Unlocking Financial Freedom Through VRBO's & House Hacking | The Real Estate Revolution | Episode 1

Coming up on this episode of the Real estate Revolution.

We just know going to Phoenix, it was a, we got a dive pool. So it's like a 10 foot pool and nobody wants to go there in the middle of the winter.

This episode is going to blow your mind with Scott and Marianne. They are a young couple in their 30s. They blew past some goals in their investing side by buying a couple of VRBOs, turning one of their, their primary residence as far as a part time furnace rental. And, and they asked some really good questions on this episode. So check this out. Listen to Scott Marianne. They're going to inspire and encourage you as to what is actually possible if you stop limiting yourself. Hey everyone, it's Steve Valentine and I'm here with Scott and Marianne Crawford and they are in Denver. They are investors and they have like, I don't know, they have just sped things up really quick. So I met them through a mutual friend, Sina, who is doing a podcast called Get Investing. And so they reached out and they had some questions about where they're going and some of the investments they've done. So this is kind of their call to ask the questions and kind of seek some more advice and their growth. So, Scott, Marianne, thanks for, thanks for being here and let's fire away. Where do you guys want to start?

Yeah, thanks for having us. It's great to. We definitely have done a lot in the last year, but looking for clarity and how we move forward from here and I guess, do we want to dig in a little bit in terms of what the last year has looked like?

Yeah, let's, let's start with what your current portfolio looks like and how you got there.

Okay. So last January, I have, I have three brothers. Our families just talked and said, hey, we've been going down to Phoenix the last six or seven years and we've rented out an Airbnb, played a lot of golf, stuff like that. And we're like, why don't we have a house down there? And so since we started talking about that, within 40 days we had keys to a house in Gilbert. So that's, that was a pretty quick process. We got, we went live with that in early March of last year on Airbnb. We're coming up on a year on that.

Okay.

And just love that whole month of just getting things ready, purchasing stuff, building stuff, taking some several trips down there, getting it live. And then it kind of got boring after that once we were live because our brother, he lives down in Gilbert, so he was the property manager, but we Were like, man, we love the. The month and a half of getting it set up. And then what do we do now? We need to do something else. And so in that time, kind of late spring, early summer, we. We really dug into a lot of bigger pockets type of stuff. Just absorb all sorts of books, talk to all sorts of different people. And we're actually sitting in our basement right now. This. We got this all set up. Marianne did most of the work on this, but we. We found out about furnish finders, and so we. We listed our. Our basement on furnish finders and had our. Had our first nurse come in and check out a couple weeks ago, something like that. That was a pretty cool experience. And then around the same time, in the fall, we. We decided, hey, we want to. We think we can do this, and we want to buy our own house together. So what was that? September, I think it was.

We closed, like, around September 2nd.

Yeah, right around Labor Day is when we bought a house in Chandler and then got experienced that same adrenaline rush of ordering things, getting things set up, and kind of making it our own. And so, yeah, and with each of those, we start. We. We started three different LLCs in the past year, and so bing, bang, boom, we knew taxes are going to be really fun coming around this time of the year now. And so we're kind of in the thick of that. But, man, we just. Everything we've been learning is take action, and once you're a couple steps out, then you'll. As long as you have the team to do it together. And we've been. We've been just feeding off of each other and feeding off of other people and. And learning from people like you guys. And we know we're gonna figure it out once we get to the next step, but we just wanted to make sure we're taking action on all that. And in the middle of all this, Marianne got pregnant. We're actually due 10 days from now with a little baby boy. And so we're like, why not? We got to just make that the new norm. You know, just. It kind of seems crazy to our families and friends and stuff like that, but we're just. We just know that we want to take action, and we want to work towards financial freedom. And off to a good start.

I love the financial freedom part. So there's a lot of things. In fact, I'm doing a live zoom call tomorrow night about the VRBO process. You guys are obviously having a little bit different experience than what I experienced as an investor with vrbo. Not that it was bad, I just felt like it was a lot of work. I have no enjoyment in furnishing anything. So a couple of questions. One, where did you get the capital? Because you bought two homes in what price range?

The first one was 615, the second one was 480.

Okay, so you probably did 20% down on each, correct?

I think we got a 10% download on the first one and all four of our families split that, so each came in 25%.

Okay, so you do have technically partners in these two properties. Correct?

Just the first one was families and then the second one was just ours. It was a second home. Got it for 10% down on that one too.

Awesome. I love that. That's one of the strategies that we use to actually get our second home in Munds park is utilizing the lower down payment, little bit lower interest rate on a second home and then utilizing it a little bit for yourself and also using as rental until you're to the point of hey, I can afford not to have to rent this out and I can leave my underwear on the floor when I leave and I'll come back and they'll be there later.

Right.

That was kind of our deal in our cabin. So where did you raise that? Like where did you get the capital? Is it earned income that you guys had over time? What does that look like for you? Because this is where a lot of people get so fresh. Like I want to invest but they don't have any money. Right. So what was kind of the path for the initial investment?

So the first one we had, we had a little bit of savings on that one and it was a lot easier just having four families that contributed. So it was a lot less down on that one. The second one, we actually took a HELOC out on our house here in Denver and that's what we used to furnish it, pay the down payment, everything like that. And so the idea was if things continue the way they're continuing in terms of appreciation, we would do a cash out refinance on the house in Chandler, pay off the heloc, and then reload again with something else. So.

Okay.

And we both have full time jobs too, so it, it was earned income for them.

Awesome, awesome. Now your experience over the first year with two VRBOs each house, what do you think percentage of purchase price did you spend getting it up and running as far as furnishings, you know, because everything from soups to nuts, right? From the spoons in the silverware drawer to the towels in the bathroom. What Was your overall percentage. Have you guys figured that out to get them started?

I'm trying to think. I have a question. I think I have a close dollar.

Amount, but yeah, what's the dollar amount.

About actual what the house like the loan is for?

Yeah. So a lot of times I like to give people in my, my perception in the past of what we've done, it's cost us between 10 and 15% of the purchase price to furnish it. So what's the dollar amount that you guys spent on each home?

Roughly the second one with, with everything adding a pool heater in all this type of stuff, I think it was 95 to 100.

Okay, so you spent almost 20%.

Yep.

Okay.

That's including the down payment. So.

Okay, that included the down payments.

That's all in. I think 95,000 is. We got it for 480.

Okay. So. And you put 10% down. So yeah, you spent a little bit more than 10% on furnishing. Probably closer to 15%. But you did something that I don't know that a lot of people heard is that you went in and put a pool heater on. So why was that important?

But we just know going to Phoenix, it was a, we got a dive pool. So it's like a 10 foot pool and nobody wants to go there in the middle of the winter and it'd be cold and I think that's a huge feature. And so we just, we had got a heater at the other house and it's a way to generate more income as well. So you have the normal booking rate and then we do like 50 or 75 bucks extra a night so you can gain revenue to pay that back.

Awesome.

And it's like whenever we go in there in the winter, we want it to be a warm pool and so we just kind of think everyone expects the same thing for a lot of people.

So what led you guys? Okay, so other than the family aspect of it, you did one. But knowing that your avid listeners have bigger pockets and some of the other stuff, why the second VRBO versus looking at long term rentals?

Well, we knew. And you can speak to this.

Go for it. Well, we did start out actually looking for long term rentals and it didn't make sense.

Like in the Phoenix area at least we didn't find anything where the numbers worked. And so.

Yeah, and so we were actually curious how, how you were able to find or like these days how you're able to find long term rentals. Actually cash flow.

Sure. Yeah. I'll I'll get to that in just one sec. I want to answer that question because it's important. So what was the. This is like a real critical thing because you guys are investors. You came down here. So what was your experience like with the real estate agent that you utilized? It wasn't me at the time. It will be in the future. Right. Wink, wink. So the question is, what was the experience level of the agent on your investment strategy as far as like clarifying that to them and what kind of guidance were they giving?

I'd say the first one, we didn't use the original one on the second house.

Why?

It says something.

But why? What was the main reason?

I didn't have the investor background, which we realized through all the listening. It's like, no, you could find a Realtor through bigger pockets, which is great. And that just having somebody that's doing in the game themselves in terms of investments. And so that was a big part of it. It's just a whole different focus, whole different paradigm. And I think the first one, really nice guy, he was actually referred by the realtor that we used here to buy this house that we're. Okay, live in in Colorado, same company, very nice guy. But I think we knew kind of quickly in like he wasn't, wasn't aggressive with helping us find the house and he wasn't responsive and stuff like that. And so. And he didn't have the greatest answers to some of our questions as we were soaking up all this, this knowledge of real estate investing and all that.

Right. And then how was the experience with the second agent?

You want to speak to that one?

Yeah. I mean, she had experience in terms of like knowing whether which neighborhoods we were looking at had the HOA terms that would allow it short term rental. Beyond that, I don't know that there is necessarily a ton of experience there in terms of guiding us on what would be a good investment.

Got it. Okay. Yeah. So those are just really important for people to understand. Like, you guys have an experience on a couple of houses and I think it's interesting because you both are in the same position. When I tell people, like when you go to invest, I always tell people, like, you need to ask that real estate agent how much investment investment knowledge they actually have, because what kind of advice are they going to give you if they've never invested in anything? And it's an interesting stat that a lot of people don't see is that 95% of real estate agents do not own investment properties, but they will sell you one, but they've never felt that pain or the experience of if it's good or it's bad. And a lot of times they really don't know what the buy box should look like when it comes down to something like that. So I think that's really important and just great advice from you guys. What would be something. So if you started this journey over, what would be something different that you would have looked for in an agent? So you're new, you're coming to Phoenix. You're like, we want to do this VRBO thing or this investment thing. What would you have looked for differently?

I think. Well, for sure would have wanted some guidance on like, how to scale our business and what would be a good property to start with. If we're wanting to, you know, put however many in our portfolio per year, two or three or whatever that number is.

Right.

I think part of it too is just I don't think people are looking for this in a Realtor. In general, they're looking to buy a house, but a real estate investor is looking for a vision like this. How next house is a step in terms of the vision that they're trying to. To live out in their life. And, and I think ask in some of your content that I've seen you do that where it's. It's helping understand what is your why, what are you doing this for this. And even just pitching that idea of like, hey, this is your next rental house. Yeah, you might be living in here, but this is your next rental. And then already thinking about the house after that, you know, so you just, you go into the house different. If we didn't even necessarily really think about this house as a rental, we really didn't.

And our primary.

Yeah, our primary here in Colorado. And now we're. We're sitting in it. We love. It's comfortable down here. And it's like, it's when we have nurses in here, it splits our mortgage in half. Just that mindset, I think, just wasn't. We just kind of lucked into this one. But I think somebody that has a really clear vision that can help people, not even necessarily looking for that kind of guide into that, then a lot more people, I think, can experience financial freedom and.

Yeah, agreed. And that's the goal, right, Is the financial freedom. And you know, you guys are obviously younger. You're starting out, you've got, you know, young children, one on the way. Right. And so the mindset that you're at is like, number one, it's light Years of hair ahead of where I started. I had to do it faster because I didn't have that mindset early on, even though I was in the real estate business. Right. When we had our kids, we kind of dabbled in the investing, but then we sold stuff that we shouldn't have, but we didn't have a vision. Nobody was showing us the vision, the what if you put this on, set it, forget it, and what is it going to create for future? Don't worry about the values, right? Those are going to change. They're going to go up and down. Look at the future, right? Like, what is it going to create for your kids? And I always love, you know, giving people examples of, hey, a long term investment, better investment for your child. If education is something you're potentially going to invest in for them. Buy a house, not a 529B plan, right? Because if you really look at rate of return on a 529B and the penalties if they don't. But you can have a house that a tenant or somebody actually ends up paying for college down the road with equity and you can borrow against it and you have so much flexibility with it. I mean, you could even partner with your kids on it, like whatever the case may be. But again, it's that future vision of this is what we want to see. So, you know, I really appreciate that insight because I think it's helpful for people to understand, like if you're going to do this, you got to ask the right questions because you're going to need the guidance. And unfortunately, our industry, you know, it's. Some are good, some are bad and some are lucky and some are not. Right. And you just kind of get lucky sometimes. But I've also heard a lot of horror stories from people as well. Right. So what's your cash flow or your experience been? So we talk about debt service. So your overall expenses, right. Your, you know, your service calls, property management, all those things. The first one that you did with the family, what was kind of your experience as far as the annual net cash flow after expenses?

That's a great question. I'm trying to think. I don't know if I know the specific number. I know we haven't quite come up on a year. I think we're about a month. But it's. I think it's. Yeah, I know. I don't, I don't really have a great answer to that.

I'm kind of going through it right now with.

Okay, are you guys visiting the numbers or the P&L on a monthly basis on the VRBO. As far as like, hey, it's doing this or it's not doing this.

I'd say we're doing a lot more with the com. With the Chandler house, because it's our thing. You know, with my brother being the property manager, he kind of. He manages a lot of it. I'm kind of helping manage the taxes and working with the CPA and all that, because I want to. I'm kind of a. We're kind of a sponge with that, understanding all the tax benefits and everything like that. And so. But just digging into, I mean, I. I'd say it's a pretty basic use of QuickBooks to start just tagging, tagging all the transactions the right way, pulling some of those reports, but not looking at them super, like, too closely. But that's something this next year I know, really need to get dialed in in terms of that and, and all the functionality within QuickBooks and the monthly P and L. And I mean, my, I'm a, I'm a general manager in my job, and I, I do forecasting and P and L reviews and good that on a daily basis. And so I think bringing that aspect into this, into this business is. Is going to be really key.

Yeah, I think it's really important. What you said, there is something that it took me a long time to learn is that if you're not looking at the numbers on a monthly basis, you're not able to see the lead and lag indicators. Right. The lag indicators are what it did. But what are the lead indicators going to be going forward on certain things, and you're going to learn how to tweak things on the VRBO and what that looks like. But it's important to kind of look at it. And this is the. Why I say that is that I started looking at the numbers and, you know, the VRBO market is actually way oversaturated more than I even thought until I started digging into research this weekend. And I was kind of mortified by it. I'm like, oh, geez. You know, based on different things. But we had a house in South Scottsdale, not too far from where, you know, where you guys bought in Chandler. And I started looking at the vrbo. We actually turned it over to. We did a test case. We rented it out for a year furnished, because somebody was like, had a need and they paid like, I don't know, $40,000 for the year. I'm like, fine. Nothing else that I need to do. They paid all the utilities. So it was a great cash flow piece for that. We turned it over to an actually proper management company the following year. I wanted complete hands off and wanted to see the difference between this and that. And so once we ended up with the management company, I'm like, this actually is making more money as a long term rental than it is a short term. And so we shifted, we pulled it because I don't manage our long term stuff. You guys are doing some hands on stuff. But you start thinking about 20% on average is about what a full time Airbnb VRBO property management will charge you of gross monthly rent and they're supposed to keep it rented and do all the things. But what I found was they weren't real attentive to my property. You know, I felt like it definitely could have been rented out more, but I didn't have the time for it. Right? So it's either hire a staff member or hire somebody to do it or hire a more localized specialist. There's a lot of playing with it. So when you get into the vrbo, it's like this little miniature business that you're the CEO of and you're like, well, do we need to tweak this and looking at the numbers and how do we do here and what's it gonna look like next year? Because then like you said, you can start forecasting what it looks like and you start experimenting with things, you know, around holidays. How'd you guys do over the Super Bowl?

I knew you're going to bring that up. We got it booked. I'll say that that's not near as we. I mean, we started at like 2000 a night. We end up getting it for 400. The other house in Gilbert was 450. But just I've seen so much just I think you posted a picture of a sign of people listing their houses and going out of state and heard of somebody getting like 20,000 bucks for the week. I'm like, that's bananas. But yeah, we got it booked. We're happy with that, but not anything close to what we were expecting.

So here was the crazy stat this week. It came out this morning. 50% of the available VRVOs were vacant during super bowl and waste management week. That tells you how saturated the market was between the owners, the that just left their house and let somebody else use it and all the competition out here from that standpoint. So I'm kind of predicting and looking at crystal ball that there's going to be a lot of people that pull back on the VRBO market and go to long term rental or they get rid of them because they couldn't make it work. You guys obviously have done so well as your research and some of the different things, so I commend you for that. So are you happy with the first year of the two VRBOs?

I would, I'll just. You can answer this separate too. But I think, I think it's mostly about the learning and the doing and I think learning through doing and I mean it might be something in a year from now. It's like, hey, we're not. This, this Chandler house isn't what we thought. Maybe we need to sell it and maybe we need to you roll that into some kind of multi family or something like that. But it's, we're trying to every day, every week try to soak up knowledge and understanding and, and, and all that. And you know, it's the first thing, first time I can say that I've had like a business outside of my work and it's something where it's like, it's, it's so much fun because it has our name on it. Like our names in the llc, our names in the house. And I think it's just something where it's just so cool to come home from work and to get charged up with what's going on in the business. How do we want to grow it? We get to make all the decisions. There's no people above us telling us yes and no and stuff like that. And so it's fun to, to own all of it. And, and again, I think it's just staying close to it and saying, hey, if this is something that's not going to work over time we, it was still worth it because of all the learning that we did because a lot of people don't take that first step and we took really probably three different steps in the first year and we're going to learn as much as we can in that year and then take that with us. Whatever it looks like moving forward.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Any additions?

Yeah, I agree with like the education standpoint we definitely have learned a lot and wouldn't have learned it unless we just jumped in and got hands on, on experience. But I think our goals for the future are, is to get to the point where we can have financial freedom. So the model that we're following currently would not get us there. We're not getting that cash flow. But I will say we just launched our house in Chandler in October, so we haven't Gone through a full year yet to see how things go. But, I mean, there were a lot of upfront expenses. And then after going live, probably two months later, we had lots of repairs on the house. And it's just feeling like a money pit to me because I really am, like, getting antsy to get to that point where we have financial freedom. And so that's where I keep nudging Scott. Like, I want to figure out our next steps, but it's hard with the, you know, the dti, Right. Like what you say.

Yeah, I mean, we had.

Yeah.

My perspective on some of that too is like, you probably only have to change the water heater once. And we did that in one week. The next week, the irrigation system went out. The next week, the water heater that, the pool heater wasn't working. And that ended up being a wiring issue with the guy who installed it. So we got it wired and fixed it. Put a cup floating cover on the pool, stuff like that, where it's like these, these things should be good for a little while, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Those are all really good points. Is that, you know, again, because you are kind of new, right? You're getting an education, right. And there's something to be said about the education because even though, you know, somebody like myself can tell you all the things, sometimes you really don't hear it all until you experience. You're like, oh, that's what he was talking about. Or maybe we should have done it this way. And so you, you know, there is a cost to education, right. As long as you learn from it. You know, you could break even on both properties this year. And it doesn't mean that it was a loss, Right. It means that, okay, we've got experience, we can do this better. What does this look like? And there's also exit strategies, right. You can also convert to long term. You know, I don't ever agree with selling long term assets that have financing on them. There's always like, what's next with it? Right. Does it go to a long term. Do we do something with the furniture? Yes. It might be a little bit negative cash flow, but we have to keep our eye on two balls here, right? Everybody says keep the eye on one ball. Let's. Let's talk about two. Even if it becomes a little bit of negative cash flow, where you don't see the negative cash flow impact is when it comes down to your taxes, right. For depreciation, some of the different pieces that come with that. Right. And then you also are not Looking at that, I try to explain it in this way. In retirement is like, imagine going and buying $10 million of your future retirement account and somebody else is going to pay down that balance over time. Right. That's what a rental portfolio looks like. I went and borrowed $25 million. I own all these houses and somebody else is paying my retirement account every day until it has no debt in it.

Right.

And it's kind of a different way to think about that and look at it like, how do I get that faster? How do I create that financial freedom? But I think more importantly on the financial freedom, have you guys determined what financial freedom looks like from a. I do an exercise called Dream Life Budget, which is like, at what point in time are we creating monthly or annual passive income that allows us the freedom that we want? Because everybody's freedom is different. Right. You can't go to social media and listen to all the gurus. Like, I want to do this because that may not be your lifestyle. So you have to dream and create like, what is the life that we want and what is it going to cost? Right. And how do we plan for that? Because once you know that, you can reverse engineer how many homes or how many types of streams of income do we need to create that life? Because one person's might be, I want a million dollars worth a year in passive, and one person might be $200,000 a year in passive. So you have to know what that looks like in order to reverse engineer where you want to be. Have you guys done anything like that?

Not in any detail.

Unless I think we've just been operating off of what are we currently making and how can we replace that income?

That's great. I mean, that's a great start. Right? You know, I had coffee with a retired gentleman that's been a mentor for 80 years, and I asked him, like, how did you plan for retirement? He's like, simple math. He's like, this is how much we made, or I made. This is how much we live on. And I plan for 3% inflation. So I was going to need X amount to not change my lifestyle once I retired.

Yeah.

He's like, it's not rocket science.

Right.

And how do we get there?

Yeah.

You know, and obviously when you have kids, you know, it kind of. It might slow down the process. But here's the cool thing. If you can do what you have done, which, by the way, congratulations. At such an early age where your kids are, think about in 20 years where you're going to be at Even if you only had the three homes that you currently own, what does that life look like in 20 years when they're almost paid off? It's creating four or five thousand dollars a month in passive income, depending on what the market's doing. And you've got 2 million bucks worth of free and clear real estate. Right. Just by the one start.

Right.

And that's. You May, you made a really good point earlier. Is like, it's one of my favorite quotes. Keith Cunningham wrote a book called the Road Less Stupid. He says in that book, it's not what you see, it's what you don't see. Right. So in the real estate business, this is what I would encourage both of you to see as you look, and I'm sure that you are now. I always look at real estate not for what it is, what it can be. What could this be in the future?

Right?

Could it be a vrbo? Could it be a furnace rental? Could it, you know, can, can I build on top of it? One of the things is really interesting and one of the strategies we did in our second home market where we live is we started buying manufactured homes. They were on residential lots. They rented really well, but we bought them really cheap. And we just bought a lot that was able to be rented for a while until we can build a house on top of it. But it wasn't. Everybody looks at it. It's a manufactured home. I'm like, yeah, and it rents really well and we can build a house on top of it later on down the road. So it's kind of thinking outside the box from that standpoint. So, Mariana, I want to go back to your question about the long term type. Right. What discouraged you guys from investing in. And maybe you looked at them in the long term rental.

Yeah, well, we had been working with a real estate agent to look for, for some properties. Mostly we were focusing on townhomes and we were running the numbers and the amount that it costs to buy the home versus what we were going to be able to rent it out at. We would be, we wouldn't even be able to cover the mortgage, much less like utilities or the, you know, capex. So that's where we just, I mean, it was pretty major, right? Like probably at least a few hundred dollars a month less than what our mortgage payment would be. Right.

And so I'll give you some ideas that here's just a change of thought on it. I'm never one and nor should you be. As an investor, I have the dream of buying more Real estate. But I don't buy just to buy. The right opportunity has to be seized. It's my favorite quote from Eminem. Right. You got one shot, one opportunity you're going to capture. You're going to let it slip. Right? So I look at real estate in that perspective. Are you prepared to capitalize on an opportunity when it arises versus, like constantly flipping over rocks trying to find it? Right. Because I think sometimes when we do that, we force the door open rather than let's be patient for the right opportunity. Because what happens with the right opportunity in real estate investing is I want to buy something that has an equity standpoint. Right. Maybe I found it off market, maybe it needs to be renovated, whatever that case is. Right. That that's what I want for my clients, for my video, for all those things. Like, as an investor, there's got to be a purpose behind it. So when you guys are going through the theory of it doesn't make sense to have $200 a month negative cash flow. Right. But let me reverse the question on it. If I said, hey, because of interest rates right now, you're going to be about $200 negative cash flow, you're going to see that in your taxes. You, you might need a tax break. Right. So it's 24 hours a year. But if I said, you can trade me $2400 a year for $50,000 in instant equity, would you do it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. How long does it take up to eat that equity at $2,400 a year? Negative. Takes a long time. Right. But what's going to change? The rates will change eventually. So I always look at, like, where is, where's my investment price point versus the rate? Because the rates will change. You can also buy rates down. You can do different things. There's all kinds of moving parts to it. Right. But it's a mindset of not focusing so much on cash flow right now as asset acquisition.

Right.

Because the longer time you have, the faster they're getting paid down and knowing like, you know, here's, here's the point. Right. You know, Scott, you know, if I asked you, how much money do you contribute to your company? 401k a month. Right. And you know, you're like, I don't know, 300 bucks a month, A little bit out of each paycheck.

Cool.

How much cash flow does that create a month? Not right. Real estate is the same thing.

Yeah.

If I had to contribute like this one to 3 Main street is my retirement fund. I need to contribute $200 a month to that, right? But what you don't see is the fact that you acquired a $300,000 asset that somebody is really paying off on your behalf. And you're not equating the negative cash flow on your taxes. And some of the other thing, depending on the tax bracket you're in, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But those are kind of some of the important parts. What are the questions you guys have of me? I mean, just where you're at right now?

Well, that's, I mean, that's a big question that the 401k. Like there's a lot of different thoughts about it. There's, hey, just do the minimum you can to get the match from your company and then the rest can invest or just not do anything to the 401k and invest at all. Where are you kind of at on that? What is your thinking related to that?

I believe anytime that you can get a company gift, you want to do that, right? To whatever maximum you can do it, right? So if they're, you know, giving you a 5% match or something of that nature, just do it, right? Because here's the piece that is going to come down the road that people don't see. A dripping faucet fills a bucket over time, right? So if you have a set it and forget it habit that you never realize it's going out of your check other than when you really focus on it. You've trained yourself to live on what you're getting in your net income, right? And over time, that builds up. Here's where the bigger part of the buildup comes from. Let's just say, you know, you work at the company for 20 years and you've been doing this little, little drip in the bucket. You decide to retire or quit or move on and you've got a couple hundred thousand dollars from just little drops in the bucket that you just didn't pay attention to. You're not looking at the market going up and down or anything else. Here's where the kicker that is, when you leave because I just did this for a client, you then have the option to roll that into what's called a self directed ira right Now. You can direct those into hard money lending. You can direct it into other investment portfolios. Here's the big thing I wished I would have done, my regret had I done that because I thought a 401k was just worthless. I can get a better rate of return elsewhere. Here was the kicker. Self directed IRAs are for opportunities to invest in something different. Right. So if either one of you ever like, wouldn't it be cool to invest in like a startup company or something like that? Okay, I forget who it was. I don't think it was Elon Musk. There was somebody that had to do with PayPal. He utilized his investment as a startup and PayPal from his self directed IRA, which I think was a couple hundred thousand dollars. When PayPal went public and they did, his return on his investment was like 6 or 7 million dollars. It went back into his self directed IRA with zero tax liability. Right. So again, it's the future thing of what it can be, not what it is now, but what it can be in the future and utilized for. Because I invested in some startups last year and we ended up having to do cash because I didn't have the self directed to put it into. I wished I did because when those companies pay out, it would be nice that it would have been tax free and gone back into my 401k or my self directed IRA. So that, that's one of the big things like you know, if you're getting a match from any sort of company, you should do it. Right. It's the small drops. You, you know, it's a small habit that you're not going to miss, you know, at that time.

Yeah, okay, I've heard that term, the self directed ira. Are you, can you just roll that in, Roll money from a regular 401k into a self directed IRA?

Yep, yep. You absolutely can. Just, you have to remember this though, when you do it, it's self directed. So if you don't make it work, it's not getting any return. It's losing value if it's not being returned on. Yeah, yeah, right. So but you, the good news is you get to direct it. So I work with a lot of, you know, investors that, you know, they're, they're worried about the market. They want to create guaranteed rates of return in their retirement. So we'll move their 401 case to a self directed. Then they will in turn lend me money to buy properties, creating a guaranteed rate of return in their investment secured by real estate.

Interesting.

That's, that's how those work. There's a lot of other factors that works towards it. You can buy stock, you can buy gold, you can buy all kinds of things out of your self directed. And that's exactly what it means. You get to direct the investment and capitalize on the return, but all the return goes back in there. Tax free.

Interesting.

I mean, it's deferred tax only. Let me rephrase that. It's not tax free. It's just deferred tax right down the road.

Yep.

Because it's pre tax money, so.

Gotcha.

Switching subjects a little bit, I was curious to know, like, based off of all the steps we've taken so far, is there anything or what would you have done differently if you were in our shoes?

Okay, great question. I don't think you did anything that I wouldn't have done. You know, the partnership on the first house is great, right? Because you're taking something, you have 25% equity, you got partners in it, Right. It's a great place for you to utilize. That's what we did on our first second home. We bought it with partners until we sold it down the road and it was awesome. So that was great. I don't know that I would have sped up the process with the way the market was and the rates were. I probably would have like been very, very clear on is it an opportunity? Is there equity? I'm not buying something on of mls, Right. And here's the one thing that I really specialize in, the creativity part. You guys started talking about a money pit, right? So I probably would have been willing if that was the route you were going to go. The only thing I would have changed, I probably would have been willing to pay more money for a house that was way more updated already, you know, because again, you're financing it, right? It's going to change your payment a little bit, but it's less work and less hassle. Or I would have looked from a standpoint of, hey, we are looking to do another vrbo. Here's what we're looking for. How do we do it? So like I have this program that I work with on my investors and I'm just going to kind of give you this weird thing. You'll probably kick yourself for this, but you learn stuff, right? We do this thing where I actually, when we find a deal, let's say, let's say the house you guys own in Chandler right now, it was off market and you guys are working with me. I says, hey, I found an off market deal. It's going to need $100,000 in renovation, but it will be almost new when it's done. So you don't have to deal with any crap for the next 20 years because that's part of the plan. I'm going to buy it for you. We have an agreement. I have specific agreements for this, my wife Wendy is going to renovate it to be a vrbo. Right. We're renovating for a specific purpose and then you buy it back, completed, done. All you have is your 10% down, except it's brand new. The way you got to design it the way you wanted it to for that specific investment. Right. There's a different path to it. You also create some equity and you create some peace of mind. Because one of the things that's different there is like how do we, how do we keep from having long term liabilities kill our cash flow? Air conditionings, pool heaters, water heaters, irrigation system, those types of things. So it's a different approach. Like you said, most agents don't understand that approach. We've done it just because it's a strategy and it's different and it doesn't cost as much as what people think and it kind of changes the game. But I also. And that's just because that's the way we've operated in certain things. And it's something you didn't know existed. Right. But I think looking at it would have been, okay, we've got the one with partners. What does our buy box look like? And do we want to do long term or short term? One of the reasons that Chandler was great is that it was also a 10% down on the second home factor. Right. I want to caution everybody that's listening is that using the second home is great, but if you go straight for rental and you're not showing some personal use, you got to be careful of what potentially could be considered loan fraud of. Well, we bought a second home, but we actually never used it. So you want to make sure that you have all your ducks in a row for that. Not that I've seen anybody call it or talk about it, but it's a possibility depending on intent. And you'd have to show specific intent that you did something wrong. So I'm not worried about your strategy there. It's the same thing we did. But I do believe that some of the short term stuff is creating a buy box and what that looks like. So short term stuff, you guys bought things with pools. Great. Did you buy three or four bedrooms?

First one's four, it's actually three. We turned it into a four. And then the second one's three bed.

Okay, three bedrooms. Here's the difference. On a three bedroom, it's typically only going to be one family use. If you have four bedrooms and two bathrooms, you might have more activity because you may have Two families that are willing to share it. Right. And if I were to look for something, I probably might have even looked for like a 4, 3 or something of that nature. And this is kind of where the buy box comes in is like, what do we want in this? And here's why we want it. Right. So there's a specific plan for it. Same thing I do in short term, long term rentals. My buy box is very specific to Phoenix. It depends on what people want to look at. Right. You guys have a little bit different weather in Colorado and there's stuff back east that's like basements and leaking things and snow and all the other stuff that you deal with. So you got to create your buy box for whatever market you want to invest in. When I created this, it came from data from the property management company. What homes have the least amount of turnover in what areas, what's the average tenant staying and what size is the property and what does the long term liabilities look like? Right. So long term liabilities are going to be air conditionings, pool, pool equipment, you know, water heaters. They're going to break, they're going to go, they'll last 15, 20 years depending. And roofs. Right. So my guess is both of your homes have tile roofs.

Yeah.

The, my question would be during the inspection, so what, what age are the two homes?

First one I think is late 90s. Second one was 89.

Okay. Question on those two was what conversation during the home inspection was brought up about the underlayment on tile roofs? Right. So what most people don't see is tile roof is pretty, but the underlayment is actually the roof. It's actually the protective coating. And when the underlayment has to be done on those size homes, it's about a $20,000 undertaking to pull the tiles back, replace the paper and put them back. You're probably only gonna have to do it once in your lifetime, but those are some of the hidden things that people don't see. So I tend to stay away from tile roofs because a comp shingle roof is a little bit cheaper and a little bit easier to maintain. But it depends on the newness of the subdivision in long terms. We don't do pools. They don't give a return on money at all. The only person that makes money and actually uses the pool is the pool guy. Right. That's why we're like eh, no pools. Right. So nothing that we own has pools. And then we're typically like that 3, 2, 4, 2. I don't mind that in the short term rentals, some we have two twos, like in the condos, things like that. So now that you have the two VRBOs, actually I've got one more thing on maybe what I would consider. This is always a question a lot of people have and I know biggerpockets talks a lot about like the LLC and the breakdown and those types of things. Now you have one LLC which is partnership with family. Perfect. That should be a separate entity, right? There should be a separate set of books for it, Separate return for everybody, partnership, all those things. That's perfect. The first one that you guys did, probably a good idea on VRBOs with pools and things like that to have it in its own LLC because you have a little bit more liability with short term renters and pools. So good idea to have that there. As you go into the short terms, this is like, again, this is the age old question for everybody. Should I put everything in one LLC or put it in separate LLC per property? Well, if you don't have pools, you. You're pretty much limited on your actual liability, right? And you start thinking about, well, we split ours up to where we have 10 properties per LLC. That's our structure, right? Each one of those LLCs is a miniature business. It spits out a P and L. We know what that portfolio and how it's performing because some houses will feed the other, right? So some might have negative cash flow, some might have positive. If you do everything in a separate llc, you have to manage bank accounts, paperwork and everything for multiple LLCs. And it makes it a big pain in the butt. And the one way to kind of worry about or fix the worry of liability is having good insurance. Okay, so insurance, a couple of different things. Do you carry personally an umbrella policy like through your homeowner's insurance now, like.

On our house here?

Yeah.

No, we just have a regular insurance.

So umbrella policies are an extension of whatever insurance you have. So you could go out and get a. So here's kind of the deal, right? Let's say you have 100, 300 coverage on your automotive policy right now, and you guys own your home and you have these two LLCs and you're 100, 300, and God forbid it's a major accident, whatever happens, and it goes past your policy limits. Same thing with your home. Somebody slips on the ice in the front walkway, it's a major catastrophe. It exceeds your limits. The only thing that covers that, they start going after assets, right? That's the potential.

Okay.

That'S an. Anonymity thing. Nobody can find me. You can't find all the things that I'm attached to. I learned this the hard way in businesses years ago when I was partnering with my dad is, you know, my last name is not attached to anything. Well, yeah, I mean, you just. I mean, it's just one of those things. You make it easy. I mean, it's kind of funny. Like, most people think it's hysterical. Like, we have when we do our flips on our properties, we have LLCs called FNF 1 through like 4. Like, oh, fix and flip. I get it. I'm like, nope. We're car family and my kids grew up on the Fast and Furious and that's what they wanted to name it. So everything's. I think we have enough FNF to equal the amount of movies they've created at this point in time. So it's kind of fun just to kind of look at those things. The other recommendation. Yeah, go ahead.

One question on the umbrella policy. Do we get one for the house in Chandler, like on that house? Are you saying for like our personal house that we live in? An umbrella policy would cover things that happen outside the limits in that house in Chandler.

So my question would be, do you have the same insurance agent for both properties?

Yes.

Okay. Then I would call them tomorrow and just say, hey, we'd like to look at an umbrella policy to make sure that it's covering not only our rentals, but here for any liabilities. That's pretty much what you want to talk about, right? Have them explain to you the umbrella and what the coverage is. Make sure you ask specific questions like, hey, if somebody, God forbid, drowns in the rental property in Chandler, does this umbrella policy pass through to that property and make sure that you ask those specific questions so they can guide you on it and just tell them, hey, I want to protect my assets with my insurance, so tell me what it's going to cost me to protect myself and what's the worst case scenario? Yeah, right.

That.

That's one of the things we kind of forget to ask. My dad beat it into me is just over insure everything. Right. It's so cheap to have. So the other piece, which it's on the tip of my tongue. Oh, you guys are young, super important. I'm just gonna give a little bit of life advice here. Okay. Because it kind of hit home this week with one of my agents. 45, two kids, wife has some illness and they. He passed away, major heart attack, unbeknownst. Right. But there's no life insurance. Right. If you guys don't have life insurance, please go get some. Even if it's term really important, you know, your insurance agent, again, can do that. And then there's another investment vehicle on top of that, which I'll tell you about in just a second. And then on top of it, I would look at a couple of different people or get some recommendations of starting to create a living trust. Okay. A living trust where you guys have little kids. Have you guys ever thought about this? Like, this is really painful to do. Okay.

Yeah. We have recently actually been talking about that, doing all the wills and all that stuff, too.

Yeah. So a living trust is a living, breathing document. Again, I'm not an attorney, so this is just my experiences for those of you listening. But a living trust is going to be instructions. If you both are gone, what happens to your kids? Where do they go? Who handles money? What happens to the assets? It makes sure that all that stuff doesn't get tied up in probate. Right. So if you don't think about this way, Marianne, I know when you leave town, there's a to do list for Scott, like, make sure you feed the dog, water the cat, scrape the snow off the driveway. Right. Whatever it is. But it's kind of like that to do list that if this happens, these are our wishes. And it's record. It's a recorded document. Right. So there's no way around it. Nobody can fight it. But that's really important. And it's more important that you understand that annually you should be reviewing it because things change. Your kids are little now. The guardians you think you might leave your kids with now will change by the time they turn 10. You're like, remember those people we were going to leave you with, like, five years ago? We're not going to do that anymore because their personalities change, your lifestyle changes, different things change. So it's not a document that is just like, good forever. You have to constantly revisit it. And Wendy and I have. We went down huge rabbit trails this weekend about our trust and what it should look like. And it's a lot. So if you revisit it every year, does anything need to change? If it does have it change because it's simple amendments to it, and then you move on to the next thing. So just make sure that's part of kind of your annual review, because the more assets you have, the more insurance you want to have, the more life insurance you want to have. And there's just a ton of different things that you want to look for as you're doing this.

Good. Sounds good.

Are you guys brain dead yet?

No.

So what's, so what's next on your agenda? Like what are you looking for now? You guys sped up the process this year. What kind of capital do you have and what's next on the agenda to. To invest?

I think the, the buy box term was key. Knowing what our buy box is, you know, we've kind of good. We kind of done some different things and just getting really clear on what we want to do, where we want to do it and then in terms of like building a team, like getting, seeing what different roles we could add in as time goes on, kind of thinking for five years from now, what does that look like? What are different roles we have? Who, who do we need to connect with? Who do we need to connect with in terms of dollars and raising capital and that type of stuff and.

Right.

You know, I think it's spent, like I said, a lot of learning with the properties, but then also trying to figure out getting more filters for what are the no's, like no to this, no to that. So we can get more clear with what the yeses look like and do that really well.

Yes, yes. That's amazing. How about you, Marianne?

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing for me is just figuring out financing so that we can get into that next property. And we've never dealt with hard money before or you know, private lending. So. Okay, that's something that's like brand new to us and we are trying to learn more about it, but I think that that's probably going to be the next step.

Okay, well, fire away. What do you want to know about hard money?

How does it work?

Okay.

So let me give you a couple of definitions. This hard money is private capital. That's asset based lending. So these typical hard money lender is, you know, it's like going to your bank. But these guys are private and they only work with investors because that's what they lend to. And they are going to lend based on the value of the property or percentage of the value of the property. So some hard money lenders will lend 80%, some 70% of what your purchase price is. Right. So say you're buying $300,000, they're gonna loan you 210,000, right. Cause they want to see 30% down or 20% down. Now that's where normal usual hard money is. Okay. Then you've got what I call relationship capital. So I always tell everybody and the, the formula and the path that you guys are on is that you're going to start creating relationships with people that you know and trust that might have a half a million dollars or more in liquidity that you're saying, hey, I have an opportunity for you to lend me your money at 8 or 10% per annum, which means per year, not just for return on money. And we'd like to secure it with this property that we found. Here's what it looks like, right? So now you're kind of having conversations about capital. You're not asking people for money, you're presenting them with an opportunity, right? Those are the main ways that private capital works, right? It's either traditional hard money or relationship capital and what we utilize those for. And I want to cautious you in this, caution you in this because bigger pockets, right? They talk a lot about the flipping stuff, right where you are at. Flipping homes is great. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of risk, right? I can say that from the heart because we've lost a lot of money, we've made a lot of money. I'm not sure if we're break even yet, if we're on the red or the black, right? Because you have to do. It's a law of average. It's not just one and done. Sometimes people get lucky, right? Where hard money is best utilized is for this scenario right here. Scott, you're at work, your buddy next to you is like, dude, I had such a rough weekend. He's kind of miserable. He's like, my aunt passed away, she was a hoarder. We're not sure what to do with their house. Here's typical first person's reaction. Dude, I know Realtor, that is not your reaction. It's like, what if I could buy that house, would that make it go away, right? That, that you're looking for that opportunity, right? So we talked earlier about being prepared for opportunity. So your buddy George has this house he doesn't know what to do with, he inherited and you can connect with hard money. So now you're buying this house at say 60 cents on the dollar and you can connect over here. Now you have an opportunity right now. What you do with that next is kind of the critical path. So we've learned. And one of the strategies that I've created and deploy with my clients is you're utilizing hard money. There's a path to it, to where I bought this house. It fits my buy box, right? I bought it for 190 and it's worth 320 when it's repaired. So I'm going to go in and I'm going to put 50 grand into it. Then I'm going to what's called rate and term refinance the property. You're not going to pull any equity out. You're going to get all your capital back that you repaired it, bought it with, and you're going to have 20 to 25% equity that the bank is going to utilize your down payment. This is how you speed it up, okay? Because it requires no capital, it requires some capital from reserves, right? Because you got to make hard money payments, utilities. So you got three to four months where you're absorbing that cost. But it's a way to speed up the process of owning something with equity in it, rather than, you know, buying something just from the MLS just to buy. Because I can. Let's really be prepared for an opportunity that fits that we're going to have some equity. And especially on long term, right? You get to remodel it to be tenant proof. That's the great news about it, right? We can do all this stuff and then it's going to increase the value of the house. It's going to get us to a point that we have 20 or 25% equity. Here's the crazy thing on flips. So what people don't talk about. If you look at a flip between the cost of sale, so paying two real estate agents, closing costs, contribution, whatever, and taxes, you spent 20% of your equity selling the home that you just gave to somebody else. That's why we start now. We do it as a business, right? So we have to create some income. We understand the tax ramification, but this is how we built our portfolio is by doing it just that way. Because I started realizing, like, wait, I just made this house brand new. It's got new sewers, new ac, new roof, all things that I would never have to replace again. And I'm grateful. Like we just sold it to a family that will never have to replace it. But I'm like, why am I not keeping that?

Wait.

Okay, So I made 20 grand on this after all said and done, when it could be a really good rental property for long term. So it took us a while to change our thinking around that, but that's where we ideally like to use hard money. I'm not a big fan of people doing flips for. It's hard to like go back and forth this because there's so much of it, right. I'm not a big Fan of doing flips if you think you're going to go crush it every time.

Right.

But I am a fan of capturing opportunity. Right. If we go back to Georgia's scenario, let's say you can buy that house at 60 cents on the dollar, but you don't want to keep it. You don't want to renovate it. There's an income or something to be made with that property. You don't want to pass up the opportunity because it doesn't fit your thing. It's what you see and what you don't see. That's why I'm always like, how do I capture the opportunity and then figure out what to do with it? Right? And that's what I like my investors to see is like, okay, we have this. What do we do with it? So where do you go for advice on that? Right. Other than learning by the braille method, you're like, we got to call Steve. What do we do? We've got this, right? So that's what I spend a lot of time doing with people like, here. Here's how we solve the problem. Right? We need to think about it this way. Right. And so you learn every time it happens. And that's kind of the fun part about utilizing hard money. You know, like, ask your family, like your older generations, hey, Uncle George, you have any cash laying around you want to lend out at 10%? Just ask them the question. You'd be amazed how many people are like, you're gonna give me 10% interest on my money? Yeah. And secured by real estate. Okay, what do you got? I don't have anything yet. I just wanted to be prepared. Like, it's kind of a funny conversation. Cause I remember how nervous I was when I started asking, because I had to get over the mental mindset of, I'm not asking you for money. I'm giving you an opportunity. And it's okay for you to tell me no?

Yeah.

And I'll go ask somebody else. So then you're just kind of going through that process. So that's. That's the way hard money works.

It's.

It's really to capture equity. Right. We go back to some of these other properties. When I talked about the negative $2,400 a year, if you. Here's what I tell people all the time. If you found a property Tomorrow that had $100,000 equity, you would find the money. Even if you had to pay 15% interest for $100,000 in equity, you would find the money, or you would find A partner. But so many people don't want to chase it. They're like, I don't have it, so therefore I can't do anything. And they walk away versus okay, I know how to do this. I just not sure how to do it yet.

Right.

So who do I. Who do I need to know?

Right?

And that's kind of where you guys are on that journey, around the bigger pockets. And some of the other stuff is being around more of that so that it kind of sets your mind in that direction of. It's not that I can't. It's that I just don't know how right now or I don't have the right person right now.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

That's good.

Cool. Any other burning questions on this round? I mean, this is only our first round, so you guys had some good questions. I'm super excited for your future.

Last one I'll say is just that we've been learning a lot more about seller financing. Do you guys do a lot of that within your business or what's your kind of thought on that?

When the opportunity arises. So it's good to know. It's good to converse about. It's always a good option to talk to people about the seller financing. I mean, basically, there's a couple of different ways to do it, right? It's either seller carry, right. With a percentage down. You know, the fun thing about seller care and seller financing, there's no rules, so whatever you can make of it, right? You were like, I want to buy your house for a dollar, but I'll give you 25% interest for the next 20 years if it makes sense to them and it makes sense to you. This is where you start, like, realizing what your numbers are and kind of knowing what it looks like. So I love seller financing. It's always available, right? Depending on what somebody is doing or what they own, if they need the money. There's things which are called two different things. It's either a wrap or a sub two. They're pretty much the same thing, right? You're taking over the existing mortgage. You're not assuming it, but you're doing it subject to the existing mortgage, which the mortgage stays in their name. You're making the payments, and you get titled to the house.

Right?

There's a little bit more complicated pieces on sub 2, where somebody might have a bunch of equity and they still have a mortgage where you're doing, basically, you have the first mortgage, which is what they had, and then you're taking their Equity and turning into a second mortgage and a rate of return for them so you don't have to have as much money down. We do a lot of that where we're showing older people how to create some income that they need for the time in their life rather than just, you know, what are you doing with your equity? I'm just going to go put it in a money market. I'm like at.01%. That's not good for your living. Let me show you how this works. Right. So again, it's kind of like showing people. The goal in all this is we want to create win win situations for everybody. I don't have any intention of screwing anybody. I want to create the best strategy and win win situation I can for all parties involved. Everybody feels good walking away from it and everybody got what they wanted. And it's okay to say, this just isn't gonna work for me.

Right.

It's not gonna work for both of us. I'm gonna go ahead and walk away from it.

Yeah.

Right. And that's okay. Right. Because I don't ever want a seller to walk away feeling like they got screwed. And I don't want to feel walking away like I screwed somebody. That's not good. That's not cool. Right. Karma's a bitch. Eventually comes back on you. Right. So it's always about the fair thing. You know, in my opinion, that's good.

Sweet.

Okay, give me three takeaways that you got from this hour. So I totally went over an hour with you guys, but I just. Good conversation.

Well, I appreciate it. I think for me the biggest takeaway is with. Well, the, the hard money I think is. Is just huge. Learning about that, how there's more than just one way to do it. You know, it's subject to. And that's kind of the way you described it is the only way I've heard of it before. But yeah, just hearing like how there's different options for. Well, that was seller financing actually. But seller financing and hard money. Just learning about the different options.

Yeah. I think kind of what you're saying, like where, you know, like if you're going to get a rental in Phoenix or whatever, you know, what's the, like, what is the lowest occupancy? Is it a four bedroom house? Is it how many square feet, how many baths? Does it have a pool? Does it not. And just know that from the end instead of just saying, hey, we have this desire to jump into this. We like this. We'll figure it out along the way. Getting that more detailed and specific, I think is going to be key to the next level. Like the first couple, it's like, okay, we're figuring this out. We don't have a lot of questions answered, but now we have a lot of those answers. We understand how it kind of works. And I think from there it's moving forward to like, we gotta really dial in our the what, the why, the how, the who, all those different things in detail and again, filter out. There's too many opportunities, I think. And so just knowing when we see the opportunity that fits inside our box, we need to be able to jump on it and expect it's gonna come as we look at different opportunities.

That's amazing. Thank you both for sharing. I know this is gonna impact a lot of people and you're certainly going to be an inspiration for a lot of people. Like, hey, we can do this and it is possible. So thank you both and I appreciate your time and look forward to connecting you. When I'm up in Denver sometime this year, I'll be up there. Or if you're ever down in Phoenix visiting your other home, you know, let's make sure and make that happen.

Sounds great.

Yeah. Can't wait to meet you in person.

I hope you enjoyed that episode with Scott and Marianne. They are amazing. They have some big things to come and look. I hope that you like this episode. Subscribe, like, comment. Anything that was valuable takeaway wise, I'd love to know. Make sure you're following me on Instagram for more investor information, real estate information, whatever that looks like. And let's keep understanding that our mindset should be limitless because if you are limitless, the possibilities are endless to create income and wealth through real estate. And that's the goal. I'm Steve Valentine. Peace out.