been really influential for you getting into the space?

Yeah. When it comes to investing, I joined Springboard to Wealth with Thatch Nguyen last summer, summer 2021. And that just changed my life. The community is amazing. The content and the stuff they talk about in the coaching calls is really influential. They speak so much on mindset, which a lot of coaches don't when it comes to investing. And then in that, I found a lot of mentors, like the person who I partnered with to do the wholesales. And it's just really great to be in a community of people who are doing the same thing as you because you can bounce ideas off each other and just grow together. It's awesome.

So that said, how much weight or how much value would you put on finding the right mentor?

Oh man, I— it's funny because people ask me like, you know, I need a mentor, how do I find a mentor? And I think a mentor is something you earn, honestly. Like, and I also think that when you are aligned and doing everything you should be doing, your mentor naturally comes. Because I feel like that's how I found Springboard, is I was already like doing all these activities. And through that, I met people who were in the program, and that's actually how I joined, is that they got me in. So, um, it is important to have— I think having a mentor will accelerate your growth, but really, as long as— sorry, I'm stumbling— but I think you shouldn't depend your success on a mentor, right? I don't think you should wait for a mentor to start. I think you should just start and then you'll figure it out that way.

And I love that take. When the, when the student's ready, the mentor will appear, right? That's, that's awesome. And I actually haven't spent a lot of time thinking about that, but that, uh, that's a really good way to view it because then you're responsible for being ready and prepping for the mentor. I think there's a lot of people out there who think when I find the right person, everything's magically going to work and you put the responsibility on yourself to learn it. And that will attract the right people who are going to help you get to the next level.

Just the fact that you take action, I feel like that is like what my mentors love about me is that I do everything they tell me to do. And I make a lot of, I find a lot of success out of doing so. So that makes them really proud, right? Even I have mentees and when they do what I tell them to do and they find success, it makes me really proud. And I'm even more motivated to help them more and then help them grow more.

That's phenomenal.

How long ago did you start wholesaling? You said you started brokering really young, right out of high school. Um, how long of a journey has this been for you? What did the timeline look like?

Yeah, so, um, October 2019 is when I got my license. I was 18, about to turn 19. I started really selling real estate. My business took off in summer 2020. Like April, May 2020. And then I sold 14 houses my first year. Then 2021, I ended up at 24 houses. I started my team summer 2020. And we were about 2 or 3 people. And then we grew to 6 people in 2021. It was just the 6 of us for about the whole year. And the team ended up doing 50 deals in 2021. And then just recently, About, man, 4 or 5 months ago now, I opened up my team. That's when I was kind of getting big on social media. So a lot of people were hitting me up to join. So I created a 90-day challenge, basically internship style for people to earn an opportunity to join my team. So from out of that, I hired 9, uh, licensed and unlicensed agents. So we're at 15 on the team now.

So one of them just got mutual on a duplex over in Central Washington. Yeah, I'm excited for that guy.

Alex is going to be awesome. He— it's so funny with that one because for whatever reason, he— that agent just wasn't accepting his full price offers. And then she— they figured out and she finally did, but it was just on hold for so long.

I wrote up the same deal.

What?

I wrote that up too. They, uh, they did that for a lot of different properties out there. They just did not accept full price offers. It was ridiculous.

What?

Right. It's crazy.

But I like that deal though. He's going to do well on that property.

It's going to be awesome for him. It's a great starter one. I love Moses Lake. I'm trying to go there next. I just bought up my first burr here in Tacoma. And then, but the price point and the cashflow in Moses Lake is just, you guys know how amazing it is. You guys freaking live there.

What's stopping you from, from investing?

I need to find the deals.

They're everywhere. I mean, there's, there's one like right over there and one over there and over there.

Numbers, Cody, you give me some numbers. I'll drop the money.

Instead of buy, uh, rehab, what, uh, what about build rent?

We could build.

There are people here building for $1.6 million, cashing out $2 million.

Yeah, that's a good deal.

I mean, you could do that all over.

I don't have the most experience on building.

Does Springboard talk a lot about that? That's not my space either.

Yeah, they do. So like, you know, Thatch himself does all kinds of deals. He owns hundreds of units. So he does build. He just bought a house in Seattle recently, like South Seattle. It's got one house. He's going to knock it down and build 4 townhouses or row houses. Sorry.

That's awesome.

So yeah, we get— he gives us the insight a lot. He shows us the numbers. We talk with his architects. It's really cool. He's— they're really transparent about it. And we get to learn a lot. There's a lot to know with building. It's a really long and arduous process. But eventually we will get there.

Make it happen, Captain.

Hell yeah.

So what's your goal for this year?

My goal. Um, so I've, in building out this team, it's taken a lot of time and training. So I've, I'm focusing on the team in quarter one and I want the team to do 150 deals this year, just real estate. And I don't have a transaction goal just because, um, it's a, because of wholesaling, it's, I make, I can make a lot of money on a few transactions, but I— the goal this year is to make half a million dollars and buy 5 rental units.

That's awesome. Well, you already bought one of them.

So I could probably, and I will probably do more. I want to house hack a fourplex, and then I want to do another BRRRR later this year. Maybe 2. Maybe we should up this goal.

Do it.

There we go.

Where do you want to get—

I'm sorry, where do you want to, uh, house hack?

I'm looking at South King County, like Renton, Kent, or South Seattle. I just missed out. There was a pretty good fourplex on the market in Kent. I haven't been looking seriously since I'm working on this BRRRR, but it was really great. My goal is to buy a triplex or a fourplex that would break even with me living in one of the units, and that one would have done well. But, um, they're rare these days on the market at least. And you know me, I like the off-market, so it'll probably come off the market, but I still look here and there.

Christian, maybe reach out to Mr. Lai.

Oh yeah, I do know about a 4-plex. Let me, uh, let me see what I can do. Anyone else who watches this, by the way, you got an off-market 4-plex for Vayner, put it in the chat.

Let's do a deal. I'm buying houses. Cody, what are your goals this year? My goal is the 100-unit mark.

Yeah. So the goal is to pass the 100-unit mark in the next month and a half, and I should be at about 112 to 114 depending on where the current mutual acceptances go if I close everything out. So that's really big for me. I want to make $2 million this year. And I have a clear path to, to do that through equity growth on the real estate. I got some value-add properties, and so that'll be unrealized. Again, we are broke. We don't keep money. We don't pay ourselves. You know, make $2 million, pay myself $1,000 a month. But that's the goal for this year because with that equity position, you know, you earn dividends and cash flow off of that and real estate. And that'll allow me to really scale up in the coming few years to, to grow into something worth building.

That's amazing. Straight killer.

One day at a time, though. Didn't start there. But yeah, so you hit your $500,000 goal, you get your 5 units, you're already 20% of the way done with that goal. You buy a fourplex. I mean, You're one deal away. So technically you're halfway done. That's a good way to look at it.

Well, half a million actively, that doesn't include the equity, right? So I don't know the equity yet. I got to do my math. I haven't thought about that.

I'm just taking one deal at a time too. Yeah, it's fun to think about, but you get your 5 units, you're in your half mil plus your equity growth, probably another half to another million bucks. And so what does 2023 to 2024 look like for Baina Jarabeck?

2023 to 2024, um, the next few years, I guess the plan is to keep buying. I'm going to buy another multifamily every year to keep doing the house hack strategy, keep stacking. And I'm going to get my team built out. I really, my vision for my team here is to start my own brokerage. That will run itself. So I own the brokerage, it's doing its thing. The agents are amazing. I just, I guess I'm passionate about real estate or whatever. So get the brokerage going, keep wholesaling and yeah, freaking live life and have fun in my 20s. It's the whole thing.

That's a good way to do it. Christian, live it up in your last week, my friend.

Yeah, I know. I'm going to have to have a real big week if I want to—

Christian's 30s are going to be lit though. It's going to be amazing.

They, I will have full ownership of my time through my 30s. That will be ideal. If you— that's one of the things I like about your strategy of the, uh, the active income. You get to have fun and you're acquiring real estate. Like, you know, maybe you're not buying 100 units at a time, but you're stacking real estate, you're having fun, you're building a team. You're gonna look back by the time you're 30 and you're gonna have a lot of real estate.

Ridiculous. I mean, do you ever think about what you do when you get there?

That's the thing, right? And that's what the people at the top tell us is to enjoy the journey, because when you get there, you're gonna wish you could be at day one. That's what they say. But I'm gonna be traveling to the Maldives, I'm gonna be shopping, I'm gonna be taking care of my kids, I'm gonna have a nice house. Um, I just You know, from— I have a lot of passion about freedom, being able to do what I want, and, um, security that I don't have to worry about money. That's a big thing. So, um, yeah, just doing what I want, really.

Well, when you get there, if you really want to start over, you know how to reach us, and I'll send you wire instructions and we'll—

you can start over.

No, you guys, I will not be upset.

You're gonna have a video how we figured out active income. Vayna gave us all of hers.

That sounds like a deal.

I'm on a scale up to buying like high-rises. That's like one of my lifetime goals.

You could do that in like 5 years or less.

All right, let's put 5 years on it. Buy a high-rise.

All right. That'd be fun.

There we go, we're putting that in writing. High-rise by 25.

Man, I'm making this—

I have 3 years, let's make it happen.

Are you gonna get a matching one?

Where—

what's your long-term, Cody?

Long-term for real estate?

For your life?

Oh, long-term for life. I mean, I want to take care of my mom this year, and then I know there's other families out there that have struggled, you know, split parents. I grew up with split parents. So I want to be a resource to help them out and be a resource to where financially it's hard to actually, you know, destroy what I've done so that I can give unconditional support. And so I want to get to be the very first person ever to go from zero to $1 billion of real estate, you know, without some huge tech startup or something. I want to be the first person to ever do that without syndicating. Pay it off. And on something like that, that's $60 million a year in cash flow. That's— that's not bad.

I mean, you'll get by.

It doesn't suck.

That's so cool. You'll do it too.

Vayna, the last question I had for you, and this—

I—

this is why we had you on, because you and Cody are the— some of the youngest players making waves in the game. Other young investors, aspiring investors, high school students about to graduate, what advice would you give to young people looking to get into real estate?

This is an awesome question, Christian, because I get it every day and I have a different answer every day. And it usually depends, but in general, my— uh-oh. Sorry, Keystone moment there. I got a call. Um, my advice for young people looking to get into real estate and they want to build a future for themselves is to take advantage of every opportunity they get. So this is the point in your life where there is no, there is no risk. Like you have very, very little to lose. So go learn, read your books, watch the YouTube videos, figure out what real estate is, figure out what you can do to serve your marketplace and how you can solve problems, and just go at it. Be consistent with it. It's really simple. Success is simple. It's not easy. So work hard and figure out where your strengths are. Play to those strengths. I think myself and you and Cody have both figured out where our strengths and weaknesses lie and capitalize off that. So just take a lot of action for sure.

That, that's awesome. That was, that was an excellent answer.

It was a, that reminded me a lot of something I heard a long time ago, long relative to my life, I guess, 3 years ago. But, you know, rather, I'd rather risk loss than risk regret.

Oh yeah.

So take every opportunity. You made me think of that, but, uh, that was good.

Go help people make money, help more people. Absolutely.

Yeah, that's awesome.

You really have to lose.

Well, is there anything else you want to share with the world? I know you've shared a lot with your 458,000 followers on TikTok, but if you want to share with some of the 2,000 people that may see this. Any parting words?

Parting words? Well, you know, we're Gen Z, we're the next generation of leaders, and it's up to us to keep the world running. So let's do a damn good job doing it. Let's show them that Gen Z is more than just dancing videos, that we are here to make a difference, and show them up, and the world will be just fine. Actually awesome. You can also do the pointing videos, lip syncing. Yeah, you know, we're not just dancing.

Yeah.

If someone wants to find you online, Vayna, what is the best way for them to follow you?

I've got a super unique name, so if you Google me, you'll find everything. But I'm super active on Instagram and YouTube and TikTok.

Perfect.

Sweet. Well, thanks for hopping on to the call today. We appreciate you.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. I love talking with you guys. We should do it again.

Yeah, we will. We will do this live at some point when we're all in the same, uh, all in the same city.

One day.

One day.

But I, I really appreciate your time, Vayna. Thanks for letting us kind of wing this. I'll edit out all of our awkward pauses and phone calls. Um, again, this is our first time doing this with anyone. I just Of everyone on our network, I liked, I liked your messaging and I feel like it's a different path to do the same thing that Cody's doing.

Um, as far as around, you're going straight.

Well, like straight lines. I mean, it's just, I don't like driving around things, so I'll just blow through it, you know, like a stop sign.

Yeah. I'll have to have you guys onto my YouTube channel too. I haven't interviewed anyone yet either. So you guys can be the first.

Awesome. Let's make it happen.

Yeah, I appreciate your time, Dana. I really do.

Have a good one, you guys.