Get Rich Education

Keith shares his "dirty dozen" due diligence questions every investor should ask before buying property, from gauging build-to-rent saturation and local job growth to testing cash flow and exit strategies. He explains why even new-builds still need inspections and how to think about rents that may stay flat while expenses rise. Aundrea Newbern, an experienced investor, broker, and property manager active in Southeast Georgia and Michigan, offers a real-world look at today's long-term and short-term rental markets, including shifting tenant behavior and local restrictions. She also details how she's using AI to streamline property management, improve screening, optimize pricing, and cut maintenance costs, giving listeners practical ideas to apply in their own portfolios. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/610 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text FAMILY to 66866 Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. To get in the best physical, mental, and professional shape of your life, go to DanielThomasHind.com and apply for Daniel's intensive 1-on-1 coaching for burnt-out entrepreneurs and executives. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, talking about vital due diligence questions that you have to know the answers to before you buy your next property. Even advanced investors don't know to ask some of these. Then a terrific guest tells us how she is practically applying AI to increase rental occupancy, save on maintenance expenses and drive rental income today on Get Rich Education. Speaker 1 0:28 Since 2014 the powerful Get Rich Education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord show host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week. Since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads in 188 world nations. He has a list show guests and key top-selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps. Build wealth on the go with the Get Rich Education podcast. Sign up now for the Get Rich Education podcast, or visit getricheducation.com Keith Weinhold 1:11 You know, Mid South Home Buyers, that top Memphis turnkey provider, I learned that a secret weapon behind their explosive growth is more than just you buying their properties, it's an executive coach for nine years now. Their CEO, Terry Kerr, and his COO, Pat Nix, have worked privately with a coach who I've now learned from too, and he doesn't market himself online anywhere. After 12 years behind the scenes, that coach is now making himself available exclusively for GRE listeners, his name is Daniel Thomas Hind. If you're a hard-charging business owner or investor who wants to get in the best shape of your life physically, mentally, and professionally, you can fill out an application for a free consult. This is private one on one coaching for those willing to go to uncommon lengths to achieve uncommon results. Thanks to Daniel, we've all become better leaders, better operators, and better men. It started by showing up for ourselves. Now it's your turn. Go to danielthomashind.com H I N D, that's Daniel Thomas hind.com and sign up before Spotsville Flock Homes helps multifamily owners exit the operator grind, whether it's your sixplex or a 50 unit apartment through a 721 exchange. This defers your capital gains tax. It's a strategy long used by institutions. Now you can swap tenants and toilets for passive income and zero management. Request your initial valuations. See if your property qualifies at flockhomes.com/gre that's F L O C K homes.com / G R E. Speaker 2 2:57 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education. Keith Weinhold 3:13 Welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. The world's biggest problems are also the world's biggest businesses. That's not a coincidence, and it squarely includes the problem of having enough quality housing. We talk about how to do that profitably and diligently, and on the topic of diligence, I've got a dirty dozen due diligence questions, call it I suppose these are smart questions to ask before you get under contract to buy your next property, and some of these could just as well apply to your existing rental property. Build to rent properties have become so popular, but ask the question, are these build to rent properties becoming overbuilt in this neighborhood? That's the first due diligence question, and a lot of investors overlook this, so you got to be mindful that build to rent often means lots of new construction in one smaller defined area. What you should do is ensure that new supply is being absorbed by renters. Some red flags to look out for are if multiple nearby communities are offering heavy concessions or free rent enticements, that is a sign that they're having difficulty luring in new renters to the area, and now taking a couple months to rent a brand new build isn't that unusual, but does the whole thing kind of feel like a mattress liquidation sale? Renters shouldn't have more signing bonuses than NFL free agents. The next due diligence question: Does this market still have population? And job growth, or am I late to the party? New workplace construction is a bullish market sign. Workplace construction, I'm talking about like a new office building, especially a new medical clinic, a new data center, a new factory. These signs are super bullish for an area, because not only does that attract the jobs and support the housing, as you can imagine, but see, that also means that whomever built the new workplace, oh, they probably did some research, and they're bullish about that area for a reason, they're going to look into that and do their due diligence that you can leverage before they spend perhaps 10s of millions of dollars or more in building a new workplace. Keith Weinhold 5:45 The population should be stable or rising. Red flags are if growth already peaked and layoffs are increasing, don't arrive late to the party after the DJ has already packed up. The next question, when you're looking into a property, is is this unit likely to cash flow on day one? You know, you need to wonder, is the unit occupied or vacant. Some investors don't even think to ask that question until they get down the road a ways. When it's occupied, does the rent meet or exceed expenses with a buffer for maintenance and vacancy, now, if it's negatively cash flowing and you're solely enjoying the other four ways real estate pays, that might be okay, but you need to be comfortable with adopting a monthly bill that may or may not work. And do you know what I call a negatively cash flowing property? I call it a 401k property, because you have to keep feeding it every month like it's a 401k. A negatively cash flowing property effectively reduces your salary like a 401k does, and anyone that is serious about building real wealth when they're young enough to enjoy it would not invest in a 401k outside of the employer match portion. Keith Weinhold 7:07 I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Here on Get Rich Education, episode 610 I've answered three out of twelve dirty dozen due diligence questions, and with abundantly minded grow your means answers that you're just not going to find on ChatGPT. Before I get to the fourth one, do you know what the word diligence means? Anyway, you probably have some idea. The definition of diligence is the quality of working carefully and persistently, demonstrating steady effort and thorough attention to a task. It implies a strong work ethic, meticulousness, and a commitment to completing duties well. All right, that is the definition. Diligence is the opposite of negligence. The next one, does my new build property need an inspection first? And this is a question, actually, that came in from Jake in Manhattan. Yes, it always does, whether it's resale or new build. It is always a good idea to get an inspection. One of the biggest misconceptions, really, is that new build means problem free. Keith Weinhold 8:16 People just equate new build with problem free. No, that is not the case. New build can have problems. There could still be foundation cracks that are beyond normal settling, perhaps improperly installed roof flashing that could cause leaks, maybe windows or doors that are installed out of square, and a bunch more stuff that could be wrong, even in new build a presale inspection after you get the property under contract that only costs 350-650 dollars for single family rentals and 500-900 dollars for a duplex. This is cheap insurance. It's also good peace of mind, get it done. Sometimes investors want to skip the inspection when they need a quick close. Buyer, beware of the risk. The fifth due diligence question: What happens to my numbers if rents flatten for two years? And this is a more germane question than usual today, because rent growth is slow here in this cycle. Single-family rents are up just 1.3% year over year per totality, and expenses tend to rise with inflation. All right, so if your rents flatten for two years, project that ahead like your other expenses are rising, and see that the property would still remain financially stable. We cannot build a business plan on motivational quotes. Next, am I buying near major employers or near hopes and dreams with work from home trends, which can probably better be called. Called work from anywhere, trends buying near major employers is actually less important today, but it still matters. It is good to have diversified employers and stable payrolls somewhat nearby. Promises about future development might never happen. Sheesh, some areas have been up and coming since cassette tapes, the seventh due diligence question, what's the property tax trajectory here? That's the question. Taxes are often stable and increases predictable, but is there a local budget shortfall? And see, this is the type of due diligence that few people do keep in mind, and I'm bringing up new build a lot, because there are so many new build income properties today on new builds. Also, look out, year one taxes can look deceptively low until improved property is assessed in year two, and any reputable provider, and when you contact our GRE investment coaching here, we're going to point that out to you. Keith Weinhold 11:05 This is how you can, though, sometimes get unusually low property taxes in year one if they have not assessed the improvement yet. Question eight, and this comes from Violet in Peoria, Arizona, is the builder offering real incentives, or are they just hiding the true price? Okay, well, incentives - they should genuinely improve your deal without inflating the pricing. Here, look out for sunglasses and a fake mustache for financing. It's mandatory that you have an appraisal. This protects you against overpaying in an appraisal, even though it's done for bank collateral purposes, checking the quality of their collateral, which is the property, you know, it is also a good independent third-party valuation check. This is a good tool to keep you from overpaying. Back around the 2008 days, the global financial crisis, you know, often then the lender and the appraiser could collude to give you favorable appraisals, somewhat inflated values, and as it turned out, I was an investor then and ended up being the beneficiary of some of those favorable appraisals, but since then the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, stepped in. They were formed to step in, so that those parties are no longer in cahoots with each other, and yes, incentives are explicitly disclosed to the lender and appraiser. For example, if you have a seller that offers to pay half of your closing costs if you pay their full sale price. Okay, the appraisers do know that they have that information before they provide you with the appraised value. Ninth, what's the vacancy rate in this area right now? This is a good due diligence question to ask. A balanced market has about five to 6% vacancy, eight to 10% or more. That can often be the sign of a weak market, but this might be all right in build to rent communities, and that's due to longer initial lease up periods that you have there. Due diligence question 10. Would I still want this property if appreciation slowed dramatically? You want to ask yourself this question because you cannot predict appreciation. The answer to this question is most likely yes. Keith Weinhold 13:35 You would still want the property even if appreciation slowed dramatically, because as a listener here, you understand that with a 20% down payment, just 2% price appreciation creates a 10% return on your equity, and you're also benefiting from the other four ways real estate pays, but if you're absolutely counting on appreciation to do all of the heavy lifting over the long term, that's less investing, and that is more hoping with spreadsheets. What's more predictable is something like inflation profiting on your loan, which is a force on its own. Next, ask this question: How old are the big ticket items like the roof, HVAC, plumbing, sewer, and electrical? I mean, if you get a number of expensive items that are near the end of their life, you could soon become emotionally attached to ibuprofen. At GRE Marketplace, we work with either extensively renovated properties or new build properties, so this is rarely a concern. These big capex items, capital expenditures, and that is really the way to go. Extensively renovated or new build property, because see that way the cost of having all this done for you both. Before you buy the property, that means that what you're essentially doing is financing the cost of all this into the loan, you're financing into the new roof, HVAC, plumbing, sewer, electrical, if any of that applies, and if you're buying a fixer upper, well, then a lot of times you need to pay cash for these items, and you lose repair time where the property could have been rented during that renovation time. Work with our investment coaching here, and you're going to be all set. Those big ticket items are rarely a concern. And then what happens is, if you have a break even or a positively cash flowing property. The tenant covers all of your operating expenses with the rent payment, and you never have to pay any money at all for these big ticket items. They pay for your mortgage and everything else, and you never lose the time because these things were done before you bought. Keith Weinhold 16:01 And the last one question 12. What you want to ask is, what's the exit strategy if I ever want to sell? That's the last question. Begin with the end in mind. The fewer doors the property has, the easier it is to sell. Single family homes win big here. I mean, your eventual buyer down the road, they could be a gleeful owner occupant, even if the rental math were poor. That buyer wouldn't even know that the rental math is poor, because they're not renting it out, they're going to live there themselves. Sometimes your single family rental tenant even becomes your eventual buyer. This can work with duplexes too. Sometimes you can get an owner occupant, or your tenant stays there and continues to reside there as they're the owner, and they rent out the other side as well. But if you're trying to sell at 30 duplex, well, now you're exposed to cap rates and investor sentiment and market cycles, it's sort of like trying to offload a small corporation. That doesn't mean that apartments are bad, but they are substantially less liquid than single family rentals. That's your exit strategy that we're looking at. They are the dirty dozen due diligence questions every investor feels bumps, I have you will too, but these questions and answers are really going to go a long way toward helping you own right, and when you stick with it, real estate is a forgiving and lucrative asset class because you're paid in so many ways. Hey, coming up shortly, a guest that you haven't heard from in a while, and I know that some of you have missed hearing her voice. We'll talk a bit about the state of the real estate market here in a period where prices are remarkably stable, housing transactions are only about 80% what they usually are, and then we'll discuss how she's using AI in her real estate investing today. It's how she's increasing her occupancy and optimizing the amount of rent being collected. She splits her time in a couple ways between real estate markets in both Michigan and Georgia, and then in both the short term and long-term rental markets. That's next. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to Get Rich Education. What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine? Keith Weinhold 18:31 You sure can at Ridge Lending Group, NMLS 42056 They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone, because Ridge specializes in investment property, they'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal, and even chat directly with President Chayley Ridge. While it's on your mind, start at ridgelendinggroup.com that's ridgelendinggroup.com Let me ask you something, if you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom Family Investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate, it's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation. In full disclosure, I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk, and nothing is guaranteed, but with a track record of consistent on-time investor payouts, they've built real credibility. Go to Freedom Family investments.com to book a clarity call, or text Family 266-866 that's Family 266-866, Speaker 3 20:02 Hi, this is Russell Gray, co-host of the Real Estate Guys Radio Show, and you're listening to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream. We've got a special treat for you today is for the first time in a few years we hear from someone that's served since 2020 in house here in both operations and as an investment coach. Today she serves GRE in a different capacity internally, but a lot of you still ask about her. That's why she's here. She's got both the formal education with her MBA, and is about as robust in being a real estate investor as you can be at the same time. Oh, it's a warm welcome back to the talented Andrea Newburn. Aundrea Newbern 20:51 Hey, Keith, it's so great to be back. It's been a long time. Keith Weinhold 20:54 Well, you've continued to grow not just in your business but in your family size since you were last here. Congrats there. I'd like your thoughts, just generally, about the American residential real estate investment market today, where we've got these sort of rising prices in low supply areas, we have slightly falling prices in oversupplied areas, we've got mortgage rates that have normalized, we've got tough affordability for renters that want to be first time home buyers, so just tell us about what you see, big picture. Andrea, Aundrea Newbern 21:28 Yeah, absolutely, and so I invest and operate predominantly in the Southeast, so this will probably be a little bit more of a lens from the Southeast market, but as you know, I still actively invest in real estate myself. I help, you know people buy rental properties, also. But then the main thing that I'm doing now is I have a property management company down in Southeast Georgia, and so I'm seeing things more from the lens of what investors are doing, where they're investing, where rents are going, and if people are even buying properties. So it's been a little bit interesting. I mean, what I'm seeing is that, as you all know, it slowed down. We're not seeing as many investors buy properties, but people still are doing it, and they're still finding good cash flowing properties. Where the challenges come in is you're not making as much money on these properties as you did four or five years ago, so you know your margins are going to be a little bit less, your cash flow is going to be a little bit less. And then we're seeing, you know, rents kind of stabilize depending on the type of asset class that it is, so you know things are not doing wonderfully, but they're stable from what I'm seeing in the southeast market, Keith Weinhold 22:31 and now you do a good bit of investing in sort of Brunswick and out toward the Georgia coast, including places like Jekyll Island, where G. Edward Griffin wrote his book about the formation of the Fed, and all that in general. How has that area been from a residential supply standpoint? For example, we know in neighboring Florida they've had a lot of oversupplied pockets. How are we looking there? I think you have a lot of occupancy right now from talking to you earlier. Aundrea Newbern 22:59 We do, so I manage two different types of investments, right? I manage the long-term rental properties. There's less of those like on Jekyll Island, there's more of those in the mainland and Brunswick. And then we do the vacation rentals, which is very, very heavy on Jekyll Island and St. Simons Island. What we're seeing this year, if we talk about maybe those vacation rentals first, and then I'll talk about the long-term vacation rentals, we're still seeing a lot of demand, a lot of people are still coming. We're not really down from this time last year, but the one big thing we're seeing is people are booking their vacations last minute, they're not booking them months in advance at this point. So that's definitely had a little bit of an impact and had us on edge, because we're like, okay, where are these vacations? And then, sure enough, they're booking a couple weeks out now, so that's going really well. The investors that have purchased homes on Jekyll and St. Simons, especially Jekyll, are doing really good. They're still making a lot of money. They have high occupancy. Where are we seeing a little bit more of the challenge is with the long-term rentals. So rents are kind of staying flat from where they were last year in some of those B and C markets. We may even see a slight decrease, just a couple percentage points, and then it's taking longer to fill the property. So last year we could typically get a qualified runner in in three to four weeks. Now we're seeing anywhere from five to eight weeks. Right now, Keith Weinhold 24:11 as far as on the short term side, have restrictions affected you at all, like banning Airbnbs, for example, and how have you seen that play out in other areas? Because you certainly network with other people that do short-term rentals. Can you tell us about that? Aundrea Newbern 24:26 Yeah, absolutely. So I can talk about the Southeast market, for one, where in Jekyll, St. Simons, Brunswick, we're seeing no rental restrictions whatsoever. We do have to have a process to register the rental with a county, but it's so easy. It's literally a form. We do an inspection once a year, and that is it. I don't know that this is a fact, but a lot of the commissioners and politicians in the area also have rental properties. I think that probably has a little bit of an impact on that up here in Michigan, which, you know, I have another home, and I live in Michigan part of the time as well. There's a lot of restrictions, in fact, my. House right now is in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and they already have a rental ban where you can't do less than 30 days, so you're already having to go into that midterm market, and now they have some proposals up with the local municipality to even eliminate some of that, so we're seeing that in this area. Keith Weinhold 25:17 Generally, do you tend to see it in nicer, ritzier areas where they want to make the short-term rental restrictions. Aundrea Newbern 25:24 Yes, I do. Absolutely. Up here in Sterling Heights, where I live, the average home of my neighborhood is around five to six hundred thousand dollards and they absolutely do not want those here. But if you go a few neighborhoods over, where you're looking more of like the two hundreed to three hundred thousand dollars range, they don't seem to have as much of an issue with those. There Keith Weinhold 25:40 We've been talking about short term rentals in both Southeast Georgia and then in Metro Detroit, where you currently spend quite a bit of your time. Talk to us about the long term rental market with affordability for buying being down, that really hurts the prospective first time home buyer, so they need to be more likely to rent, which would make some people wonder. Oh, well, then how could vacancy possibly go up in an area? Well, you know, migration - we've touched on it - is one reason why that might happen. Another reason why it might happen is you might see more doubling up. Aundrea Newbern 26:15 Yeah, we do. We see a lot more families coming in. In fact, last week we just rented a property out to somebody where the parents were renting with their children, their grown adult children that also had kids, they're getting bigger houses, right? So they're actually feeling that need to fill up some of our larger homes, but it's multi-generational now. We are seeing a lot more roommates come in, too, instead of two roommates, you'll see three people come in and get a house together. The other thing we've noticed that's been really drastic, maybe the last three or four months, is the debt load that we're seeing. So, when we run people's background checks and look, they've got a lot of credit card debt now. We didn't see that as much years prior. Keith Weinhold 26:50 All right, so you're seeing that at the street level, that's a statistic that we can read about, that American savings rates are down and the proportion of debt is often up. You're seeing it in real time, there. Do you see potentially, Andrea, this propensity for people to want to sort of bend things and have someone that's not on the lease live there with them in order to cut costs? So, you know, is there really anything in this environment that we really need to be careful about when we're screening tenants with them having such a debt load, and having to struggle with inflation and rising prices. Aundrea Newbern 27:23 Yeah, absolutely. The debt load, number one, you know, we'll see them increasing, and that's something we want to keep an eye on. So, we're having to kind of retool our policies to look more critically at that debt load. They may not be delinquent on anything now, but if we've seen it gone up significantly in the last few months, I bet you it's coming. So, we're trying to retool our policies to be able to deal with that, you mentioned people having unauthorized tenants in the home that has persistently been an issue for us, maybe the past year. We find this often that that's happening, and usually it's because that person wouldn't qualify on the application, but they still bring in money and can help with the rent. The third thing, and this is with the advent of AI, right, how big AI has come is, we're seeing a lot of documents that are clearly fraudulent, but they look really, really good, because AI has created them. So that's another issue. Keith Weinhold 28:09 Gosh, that's interesting. Well, I want to ask you more about AI, and you know, Aundrea, America is in such a weird time with AI today. You probably saw it at these college graduations across the nation, where a luminary is up front at the lectern making a commencement speech, and they get booed by students for talking about embracing AI, and that's probably because the student feels threatened about AI taking the job that they might not get, and you know what's funny, I suspect there's some of those same students, they loved it when AI helped them write an essay in order to get to graduation and wear that cap and gown, so.. Aundrea Newbern 28:51 Absolutely. Keith Weinhold 28:52 Yeah, that's what I knew when I say that we're in a weird time with AI, but I know that you've really embraced AI as a property manager and investor almost from the get-go to make your property operations more efficient, so that you don't have to raise prices on owners, and you can keep those owner expenses down and increase resident retention at the same time. So, tell us more about how you're using it. Aundrea Newbern 29:16 Yeah, so my team, I think, hates me for this right now, but in the last six months we have literally changed our operations front to back in a few different ways. Number one, we've changed the systems that we use, so you know, for vacation rentals as well as long-term rentals, you have your property management system that kind of streamlines everything, and that you do everything in. We've started going to platforms that are a little bit more AI friendly, so they have AI agents built in and they have AI functionality already in them, so that we're not having to purchase additional tools to come in and add them as a layer on top of our systems. So that's kind of the basic thing that we're doing, but the other fun things that I've been able to do, and I'm still, you know, working on this, and we're refining it daily, is using AI actually as kind of like a virtual assistant, essentially. So we do have virtual assistants with a company, and they're great, and we love them, and they do a wonderful job. However, they're human, so they're not perfect, but these AI agents, once you've trained them to do a lot of the back office tasks that your virtual assistants can do, after a certain number of iterations and training, they don't really make mistakes. So knowing that we have that, and we can continue building on that. We don't have to add FTE to our team, which increase our labor costs. That's allowing us to not raise our prices on our clients, and which I'm sure they're all happy about, because other property management companies are doing that right now, Keith Weinhold 30:33 Right, so property management companies are going to have to do this to stay competitive and keep up, whether they want to or not, and when I think about using AI in real estate, you know, one of the first things I think of, just say that tenant journey from attracting the tenant to placing them. When I think of the cutting edge, I think of help with marketing and writing advertisements, which I think is kind of a simple thing to do, sort of an easy way to implement AI, and also when I think about that early part of the journey, really I think about using AI as a leasing assistant, and sort of how you see that more, the 24/7 front desk, if you will. I mean, if you have an AI leasing assistant that can answer questions for your prospective new tenant and follow up with leads that can be a big deal. I mean, a lead that sits unanswered for six hours, they just kind of turn into a cold French fry, and instead AI can answer those questions and schedule that tour. If a prospective tenant asks the same question four times, you know the AI doesn't get frustrated and leave out some sigh. So, can you tell us more about kind of that front end, the marketing, and then the leasing end? Are you using AI as a leasing assistant essentially? Aundrea Newbern 31:47 We are. So, if we talk about maybe the marketing piece of things before we get into the leasing, we're not using as much AI with marketing at the moment. I have had it write some copy for me for some marketing, and I'm not usually crazy about it. I still think it looks like AI right now, so we're having to do a lot of changes with that, but what it has done a really good job at helping us out in the last few weeks is have it go analyze your website, have it analyze how you come up in search functions, right? So, if somebody's going to Google or if they're going to Gemini or they're going to Chat GPT, what's happening with your website and your company when people are looking for property managers, for example, it does a very thorough check on that. It's also really good at reviewing your website and telling you where you have gaps in terms of maybe you need to, you know, change something here or there, or you have certain links that are not helping in your search functionality. So, I think it's really good as far as analyzing stuff. That's kind of about all we've done as far as marketing, as far as a leasing assistant goes, this has essentially been like the biggest lift I think we've had from AI, period, in the last couple years. So, maybe a year ago, we implemented a software, and I'm going to leave the name out, because I'm sure you know I'd rather not do that, but it's a software, and there's a bunch of different options that you can use for this, but essentially it collects all of our leads for us, so we set it up, you know, we set criteria for the type of tenant and our policies for, you know, what type of tenant would qualify, and they call in or message or email this number or this email address, and the AI essentially goes through and asks them a series of questions, lets them know if they would potentially qualify or not. If they would not, then it will not allow them to schedule showings for any of our properties, if they would, with no exceptions. Then we can go ahead and get them scheduled, and the AI actually goes through and gets them scheduled as well. So it is a huge help for us. Keith Weinhold 33:30 That is really nice. Okay, helping out with tenant screening, there can it arrange tours, put them on the calendar, then if they're qualified. Aundrea Newbern 33:40 Yes, it actually gives them an option and shows them all of the dates we have available, so the person can go ahead and schedule their showing. It can provide updates if we need it, so if we change our policy, it can send that out to the tenants for us as well. So that process I would say is about 90% automated right now. It doesn't really take much human intervention, except for us to review things and make sure there's nothing kind of wonky with the schedule or anything like that. Keith Weinhold 34:00 Okay, so if they're qualified and interested, the prospective tenant can fill out an application, and then is AI assisting on the screening, and are you still meeting with them in person before they get the keys and sign the contract? Aundrea Newbern 34:14 Yes, and no. So we still do meet with them in person to be able to do like that walkthrough of the property and make sure we're documenting issues, and all of that, which, by the way, I think in the next year that'll probably be automated as well, but we're not quite there yet. They do not have to come in in person, in terms of signing the lease or anything like that. That's all done remotely. If they want to, they can, but we really don't have to meet with them until it's time for move in at this point. Keith Weinhold 34:36 All right, we're seeing the evolution of AI since it was really Chat GPT that was pioneering and rolling out in November of 2022 so we're coming up on four years of really this activity being integrated into our lives, and I think we both know that it's only going to get better from here, so when we have a tenant that. It's actually placed, of course. I often like to say they call the discipline property management, but it could probably very well be called tenant management. And I think, about, you know, is everything okay after the tenants there? As far as AI having a maintenance triage function, if there's a maintenance request, of course, you're going to want to prioritize something differently if it's a big plumbing leak that's damaging the subfloor versus just having a slow drain, you know. You probably want to be sure either one of those things are taken care of, but one is going to get priority over the other. So, can you tell us more about after that tenants place the maintenance triage and using AI there? Aundrea Newbern 35:38 Yeah, so we've pretty much automated the maintenance process in the last year, other than, you know, actually making sure the vendor went out and did what they were supposed to do. So, right now, with us, a tenant has to go in, unless they have a disability and can't do it, of course, but they have to go in and put in any work orders through our system, and essentially what happens is we've created kind of a workflow, so here's the issues of the types of things that would not be considered an emergency unless they answer, you know, certain questions a certain way. Here are the things that are emergencies and requires to go out pretty much no matter what, right? For the things that are non-emergency, or they're not clear in what the actual issue is, which is probably the number one problem we have, is they say, 'My lights aren't working, that's it, we don't know anything else about it, and then come to find out it was just a light bulb, or come to find out it was just their breakers tripping. The AI actually goes in and analyzes what they put in as the issue and selected, and then asks them a series of questions, and then, based on their responses, it actually tells them what to go do to troubleshoot it. We're seeing right now with data, it's eliminating maybe about 40% of the things that we would send somebody out for, yeah, it is huge, and the tenants are doing it, and they're not really pushing back or having issues with it most of the time, but then there are certain things that AI can't quite figure out, we're still training it on, so we do have to send somebody out or call, but it's having a huge reduction in us having to send folks out for this. Keith Weinhold 36:56 Okay, yeah, we're not talking about completely eliminating humans, but that's huge, if they can have AI give them the answer to maybe some routine maintenance thing, probably that they could have gone and found out on their own, but yeah, that saves 40% of maintenance visits, that's a big deal. All right, so not too much backlash from tenants, not saying, like, oh, hey, I don't want to be talking with your robot, come on, not so much of that. Aundrea Newbern 37:20 No, not yet. Now we are looking right now at implementing an actual AI agent that would answer the phone to handle these types of just maintenance issues, nothing else but maintenance for right now. And we've tested out a lot of different softwares that do this. Some are better than others, but none of them are perfect yet. And I could call and definitely tell I'm talking to AI, maybe some people couldn't. I feel we're probably going to have a little bit more blowback when that starts getting implemented and rolled out. Keith Weinhold 37:44 Yeah, I imagine people are just going to get more and more used to this, you know. I wonder, how much AI is helping you with rent pricing, what amount to set the rent for. I mean, for example, isn't it interesting if AI knows that, hey, a bunch of units in the neighborhood all around you, they already have high occupancy. It's really tight in this sub market, where maybe it would advise you to bump up your rent. So, tell us about how AI is helping you with rent pricing. Aundrea Newbern 38:12 Yeah, so you know, as a broker, I obviously have access to the MLS, which we use for a lot of data, but then sometimes there's rentals that are not on the MLS, so you know an owner went and listed it themselves, and I actually have an agent that their task is to go in every couple of days, and they'll analyze any of our existing listed properties that we have that are not occupied. We're still waiting on somebody to apply, and it'll go and tell me, "Hey, is anything else been listed? Has anything that was out there when we did our review two days ago? Has anything closed? Can we figure out, you know, what price it rented for? Sometimes it can, sometimes it can't, but it'll provide me a report every two days, automated, in my inbox for me to be able to look at on that. So it's really nice. Keith Weinhold 38:51 Wow, this could be hugely useful. Yeah, or imagine on the flip side of that, if AI detects that there are a lot of vacancies in your area that, hey, you probably don't want to get so aggressive with rent increases. In that case, was there any last way that you're using AI in real estate? Maybe something I didn't think about asking you, Aundrea. Aundrea Newbern 39:10 If we talk about long-term rentals, not as much. I think you kind of hit on the main things that we're using it for right now, but if we look at vacation rentals, it is doing a lot more there, I think, at the moment than it is long term. So, for example, pricing - we have dynamic pricing that we use for all of our vacation rentals, and the dynamic pricing isn't perfect, so somebody still has to physically go in and make sure no tweaks need to be made, that there's nothing weird going on in the software. I now have an AI agent that, that is their number one job. They go in once a day, they review all of our pricing. They let me know whether we need to adjust it up, down, change our minimum days, maximum days, and we make the adjustments. We're training it now to actually do those for us, but we haven't let it do it yet, so we're still waiting there. It's still waiting on its approval for me to do that, but things such as pricing, things such as going through and analyzing guest feedback, or guest. First tone, even in messages, it's providing me reports on that daily, so I can help identify problems that are maybe small problems before they become big. Keith Weinhold 40:07 It makes sense that it would be more applicable in short-term rentals with all the turnover that you have there. Well, Andrea, let us know if there's a way for our followers to keep up with you and what you're doing, because people still ask about you here. You're so well liked. Let us know. Aundrea Newbern 40:26 Yeah, so there's a couple of ways. If you're wanting to kind of see what we're doing with property management or our company, you can go to goldenaislesretreats.com There's also for a way for you to get in touch with me there. You can also check me out on LinkedIn or on Facebook, so I'm there as well, and I'd be happy to connect with anybody. I miss our listeners. Keith Weinhold 40:43 Oh, Andrea, it's been valuable. It's been great having you back. Aundrea Newbern 40:46 Thank you, Keith. Keith Weinhold 40:53 Yeah, great to hear from Aundrea again on the show. It has been a few years. If you use professional management like I do, they will most likely be applying AI in a lot of the ways that we discussed. Coming up on the show soon, a life coach that's had a profound effect on a number of guests that we've hosted here on the show over the years. He has agreed to join us. He doesn't do a lot of appearances like this, so it'll be great. We'll hear directly from Daniel Thomas Hind, and how he transforms the lives of so many business people and investors professionally, physically, and mentally. I'm confident that it's going to help you get more out of life too. Until next week, I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream. Speaker 1 41:45 Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss, the host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively. Keith Weinhold 42:13 The preceding program was brought to you by Your Home for Wealth Building, getricheducation.com.

Keith welcomes back Rich Dad author Robert Kiyosaki to discuss why debt, inflation, and financial education are critical in today's economy. Robert challenges traditional advice like "save money and pay off your house," explaining how understanding good debt and owning real assets can accelerate wealth while inflation quietly punishes savers. They explore how family background and early beliefs shape our money mindset, and why questioning conventional wisdom is essential. The conversation ultimately stresses that financial education only matters if you take action and intentionally position yourself for turbulent times instead of fearing them. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/608 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text FAMILY to 66866 Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. To get in the best physical, mental, and professional shape of your life, go to DanielThomasHind.com and apply for Daniel's intensive 1-on-1 coaching for burnt-out entrepreneurs and executives. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:00 Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. This week, the number one selling personal finance author of all time, Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad Poor Dad, returns to the show, revealing that he's in debt to the tune of $1.2 billion with a B. Why he believes a depression is coming, and he strongly espouses financial education today on Get Rich Education, Keith Weinhold 0:29 you know, Mid South Homebuyers, that top Memphis turnkey provider. I learned that a secret weapon behind their explosive growth is more than just you buying their properties, it's an executive coach for nine years now, their CEO, Terry Kerr, and his COO, Pat Nix, have worked privately with a coach who I've now learned from too, and he doesn't market himself online anywhere. After 12 years behind the scenes, that coach is now making himself available exclusively for GRE listeners. His name is Daniel Thomas Hind. If you're a hard-charging business owner or investor who wants to get in the best shape of your life, physically, mentally, and professionally, you can fill out an application for a free consult. This is private one on one coaching for those willing to go to uncommon lengths to achieve uncommon results. Thanks to Daniel, we've all become better leaders, better operators, and better men. It started by showing up for ourselves. Now it's your turn. Go to Daniel Thomas hind.com H I N D, that's Daniel Thomas hind.com and sign up before Spots Fill Keith Weinhold 1:41 Flock Homes helps multifamily owners exit the operator grind, whether it's your sixplex or a 50 unit apartment, through a 721 exchange. This defers your capital gains tax. It's a strategy long used by institutions. Now you can swap tenants and toilets for passive income and zero management. Request your initial valuations. See if your property qualifies at Flock homes.com/gre That's F L O C K homes.com/gre Corey Coates 2:14 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education. Keith Weinhold 2:30 Welcome to GRE from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to Williams, Arizona, and across 188 nations worldwide. You're inside one of America's longest running and most listened to real estate shows, this is Get Rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. And with Father's Day this month, it's apropos to talk about Rich Dad. It's been said that the objective of parenting is to turn a liability into an asset. The book Rich Dad Poor Dad has now sold over 40 million copies, and it's been translated into 51 languages. One strong thesis in the book: well, there are a few of them: the rich don't work for money, savers are losers, and your house is not an asset. I think any regular listener here to the GRE podcast is already initiated on this. Savers or losers, because inflation debases your prosperity, and your house is not an asset, because it takes money out of your pocket every month. An asset puts money in your pocket every month instead. And I can see Robert now as he's preparing to take the mic with me here, he's got a blown up visual of his cash flow board game behind him, and then in front of him he's got a few books, including two books that he co-authored with Donald Trump, but this is before Trump was ever a political candidate, so it was before all that, and we're certainly not here to talk politics today. A central theme of the Rich Dad world is that the path for your significant financial betterment is rather than cutting your expenses, increase your income. This is the root action behind the mantra: don't live below your means, grow your means, but see, living below your means is easier. That's the easy thing to do. It's even myopic, say move into a lesser housing situation, or cut out going on vacations. Growing your means takes some education, like how to start a business, or how to own real estate. See, when you deposit money into a bank, all of a sudden that bank has a problem, they owe you interest on it, it's an expense for them. So the bank's job is now to lend your money out to somebody else and make a higher interest rate on it than. Lower interest rate that they're paying you on your deposit. All right. Well, then one direction to focus your education is to start acting like a bank yourself. How do you practically do that? How do you be the bank? Well, just like the bank, you can borrow real estate at a 7% mortgage rate. Now you've got the problem, you've got a monthly mortgage payment you need to make, so you need to beat 7% How are you going to do that? You better get it right. Well, with tax deductions, you might really be paying five to 6% Meanwhile, the real estate that you've carefully identified and invested in with your borrowed capital can earn multiples more without taking high risk, and actually that five to 6% effective cost of capital that you've got is zero, because that monthly payment is all outsourced to your tenants anyway, and what made all this possible for you? Debt made it possible, and now you're acting like the bank, and banks often have the tallest skyscrapers in your city for a reason, because they make money on those spreads all over the place, and now you're doing the same thing. This is an example of growing your means. The bank will hand you 500k to buy a new home or rental property, not for stocks. They won't do that for crypto, not for your 401k not for a business idea that popped into your head at 3am Only real estate, the same institutions, banks that manage your savings and study every asset class, and are very conservative, and have armies and armies of analysts. They will only lend you a half million dollars for one thing: real estate. For a few years, I was a writer for the Rich Dad Advisors blog when that was a thing. Robert and I were most recently together publicly last year when we both served as faculty members on the Terrific Real Estate Guys Investor Summit at Sea in the Caribbean. Let's talk to Robert. Keith Weinhold 7:18 I'd like to welcome back to the show for his fifth appearance here on the GRE podcast. Well, just the number one selling personal finance author of all time. He wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad in 1997 and has ruled the Rich Dad world ever since. It's a warm get worse education. Welcome back to Robert Kiyosaki. Robert Kiyosaki 7:38 Thank you, Keith. You know, nobody's more surprised about the success of Rich Dad Poor Dad than me, because it was turned down by every publisher in New York. It was like Simon and Schuster and all these guys, and they said, Why are you turning it down? They said, You don't know what you're talking about. It was consensus about the five editors of different book companies was what you're saying doesn't make sense, that's how strange it was back 1997 and now it's the number one in the world. Keith Weinhold 8:10 This is often how it is when something strikes someone differently, like the Star Wars movies had difficulty getting traction because it was so unusual, and fortunately, Robert, today the consensus among readers has seen that, oh my gosh, Rich Dad Poor Dad changed my thinking more than anything else. The contrarian thinker, Robert Kiyosaki 8:34 you know, strike Rich Dad, Poor Dad. My poor dad was academic, you know, PhD, yeah. So he'd be the kind of guy that says your book makes no sense, whereas my rich dad never went to school because his father died when he was 13 and he had to take over the family business. So much of a young person's life is predicated upon their parents or where the family or the culture you come from, and I've been studying more of that, like let's say I was raised in Alabama, I'd have a southern accent but because of the environment it presents it upon you, as the same as money, if a child is born into a poor family, or in my case an academic family, the value systems are all different. My family, and it's still true today. Got to go to school, get a job, and get a pension with the government. That's their whole belief system, and they're so proud of this. Is my brothers and uncles, and all that. They're so proud when their child has what's called a GS, and a government service pension, that's the whole idea on finance, get that pension, job security, Keith Weinhold 9:49 yeah, Speaker 1 9:49 nothing wrong with it, nothing wrong with it, but a lot of times we can't hear something because of what's been compressed into us by our culture, our. Family, so my, you know, my poor dad was always, you have to get your PhD, or what? God got a PhD. So my brothers and sisters, their kids are all getting their PhDs. It's fascinating. It's fascinating. Keith Weinhold 10:14 Yeah, when your poor dad tells you you need to get your PhD, and you're asking for what? Maybe the answer was for him. So our parents, yes, they're often our first teachers. Speaker 2 10:25 It's just values, very different values. And the more I kind of study it, I don't think I'm a good student of it, but there's this thing called a paradigm matrix, and a paradigm matrix is what is like a cookie cutter, so like father, like son, you know, like mother, like daughter, so much of our lives are transferred by our parents and our schools and things like this, and so that's why Rich Dad Poor Dad, for some people it works, but when it first came out, 1997 as you said, it was strange. I said, you know, the savers were losers, and today everybody knows inflation is going to the roof. I said, your house is not an asset. I got hammered for that one. Keith Weinhold 11:11 Right. Speaker 1 11:11 Rich don't work for money. Those are my three rich dad rules. Rich don't work for money, savers are losers, and your house is not an asset. I built Rich Dad Poor Dad around those three rules. I didn't follow my poor dad, those were his guiding lights. You know, you have to have job security, and you have to have a government pension, and my house is my biggest asset. And so you can't hear the person because you already have that paradigm magic, or that cookie cutter inside of you. This is my value system in my family. If I didn't get my PhD, I was stupid. I never got one. But anyway, you know, Keith Weinhold 11:50 just because you believe something for a long time doesn't make it true, Speaker 1 11:55 correct? And what's happening? Because I wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad, because I could see this economic times coming, 1971 named Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, and I knew at that time we're going to have hyperinflation, so that it hasn't hit us quite yet. 1971 was august 15. Nixon's taking the dollar off the gold standard, and you watch what's going to happen next few years. We're going to have hyperinflation that we've never seen before, and it's gonna make the poor and middle class poorer. The rich will get richer, but poor and middle class will get poorer. Tragically, Keith Weinhold 12:30 that is such an appropriate time to bring this up, Robert, because a lot of people are drawing parallels between the 1970s two waves of inflation during that decade, and what's going on today. I mean, there is so much fuel now that could ignite higher inflation. You've got the cumulative effects of the Iran war and the energy shocks and bottled up supply chains. And Robert, I don't know if you've heard it yet, but you and I's mutual friend, Dr. Chris Martinson, yeah, peak prosperity, there, Chris Martinson, he recently said that he would not be surprised to see 18 to 20% annual inflation in the next two to three years. That's exactly what he said. Speaker 2 13:12 Yeah, but it's good for those who have assets, right? You see what, when things inflate, you know, like chickens and eggs and milk go up, but so do assets go up, most of them, like gold and silver, will go up, but the purchasing of the dollar will come down. Inflation is a tax, that's all it is. Keith Weinhold 13:33 So much potential for inflation there, and a lot of this really ties in with debt, about how debtors can be enriched inflation. I think about the cantillion effect, meaning that in inflationary times those closest to the money printer win, and that usually tends to be governments, large banks, corporations with easy credit scores, but a lot of people don't realize that we can benefit from that too is everyday investors that use leverage prudent debt, Speaker 1 14:05 right, and tell you, in effect, is basically what interest rate can you get, and how easy is money for you, and I use debt, I'm 1,000,000,002 in debt, and that scares the crap out of most people, but I use debt to get rich, and most people use debt to get poor, and again, that's family, what your education says. So, a lot has to do with early childhood development, and all that stuff. The more I study it, it really goes back to before a child was like 15. The cookie cutter has been cut. Keith Weinhold 14:36 Yes, it goes back to not always having to believe everything that you think. Speaker 2 14:40 We all have access to education. I have my cash flow game here. I teach people how to use debt, and Dave Ramsey says don't use debt. Well, he's a smart man too, Dave. I like him a lot, and most people should listen to Dave Ramsey, but if you're going to use debt, you'd better take some education, so. To go 1,000,000,002 in debt, man, you better know something. People aren't living paycheck to paycheck, they're living credit card to credit card now, and getting wiped out. I hate to laugh, but it's so obvious. You go, because they have no financial education, and that's why my book was turned down by all those academics in New York City, the publishers say, you don't know what you're talking about. How can I say your house is not an asset? How can I say savers are losers? How can I say the rich don't work for money? And that's what Don't Rich Dad Poor Dad on. And now it's been an international best seller, number one in the world for like 25 years. Keith Weinhold 15:39 Yeah, well, it's so interesting that you bring up Dave Ramsey here, Robert. He often gets his followers to make a debt-free scream when they're debt free, and you know what I think, Robert, for those that scream that they're debt free, what they're doing is they're postponing screaming that they're job free or job optional, they could have been prudently leveraging dollars for profit, instead, like you and I do. Speaker 2 16:06 Well, let me just say, Dave Ramsey's advice is good for most people. I'm saying, if you're going to learn to use debt, you know, if all you want is a job and a pension, you don't have to study that much. The biggest mistake I think ever made was at 401 k. It's going to wipe out boomer generation. It's going to.. that's the memos. I wrote this book. Here's who stole my pension, and that's when it's going to nail the boomers. They're finished, because their pensions are going to get stolen. They're four 1k IRAs. They're finished, but they do.. they listen. No, they go, they send their kids to school to get their MBA and get a, get a 401 k. Keith Weinhold 16:46 Well, I kind of think when you have education around debt, you sort of understand this difference between productive debt and what I'll call ego debt. So, can you talk to us more about what kinds of debt make people rich today and what kinds of debt can quietly destroy them. Speaker 2 17:02 Well, they should read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Really, I'm serious. That's all it is about, really, is I use debt to get rich, and Dave Ramsey's advice is good for those who don't want to study. So, if you're a PhD in microbiology, and you're a doctor, Dave Ramsey's advice is good for you, because you have no financial education, it's not between your right ear and your left ear. So, I had to study debt, that's the difference. It's what we study. Keith Weinhold 17:29 And for those that are uninitiated on this, what we're talking about here is, if you've got, say, 200k to invest in real estate, and real estate's going to go up 5% a year. Okay, if you pay all cash, you only have a 5% gain on your 200k but if you get an 800k loan and now you invest in a million dollars worth of real estate, you have that entire million dollars going up 5% not just 200k and you have the tenants servicing the 800k in debt for you. This is really the path to wealth through debt, which is counterintuitive. Speaker 1 18:02 You don't just get into debt. I mean, you really got to understand debt, and real estate doesn't always go up. It's about to crash again, and I like crashes. Don't get me wrong, I love crashes, because a crash in a stock market, bond market, real estate market is something going on sale, so like if Walmart had a sale, every poor person would run in there, but when the real estate market has a sale, all the poor people run away. I like crashes, that's when you get rich, one's coming big time, big time. Keith Weinhold 18:33 Well, I want to learn more about that, because residential real estate in our lifetimes has only fallen significantly one time, that was in 2008 and circumstances are so different today. Today, you have responsible lending, and you don't have this oversupply that you had in 2008 So, tell us more about a potential real estate crash that's going to interest a lot of people. Speaker 1 18:53 Well, real estate crashes, because the currency crashes. It's really the problem with the world today, and this is the whole world, is America is now what, the biggest debtor nation in world history. Keith Weinhold 19:05 Yeah, Speaker 1 19:05 39 trillion or something like that. And Japan is a bunch of idiots on Japanese, I can say that they save money. Why would you save money when Japan was the biggest money printer of all times? That'd be like somebody you know, sticking water in your gas tank. Why would you go and fill up with water? But that's what the Japanese were doing. They're saving money. It makes no sense. I mean, I just.. I'm just a different person, you know. I just didn't go to school like my family did. I mean, I have a college education and all that, but I studied different things after school. I studied debt, I studied real estate, and that's the big difference. So, I'm 1,000,000,002 in debt. So, in 2008 when the market crashed, you know, I borrowed 30 million bucks and leveled it up with 1,000,000,002 in debt. Keith Weinhold 19:52 Good timing Speaker 1 19:53 should not do what I do, but I studied it since 1974 It's debt that's not. Right now today we have oil going up. My college degree is in oil. I'm an oil tanker driver. I drove oil tankers with Standard Oil. I'm making fortunes today as the price of oil goes up, so you know, more Netanyahu and Trump bomb Iran, terrible as it is. I'm getting richer, so you don't have to be poor, but you're poor because that gap between your left ear and your right ear is empty, you know. You've been taught inflation's bad. Well, inflation is good if you're holding oil or gold or silver or some real estate. Anyway, most people have no financial education. That's why I created the cash flow board game, so you can have fun learning how to be rich. If you don't want to learn to be rich, then go to school and get your PhD. Keith Weinhold 20:47 Sometimes, when people don't understand how real estate debt benefits them, one way I've helped people understand Robert is that, say, you have a loan balance of 112k on a piece of real estate today, that feels really small. It almost feels like something that you can pay off with what you have in your savings account, but if you go back 30 years, when the median home price is 140k 80% debt on that would have been 112k So here, 30 years later, with your 30 year fixed rate loan, you still just have that 112k in debt, while the median home price is over 400k and that's even if you hadn't made a principal payment at all, so it's really a way to visualize how inflation starts shrinking the real weight of our debt over time. Speaker 1 21:31 My advice is I would study debt, so I take real estate courses, I'm always studying, I'm studying constantly, because the markets are changing so quickly. The biggest problem today started in 1971 when Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. So, we're the biggest detonation in world history. I think we're going into a depression right now. So, depression plus AI coming along is going to wipe out jobs. I'm going to get richer. What are you going to do? So, I'm already planning for the future, the people that get rich can see the future. So, when you say, well, you know, back in 2008 it only crashed for a little while. Then, okay, so what? And history has proven in 1971 Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. Every nation has collapsed. Who did that? The Chinese did it, the Romans did it, the Greeks did it, Germans did it. They print money, and so that's the real issue. It's not debt, but it's also the economic macro problems that keep going into the world. The dollar is coming down, and I'm afraid that we're going into a global depression. I hope I'm wrong, like Grant Cardone, and I have fights all the time about it, you know, because he's a big proponent of that. Real estate always goes up, it doesn't always go up, Keith Weinhold 22:47 right? Speaker 1 22:47 It doesn't always go up. The stock market doesn't always go up. The bond market's crashing. Everybody says, "Oh, bonds are safe. The bond market's in the biggest bubble in world history. We're going into a depression. So, what are you going to do about it? I'm afraid America is going to crash because we've taken on Iran, and Iran's a powerful, powerful force out there. I'm not in favor of it, but everybody who's messed with Iran has got kicked. So just note that as this look at history, you can see the future, but you have to be careful in the issue you follow. So, 1971 I was on an aircraft carrier in Vietnam, and my rich dad wrote me a letter. I was a marine helicopter pilot, went down three times. Rich Dad wrote me lessons. Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, watch out, and immediately I started buying gold. So, I started buying gold at $50 an ounce to today is what, four or 5000 Keith Weinhold 23:43 Yeah, Speaker 1 23:44 the trouble with gold is you pay high taxes on it, constant taxes too. Good luck to learn, Keith. I study constantly. Keith Weinhold 23:52 You're listening to Get Rich Education. Our guest is Rich Ed Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Keith Weinhold 23:58 What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine. You sure can at Ridge Lending Group, NMLS 42056 They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone, because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal, and even chat directly with President Chaley Ridge, while it's on your mind. Start at Ridge lendinggroup.com that's Ridge lendinggroup.com Keith Weinhold 24:29 Let me ask you something. If you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom Family Investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation. In full disclosure, I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk, and nothing is guaranteed, but with a track record of consistent on-time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call or text family to 66866 that's family 266866 This Jim Rickards 25:31 is Author Jim Rickards. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your daydream. Keith Weinhold 25:47 Welcome back to Get Rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinholt. We're talking with the top-selling personal finance author of all time, Robert Kiyosaki. Speaker 1 25:55 Just study history. History will see this, you'll see the future. So, this is my good friend here, McDonald. You know why he wants you to get rich, and it's this one man, one message. Keith Weinhold 26:06 Robert's holding up a book now. Speaker 1 26:08 You've got to get educated on money, but most people won't, so they got a 401 k, and they live debt free. Good advice. Will it protect them? No, it won't protect them from a, you know, if you lose your job, AI takes it away, or is a massive crash, but we've never been in this much debt before to you. Black generation is screwed, boomers and boomers are screwed, because we're the first generation with a four 1k that was 1974 1974 also Kissinger went to Saudi Arabia to sign the dollar up back by oil, and today my buddy here, Trump is bombing the crap out of Iran. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but the price of oil is going through the roof now. Everybody's complaining about it because of inflation, so chicken and eggs go up in price, you know. Diesel delivers chicken and eggs all over the world. I'm getting richer because I own oil wells, you see. You don't have to be poor, but you better question what they put between your left ear and your right ear. What did Mommy and Daddy tell you? Go to school, get a job, get a job with a government service. My daughter's a GS, she's got a master's from Washington State University losers, Keith Weinhold 27:24 this untethering of the dollar from gold in 1971 that meant that there is no sovereign currency in the world today that's still tied to gold, allowing for more money printing and enriching over time debtors like you and I, but Robert, we think about how debtors are profiting, and you spoke earlier about how oftentimes your parents put all of these values inside you. How do you emotionally tolerate having a lot of debt yourself? You talked about having $1.2 billion in debt. How do you emotionally deal with that? Speaker 1 28:00 I study, I take courses. I'm constantly in seminars studying debt. I don't study a 401 ks or bonds, that's for losers. But this is the biggest point, Keith. You got to find out. My rich had always said to me, says there's a billion ways to financial heaven. So, there's what, 8 billion people on planet earth, and 1 billion of the eight may make it to financial heaven, but there's 7 billion to financial hell, and the difference is what's between your left ear and your right ear, and that's why you may choose what you learn carefully, cash flow game, study it, have fun, practice, play, learn, but if you don't want to learn, then follow Dave Ramsey's advice. That's much better. It's better for you, really. I'm serious. And get your PhD and get a 401 k and get wiped out when you lose your job. It's up to you. Keith Weinhold 28:54 Yeah, I mean, the debt-free mindset probably is better for most people, but I think you shouldn't aspire to want to be like most people. Most people are overweight, and they have a busted relationship, and they don't have enough money at the end of the month. So we're really not aspiring to be mediocre here, and that can mean taking on prudent debt. You wrote something in a book one time, I don't think it was Rich Dad Poor Dad, it was one of your later books. This is so simple, but I found it to be so profound and life-changing for me. And that is simply being wealthy is a choice Speaker 1 29:28 that doesn't, what you want, it's your choice, but you better know what your choices are. What did Mommy and Daddy say to you? But also, were they doing in front of you? Keith Weinhold 29:39 Right, Speaker 1 29:40 were they cleaning for job security or were they buying coil wells? Like, I own Bitcoin, but they'll recommend it now. I study it. I don't really understand it that well. I have 5049 Bitcoin, not much, but as inflation goes up, my Bitcoin goes up. Also, have in theory. I'm old. I don't understand tech that well, but I buy it to learn it, to practice, to study it. Am I an expert at Bitcoin? No. So I just keep studying, that's all I'm saying. I have a choice how to put between this year and that year. That's your choice today. Keith Weinhold 30:18 Well, that's really interesting, Robert, because some people say that you should only invest in something that you understand well, others say that you're only going to understand something well if you invest a little in it first and have a stake. Well, is there any last thought that you have, Robert, as we wind up, anything at all that a listener should know today? Speaker 1 30:39 No, I mean, I just said it, that's it. Choose what you put between your left brain and right ear, and what do you do? What do you do in your spare time? Like studying, you can ask the people around me. I'm constantly studying, you know, because I like to win. I'm very concerned, Keith. We're going into the biggest depression in history. So, what happens when you lose your job and you can't put food on the table, that's gonna create another problem. So, I'm a big pessimist, but I'm ready for it. I have a lot of guns, so the, I call it the 5g's Okay, you have to have gold, food, I mean ground, gasoline, and guns, that's preparing for the future, the 5g will be gold, gas, ground, food, guns. Keith Weinhold 31:27 Well, Robert, you gave us a lot to think about there, including some actionable things. It's been great having you back on the show. Speaker 1 31:32 Okay. Well, thank you. Keep up the good work. Keith Weinhold 31:40 I believe Robert feels that a calming economic depression would be linked to the longer term calamity about the dollar being de-pegged from gold for about 55 years now. His 1.2 billion in debt is largely, if not completely, good debt. You can learn more about Robert and the Rich Dad world@richdad.com and he and I talked more off air. As much as he stresses financial education, he emphasizes taking action after you've learned; otherwise, you really haven't gained much of anything. But the rat race is so busy that some people don't have time to care about this stuff. In fact, the difference between financial education and financial courage is action taking. That's the difference. Now, in my view, it seems that some feel like financial betterment means cutting your expenses so much that you reduce your standard of living even over the long term, and doing that for the long term, you might do some of that in the short term, earlier in your investing career, because you need some capital formation, but to me, before long, financial betterment should give you the ability to make your life better. I mean, really don't buy the boat or RV just because it's a depreciating asset. Well, you don't want to do that wastefully if you can't afford it, but if you can learn how to afford it, consider borrowing for it, investing it at a higher interest rate than the RV loan, and profiting while you enjoy the RV, some people don't even think something like that is possible. Well, that's the sort of thing financial education can do. Genuine financial betterment means that you can take the trip, it means that you can buy the boat, because what's worse, owning a depreciating asset or living a depreciating life. Big thanks to Robert Kiyosaki. Keith Weinhold 33:47 Today, we've got a lot of great upcoming shows here on the Get Rich Education podcast. Next week, The Mad Scientist of Multifamily, Neil Bower, will be here. It's going to be a charged conversation on the state and the future of the residential real estate market. Also, I've been compiling my top 12 dirty dozen due diligence questions that are going to help you avoid mistakes when you buy a piece of income property, like for example, How do you be sure that a build to rent community isn't overbuilt with supply, and why you should always get a property inspection, even on a new construction property that's coming in future weeks, and if you're a new listener and still learning about how to prudently use debt to build wealth, you're in luck. Just eight weeks ago, on episode 600 it's an episode where it's just me talking to you, called Debt is the American dream. Be sure to check out that show until next week. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. In In the Spirit of Rich Dad, don't quit your daydream. Speaker 3 34:52 Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business. Professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively. Keith Weinhold 35:18 The preceding program was brought to you by Your Home for Wealth Building, Get Rich education.com

Keith describes how a plain long-term single-family rental can quietly build wealth in ways most investors overlook, using his "GRE Duck" framework to illustrate returns beyond simple cash flow. He also emphasizes the passive income potential of buy-and-hold properties, detailing factors like: appreciation, principal paydown, tax benefits, and inflation. An Oklahoma-based investor and provider then joins Keith to introduce Oklahoma City and nearby markets as emerging options for cash flow–focused buyers. Together, they explore why this lesser-known market and a straightforward buy-and-hold approach may deserve a closer look from investors. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/606 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text FAMILY to 66866 Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the real estate duck is quacking. Learn what that's all about. See how you could expect to profit $2,500 every month just from a normal long term rental. Then the most important message that I have to tell you in years. And finally, we explore a market where new build single family rentals cost $145,000 all today on get rich, education, flock homes helps multi family owners exit the operator grind, whether it's your six Plex or a 50 unit apartment through a 721 exchange. This defers your capital gains tax. It's a strategy long used by institutions. Now you can swap tenants and toilets for passive income and zero management request your initial valuation, see if your property qualifies. At flock homes.com/gre that's F, L, O, C, K, homes.com/g, R, E, Speaker 1 1:07 you're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:23 Welcome to GRE from Hudson, Colorado to Hudson, New York and across 188 world nations. I'm Keith Weinhold, and this is get rich education with perspective every week that you won't hear from the average slack jawed finance talking head. Just a few weeks ago, it was announced that rent payments will now factor into credit scores. Yes, I suppose that now tenants can say, See, my rent is not like throwing money away. I'm investing in my FICO score. This is good news for landlords. It can be good news for tenants too, actually, and I think it's just good for society that being accountable and making timely rent payments get tracked and can be rewarded. Yes, the news is that weeks ago, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are allowing rent and utility payments to be included in credit reports that are factored into eventual mortgage approvals. It is good that your tenant is informed of this, and therefore they'll be more incentivized to pay you the rent on time. So yes, rent is now a credit builder and hmm, does this mean that America finally admitted that shelter is more important than your tenant's Banana Republic Visa card? This is something that should have been done a long time ago now. This also helps in the rent to own strategy, if you ever employ that with a tenant. Yeah, the rent to own strategy. That's where a tenant, they rent a home from you today, with the option to buy it from you later at a pre agreed price. It's basically a hybrid between renting and buying. And the advantage is you can sell your rental at a greater profit than you could otherwise, when you employ that and the reason that having rent payments be on a credit report now gives you some assurance that your tenants will improve their credit scores enough to qualify for a mortgage and actually buy your rental. So that's always an exit option for you the rent to own strategy benefiting too from this change. Now let me tell you about the GRE duck, because this duck is quacking, making some noise, and we talk about what you might think of as a more base investment strategy. And this might be your base investment strategy. It is just simple long term buy and hold investing. Some people mistakenly think that to be a big profiteer in real estate, that it takes a lot of time and money, or they think that you've got to flip a property or wholesale or do rent to own plans with your tenant, like I just mentioned, or that you have to house hack. You don't have to do any of that heavy hands on stuff. You can be highly profitable without opening up some active business inside your property, like an assisted living home or doing some co living arrangement that you self manage, or doing short term rentals. No, you don't have to do any of that. No sledge hammer required. Let's talk about the GRE duck and how normal long term rentals are super profitable. In fact, you can profit $2,500 per. Per month from just one ordinary, single family investment property, just a regular long term rental with, say, a small down payment on a 300k income property. Keith Weinhold 5:14 Now $2,500 that might seem high to be clear, that's not the rent amount. That's not the gross. This is your net, $2,500 in total profit every month. And you know, from the outside, the uninitiated might say, Well, wait, how could one plain house really perform this? Well, all right, say that it creates $200 in monthly cash flow, your rent income, minus expenses. This only represents the part of a duck that is visible on top of the water there on the lake surface, because that's all that most people see. And it's not a decoy duck. This is the real thing, because the duck also kicks up less visible underwater returns of another $2,300 monthly. And here's how what's beneath the surface, those duck legs are paddling like they're doing CrossFit. Here's a plausible scenario. Let's just use an appreciation rate of 5% mortgage rate of 6% and say inflation is 3% Well, the first thing that the duck is furiously kicking up underwater is that erstwhile appreciation of 5% on a 300k property. This is $15,000 a year that you're benefiting, which is $1,250 per month of profit to you. Next, there's principal pay down, also known as your ROA, that return on amortization your tenant is chipping away at your loan balance for you $3,000 a year from an amortization table, that's 250 bucks a month. Then there's the tax benefits. Say the estimated depreciable value is 240k after land divide that by 27 and a half years for your depreciation schedule, that is an $8,700 a year deduction. If you're in a 25% tax bracket, that's 2200 bucks a year, nearly another $200 a month from this alone. And there are more tax benefits than that depreciation, but that's all we're going to use for simplicity. And finally, inflation, profiting 3% inflation on your 240k loan, that is 7200 bucks a year. Yes, another 600 bucks a month. Now let's put it all together to see what the duck is doing. You've got $200 worth of cash flow, which is the visible duck, and then the rest of the paddling legs, with what they're doing underwater, it's $1,250 of appreciation, 250 in principal pay down, 200 in tax benefits, and 600 in inflation profiting. This is how your total financial benefit is $2,500 a month, and this is $30,000 of annual benefit to you. Yes, on average, you are 30k wealthier annually just from this 20% down payment on one plain, single family rental with something about as passive as it gets in real estate, that $200 per month of cash flow, that's only the part that you can see the duck gliding on the surface. And now, of course, your exact number is going to be higher or lower. Oh, maybe some downers on this is if there's a surprise insurance claim that dense things like a tree falling on your fence or a roof leak or a plumbing backup, you'll also have closing costs that you need to pay one time, a three to 4% of the loan amount when you buy so the duck could get splashed. And then this could be even better than I laid out. You might have a refinance opportunity that could increase your number. Your mortgage rate could be less than the 6% number that I use. Many builders are buying it down to under 5% for you still, and this will grow your profit number beyond $30,000 a year, and in this case, the duck would enjoy a tailwind. Keith Weinhold 9:45 Today, you do often need a seller to provide incentives to make deals create cash flow. I did some rounding for simplicity in that example, which is really like a fresh spin on real estate pays five ways that I laid out there. So essentially, this $30,000 of annual benefit this occurs whether you show up to work or not, whether you stay in bed or not, and you're probably working on it one hour per month or less. Yes, this is simply buy and hold property. None of this flipping or wholesaling or active businesses that you need to run inside it buy and hold property that's either new build or it's turnkey renovated. I mean, it's even kind of boring, no market timing, no next hot thing, nothing loud, nothing risky, nothing Instagramable. Yet so many people miss out on all of this and why? It's because they only see that $200 visible part of the duck, and they sort of think, why bother? And then you have other investors that don't stick with it long enough to realize and capture the benefit. It could take a few years to really feel a wave of appreciation or inflation. These things are more apparent, like a duck that starts quacking and getting noticed, the GRE duck helps you understand how even a modest portfolio of four or five or 10 ordinary houses builds lasting wealth. Some people think that they need to own 100 doors worth of apartment building units or something like that in order to quit their job. That is just not true. I describe precisely how the middle class can get ahead. You could quietly out earn your day job with just a small pack of properties. This is embodied and symbolized by the GRE duck. Later today, we'll talk about the exact types of properties that are conducive to this. Let me tell you what's really interesting. Now, when we look at a five year arc, here's what's remarkable. In 2022 mortgage rates tripled and home prices rose anyway. In 2024 and 2025 the level of inventory soared and home prices rose anyway. Last year, available inventory was up about 30% from the prior year. Well now it's only up about 4% from last year, the growth in available housing supply has really slowed. It is going to be fascinating if supply shrinks this year, and this is the trend, this is the direction that the market is going, which could put accretive upward pressure on prices, but not as much as something else could. Now, sometimes here on the show, I inform you about micro real estate issues, or like the savviest strategy to achieve rent increases with your tenant, but there is a macro force that could reshape real estate markets in your purchasing power for years. In fact, I'm about to share with you this is the most important, newsworthy message that I have had in years. CPI inflation keeps rising. Jerome Powell is now newly out as Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is the new guy, and he's in there at a moment where global expectations and interest rates and currencies and housing and investor psychology could all shift at once. Now, frankly, I think it would be reckless to cut rates into the fresh inflationary shock that we have from the war in Iran now, but that's exactly what some market participants are betting on, and this time, inflation is not Coming from stimulus checks and peloton bikes, like it did during covid. At this point, we have already weathered a pandemic and lockdowns and money printing and tariffs. Now it is even more we have added in a kinetic war and severe energy shocks and supply chains that are now tied into knots, the profundity of the Iran war effects are coming two time. Keith Weinhold 14:53 GRE podcast guest, Dr, Chris Martinson and I, you know, we are not some Doomer. Spouting baseless hyperbole to get fear clicks. This month, Chris stated that he would not be surprised to see 18 to 20% inflation in the next two to three years. Yes, you heard that right. This would make the pandemic inflation spike look like a warm up act. Remember back in 2022 that's when inflation peaked at 9.1% back then, in one year, home prices exploded about 20% rents surged 15% grocery prices went to orbital and a trip to Costco suddenly felt like financing a small boat. Well, today, things are poised to get even worse. Since the start of the Iran war, we've seen the prices of jet fuel go up 70% sulfur up 60% Brent crude has spiked 52% heating oil is also up 52% since the start of the Iran war. WTI crude oil up 48% urea also up 48% diesel up 45% gasoline up 40% all of these are not obscure commodities that are sitting in a warehouse somewhere. They are the hidden ingredients inside everyday American life. Diesel moves almost everything that you buy. Urea grows the food. Oil becomes plastics, packaging, chemicals and electronics, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, paint, asphalt and 1000s of petroleum based consumer products. I mean, effectively, this massively raises the blood pressure of the entire economy, there is still cargo that's been sitting in or around the Persian Gulf and hasn't been able to transit the Strait of Hormuz for almost three months now. That's per Reuters. Even if a permanent peace agreement were signed today, this doesn't just all magically snap back by next week, it could take more than a year to normalize shipping routes, in inventories, in refining operations and supply chains. And in fact, it is even worse than that if the new Fed chair worsh decides to jack up interest rates. See, even that would do little to fix the supply side problem, because higher rates don't produce oil, they don't reopen shipping lanes, higher rates don't unclog ports. So this is not a time to sit in excessive cash and hope that your purchasing power survives. For a lot of investors, this is the time to accumulate more productive real assets while maintaining some prudent liquidity. You've always got to maintain some the alternative is to start eating losses. When we had two big waves of inflation in the 1970s bonds were mockingly called certificates of confiscation back then, and why? It's because investors earned 5% while inflation hit 15% the people who win in inflationary eras are really three groups, owners of productive real assets, people with pricing power and strategic long term fixed rate borrowers. It is pretty rare that I draw a line in the sand to identify a major inflection point and really encourage others to act. The last time that I did that distinctly was in November of 2021 because that's when mortgage rates were 3.1% inflation was double that at 6.2% and I urged investors to borrow big, and I showed you the evidence of when I stated that in last week's newsletter. I showed you right where that was published, and at that time it sounded aggressive, but today, those borrowers are sitting on yesterday's debt while they're earning today's inflated dollars. I mean, you have profited handsomely from that while there were others that were calling for a real estate price crash back in 2021. Keith Weinhold 19:44 Gosh, that was the biggest appreciation rate year that we've had in a long, long time. Well, today, it's another inflection point, because you and I may be about to witness the highest inflation of our lifetimes, the prudent move is not paralysis. It is positioning. It means owning more productive real assets and ideally tying them to that long term fixed interest rate debt before the window closes again. So if you've been thinking about investing, repositioning your portfolio or making a plan before inflation accelerates again, you can speak directly to an MBA with real world real estate investing experience. It's a more crucial time than usual to book a free call with a GRE investment coach, which you can do at greinvestmentcoach.com. Windows like this do not stay open forever. It is the right time to act. In my opinion, that's the big message. The war inciting high inflation and hitting the point of no return for that. And I expect those free open slots to fill up fast, book a time again at GRE investment coach.com and plot out a plan. A lot of great shows coming up here on the GRE podcast, including two weeks from now, the number one selling personal finance author of all time, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Author Robert Kiyosaki will be back on the show with us. As for later today, it's interesting to learn about a new market that we have not discussed in depth before, especially when it's a cash flow market. It includes new build single family rentals for $145,000 and now it's really small, but it also includes granite and LVP flooring. That's next. Keith Weinhold 20:20 I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get rich education. What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine. You sure can at Ridge lending group, NMLS, 42056, they provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone. Because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat directly with President chailey Ridge while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com, let me ask you something, if you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom family investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation and full disclosure. I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk and nothing is guaranteed, but with a track record of consistent on time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedom family investments.com. To book a clarity call or text family to 66866, that's family. 266866, Richard Advani 23:19 This is hem lanes, co founder, Dana Dunford, listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 23:35 We have the chance to discuss a cash flowing real estate market today that isn't talked about very often with Richard, an income property provider in Oklahoma. And Richard, you have over a decade of experience working and investing in the Oklahoma market. And then you your wife and your daughter, you move there because it is a rather attractive investment climate. You've been prolific in the industry. You've spoken at hundreds of real estate events, so welcome and tell us more about yourself and really that attraction to Oklahoma. Richard Advani 24:09 Yeah, it's great to be here and share, you know, more of what I learned as an investor the last 10 years. Yeah, it's been amazing, because when I first invested here, it was more of a diversification play for me, and I didn't expect a lot of growth, but, you know, it had good fundamentals, and boy have I been surprised, because it has grown, and the growth just continues here. Keith Weinhold 24:30 Now, in a sense, I think about Oklahoma as a potential next place. And what I mean by a next place is that 10 to 20 years ago, Denver and Phoenix were metros that worked well for cash flow and real estate investors, but then prices ran up faster than rents in Denver and Phoenix, and they no longer work for cash flow with a 20% down payment on residential property, Oklahoma feels positioned as a next place where the numbers still work before the price. Prices get run up and this is especially true when we're still in this affordable housing crisis. And Americans kind of look for that next place where the cost of living is still low. Richard Advani 25:10 Exactly. And if we look back to you said, the fundamental things that made Phoenix and Austin and all these places grow out of the desert was they were affordable and they were business friendly. And the median home price in the US right now is $430,000 roughly, yeah, and the median home price in Oklahoma today, even after all that growth, is a little over half of that. So it's not a new concept to understand why and where that growth here stemming from. Keith Weinhold 25:37 since 2000 Oklahoma cities, just that city's average annual growth rate is 1.4% that is really solid for a mature interior US Metro now, it's not quite like Austin or Nashville, but you're avoiding those substantially higher Austin and Nashville prices. And for comparison, the nation's annual growth rate since 2000 is eight tenths of 1% to your point about the growth now Oklahoma, I think of it as really like a two major metro state. You've got Oklahoma City in the middle and then somewhat smaller Tulsa in the northeastern part of the state. So talk to us more about that growth. Richard Advani 26:19 Yeah, definitely. Well, I think, you know, 20 years ago, Oklahoma is really known as an energy state and a military state, and they acknowledge that as a state that they want to reduce that dependence. So there's been a huge amount of programs driven to bring small to medium size and obviously large size businesses in at the moment, we focus primarily on Oklahoma City, but Tulsa, as you mentioned, is an hour and a half away. If you look at a map, it looks really far away, but it's not in Tulsa is really kind of the Austin of Oklahoma. There's a lot of STEM and a lot of robotics and a lot of different things going on there. Stay tuned, though, as we move into latter part of the year, we are going to start expanding our product into Tulsa as well. But I think the big thing Keith is bringing awareness to people that Oklahoma exists. We do a lot of client tours, and we look forward to touring a lot of your clients as well. But people are just blown away when they get here. It's clean, it's nice, it's family friendly. All the suburbs of Oklahoma City, for example, they're just gated communities and good school districts. And what's crazy is you could put 20% down buy a brand new home in a nine out of 10 school district in the Oklahoma City metro, we're in the below $300,000 range, and make a positive you know, you can't do that in any other metro in the US. Keith Weinhold 27:38 Yeah, that is really attractive. So I think of Oklahoma City is a place that's not very flashy, although they do have that proposal for that giant building that I think a lot of people have read about. You know, it seems like every major city has their big, pointy thing in the middle of town. Oklahoma City might as well they have a skyscraper with a proposal, only a proposal at this stage, which would make it the tallest building in the United States, but outside of something flashy like that, I don't think of Oklahoma as a very flashy place. It doesn't make the headlines as much as a lot of other places do, but those headline making places seem to have the prices run up, and that's not so advantageous for investors. So tell us more about that investor advantage in Oklahoma, including things like the law tilting toward landlords versus tenants, and any other economic drivers. Richard Advani 28:31 Yeah. So firstly, I'll touch on that point. It's a very, very landlord friendly state, from the month a tenant runs late, you can essentially have them out that same month, as long as a property manager company is doing their job and serving notices. But at the end of the day, if it's a matter of the tenant not paying their rent, and you've provided a household right, your HVAC is working, there's nothing negligible on the landlord side, super easy. It's an open and shut case. Now what we see because of that is, out of 250 properties under management last year, we've never had to do an eviction, because it's a lose, lose for the tenants. And they know that, right? You serve them with the notice, they are out very, very quickly. So yeah, very strong on the landlord side of things, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of growth happening in Oklahoma, like you mentioned that tallest building, in addition to that, you know, the OKC Thunder, are here, and, you know, I think they're a champion. I watched zero sports, but I have read deeply into the economic impact, and I've seen it right. I've had people come to town and we give recommendations on where to stand. They're like, Oh, I've been to Oklahoma two years ago for a thunder game, and I fell in love with the city, and it's very, very underrated. Imagine if you could have got into, you know, Austin or Dallas 10 years, 12 years, 15 years ago. And I hear it very often from people. This reminds them of what those places were like 10 years ago. And that's a great thing to hear, right, that strong fundamental and catalyst for that growth exists. Buying a single family home, as I mentioned in that A plus school district that Windows closing here in Oklahoma as well. You know, I think there's another year, year and a half, before they will pencil and will be like every other large metro in the US. So, you know, I think we're all going to look back and be like, Oh, you got in Oklahoma early. I've been in here 10 years. I think I got in early, but you know, we're still relatively early in terms of, you know, the growth trajectory, that's the head and once again, it's driven by common sense, fundamentals, affordable, business, friendly people get here, establish community, and it's a really nice place to live. I love it here. Keith Weinhold 30:35 And because now you're a resident. Yes, you know Richard, one phrase I've shared with my audience recently, and I think it's apropos here is people say that they want an opportunity. What they really want is certainty. But as soon as certainty arrives, the opportunity is gone. I really think that's relevant here. So we've been talking about Oklahoma City, and what you do is you rehabilitate or offer new build properties to investors. Oftentimes they're out of state. You place a tenant for them, and then, if the investor so chooses, you also manage it for them. Like you mentioned, you have 250 properties under management in your portfolio. That's what you do, that's who you serve. We've talked about Oklahoma City. Tell us about some of the outlying areas, and why you choose those for investors, Richard Advani 31:29 That's a great question. And yeah, we primarily focus on new construction, because that's what I believe in for investors as well. What's amazing is, we're kind of a, I don't say supermarket, but we're a mega market because we're in six or seven different cities within Oklahoma, which means for the investors, six or seven different strategies, right? As I mentioned already, we're in the A plus areas at the best schools. We're in commuter towns that are 20 minutes outside of the metro that are really charming. We're in military towns where we have very, very strong economies, very high rent to purchase price ratios, really some of the highest in the country for new construction. And we deliver products, starting brand new single family homes is at 145,000 and at 180 and 220 and, you know, all the way up to 550 and everything in between. So we have a product for every type of investor we have, you know, a home for every type of tenant out there as well, which, you know, makes our tours amazing, too. People leave with their head spinning, but we really have a good amount of selection and strategies within the state. Keith Weinhold 32:35 145k for a detached single family home is pretty mind blowing to some people. I've seen those. I know the footprint of those is pretty small, but that really gives an idea of what potentially makes you attractive to work with. You have those all the way up to 550k which I think are the new build duplexes, correct mentioned there. So yeah, this is potentially attractive to people. I think a lot of us are really more interested in that ratio between the rent income and the purchase price, that valuable formula. So will you tell us more about Richard Advani 33:11 That? Yeah, that's something that I think we really excel at, is finding that balance point between durability for the investor, but also kind of where that rent range falls off is. A lot of experienced investors know, as you go higher priced, higher end, the rent starts really falling off there. All of our builds have LVP throughout granite. You know, even that 145,000, our home is so much granite and it would blow your mind, but we're not skipping anything, right? They all have full gutters. All have central heating and air conditioning with that end end goal of making it durable. But, you know, finding that tipping point to where we're not over building for that rent, so we're able to really bring in some high cash flows for what we target, and we specialize in affordable housing. And when I say affordable, don't think cheap. Just think most builders are going to build a product we've been in a boom the last 20 years, right? So if there's 500 people in line to buy a $400,000 home where your profit margins are high, why build a $250,000 home, right? And that is where the housing shortage is, and that is what we've made our nation. Most importantly, that is where we can make cash flow as investors. Keith Weinhold 34:20 So we're thinking about numbers on our pro forma now, Oklahoma does have tornadoes. I happen to know that tornado paths are geographically narrow. It's been estimated that they've severely damaged less than 1% of Oklahoma homes. But tell us about that, including the insurance coverage is one of our pro forma items. Richard Advani 34:42 It's a great question, obviously, that comes up a lot. I took a video two weeks ago with tornado sirens blaring, and I'm with my wife and daughter, and mind you, my wife yells at me up until recently to get in the shelter. And we walk out front and I'm recording, and I look to the left, old couple outside looking at the sky. Look to the right, kids in the. Parents looking at the sky, and surprisingly to me, my wife was right there behind me. I'm like, why are you not in the shelter so? Long story short, tornadoes are real, right? I've lived here two and a half years now. I've never met a person affected by a tornado, yet, personally, and as you mentioned, it caused very low damage. There's very rarely fatalities. And most importantly, look, insurance rates are determined by losses suffered by that insurance company. You guys will be blown away at how inexpensive the insurance is, just for that reason, right? But, yeah, tornadoes are real. We're in tornado season now, and people ask, what do people do when the tornadoes are on? And, frankly, walk out and look up at the street, you know, at the sky. It's not like a hurricane, where they come in and mass and destroy a town. You can see the storm cell moving around right when you're looking outside. So damage is low. I've owned real estate in Oklahoma for over a decade. I've never been affected by a tornado, either. But you know, they are a thing, and they're that hot point, just like fires in California. What was earthquakes? But the important thing is, the standard insurance policy covers tornadoes, it covers hail, it covers all of that. And, you know, even on those 300,000 more a plus class properties insurance is like 1500 a year. You know, very inexpensive. Keith Weinhold 36:15 We're talking about what I've been referring to, potentially as that next place for real estate investors. I was talking about that in house here with Naresh on how Oklahoma really feels like that next place due to some of these characteristics that I've been talking about. And Richard before, I ask you if you have any last thoughts. I have an event to tell you the listener about next Thursday night, May 28 Richard here is CO hosting a live webinar along with our GRE investment coach, Naresh, and you are invited to attend from the comfort of your own home. You'll meet Richard, learn the market, see performers of specific available properties, and you're probably going to learn something about real estate investing that you didn't know before. It's also a format where you can have any of your questions answered in real time. This can be an actionable opportunity for you again. It's Thursday, May 28 at 8pm Eastern. Sign Up it's free, you can register. It's open now at gre webinars.com. You'll meet a real pro, experienced provider there on the ground. Richard here and do you have any last thoughts, including what we can learn and see next Thursday? Richard, Richard Advani 37:34 Just that you know, if you haven't considered Oklahoma before, take a close look at us, right? There's a lot of amazing things happening. I am boots on the ground. I started as a real estate investor, and that's kind of the foundation for our business. We really encourage tours to come out here. The market sells itself, but it's not needed. Look, we are boots on the ground. I bought dozens of properties myself, sight unseen. Technology makes things amazing for that. But come down. If you guys do have the time, we're going to share a lot more specifics next Thursday on proformas, on exact numbers and specific opportunities. And yeah, excited to share Oklahoma with all of your investors, and to bring these opportunities to you guys and appreciate the opportunity to be here. Keith Weinhold 38:18 Is there anything that investors find surprising that they did not know about Oklahoma prior to investing there, and prior to learning about it, and before you answer yes, thank goodness that you offer tours. Any good provider should do that, although, in my experience, it's typically only five to 10% of out of state investors that actually take up somebody on the tour. You can never take that personally. That's just what happens industry wide, as we know. But is there any maybe last thing that we should know about the market, Richard, maybe something that an out of state investor is a bit surprised to learn, or that's unique to that particular market? Richard Advani 38:58 I think the biggest thing that people are surprised about is how nice it is. I've actually had an investor bought six properties and moved to Oklahoma become a good friend of mine. Now, since he lives in Oklahoma, people are just blown away at how clean and nice and family friendly. And we hear quite often that, you know, our investors would live in these homes, so much so we had one actually do that. So yeah, it's very underrated. And I think, as you said very aptly earlier, you know, it's the next market, it could be the next big market, Keith Weinhold 39:30 potentially that next place. If this sounds interesting to you, be sure to join Richard and our team again. It's Thursday May 28 at 8pm Eastern, and you can register at gre webinars.com. It's been valuable. Richard, it's been great having you here on the show. Richard Advani 39:46 Thank you. Keith Weinhold 39:52 Yeah, a rather interesting potential. Next place, if you will, for some perspective in Noelle. Normal traffic conditions from downtown Dallas, it is a three to three and a half hour drive north to Oklahoma City, but that is its own distinct market and city and capital. Oklahoma City affordable and business friendly this century. Really, it's those two drivers, affordable and business friendly, that have been the growth engines for other cities. OKC also has an expanding aerospace and tech presence in major downtown development projects, among other interesting things. At next week's live event, expect to see new build, yes, as low as 145k with LVP flooring and granite throughout, like we touched on there, one investor has even moved into the property themselves. I mean, you can do that if you want to. These are conducive to being good rental properties, but you own the property, you could live there, if you so chose. Yes all the way up to new build duplexes at 565k that generate almost $4,000 in monthly rent, though, these are the types of properties where you might want to pick up one of them, or five of them as investments leveraging the GRE duck and getting position for this likely next inflationary wave from an energy shock. I don't want to steal all the thunder from the event, but expect the provider to offer two years of free property management as well. One last time it all takes place next Thursday the 28th at 8pm Eastern. Sign Up Free at gre webinars.com until next week. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 1 41:49 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests on their own information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold 42:18 The preceding program was brought to you buy your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com you.

Keith explores how real estate investors can use mortgage strategies to build long-term wealth. Seasoned lending expert and repeat guest Caeli Ridge joins Keith to discuss why debt isn't something to avoid but to optimize, and how negotiating terms can matter more than price. They walk through practical approaches for new and experienced investors, from house hacking to scaling a rental portfolio. The conversation also tackles common myths about qualifying for investment property loans and what really matters to lenders. Finally, they emphasize focusing on fundamentals—cash flow, risk management, and informed decision-making—rather than fixating on interest rate headlines. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/604 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text FAMILY to 66866 Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 Welcome to GRE I'm your host. Keith Weinhold Some mortgage guidance out there is costing you wealth today. I'm talking about how you can negotiate to get better terms. I'll tell you the exact questions to ask. Then a guest clears up mortgage myths and misconceptions and how you can borrow to win today on get rich education Keith Weinhold 0:28 let me ask you something, if you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom family investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation and full disclosure. I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk and nothing is guaranteed, but with a track record of consistent on time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call or text family to 66 866, that's family to 6866 Speaker 1 1:32 you're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:48 Welcome to GRE from Albany, New York to Albany, Oregon and across 188 nations worldwide. You're listening to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, as we know, debt isn't something to avoid. It's something to optimize. As a real estate investor, I would rather have lower mortgage rates than higher ones, and now you can call me Captain Obvious. Yet there are some reasons that higher mortgage rates benefit us as investors, though they're not as great as the lower rates are I'll discuss some of that today. This stuff obviously influences marketplace behavior. In fact, here we are now, years after rates made their historic surge and nearly tripled between 2022 and 2023 and yet still, 70% of mortgage borrowers have an astoundingly rock bottom rate below 5% today, lower than the ocean floor, and they won't sell those properties. That's just one contributor to the low supply hangover that still lingers. Are today's buyers still anchored to an unrealistic baseline. It certainly reframed how investors think about normal borrowing costs and what that word normal means. My first ever rental property, many years ago, was purchased at a 30 year fixed rate of six and three eighths percent. One year later, I got to refinance a full 1% lower at five and three eighths. I'm happy that I bought one I did because starting year earlier, got all my real estate benefits rolling that much sooner, the leverage and everything else, and when I did that, refinance many years ago, from six and three eighths down to five and three eighths, I was able to roll all of my loan refinance costs into the new mortgage balance, and that way I didn't have to pay anything out of pocket. So financing is negotiable. A lot of investors don't realize that buy down your rate if you want roll the loan costs into the loan amount, like I did. In fact, I would usually rather have a higher mortgage rate and then not have to come out of pocket at the table. I would rather do it that way. Sometimes I take a higher rate and even get cash back at the closing table. So I walk away from the closing table with a property and cash, but yet with a bigger mortgage. And what's the strategy there? Well, with more inevitable Inflation, I want to load up on the dollars that I get now and then make those paybacks over the long term with future cheaper, diluted dollars for 360 months, sometimes I don't have to ask the lender for any sort of favor to get that zero help from the lender at the closing table to get cash back. How do I do that? Well, I ask the seller to give me cash at the closing. Closing table in return for offering the seller full asking price, or sometimes even over the asking price. I have done it the strategy of offering full price or even a little more than the full list price. See, that's often easier than getting a price cut from the seller, and that works great, because getting the closing table, cash is going to benefit you more than the price cut would anyway, in almost every circumstance, and when it comes to your lender, ask them questions that cut through the noise. Now, lenders have to make their profits somewhere and stay in business, but I've asked the question, what's the break even point on this rate buy down. That's something you can ask today. That can be an even better question for you to ask of builders with all of the buy downs that they're doing for you now, most people know about a mortgage rate lock. That's when you're in contract to buy a property. At some point, you and your mortgage company, you lock in your rate for, say, 30 to 60 days, and that way, if the rate rises before the deal is completed, you are protected. You are locked in. But some lenders also offer float downs. That's for if you lock and then rates go lower before you get the deal closed. In that case, you get the lower rate, and now you successfully played both sides, but most borrowers don't know to ask about a float down for larger apartment buildings, sometimes you can negotiate away prepayment penalties or instead a shorter penalty window. The thing to keep in mind is that smallest borrowers negotiate price, but savvy investors negotiate structure. That's what we're talking about here, and that's why you often hear that terms are more important than price. So there's plenty of opportunity here, even if historically low rates is not where today's opportunity lies. Today, we're going to discuss some things about mortgages that most people believe but are just flat out wrong. Also, what separates the borrowers who build real estate portfolios from the ones who stay stuck on property one, let's have a conversation with this week's repeat guest, a real favorite here at GRE for her mortgage clarity. Keith Weinhold 7:35 Hey, the president of ridge lending group, Chaley Ridge is back with us. We'll get into things like rates and loan strategy shortly, but first, let's discuss some fun. What would you do? Chili, what would you do if you're 35 and have 100k to invest in real estate? What's your first move? Ooh, good question. Caeli Ridge 7:55 So let's think five years ago for me now I'm 35 what would I do if I had that was a joke for all you listeners, obviously, you know, I think that if I could go back and knowing what I know now, I would probably invest that into an owner occupied house hack using an FHA loan. Probably look for newer construction if I could find it, and I would probably target a four unit residential property. I'd probably put three and a half percent down lowest rates with that. FHA, I would leverage my money, and I would get three other tenants in units, two, three and four to pay my mortgage, and then I'd use the rest to go buy an investment property Keith Weinhold 8:32 much like I started out with the owner occupied four Plex, live in one unit, rent out the other three. FHA, three and a half percent down. What if someone, however, lives in a market where the numbers just don't work and the law really tilts toward the tenant rather than the landlord. Caeli Ridge 8:47 You know, that's a good point. There's a lot of factors, obviously, right? And there's exceptions to all rules, etc. So I don't want to generalize, but I would probably take the 100,000 and maybe look at some kind of a burr in that case, maybe pivot and do some math and see if buy rehab rent refi might be more applicable. To take that 100 grand and leverage it that dollar bill, as far as I could make it go Keith Weinhold 9:10 sometimes you have to get scrappy when you're starting out another what would you do now? Say you've got some more experience. You already own two rentals. How do you scale that to 10. Caeli Ridge 9:21 You know, my biggest piece of advice for investors, especially newer ish investors, is to make sure that you've got your eye on some level of diversification. Scaling from two to 10 can sound pretty daunting to some people, but I think that diversification advice comes in handy when you're not singularly focused on, let's say, a core philosophy of single family, residence, cash flow only in one market instead, maybe layer in some appreciating markets where you can earn and count on longer burn appreciation that you can then leverage from to then purchase the next to the next to the next, right. Cash. Refinances borrowed funds are non taxable. I would probably say diversification is the core answer to that question. For me, Keith Weinhold 10:07 yeah, if you've already got two properties, maybe if you've had those for a few years, yes, you can do a cash out refinance and basically use one of your first two properties to fund that third and fourth and so on, right exactly? How about if rates drop 1% tomorrow? What's the next thing you would do? Immediately? Caeli Ridge 10:29 I would do the math. Is what I would do, Keith, and I know you love that answer. So if I had a portfolio of X number of properties and rates just dropped 1% tomorrow, I would take a hard look at what I had in the queue, and I would say, Okay, how much does a one percentage point rate save me in monthly payment, aka, earn me in cash flow, and what is it going to cost me? It is imperative that the investor is actually doing the math. 1% may sound amazing, but if it's only going to save you 5060, bucks a month, and maybe that's enough, but it might cost you five grand. Does that math work for you? So that's my answer. Do the math? Keith Weinhold 11:08 Yeah, if rates drop 1% does that make you want to perform more purchases? Does that make you want to refi something that you already have and at the same time that you do that refinance? Okay? That may or may not save you a lot in payment. But another consideration is, okay, well, at the same time you do that refinance, oh, maybe you could take cash out and use it as a down payment for another property, or just use that money for something else, Caeli Ridge 11:33 absolutely, and you know what we're talking about. That from a purchase perspective, if rates drop 1% tomorrow, from an investment perspective, what do we think is going to happen to the rest of the market? The homeowners are going to be coming out of the woodwork, right? The owner occupied the competition is going to get very, very stiff, steep. I would say that if you are banking on or waiting for rates to do X, Y and Z, you are missing massive opportunities today. So there's a lot of reasons not to hesitate and be waiting on some magic, massive rate drop. Keith Weinhold 12:04 All right. Well, those were three interesting what would you do scenarios you mentioned the possibility, and it's surely only a possibility that mortgage rates will drop sometime in the near future. Let's expand on that. If someone is indeed waiting for rates to drop. What are they risking in the meantime? Caeli Ridge 12:25 You know, this is such a good but complicated question. There's a lot of layers to this. If someone has a magic number in their head, again, I'm going to press back and say you have to be doing the math. All right. So a lot of people conveniently, maybe not so conveniently. But a lot of people forget that interest rates, by nature, always drop or reduce much slower than they're going to climb. Okay, historically, go back and do your own research here. Interest rates, when they go up, they tend to kind of go up quickly. When they come down, they really kind of trail, and it's a slow, progressive landing. It's not a quick thing when they come down. So if we know that that's true, or at least historically, that's been true an interest rate reduction of an eighth or a quarter or three, it's of a point. Maybe that takes us a month or two or six or a year. What does that really mean to that payment? You have to be doing the math so, largely dependent on the loan amount. Okay, if you think that interest rates are going to be reduced in a month from now by a quarter of a percentage point, what does that mean to the payment? Does it mean $12 a month? Does it mean $100 a month? And in that scenario, in that calculation, what are you giving up by waiting the month or two or six for a what if I think that you are diminishing your rates of return by waiting on a come that one may never happen, and two, the significance is probably far less relevant than you are giving it credit for. Keith Weinhold 13:52 Now, I think generally real estate investors want low mortgage rates. Obviously, it gives us a better refinance opportunity. It gives us a better purchase opportunity, potentially, okay. In general, we want lower rates. However, there are some reasons a lot of people don't think about as to why lower mortgage rates are actually bad for a real estate investor. If you just look historically, when have we had extraordinary low mortgage rates here in these past 20 years? Well, they've been to get us out of huge economic problems, late to global financial crisis or the covid pandemic. So if you're wishing for really rock bottom rates, which again, is tempting to do, and is advantageous, in a sense, there is a downside as well. If there are super low rates, a lot of people might be out of work, including your tenants. So that's the reason that we want to be careful as to what we wish for, with rates being super low and artificially low, like they were a couple times in the past two decades. And you know, Caeli another reason why I'm not fully in love. With low mortgage rates, although I liked them, is the fact that I look back and notice as being a property investor for more than two decades now, is that I have had tenants leave when mortgage rates are too low and lending is too easy, especially leading up to the global financial crisis, it was so easy to get first time homebuyer loans at really attractive rates. So I had higher vacancy because mortgage rates were so low that my tenants left and became first time homeowners. So yes, we generally want lower mortgage rates, but there is a downside to that as well. Caeli Ridge 15:35 And I think there's probably a sweet spot, I think such a good point that most people probably don't think about Keith, and I couldn't agree more, when rates have been at their lowest. To your point, all hell is breaking loose economically in so many other sectors. Yeah, be careful what you wish for. Keith Weinhold 15:51 Any old time, real estate investor would find it really humorous and almost cute that people think mortgage rates between six and 7% are high. You and I know they're historically low. 7.7% is the long term owner occupied, 30 year fixed mortgage rate going back to 1971 per Freddie Mac the most reliable stat set that we have. But now that we have come up back into what's really a more normal range, just like we started to do in 2022 How should someone think overall in not a high but a higher mortgage rate environment? What are some things that actually matter more now than they did before back five plus years ago? Caeli Ridge 16:32 I want to give you some statistics. So from 1990 to now, the average owner occupied rate was 6.08 now that's owner occupied, and more often than not, you can add about a point percentage point spread between that and non owner occupied in general. So we are right in line with the last 36 year swing of where interest rates have been. So please keep that in mind. Again, that psychology piece. But overall, I think that what we need to be paying attention to, even if, over the last five years, 10 years, interest rates are a little bit higher than we came to recognize them, the pandemic was an outlier. You guys. Okay, let that lie that's hopefully never to repeat itself. But what we want to be focusing on, and I know that I'm beating a dead horse here, is that you have to get rid of the mental block that you have about that number that we call an interest rate. You need to be looking at a property holistically that says, does it cash flow based on this tenant application? What about this tenant application? What is my exit strategy? Is my property management doing the job that it needs to be doing? Can I trust them to ensure that my vacancy is low? And if I have to evict somebody that they know what they're doing and they know all the rules in the different cities and counties, I think that those are going to be more prevalent to the successful real estate transaction that gives you the financial freedom that you want long term, stop fixating on the rate. That's my advice. Keith Weinhold 17:53 Some of those operations that you talked about are controllable, and the mortgage rate is largely uncontrollable outside of maybe getting a better credit score to get a lower rate or something like that, focus more on what you can control. And Caeli, you touched on something interesting that I think a lot of people don't understand, and that is investor financing versus owner occupant financing. A lot of people just don't understand the differences as to why investor loans cost more, tell us about that. Caeli Ridge 18:25 Yeah, good question. It happens to be about secondary markets, so I won't get too technical, but when we talk about mortgage backed securities right Wall Street, and this is an asset class that is bought and sold and traded, etc, etc, there are demands, obviously, and then you've got layers of risk. So the baseline thinking is that an owner occupant is less likely to default on the home that they live in, right? Something is going on financially with them. They've got some hardships, etc. They're going to cut loose the rental property before they're going to default on their primary so that's just kind of the overall basic. There's other variables in there, but that's the one that makes the biggest difference. Is default rates on an owner occupied versus a non owner occupied. Now I may argue, if I can just add to this. So this is a little bit of a history lesson for those that maybe remember or too young to remember this. 08, 09, housing and lending implode on each other in this country, the financial crisis, et cetera, et cetera. It was the Wild West before that. You could have a pulse and get a mortgage, even investors right, 0% down. They had some pretty risky things out there. We didn't do that kind of stuff, but they were out there, and I certainly contributed to what happened with the oh eight financial crisis. So fast forward, and I feel like when things like that, especially in this country, happen and devastate big, huge sectors of our economy, we knee jerk. And we knee jerk in a way that is almost the 180 of irresponsibility. Let me explain so when we talk about what it used to be like, fogging a mirror, right, having a pulse and getting a loan as an investor or anyone. For that matter. Now fast forward to post, 08,09, you've got Dodd Frank, all that sweeping legislation, etc, they raised the qualification bar. Okay, that's fine. Now I want to come into today's space, and I want to give you guys an idea of the qualification markers between an owner occupied let's just use an FHA and a non owner occupied purchase. So you can have 580 credit and put three and a half percent down and have slightly over a 50% debt to income ratio and get an FHA loan, a GSE government sponsored enterprise loan. All right, a non owner occupied you've got to walk on water. Man, I make that dumb joke, files of blood and DNA samples, you've got 20 25% down minimum. You've got to have x higher in credit score, all these extra reserves, etc, etc. So I would argue that secondary mentality, thinking the non owner occupied is, in my opinion, probably a more stable loan as it relates to default. So there's some disconnect. I think that the way that that is thought about in secondary market speak, but maybe a little TMI for the listeners. In any case, that's the reason that they're looked at differently. The ideal, or the idea is, is that the owner occupied is less likely to default than the non owner occupied. I would disagree with that premise, Keith Weinhold 21:19 and I think you would agree that things are still pretty tight because lending requirements are still pretty rigid, still pretty strict. You have to have a good credit history and assets and income, unlike what we had to have 20 years ago, when I was a real estate investor myself, back when things were irresponsible and back when things were free flowing, and money was flying, and a lot of nefarious things were happening. Even though I had a good credit score all my life, I was the beneficiary of those High Flying Wild West times myself. I remember on the first four Plex I owned after I had moved out of it so I didn't even occupy it anymore, I got a generous appraisal for a 90% combined loan to value, cash out, refinance 90% that I would not get today, no way. Caeli Ridge 22:10 Yeah, but that knee jerk is, I think, also part of the problem. They go the opposite way that pendulum shift is, I feel like there needs to be a little bit more reasonability in the mix and different markers to justify who should be getting or being able to take advantage. Keith Weinhold 22:26 When we talk about investor loans versus owner occupied loans, that really begs the question. Now, when does it make sense to house hack versus go straight into investor loans? What are some of the trade offs there. Caeli Ridge 22:41 I would argue that if you are in a position and you're willing to share your primary residence with you know, tenants house hack is always a great idea, because you've got these great loan terms, you've got this massive leverage, and almost always you've got other people making the entire mortgage payment for you, or the vast majority of that mortgage payment, I'm such a big fan of that is a strategy for real estate investing. You've got to do it right. You got to do it by the rules. But I can't think of a downside if you qualify and you're willing to do that, to live with other people right next door, etc, etc. Some families don't think that that works for them, whatever, but I just think it's a fantastic way to jumpstart someone's real estate investment journey and then continue it. If you do it right every 12 months, then you'll be able to continue to parlay into the next, the next, the next. One thing I would say about that that I don't get a lot of opportunity to talk about, but since we're talking about here, if you're going to house hack and you've got, you know, a duplex, triplex fourplex, and you want to manage it yourself, which I think everybody should be responsible to manage at least one rental property in their lifetime, maybe official, yeah, yeah. More often than not, people will tend to pay for that service down the road. But having the experience is valuable. Do not tell the other tenants that you are the home owner, do yourself a favor and just you're another tenant, but you're taking care of you know, you don't want to let them know that you actually own the property. There's lots of emotional and different things that you want to avoid giving that information away to the tenants. Keith Weinhold 24:17 I have had two friends, and each friend owned a fourplex, and what they did is they would manage the other person's fourplex. That way, they were able to keep it more professional and less emotional, since it wasn't the owner directly dealing with the tenant, and that provided a buffer that really benefited them. I haven't done that myself, but I found that such an interesting way to approach it? Caeli Ridge 24:42 Yeah, that's smart. If that ends up being your situation, definitely horse trade that way. Otherwise, you're just a tenant and you can be on call whatever, just avoid giving that information back to the other tenants that may be there. Keith Weinhold 24:54 Well, there's an underwriting reality out there that chili can share with us versus. Some of the online advice that you get, and what some of the biggest myths are that borrowers believe. We'll talk about that next. You're listening to get rich education. Our guest is Ridge lending Group President chailey Ridge, more we come back. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold. Keith Weinhold 25:12 Flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio through a 721 exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture. It's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now Mom and Pop landlords can 721 the residential real estate request your initial valuation, see if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash, slash GRE, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/gre Keith Weinhold 25:47 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally. While it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com Ted Sutton 26:22 Hey, it's corporate directs Ted Sutton, listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 26:29 Welcome back to get Rich's case, we're talking with a familiar and recurrent guest Ridge lending group, President Caeli Ridge Kelly, talk to us about your underwriting reality there, versus some of the advice that one gets online sometimes, including what really gets a loan approved with some of those things like income and reserves and DTI. Caeli Ridge 26:59 You know, this can be so confusing for the consumer, because there are so many different vehicles in which to get Mortgage Funding, and there's something in our industry called an overlay. Okay, an overlay is taking the purest form of a guideline and adding layers of risk to it. I'll give you an example. Let's say that we know, or most of us know that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac allow for up to 10 finance properties per qualified individual, right? That is a straight Fannie Freddie guideline B of A, and this could be wrong, but a big boy bank may have an overlay and layers of risk that say we will only allow up to four, right? So all of this differing information, conflicting information, when the nice thing with ridges is that we go by the purest form of the guideline, we are not going to impose those overlays. So in working with us, you're always going to be sure that we know exactly what those guidelines are. We know them like our own faces, and that we're not going to impose some additional risk layering or overlay that might prohibit or preclude the qualification. It's pretty basic stuff. I mean, if you're going full doc, Fannie Freddie, and this can apply to our owner occupied and, of course, all of our non owner occupied income, debt to income, credit and assets, it's a pretty basic formula that we use. And then we've got all the other products that we have. Again, knowing those underwriting guidelines like the back of our hand, is very important to making sure that we can navigate the battleship in a creek. That's the analogy that I give that tends to be mortgage lending, or what feels like mortgage lending anyway. So it's pretty basic. We have to understand what the borrower's qualifications are out of the gate, and then we can provide them with a schematic of options that they can tell us which direction they want to go in Keith Weinhold 28:42 for quite a long time now, one could get 10 conventional investor loans, single or 20 married. It wasn't always that way. I remember attending a real estate workshop in 2012 and you could only get four loans, or at least you could only easily get four investor loans before that expanded to 10. And we just shouldn't always assume that it's going to be this way forever. Caeli Ridge 29:06 Yeah, so I kind of going back before 08,09, there was no limit to the number of finance properties Fannie and Freddie would secure per individual. After that crash, it shut off, and it got to four to your point. And then it stayed there for a while, until we kind of brought it back to that 10. You know, there's been rumors for years that they're going to up it to 12 or 15 or some random number. I don't even know where it's coming from. I always make a joke and say, Yeah, between now and my death, we'll see that. But it would be nice. It would be nice if they increase that number a few Keith Weinhold 29:35 now, as someone is qualifying there, you probably run into a lot of borrowers that believe certain myths or have to have misconceptions corrected. Tell us about some of those Caeli Ridge 29:45 the biggest myths, I'm going to say that it's probably one of three things they believe that they've got to make 10s of 1000s of dollars a month or hundreds of 1000s of dollars a year to qualify. Absolutely not true. It's so much less about the monthly. Income than it is the monthly income in relation to your minimum payments on your credit report. So just as an example, I could have a client that only shows $1,000 a month of income, but if they truly have no debt and some of the other qualifying criteria, they can qualify for a mortgage on an investment property, because the investment property has income to offset that mortgage payment. So it dispel the myth about having massive amounts of monthly income. That's not necessary. It's about the income and your monthly debt that we find on your credit report. That would be the first thing. The other thing, speaking of credit reports, I would say, is that a lot of times, people think that the overall debt that they're carrying matters. I mean, Mr. Jones could have $300,000 worth of debt, but his monthly payments are only 1500 All I care about is that monthly amount. I do not care what the total outstanding debt is. I hear that one a lot inquiries, credit inquiries. Every time you have your credit pulled, it drops the score, 20 points. Not the case. Now I can go down that rabbit hole, Keith, but it is a rabbit hole, so maybe I'll just leave it there. Your credit score does not drop X number every time you have your credit pulled. That's a misnomer. Keith Weinhold 31:07 Well, actually, that brings up a thought. Then once prospective borrower initiates with you in there and gets the ball rolling in qualifying for a loan, what are some reasons that deals die late in the process? So what does it take to be sure to hold that together? Caeli Ridge 31:23 You know, I think it all boils down to communication. And we tell our clients this on the front end, treat us like your attorney. You tell us everything, do not own anything, so that we can ensure that we're guiding you appropriately. So lack of information can derail things. Let's say, for example, they change jobs, and it's a completely new line of work, and it could prohibit or preclude the amount of income that we could have we were using now DTI gets changed, or they buy a new car in the middle, and they don't think it's going to come up. And now it's a DTI issue. It can be all kinds of things, but the point there is communication is key. Just keep us informed, and then we will give you the input or advice, and then you do what you want with that. But at least it's not once the bell is rung. Keith Weinhold 32:05 Live pretty conservatively and safely until that loan closes. Yes, sir. Well, does that bring up any stories? Sometimes people learn better that way. Is there a deal? Perhaps that should have worked, but it didn't. Caeli Ridge 32:20 That's a good question. You know, I think that the answer is no, and mostly because we have such a diverse menu of loan products, even if something did happen and even if it was outside of anyone's control, let's say we would normally just pivot to another loan product that would accommodate whatever that event ended up being. I cannot think of an example where a deal fell apart that could have gone differently, that we weren't able to just simply pivot into another path and close the loan for Keith Weinhold 32:49 well, America is a place that promotes entrepreneurship, and it seems like side hustles as well are more popular than they've been before. So can you talk to us about how self employed borrowers get evaluated? Caeli Ridge 33:04 Yeah, it is different. I mean, the simplest way to describe it is, we're going to take the adjusted gross income, but there are something called add backs. So depending on what their deductions are, there are certain things like Depreciation or Amortization or, I mean, there's a whole slew of things that we're able to take those numbers and add it back into the Adjusted Gross and then divide by 12 or 24 whatever it needs to be. That's typically what we're going to be looking at for a self employed person, versus the straight w2 is just the gross income divided by 12 months. Keith Weinhold 33:35 Well, Caeli, this has been really good with some strategies and some actionable tactics. Before I ask how one can learn more about ridge? Is there any last thing that you'd like to share with us, whether that's to expand on anything we discussed, or any of the more nascent things that have happened, like banks holding less in capital reserves, or Fannie Mae, except in crypto back mortgages? Is there anything else we really ought to know? Caeli Ridge 33:57 You know, I think my advice right now for anybody that is in real estate investing, thinking about getting into real estate investing, be informed. Listen to people like Keith, ideally, listen to people like me. I've been doing this for a very, very long time. I'm an educator at heart. Get your information from sources that you can trust, and try to avoid the analysis paralysis the best you can. I know that people get hung up on that, but now is the best time ever, and I would say that tomorrow and the next day and next year and the year after that, to invest in real estate. Keith Weinhold 34:27 Yes, the only thing that could possibly make now better than ever is now is sooner than it's ever going to be again. Well, Caeli, if someone wants to get a hold of ridge so they can tell you their situation, and you can then help them find out how you can best help. What should they do? Caeli Ridge 34:43 There's so many ways. Check out our website, ridgelinengroup.com you can email us info@ridgelinengroup.com you can call us toll free at 855, 74, Ridge. All of those ways get to us, and I look forward to speaking with each and every one of you Keith Weinhold 34:58 that's been valuable. Always It's been great having you here. Caeli Ridge 35:01 Thanks. Keith Keith Weinhold 35:08 Caeli brought up a great point from the lender's view, when they make a loan, it might be safer for them to lend on an income property loan, actually, than it is for your own home, because on the income property, you have a substantially higher qualification bar to clear, and you have to make a higher down payment on it. I hadn't thought about it that way before. As far as Fannie Mae accepting crypto backed mortgage structures, that is still new as of this year. How it works with a crypto backed mortgage is that you're usually getting two loans. First you get a normal mortgage, and then for your down payment, it's a separate loan that's backed by your crypto. Your crypto stays locked up for years and you can't trade it while it's pledged as your home down payment. That's generally how it works. But notice the attraction. You would also get to keep your crypto while you're leveraging it. Also notice the risk there, and very few banks offer this, think Coinbase and not JPMorgan Chase. It's still new and niche, and it remains to be seen whether or not crypto backed loans will gain any real traction. It's only likely going to accept Bitcoin, Ethereum or stablecoins, not altcoins. Only about 1% of homebuyers use crypto in transactions. Most of what the current presidential administration has done focuses on making mortgages easier to get, not in making homes cheaper. Making mortgages easier to get means more bidders and higher prices. Washington can make it easier to get a mortgage, but they cannot make a $400,000 property cost $300,000 we talked about how to borrow to win today, and big thanks to our terrific guest. Until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, though you might quit your day job, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 2 37:17 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice, please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively you Keith Weinhold 37:45 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com

Keith explains how to increase real estate cash flow by appealing and reducing property taxes. Then welcomes high‑energy real estate investor and educator Thach Nguyen. Thach shares his refugee‑to‑multimillionaire story, breaks down his roadmap to retiring with rentals, and explains how ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units) are transforming both investor returns and affordable housing—especially in Seattle. Resources: Follow @ThachNguyen on Instagram and all major social platforms. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/602 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text FAMILY to 66866 Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, talking about how to increase your cash flow by obtaining a successful appeal and reduction in your property taxes. Then real estate personality Thatch Nguyen and I discuss mindset and some creative real estate techniques today on get rich education, Keith Weinhold 0:23 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com Speaker 1 0:57 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:13 Welcome to GRE from Mount Holly New Jersey to Hollywood, California and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold. This is get rich education, and I'm still not wearing Dockers, and I am in Hollywood, California today. More on that later. Among all the major investment classes when it's bought right real estate is the second safest investment class to bonds. Bonds are the safest among them all. Real estate has the highest returns, so it's the second safest and has the highest returns. And that's why it's our focus on this show. But if you want to be in real estate for two years or less, well, then it's likely best to invest elsewhere, at least with long term rentals, because you need time to defray your transaction cost. And for real estate pays five ways to start compounding. Coming up shortly, it's pretty popular real estate personality Thatch Nguyen. He will be here, and I did not know Thatch until recently, when we were introduced by our mutual friend Scott Saunders. And Scott, who I had on the show here a few years ago, is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet in real estate. Well, besides those high return, low risk real estate attributes. Of course, when you own property directly, you also get a big measure of control if you want it. Now, control comes really with that option A lot of times to get involved and make your real estate investing less passive, just an option, because successful real estate can be as simple as buy and hold, but today we're discussing strategies. If you want to get a little hands on, if you so choose, you can attempt a successful appeal of the amount of property tax that you're paying. And of course, every dollar that you lower your property tax is $1 where you increase your income. And this feels like a germane conversation, since tax day in the USA was just last week. Ah, yes, property tax, hmm, it's like a version of the government charges you rent on your own property in perpetuity. That's what it is. And before I get into how to potentially get your property tax lowered, property taxes are under pressure. Some states are still making their serious push to completely eliminate the property tax, namely in Florida, Texas and Indiana. Those are three of the front running states, probably the big three. And I won't get into all of that again, because I devoted an episode segment to that topic a few months back. Others are considering elimination too, Georgia, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, but it's just more talk than anything in those six states. Now, if a state undertook property tax abolition, it would probably only apply to owner occupied property, homeowners or voters, and those property values would soar. But these new comparables, what they could do, in turn, is lift the value of your out of state rental property as well, because you could always sell your investment property to an owner occupant. But in my opinion, no state is going to eliminate the property tax. I mean, sheesh, it's kind of like trying to eliminate gravity. It's just too hard to replace the revenue from elsewhere. Schools, police and fire and infrastructure heavily rely on property tax, so instead, what's realistic is a tax cap, a ceiling on the amount of property tax that you pay, and with an income producing property of course, your tenant essentially pays the property tax for you now, even before buying a property or for one that you already own, the most accurate way you can check the tax amount for your exact address is on the county assessor's website. Keith Weinhold 5:38 The next best places are listing websites like Zillow and Redfin. This is all public information. The way to find a county assessor's website for your property is with a simple four word search. What you should google is the county name, and then the words assessor property search, those are the only four words that you need. And then what if you discover that you're paying more than you are for nearby, similar properties? Oh, well, there we go. That's a sign that you're over paying. You can usually file an appeal form at the same website. And before we talk about how to do it, realize that only about 5% of property owners ever file an appeal, and in a bit, I'll tell you what your percent chance for success is at lowering your property tax, your chances of it being lowered. So if you believe that you have a case for lower property taxes, first, it helps to know what you're arguing. And this is important, it's something that can trip you up. You're actually not arguing that taxes are too high. You're arguing my property is overvalued compared to the market. That's it. That's your basis of contention. Yeah, if you walk in talking about things like fairness or inflation or government spending, then you've already lost the county assessor's office isn't the place for your best rant on how fiat currency is garbage or something like that. Now you might not even have to physically walk in anywhere today. Sometimes you can get your appeal rewarded informally. Other times you go before what's called a Board of Equalization in most places and in person, hearings have become less common. Video calls have become quite a bit more common since the pandemic, but you want to review your property details with them. You want to be sure to point out if there's incorrect square footage or the wrong lot size, or missing depreciation, or condition issues or upgrades that are overstated and even small errors can swing your value by 10s of 1000s of dollars and then, and it's whether this is with rental property or with your own home build your comparables Like an investor, not a homeowner, because this is really where you win or lose. You need three to five strong comparable sales in the same neighborhood, or really close ones that sold recently, ideally within the last six months, and they should be of a similar size and age and condition. And then make adjustments. Inferior comps support a lower value. And we don't just want to cherry pick garbage comps. We want to keep it credible, and then for your best chance of getting your property tax lowered, find your angle, and really this is your leverage point. Most winning appeals hinge on one clear argument, either a condition gap, meaning that your property is worse than the comps are, or it's an argument like market timing, and this is if values have softened since the assessment date, or the income approach for rentals. Therefore it's the value based on noi, not emotion. You could take that track or other external issues like noise or location drawbacks or obsolescence, so only pick one of those four primary arguments here, condition, gap, market timing, the income approach or external issues and document everything. This is really where you separate yourself. You want to show photos and have them dated and be clear and honest. Nothing dramatic there repair estimates or contractor bids, inspection reports, rent rolls or income statements. So you're not telling a story. You're presenting evidence this way, and be sure to package it cleanly. This matters more than you think. Assessors see sloppy appeals all day. So you're going to stand out by being organized and concise, like a one to two page summary and some exhibits, and keeping it professional meaning, no emotional language, so you're making it clean and easy for them to agree with you, and this is the place to be. Calm and not combative. It isn't a debate club. It's the right form to be respectful, stick to facts, not interrupt and not get defensive, because the person across from you, they actually did not set your rate, they didn't set your tax rate, they're evaluating your evidence, and then it's helpful for you to know the likely outcome. You don't need a gigantic win, even a five to 10% reduction, that can mean 1000s saved over your life of owning the property. You want to remember that some jurisdictions are more flexible than others, and if you're denied informally, like just doing it online, then you can often escalate your property a tax appeal to a board review. And this is a long game, not every swing is going to end up in a base hit. Investors have an advantage. If you own rentals, you've really got a stronger argument, because you can use that income based verification like cap rate and noi, you can show actual rent versus market rent, and you can highlight your expenses, and assessors often default to sales comps. So this is how you can shift the frame here. The blunt truth is that when people lose appeals, it's usually because they show up unprepared, or they argue emotionally, or they just don't understand valuation. And so this is one of those rare moments where being methodical is actually better than being smart. 40 to 60% of property tax appeals succeed nationwide, and with professional level prep, you can make that 70 to 80% for a success rate, and the typical result if you win is a 10 to 15% reduction in assessed value. So that can be worth doing. And you know, just like buying your first out of state rental property seems to be the hardest. Making your first property tax appeal seems to be the hardest as well. And there you go a way to reduce your expenses and increase your cash flow. Yes, I am in LA today, West Hollywood, California. Though I do expect to produce some real estate media here. That's not the typical Hollywood type filmmaking that I'm doing, I just happen to be staying in Hollywood, although I do plan to run up to the Hollywood sign and do some fun stuff out at Venice Beach. Later next week, I will be in Las Vegas, and will probably even bring you the show from the Bellagio with a view of the Bellagio fountain. As for this week, let's meet our guest. Keith Weinhold 12:49 This week's guest has an amazingly powerful story. Today. He's quite well known in real estate circles for his high energy in person events, but he came to the United States as a Vietnamese refugee, experienced homelessness early in life, and went on to build a real estate portfolio valued at over $100 million I'm not making light of the fact that he's homeless. Once I started talking about this, he kind of, you know, beat his chest a little bit. He's a high energy, playful guy here, but he's completed more than 1000 real estate projects and transactions through his mentorship program, he's helped 1000s of people build long term Real Estate Wealth with his platform, it's called springboard to wealth, and along the way, he's built a strong audience, with 1.4 million followers on Instagram. Hey, welcome to the show Thatch Nguyen. Thach Nguyen 13:41 I'm honored to be here, my man, I'm honored Keith Weinhold 13:43 to hear, Oh, it's so good to do it Thatch. And before we're done, we'll discuss some actionable tactics. But first, that is just an amazing story to have started from homelessness. I guess I'm most interested to know what you would identify as kind of that turning point from destitution to success. Talk to us about that. Thach Nguyen 14:03 You know, coming from Vietnam, we was a refugee. We left out of the last plane. My dad was a translator for the US Army. Back in the days, military pulled out of South Vietnam during the war, they asked my dad, would you want to leave with us? And so we decided to leave. But of course, my dad, the owner, who actually spoke some bit of English. None of us didn't speak no English. We only had $100 one suitcase for eight of us, gosh, and I was five years old. But if my dad didn't leave, he would have been captured, and then he would have been killed. Because you work for the US government, because it's still, you know, is a communist country, right? And so we left, we came over here, we landed in San Diego, lived in the shelter out there, and then we moved up to Washington State, Seattle, and lived in a shelter there for a few months. And then finally, we lived in a sponsorship house, right, with a guy named Charles Zettler. I graduated from high school in. 88 I went off to fix aviation airplane my two older brother, because they in the aviation business. And then I got a job working for Alaska. But I didn't want to leave to Denver to go work out there, so I decided to stay back. And I went to work at, you know, like, odd job, like at a body shop. I was the dairy manager at a grocery store, like, called Ralph. Was called Safeway, and I was parking car in Chinatown. And I think the pivoting point was, I'm sitting there, and one of my friends says, you know, you would do very well in real estate, yeah, because you have a good energy, you have a good mouthpiece, I think you do well, see, but I didn't hear all that. I heard you get 7% commission checks. Oh, Sign me up. You know what? I think, but I didn't realize quickly, selling real estate, you don't make that kind of money unless you do a lot of volume. I got to real estate. I started doing well in real estate as a agent. But the tipping point, I think, for me, was a mentor named Saul. And Saul said to me, Keith, I know you appreciate this. He said, You can be rich selling real estate for the rest of your life. Yeah, you'll never be wealthy unless you own the real estate, right? And that was the light bulb that came off of me that I need to take the money I make from selling real estate to then Park the money in long term rental. But I didn't quit my real estate. I just bought real estate, rented it, let it ride. And I just kept selling real estate for years. And at the moment I made, the more property I bought. The moment I make, the more property I bought. And then from there, I just start to learn new construction. I start to learn fix and flip. I start to learn about the BRRRR strategy. And then today, you know, we're going to talk more about this. But today, the hot thing is adu and accessory dwelling unit, and that's what I do a lot today is a lot of new construction, a lot of ADUs. Keith Weinhold 16:49 Oh, that's great to hear about your come up. Fetch, yeah, I find it remarkable, too, the amount of people that are in the real estate industry, and they're doing something adjacent to being an investor, which I think is the best place to be. For example, they're a property manager, or they're a mortgage loan officer or the real estate agent, but yet they don't own rental real estate, right? They're so close. How could you not be doing this? Thach Nguyen 17:13 And I say today, because I understand this. Now, if you don't take the active income you make from whatever you do, say, as a real estate agent, then you always trading your time for money for the rest of your life, and you're always on that treadmill and that grind, but you can't get off, because the moment you get off, Keith, you got no income, and you got no passive income either. So you're stuck on this wheel like a hamster that you got to keep running until you old and die. Keith Weinhold 17:40 Well, you know, it's unavoidable to talk about you've got the word mindset on big letters on a hooded sweatshirt that you're wearing right now, so, you know, I think you're touching on it somewhat. But yeah, talk to us more about this mindset and how to break through the barriers. Because most people's connotation with income is merely that they have got to trade their time for dollars. Thach Nguyen 18:01 Of course, you know, mindset is 80% of the result that we want, that we get. Because someone could have a mindset to go, I'm going to be the top real estate agent, and that mindset would drive them to be the top agent for many, many year. But they always trade their time for money so they never get wealthy. I have that mindset because I was selling 100 homes a year in my early 20s. But when Saul said to me, you know one day that when you get into your 40s and your 50s, do you want to keep trading time for money, or do you want to trade your money for time? And see, that's a mindset shift. And of course, who want to be in their 50 Keith with a gun in their head, always trading time for money. And so when I heard that, it shifted the mindset to, you know what, I'm going to make money selling real estate because I need that money, then I'm going to take that money and park it into a rental. So when I get into my 40s and my 50s, I have the option to work or not work, and that was a mindset shift. So owning rental property is a mindset more than a strategy. Keith Weinhold 19:08 I and I think a lot of us, came up with the mindset that, oh, you get wealthy by obtaining a high salary, and then no later, you learn you don't get wealthy through high salaries, especially if wealth equals freedom, you get wealthy through owning assets. So Thatch after you know your homelessness, and you're new to the United States, and you've come up like you described, and you realize that real estate is the way in doing it with a relative amount of passivity, rather than actively being in it as a realtor, you sort of get this roadmap for retiring with rental properties, even from starting at zero like you did. So tell us more about that roadmap to retire with rental properties. Thach Nguyen 19:47 You know, when I started, I had this roadmap where you got to learn what you need to learn about real estate investing, what why do you want to own it? What's the benefit? What would it do for you? At the end of the day, and a lot of that is goals and vision and mindset. For me when I got clear Keith on the knowledge, because I start off with knowledge. And of course, I want to own real estate. But here's the thing I always want to say to people, nobody want to own real estate. Just to own real estate, right? They want to own real estate. So what it would actually do for you. And so for me, I think when I was younger, I was counting the doors, but now I got older and wiser, I count the hours I get to have back. So the mindset for me is that when I got clear what I wanted to do was I wanted, you know, the option of working at work, that I also wanted to retire my mom, my dad, right? And then I also wanted to actually help my kids learn how to do this one day, so that they have the same mindset. So those are the reason I in want to invest in real estate. Of course, have an asset, have a net worth, come along with a secondary so once I understand the knowledge of why I'm doing it, I got this clear vision. I got this horizon. Now I'm inspired to actually go out there and take action. Now the action is, what do I want to buy for me? I started with single family. I started with buying ugly houses and rehabbing and keeping it, and then worked my way into multifamily and apartment building, all doing value add today. So those are my action, right? So I'm inspired. I take the action, I make money doing what I'm doing. But then I asked myself, How many property do I need? But it's not even how many property I need. How much passive income do I need to get out of the rat race? I have the option of working at work. For me, when I was like, 21 years old, I said to myself, I have $30,000 a month in passive income, and I'm debt free. I mean, who couldn't live off 360,000 of you debt free, right? Yeah. So I had to go to go after so many doors based on what the rent is, to accumulate it and then to pay them down so I can be out of the rat race as soon as possible. And once I did that, then I started playing the game accumulation again. So today I have a whole set of properties paid off. That's why I have over 100,000 a month in passive income. But I also got a whole bunch of property paid off yet, which I don't care, because this ought to get paid up by itself anyway. But now I'm playing this game where I'm gonna accumulate more property or trade up at the same time pay down other property I want to pay off, so that when I get into my 60, my 70, a lot of it paid off, and I still got other property. I don't know. I don't mind accumulating, because I love to play the game of real estate. So this is the road map that I you know, that my mentor saw. He's a very wealthy Jewish man that taught me. And today I'm just taking that lived it my own life now I'm just sharing it back to other people Keith Weinhold 22:42 that you said so many interesting things there. I think the most is how you talked about your metric is more outcome based. I think we all think through how many doors we have, and you know, even how much passive income that translates into, but you talked about how many hours you're able to win back way that you can quantify that. Thach Nguyen 23:05 If I ask someone, I go, Hey, how much does it cost you to live personally every month? And most American will probably say, 10,15, 20,000, Max. And I said to them, what have you had that much in passive income? How would you feel? And 99.9% of it were like, my god, that will be amazing. But the problem we all go to the seminar, we see people on stage. They got 100 doors, 200 door. They got 1000 doors. And nobody needs that much to get out of the rat race, right? So I say the most American is, look how much it costs you to live. Look at the lifestyle you live. You have that in passive income, and if you choose to keep working in active income, it's just a cherry on top of the cake. Keith Weinhold 23:47 Yeah, there are so many ways to do it. We talk here about being financially free rather than debt free, and sort of letting leverage and inflation in tenants work to our benefit. But you've got this separate way of doing it. You're listening to get rich education. We're talking with real estate, personality, Thatch Nguyen, more when we come back, including some actionable tactics. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, Keith Weinhold 24:09 let me throw out a simple idea, sometimes doing nothing with your money is actually a decision. Leaving it parked might feel safe, but over time, purchasing power changes. So the conversation isn't about chasing returns, it's about intentionally placing money somewhere. Freedom, family investments works in real estate people use every day. Housing, senior communities, essential properties, things tied to living and not trends. Their freedom notes offering is built for accredited investors looking for structured income backed by real assets, not speculation. I am an investor with them myself. The Freedom team makes themselves available to walk through their approach, structure and operating philosophy so you can ask questions and determine. Alignment before moving forward, while past performance doesn't guarantee future results, their historical operating philosophy has yielded 100% investor payouts backed by over 20 years of experience. If you want clarity before making any moves, book a clarity call@freedomfamilyinvestments.com or text family to 66 866, text the word family to 66 866. Keith Weinhold 25:31 Flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio through a 721, exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture. It's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now Mom and Pop landlords can 721 the residential real estate request your initial valuation, see if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash GRE, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/gre, Caeli Ridge 26:09 this is Ridge lending group's president, Shaylee ridge. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and remember, don't quit your Daydream. You Keith, welcome Keith Weinhold 26:27 back to get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold we're talking with Thatch win real estate personality, and you know Thatch, on the way up, you've really employed a lot of methods. You're knowledgeable about House hacking and burrs and small multifamily in ADUs. ADUs is something that we haven't talked about here very much. And for those that don't know what that is, we're talking about an accessory dwelling unit, right? Typically, a secondary housing unit on the same lot as a primary residence. You can sort of think of it like a backyard cottage in a lot of cases. So tell us Thatch, what got you into ADUs, Thach Nguyen 27:03 well, Seattle, about five years ago, was one of the first city and state to adapt this Adu, because the biggest problem we have across America is affordable housing, yeah, and a shortage of housing, let alone a shortage of affordable housing. So Seattle came up with, Hey, we will let you. Got built an accessory dwelling unit in the backyard, maximum 800 square feet, but you have to live in the front house to build the back house. Okay? People got excited. They built it so they can rent it in the back. They live in the front house. But then that didn't really solve as much affordable housing for you to buy. It helped with rental. And then about a year, you and a half later, they came over stage shoe to go, you know what? We're gonna allow up to 1000 square feet of adu. But you don't have to live in the front to build the back. Now, people got excited. Investors go, Oh my God, let me go buy a property. Let me go build something. Rent both of these out, right? And then if they want, they could sell the whole entire piece, you know, with somebody, and that was great, but it still wasn't enough. And then about a year you'd have, later, they came up with stage three. They go, You know what? We want to help create more housing for you to buy. So now what we're going to deal with, we're going to actually give people separate APN tax number for the house in the front and the adu in the back, so you can sell off any one of the and by doing that, they value the house as a single family, and they value the back as a single family, so they can comp it like a house, not as a duplex. And that blew the lid off. I mean, in Seattle, that was a game changer. I mean, like builders started coming in, they're buying property. They they building and they selling these. They're making a killer on it. And then show you how much crazy it is. Okay in Seattle, if you buy the house in the front, you gotta get the land the back freak, because it came with the house. We could build 1000 square foot all in it cost us about $400,000 but with a separate parcel number, they comp it as a regular house. So regular houses right about 1000 square feet, they sell for about $700,000 so you build for four is worth seven, and you can actually design it in four months. Get permit, because they have a special line for adu. And then you can build this. You can actually have it all done in one year. So you instantly create massive equity in one deal. But here's a beautiful part of it. In Seattle's expensive city, it's hard to get the 1% rule. You know the 1% rule with, you know 1% of what you pay for a property, a $200,000 house, you get $2,000 for rent with Seattle, a $700,000 house, you get 4000 but the Adu, it only cost us 400,000 but it's worth 700 but my mortgage is based on 400,000 I can write it for four grand, and I meet the 1% rule Now Keith Weinhold 29:52 a way to recent rent to value ratio, right? Thach Nguyen 29:56 So now Adu, they are all. All across America, because two years ago, all the city planners and all the people for other state they came to Seattle for a private, hush, hush meeting to ask Seattle How you guys doing this, and so they can go and copy. So in the last two year, Adu has spread across America like wildfire. Keith Weinhold 30:19 This is great. Tell us more. And of course, it's going to depend on a lot of factors, but tell us more about that cash on cash return that you're getting after stabilization with an adu. Thach Nguyen 30:29 Yeah, it's beautiful. So when you have a property that's worth 700 and it only costs you 400 it has so much equity, the bank will finance 100% of the construction cost, so you don't have to come up with no money. Great. So then if you finance 100% which is 400 right, 400,000 the mortgage only three grand, and you ran for four in Seattle with making positive cash flow with zero down payment. So that's infinite return on your money. Keith Weinhold 30:56 Yes, that's a really beautiful thing to get the infinite return when you don't have any equity left in That's right? Thach Nguyen 31:03 And the thing is, people can do that across America now, but most city right now on stage two, they don't have the APN. But right now, a lot of city right now are on the verge of going from two to three. Right now, I've been going out there buying home that you could actually Burr, make the house in the front. Work make a cash flow. Have the backyard sitting there, and then you can build it anytime. You can build it now, just for the cash flow. Or you can build it when you get the separate APN. So you can get two separate parso You can sell one, keep one. But bottom line is, if I was anybody out there, I'll be buying property. Now, make it work like you would already be buying, but just make sure you get a backyard so you have access to the back. Keith Weinhold 31:46 Okay? So in some situations, using the burr strategy on the primary residence with an adu, burrs, buy, renovate, rent, refinance and repeat, beautiful. Thach Nguyen 31:55 That's what I call the atomic bomb, the burr. Add the adu to the back. Boom. But I'm gonna give your audience something that they can even look forward to. Seattle in November of 2025 this went into stage four. Now in stage four, single family in the front, if the lot's big enough, you can put instead of one, you can put 234, or five property in the back, if the lot's big enough. Keith Weinhold 32:23 Yeah, this is great. I mean, it solves the problem of affordable housing, and it increases the density in a lot of these metro areas. Yes, right, Thatch, it sounds like Seattle's having a good deal of success with the ADUs. How is that when you extrapolate it out nationally, and are there regulatory bottlenecks out there. Thach Nguyen 32:40 The only bottleneck right now is most people right now are in state two, where they can't separate it. So if they buy a burr, they can add the house in the back. They just have to be able to comp it where there's a house and another house in the back. So what they do is they look at two different type of comp. They look at, what does it duplex sell for in the area? They could use that as a comp. Or if this is a 2000 square foot home, and you got another 800 square foot, what's a 2800 square foot home is going for? Because they can be added this to the main house, so they can create the ARV. Does that make sense? Yeah. And the only challenge, challenging is that a city that's new, they have to use comp like duplexes and square foot. It to come up with the ARV. Keith Weinhold 33:23 That's really good. Okay, so Seattle's had these four phases of ADUs, if you will. And then what's next for ADUs? Thach Nguyen 33:30 I think what's gonna happen after phase four is that all these single family one day will all go to multifamily. It's already in multifamily. You got a single family in the front. You can build three in a back. They're all three single family. But technically it's multi unit, right? It's called multi unit, but it's still on single family zoning, because, you know, the bulk of the real estate where I still have land, or the residential, because most commercial, you and I know, they built out on all the land on the lot, so the biggest portion left is the single family. So this is why I've been doing the adu. And I think in the future, Phase Five could be those single family that whole area might get up zoned to multifamily, more density. Keith Weinhold 34:11 Yeah, upzoning, that term for allowing more dense housing term really originated because you're building up vertically, although that doesn't have to be the case every time. And yes, I mean, this is really a great way to solve the affordable housing crunch in the United States. I've seen other cities where single family zoning only was allowed now allows for duplexes. That's a common way to upzone as well and fetch you really often talk about creating affordable housing, like we're discussing here, while you're building wealth. Can you speak to us more about that? You kind of get a give back that way? Thach Nguyen 34:46 Yeah. This is a mindset thing. There's a mindset that says, right? And some people believe it. Some people don't. I love what Zig Ziglar said, Right? Zig. Zig says, If you help enough people get what they want, you eventually get what you want. Yeah. And so. If you go out, then you make enough difference to the world. Take a look at Bill Gates. One day, he probably saying, You know what, I'm going to figure out how to make a computer to actually help your life better, faster, more efficient. And his goal was to do it worldwide. So he solved that problem, and in return, he has massive financial freedom. So for me, real estate isn't just real estate. Real estate what it would do for me as an outcome, real estate also give me an emotional contribution, which is, if I make a difference out there, creating more housing right, to make it more affordable, to make it most of people gonna buy it. What does it do? For me? It will actually fulfill the hierarchy of life, which is contribution. Because once you have money, the only thing that fulfill human being beyond money is life fulfillment. Keith Weinhold 35:48 That's right. I mean, hey, it's a little brash, but in the business world, really no one cares about you until they know how much you can help them. Thach Nguyen 35:56 You got it, brother, you got it right. That's why do you think so many wealthy people do thing in nonprofit world, because at some point it was all about them at the beginning. Now it's about basically giving back. So imagine, on your way going to success, you do both, you make a difference and you benefit also. And it's a more fulfilling journey than a journey just push, push, push and grinding and not taking care of you in the process. Keith Weinhold 36:23 Well, if that's your events, they give you this mentorship platform. And I think you've actually pointed to how mentorship accelerates your own real estate success, even though you're trying to help others first. Thach Nguyen 36:34 Yeah, you know for me, I always knew that the more you learn, the more you earn. And so what? 1995 I met my first mentor, Saul and then I met my other mentor, Mike ferry. And if I'm there, I met Wayne Dyer, who became one of my great mentor, Tony Robbins, Deepak, Chopra, Abraham Hicks, I mean, all these great people, right, that I got exposed to. And today I still have multiple different mentor from fitness mentor, spiritual mentor, business mentor, you know, financial mentor, and they I have regular meeting with these folks, because I want to constantly, always feel I'm growing mentally, emotionally and financially, physically, and I know that the more I learn, the more I can actually make a difference to other people coming behind me Keith Weinhold 37:21 even Michael Jordan had his own team of coaches. Yeah, you see, that's why, that's how we all get better with that, you've really helped so many people with your mentorship, your contribution to the industry. Let our audience know how they can learn more about you. Thach Nguyen 37:36 Yeah, if you gotta go to my Instagram, it's Thatch Nguyen this my name, and you go to YouTube, I drop YouTube every single week. It's my name. Also that's when. And you can find me there. You can find me on Instagram, tik, Tok, Facebook, everywhere. That's where I inspire and empower people all over the world about real estate and mindset. Keith Weinhold 37:54 If that's before, I ask you if you have any last thoughts as you look him up, it's spelled T, H, A, C, H N, G, u, y, e n, fetch. Let us know if you have any closing thoughts. Thach Nguyen 38:04 Yeah, this has been on my mind lately a lot. If you want to be successful at anything, you got to get single minded focus. And I remember when I was in Tony Robbins training, we used to do fire walk a lot. And when you are doing fire walk, you have to get single minded focus. And the only thing that you will focus on is perfect health, perfect health, perfect health. As you walk in across five feet, six feet, seven feet, and you have to really stay focused on perfect health, perfect health, perfect health, perfect health. And if you don't, and I've seen what, people lost their concentration and they burn their feet halfway through. But I also see people so powerful where they can walk halfway stop, bend down, pick up a coal and keep walking. Don't burn because they really focus on single minded focus. So I want to say to everybody, make sure you clear on where you want to buy, what you want to buy, and then once you know where you want to buy, what you want to buy, get focused on your main job is to figure out how to find deals every day, because that's your main job. If you can find deal, you solve all of your personal problem. Keith Weinhold 39:15 I am so with you on the focus of concentration, because diversification is a word that we're fed, and there's something to be said for that. But if you want greatness in anything, you really need to double down and focus. It's sort of like Andrew Carnegie said, put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket. Yeah. Well, that's when this has been great. It's been good to have you here on the show. Thach Nguyen 39:35 I appreciate everybody we talk to y'all soon. Peace out. Keith Weinhold 39:44 Yeah, good energy from Thatch Nguyen. He's based in Seattle. When you don't live in an investor advantage area, you have to get creative or scrappy, and he's doing it well, using ADUs and a lot of value add if you're merely investing. Investing on the side, well, then you're probably better off with a turnkey type investment, something that's not quite so hands on, but if you're devoted full time to real estate, then you really have some ideas there that you might want to pick up on. He wore a sweatshirt that says mindset on it during our chat. I like that. I mean, real estate investing isn't all about mindset, but that's surely where it begins for the production team here at GRE that's our sound engineer, bedroom Jampa, who has edited every single episode since 2014 QC and show notes, Brenda Almedares, video lead, brendawali strategy, talimagal, video editor, seroza, KC, and producer me, we'll run it back next week for you. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 4 40:50 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold 41:18 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building get richeducation.com

Keith challenges the belief that all debt is bad and reframes it as a tool for building wealth when used intentionally. He contrasts destructive consumer debt with productive investment debt, especially in real estate, and explains how inflation, long-term fixed-rate loans, and rental income can work together to grow net worth. Keith explores the mindset shift from prioritizing safety and being debt-free to pursuing growth through leverage, highlights the opportunity cost of avoiding debt, and offers practical guidelines for using borrowing rationally rather than emotionally. He also shows how modern economies and many wealthy individuals rely on strategic debt, positioning it as a key part of a more intentional, asset-focused version of the American Dream. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/600 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text FAMILY to 66866 Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:00 welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith weinholder, there's bad debt, good debt and great debt. Are you using debt wisely, and are you ensuring that you stay in debt? Because debt is the American dream today, on get rich education milestone episode 600 Corey Coates 0:23 since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard in every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com Keith Weinhold 1:06 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com Speaker 1 1:40 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:56 Welcome to GRE from Kennewick, Washington at Kennebunkport, Maine and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are inside get rich education. Yes, America's favorite slack jawed mammal on a microphone has got his act back on track, for your listening pleasure, since 2014 This is our 600th wealth building week in a row, you've been misled, not maliciously, not even intentionally, but somewhere along the way, a really expensive idea got planted inside your head, and it was once planted inside my head, that debt is bad, just blanketly bad, that the goal is to be debt free, that owing money to somebody else is something to escape as fast as possible. And look, I get it, if your mindset is in the old middle class consumer credit world like mine was for much of my life, debt feels heavy, it feels like risk, it feels like obligation, but the people telling you to avoid debt, they're the same people that never built much wealth now a reliance on 22% APR, credit card debt just To pay basic living expenses, because it's the only way that you could do it, merely making the minimum monthly payment that right there is the road to ruin. Why? Well, because the interest rate is high, because you have to pay it back yourself, and because it's unsecured, meaning that there's no collateral, and at the same time, the people quietly getting rich, what are they doing? They're using debt every single day. So debt is not the enemy, it's just the tool, and like any tool, it can build a house, or it can smash your thumb if you miss the nail. Well today we're going to separate the two, because if you understand this one concept, then you stop playing defense financially and start going on offense. In fact, I'll go further. Debt isn't the opposite of the American Dream used correctly. Debt is the American dream. Now, my turning point was really fueled when I made my first ever home, that $295,000 blue four Plex Building Two decades ago, with just my three and a half percent down payment. That meant that 96 and a half percent was borrowed. That's debt, and that fueled everything for me, and got the ball rolling on using that seminal four Plex to leverage even more debt and more property with 1031 exchanges and cash out refinances debt made that American dream free. Me because I could not have afforded $295,000 all cash back then. Now, a guest that we had on the show last year and the owner of a commercial lending company, Hannah Hannan, she recently talked about the virtues of debt. I met Hannah because we were both faculty members on last year's real estate guys Investor Summit at sea cruise. Well, Hannah went on a different cruise and saw in Jamaica that there were all these vacant and uncompleted houses just sort of weirdly stuck at different stages of construction. She asked the tour guide, why are these houses all abandoned? And and the tour guide answered, we don't have loans here in Jamaica. People have to work make money and then start the build, and then the build pauses while they make more money, and then they have to construct the next phase of the build as they go and go back to making more money like that. I mean, sheesh, that's awful. Can you imagine if you had to build a home or a rental property for yourself that way? Well, back here in the US, access to debt is what allows people to build wealth faster, especially in real estate, you can use other people's money control large assets, pay less in taxes and compound off a much smaller amount of capital. That's the difference. Debt availability is really good in the US compared to other nations, and that's the emphasis on the American part of today's episode. Debt is the American dream. Now, when it comes to the big misunderstanding, most people think that debt is really just one thing. They just lump it all like it's all bad, credit cards, car loans, student loans, mortgages. A lot of people, they really do. They just still throw it all into one mental bucket that's sort of labeled da, avoid that at all costs. I'm telling you, no way you cannot do that. I mean, this is like saying food is bad because candy exists. No, there's junk food and there's fuel. It's the same with debt. Consumer debt is a wealth killer. Investment debt is a wealth creator, and if you don't know the difference well, you end up avoiding the very thing that could move your life forward. Here's another way to think about it, debt doesn't make you poor. Using debt poorly makes you poor. Keith Weinhold 7:36 In real estate, inflation is quietly paying your mortgage, even if you never made a principal payment at all. When you really understand this, it almost sounds too good to be true. Most people think inflation is just rising prices, and it is that, but they miss the other side of the equation. Inflation also shrinks debt, something I've been talking about for more than 10 years here. If you have a 30 year fixed rate mortgage, you're paying back that loan with future dollars that are worth less, and meanwhile, rents tend to rise, wages tend to rise, and asset values tend to rise, but your mortgage, it stays fixed. Inflation can't touch it, and that means that over time, your payment gets easier and easier to make. Oh, and then if you've got a tenant in place as well, oh, they're the one sending in the check for everything. And inflation is not just happening to you. It's now working for you. If you've got, say, a $500,000 mortgage loan, and inflation is 3% well, then inflation enriched you by $15,000 every single year. That's $1,250 a month just on this 500k mortgage loan. And if you've got an investment property rented out. You've even got the tenant paying down, oh, maybe $400 in monthly principal for you on the property, plus this $1,250 in inflation profiting, plus $100 of cash flow. This is $1,750 in monthly benefit before we've even added in your tax benefits and the appreciation potential. What made this all happen debt is what made it all a reality for you. When we talk about why the middle class fears debt, yeah, there is a mindset divide here. On one side, it simply says, get out of debt, stay out of debt and avoid risk. On the other we ask, How can I use that to acquire assets? So it's really like the first group is focused on safety and the second group is focused on growth, and after a while you have to ask bigger X. Potential questions like, do you want to live a life of safety, or do you want to live a life of growth? Now, I'm not knocking discipline, but there is a hidden cost to avoiding debt entirely. It's called opportunity cost. When you pay all cash, oh, well, then you lose leverage, you lose scalability, you lose tax advantages, and you often lose time. Hey, just like I would have by postponing my first four Plex purchase for, say, five plus years until I could have saved up all that money by myself. That's why playing it safe is often the riskiest move, because while you're sitting on the sidelines, inflation and rising prices are still in the game, and you've taken yourself out of the game. When we talk about the American dream, look, America was built on debt leverage. Keith Weinhold 11:01 Zoom out for a second. This isn't just about you and me. America itself was built on debt. Railroads were financed with borrowed money that helped Cornelius Vanderbilt build his railroad empire in the 1800s in the 1900s highways were funded through government debt. Today, our entire suburbs are built on mortgages. Leverage didn't break the system. It built the system. So it's kind of ironic that today people are told the safest move is to avoid the very mechanism that built this modern economy that you and I are living inside every day. Debt is how things get done. Now, practically, yes, debt can absolutely wreck you if it's used poorly. So we think about some simple guardrails then favor fixed rate debt over variable match long term debt with long term assets, and you want to chiefly borrow for cash flowing or appreciating assets, and also stress test your deals assume that things won't go perfectly. So this certainly is not about being reckless. It's about being intentional. Debt should serve you, not the other way around. And now notice how I said to chiefly use debt for cash flowing or appreciating assets. I didn't say solely because you'll remember how last year, I talked to you about how I bought a new car for myself and financed as much as I was allowed, almost 100% debt. I had to make, like, a two or 3k down payment on the car because it was a special order. And once they start, you know, building it and customizing it for me, well, then they're at risk if they don't have a deposit, all right? Well, I found a way to make this car debt pretty good debt. Oh, and you might be thinking, oh, yeah, of course. Well, if you use it for business, you probably get some deductions that way. Oh, no, no. Business use totally a personal car, almost leveraged to the hilt, but it's not bad debt, and I'll tell you why. By the way, this isn't some high end exotic car. It's a BMW x3 SUV. It was like 53 or 55k and now how could I possibly call this good debt? Nope, I'm not running it out to other people or anything like that, because here, unlike income property, where a tenant pays it down, I do have to make these car payments myself. Well, in a word, the reason I did it this way is for the arbitrage. I got a fixed 3.99% interest rate for five years. Call it 4% Oh, I am almost certainly going to beat that by investing those dollars in real estate. So the 55k almost that I did not have to allocate to a car. Oh, well, that amount is enough for a down payment and closing costs on a cash flowing rental. That's probably going to pay me five ways with a total ROI that I expect to be multiples above the 4% interest rate, but the car's value depreciates. What about that debt on a depreciating asset? A car depreciates at the same rate whether it's bought all cash or all debt. It doesn't matter. Here is the better question, why tie up that much in a depreciating asset? 55k if I had paid all cash which I could have, I would have foregone returns and paid opportunity cost. Now, arbitraging car debt this way. That's not great debt. I don't put it in that category like real estate that pays for itself is and that is mostly because no tenant services. My personal car debt. For me, this car debt is just good debt, not great debt. Now how about some more guardrails? How can you keep yourself from going nuts and just trying to arbitrage everything. How would you know if you've gone too far? I mean, any person that's savvy with personal finance has to ask themselves a question, and that is always, what is the risk associated with this investment, or what is the risk associated with this debt, right? Because I already talked about the upsides of car debt this way. Well, the first risk is that I don't successfully arbitrage it. Rather than having the 55k sunk into the car, I have it invested elsewhere than say, it doesn't achieve a greater than 4% return. Well, the risk of that happening is small, maybe about a 10% chance. What's another big risk of leveraging car debt this way? Well, it's if you cannot make the monthly payment, which for me is about $1,050 a month, 1050 that's a comfortable payment. For me, if you can't make the payment that's called, you got yourself into an over leveraged condition. But for me, these risks are manageable. And this is applied thinking. This is clear eyed thinking, rational decision making, a level headed approach, a long term approach. It's common sense investing. Have a strategy and then invest your plan, not your emotions. Look paying off debt. That's often an emotional response, like when the debt is at a low interest rate and yes, understanding that debt is the American dream. Okay, this is still a pretty unconventional understanding, for sure, but it is pragmatism over emotions. When emotions go up, intelligence goes down. You can see that in a lot of places in your life. I can too. I think that a lot of the emotion happened to us when we were really young, perhaps age 12. And maybe you're saying, Oh, well, grandpa, he would not have arranged his finances this way. Grandpa wouldn't have leveraged all this real estate debt, and he sure wouldn't have thought that arbitraging car debt is savvy, but your grandpa was born before 1971 back when the dollar was still gold, backed if you're older now, your grandpa might have even been affected by living through the 1930s Great Depression. Our world does not work that way. Today, the dollar is no longer tethered to gold. It's just borrowed and lent into existence, and another Great Depression that's actually really unlikely. In the 1930s President Herbert Hoover refused to provide government support to prop up the economy, and sheesh today, any crisis is like immediately propped up by us printing a ton of dollars and then giving them out, just like covid stimulus checks and mortgage loan forbearance and all of that debt, debt, debt. Now I don't think that all of that is good, but you got to acknowledge that that's the world we live in today. If you're debt averse, because grandpa always said to stay out of debt, well then you know what you can take solace. Take comfort in the fact that today, ultimately, grandpa would have understood that the world changed, and he would want what is best for you. Keith Weinhold 19:03 I'm get rich education. Host Keith Weinhold, this week, we're talking about why debt is the American dream on episode 600 with guidance that's practical, contrarian investor first and non emotional. Contrarian does not mean reckless. And by the way, just because something is mainstream, well, that doesn't necessarily make it bad, but in this case with debt, it often does. Here we're kind of back onto the old Mark Twain quote. Go out on a limb, that's where the fruit is. This is independent thinking for real world investors. It's where theory meets what actually works, and I'll discuss some specific actionable guidance for you before we're done today. But this is largely about ignoring the masses and following a clear incentive path. And what do the masses do? Now they kind of all gel together and get pumped up when they follow these debt free call in radio shows where the host advises the caller to always desperately retire debt at all costs. They'll even tell you work a second and a third job. You got to postpone vacations. They'll tell you to defer your life and go into lifestyle debt. Then in order to desperately stay out of financial debt, we're never going to get that time back. So just chill, take it easy with a lot of debt types inflation and sometimes tenants both passively pay it back for you. I mean, on these debt free call in radio shows, almost every time they give guidance, I kind of chuckle when I listen to this stuff. I sort of quietly ask myself, how would that path ever build wealth like when people are advised to retire 3% mortgage debt? Why dreadful sounding guidance like this happens is because it keeps irresponsible people from going over a cliff. That's all it serves to do. I mean, you're here listening to me because you're good with money, or you desire to be good with money and not give all your money away to creditors used intelligently. Debt isn't reckless. It's a tool, and it's one that lets you scale without trading every hour of your life for dollars. It seems to me that some of the groups of people that need to hear the debt is the American Dream message. They tend to be in a few groups. I need to be careful here, but I'm talking about groups like people with less financial education, engineers and women. It doesn't mean that people with less financial education are any less intelligent. And then when it comes to the engineering profession, you know that type of person tends to be unusually conservative, and I've worked for engineering firms in the past, so I wouldn't know this is somewhat of a paradox. Since engineers are the calculating types, you would think that they would have leverage and arbitrage figured out, and then women are a group that they tend to be more debt averse than most, and this is not a knock on women at all. In fact, women generally do a lot of things better than men do. I mean, I could go on and on there, like emotional intelligence and social awareness and relationship building and even multitasking and sticking to a plan, but I know couples where the husband does understand that it does not make a lick of financial sense to pay off the home, but he did it because the wife wants it so badly she deems that as security. But yeah, there was a time in my life where I thought that being millions of dollars in debt. Oh, that just sounded awful, like I thought that after graduating from college, but Oh, position well, with leverage in real estate, after a long time, you might get yourself where you're increasing your debt half a million bucks every year, but right alongside it, you're increasing your asset value 1 million bucks every year. Well, right there, since net worth is assets minus debt, you're increasing your net worth by a half million bucks a year because you have a big amount to leverage, because you've been a real estate investor for a long time. For example, debt made that American dream possible. But, yeah, the needling engineer type that's conventional and is like still the guy faithfully contributing to their 401 k which is locked up until their age, 59 and a half and keeps paying down debt. You know, they're the ones showing up to their engineering job in a pair of Dockers pants. I'm telling you, people that wear Dockers are not good debtors. I mean, do they still make stupid Dockers? I've got to look that up. Do those pants have pleats at the front or not? I don't even know. Speaker 2 24:16 Levi's 100% cotton Dockers. If you're not wearing Dockers, you're just wearing pants. Keith Weinhold 24:21 Oh jeez. And yeah, they still do make Dockers. I mean, the stereotypical needling engineer that dutifully contributes to a 401, K, he's got to have a complete dresser drawer full of stupid Dockers, no doubt. Keith Weinhold 24:37 Hey, I can make a little fun of them, because I spent a lot of time in that world. I think it makes sense to contribute to a 401 K, by the way, but only up to the employer match amount. That way it's tax advantaged, and you're using other people's money one to one, but above that, oh, every dollar you lock inside a 401 k is $1 that can No. Longer leverage other people's money. That means no debt, no leverage, and a steep opportunity cost. Now to get a holistic picture here, we need to think through what are some reasons to pay down debt, or to pay off debt and completely retire it? Because there are some good reasons for doing that. I talked about credit cards earlier, student loan debt is also not good debt, because you must pay that debt, not somebody else, like a tenant, and now their interest rates are not as high as credit cards, but there's also no collateral with student loans. Maybe you could arbitrage it, like I did with my car, but student loan debt can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Like most other debt types, can you also want to pay off debt when an interest rate is working against you and not for you. Also, if you want to buy more property, but you need to lower your DTI in order to qualify with your mortgage loan underwriter that is lower your debt to income ratio before you take out another mortgage. Oh, well, that would be a reason, for example, to pay off a car loan. Another reason to pay off debt is if you're approaching retirement and you expect a decrease in your income, then you would want to revisit that here at GRE you might be structuring things to increase your income once you retire. That's its own discussion. They are some of the reasons to pay off debt. It makes sense sometimes, and with all those reasons, we've kept emotions out of it. But otherwise, yeah, bring on the good debt. Debt and loan are my two favorite four letter words the wealthiest people have the most debt. I've discussed that reality before on previous episodes, and I gave a lot of examples, like with Mark Zuckerberg and also with Jay Z and Beyonce, so I won't go into all that again. So therefore, let me discuss how, not only do the wealthiest people have the most debt, I mean, for example, I'm wealthier than I've ever been, and I simultaneously have the most debt that I've ever had. Not surprisingly, the wealthiest world nations have the most debt too. Let's look at it from the perspective of household debt as a percent of GDP. There are about 200 world nations, and sure enough, the US ranks pretty high 13th in this measure of household debt, the top 10 nations, counting them down from 10 to one is and look, they're all wealthy nations that have the most debt, Sweden, Denmark, Hong Kong, Norway, South Korea. Up to fifth is New Zealand. And then you've got the Netherlands at fourth, and then Canada, Australia, and number one is the nation that you probably think of as the most wealthy and stable in the entire world. It is Switzerland. They are number one in household debt per GDP, and then the poorest of the 200 world nations have the least debt and the highest interest rates and the least stable currencies. But see, the wealthy nations can borrow the most. These countries can borrow trillions because investors trust them. Their economies are productive and they can service the payments just like you see, say that I know you've got $5 million in debt. Just say that's true. All right. Well, now that's an interesting thing that I know about you, and now I can automatically deduce something else about you. I know that you must be pretty credit worthy for anyone to have even extended you that much credit. So a high debt level is a mark of creditworthiness. The richest people have the most debt and the richest nations have the most debt too. Debt is a contract with time. Here's the deeper idea, debt lets you pull future resources into today. It's financial time travel. But there is a catch. You need to deploy that capital into something that grows faster than the cost of borrowing. If you do that, you win. If you don't, then you just brought future problems into the present debt is time travel, and most people just waste the trip. That's why debt has a bad name. Debt Free surely is not the goal. But you know, even hitting a certain net worth or income mark is not an end goal. Their financial goal. But not the end. The end goal is genuinely living the best version of you. And in fact, let's listen to this together for a minute or two from the parallel truth. Are you really living? It's a little oversimplified, but this is quite a bit more substantive than civil engineers wearing Levi's 100% cotton Dockers. Don't be startled by the sound effects. Speaker 3 30:23 If you really think working 50 years at a job you hate just to get a few years of so called Freedom makes sense, then I'm sorry to say, you have been brainwashed. This is not living. It's a trap. From the moment you're born, the system starts programming you. School doesn't teach you to think. It teaches you to obey, to sit still, follow orders and wait for permission. Then comes work, where your best years, your energy, your creativity, all get drained away to build someone else's dream. And they call that success. Retirement is the prize they dangle in front of you. Work hard now, they say, so one day you can finally rest. But by the time that day comes, your body's worn out, your fire's gone, and all those dreams you once had, they faded into routine. You traded your time for money and then your health to earn it back. And here's the cruel truth, that's not an accident. It's designed that way, a system built to keep you tired, broke and too distracted to notice what's really happening. They want you so busy surviving that you forget to actually live the scam is simple. They steal your youth when it's full of energy, passion and possibility, and then hand you back your freedom when you're too weak to use it. And the worst part, most people defend the very system that's enslaving them. They call it normal life. They laugh at anyone who questions it, because it's easier to believe the lie than to face the truth. But nothing about this is normal. It's just comfortable enough to stop you from revolting. They give you weekends, holidays and Netflix tiny doses of relief so you don't question the cage you live in. You were born to create, to explore, to build your own path, not to clock in and out until the day you die. The world doesn't need more workers. It needs more thinkers, more dreamers, more people brave enough to walk away from the illusion. So ask yourself, are you really living or just slowly dying inside a system that calls itself freedom? Speaker 4 31:59 Yeah. Are you truly living or just existing with GRE plan, you can often retire in five to 10 years. So no debt isn't something to fear. It's something to understand. Because the difference between being stuck financially and moving forward faster than you thought possible, it often comes down to one thing, whether you avoid debt or you learn to use it, the American dream is not about being debt free. It's more about owning assets, leveraging wisely, and then letting time tenants and inflation do some of the heavy lifting for you, all of your life. Debt is the American dream, and I've got more on this for you today, coming up here on the show in future, GRE episodes, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Author Robert Kiyosaki publicly states that he has $1.4 billion in debt, billion with a B, not because he's irresponsible, because he understands leverage and debt often entails a tax advantage with it too. Later this spring, Robert Kiyosaki returns to the show with me here. He's been one of our more recurrent guests over time. Next week, Redfin chief economist, Darrell fairweather, PhD, sits down with me here. Also a lot of other prominent guests lined up, like real estate influencer thatch Wynn will be here with me and lots of other great episodes coming up, including a lot of content that you wouldn't expect to hear that can make a real difference in your life. Be sure to follow or subscribe to the show and also tell a friend about the show today could very well be one of these paradigm shifting episodes that you want to share on social media. More straight ahead you're listening to debt is the American Dream On get rich education. Keith Weinhold 33:50 Let me throw out a simple idea, sometimes doing nothing with your money is actually a decision. Leaving it parked might feel safe, but over time, purchasing power changes. So the conversation isn't about chasing returns. It's about intentionally placing money somewhere. Freedom, family investments works in real estate people use every day housing, senior communities, essential properties, things tied to living and not trends, their freedom notes. Offering is built for accredited investors looking for structured income backed by real assets, not speculation. I am an investor with them myself. The Freedom team makes themselves available to walk through their approach, structure and operating philosophy, so you can ask questions and determine alignment before moving forward, while past performance doesn't guarantee future results, their historical operating philosophy has yielded 100% investor payouts backed by over 20 years of experience. If you want clarity before making any moves, book a clarity call. At freedom familyinvestments.com or text family to 66 866, text the word family to 66 866. Keith Weinhold 35:12 Flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio through a 721 exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture. It's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now Mom and Pop landlords can 721 the residential real estate request your initial valuation, see if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash, slash GRE, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/gre Tom Wheelwright 35:50 This is Rich Dad Advisor Tom wheelwright. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 36:02 You welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold its debt is the American dream on episode 600 now, just before taking the mic, about 30 minutes ago, I ate some raspberries. I looked at the package to see where they were grown Mexico. Someone in Mexico supplied them. There was a supply chain. Those raspberries were planted in rows with trellising grown, and then they need to be hand picked. They're highly perishable, and they need to be shipped a long way fast, therefore, I just simply had the exorbitant privilege of buying those raspberries from a lit refrigerated store shelf with my dollars. Well, effectively, a bank lent me those dollars. Most of my debt is real estate debt, where time, tenants and inflation service my debt for me. I mean, what an amazing world. I'm just here to control those flows, those flows of money between Mexican raspberry growers, for my property managers that manage my tenants and for the banks that provide the loan. I mean, gosh, debt really is the American dream. It made raspberries appear. This is a contrarian way of thinking, but it's calculated. It's unconventional, but it's first principles thinking, rather than emotions from grandpa. You know something I've said it before that. Hey, I'm proud that throughout my life I have never ridden the government dole. Once. Never have I done that. I've never accepted a subsidy, no covid stimulus checks. I've never accepted an unemployment check in my life, even though I could have been eligible one time. I'm proud of that, because otherwise taxpayers would have had to work for me and pay for me. But in a way, since so many of my mortgage loans are subsidized, I am riding the government dole to get 30 year mortgage money at a 7% interest rate, that's also tax deductible, so therefore maybe I'm paying 5% I mean, that's a really good deal, and the government backing makes banks want to provide lucrative loans to us, just like the FHA program that I personally began with on a fourplex, and Just like these first 10 Fannie, Mae, Freddie Mac backed investor loans that you can get for one to four unit properties. So although it's indirect, it's really like a government handout that we're getting. And what can we do when we can do our part in giving back by doing good in the world and providing good housing, not being slumlords. That's the path that we're on here and the future, it's always going to feel uncertain. Always, I'm encouraging you. You've got to plant the tree, you've got to take the leap. You've got to choose to believe that there is something worth building toward optimism is not about ignoring what's broken in the world. It's about deciding anyway to keep on going, and you're probably doing a lot right, working hard, earning, well, a little saving, but more investing. There's a problem that very few people talk about, labor income is taxed heavily, asset income is treated better, and then 401, K income, well, that doesn't even start arriving until you're about 60 or 70. And really, this is why a lot of high performing. Professionals eventually hit a wall. They make more money, but they don't feel much freer. The people who break out usually do one thing differently. They stop relying on one income source, and they start building income producing assets, and that's where I come in, you already know how to do things like budget and save. We all learned that quite a long time ago, and we've all heard the usual advice about maxing out your 41k waiting for years and just sort of hoping, and that might build a nest egg like that usually does turn into something, and it's better than nothing. It usually won't build outsized returns or freedom, though, and surely not while you're young enough to fully enjoy it. So get rich education is about a different path, building durable wealth through income, property, financial education and smarter leverage, certainly not day trading, certainly not get rich quick, just a proven framework for escaping overdependence on a paycheck, a generationally proven vehicle here and here you get the mindset and tactics to make generationally proven real estate a life changing investment because most people are Climbing the wrong mountain. A lot of smart professionals spend 30 years trying to save their way to freedom, but wealth usually grows faster when you own assets that produce income appreciate over time, offer tax advantages and can be financed with long term debt. That's how you get a lot of them. That is the difference between working hard and building leverage. So you can't out earn a broken wealth strategy. Keith Weinhold 41:47 Most people earn income, but few people own income. You own the source of the income when you have rental property. A lot of smart professionals really learn that too late, Your salary alone doesn't even have the ability to make you wealthy, since wealth is freedom. So we use an abundance mentality to invest in assets that are scarce. Most people use a scarcity mentality, leading with loss aversion, to invest in something that's abundant and plentiful. So there is always opportunity out there in a market as big and as broad as the US residential real estate market. Where is that opportunity today? Well, I'll tell you that list prices rose 2% year over year to a median of 423k that's in the four week period that just ended according to Redfin. But notice I said that was the list price buyers haggled them down to about 389k that's really significant. It's really proof that sellers are willing to bend in today's markets. So therefore in most markets, I'm encouraging you to make an offer that's below the list price, as we know, available for sale property that is still scarce in a lot of the Northeast and Midwest, and supply is abundant in Texas and Florida. But here's the thing, although Florida inventory is higher now than it was pre pandemic over that six or seven year stretch, here's the new trend, and it's worthwhile to identify inflection points like this on a year over year basis. So looking at only the past one year, Florida inventory is now down 4% it's no longer going up. So it's possible that we've reached the peak of this new Florida supply. We could have hit the turning point now, and yet, builders are still buying down your mortgage rate to about 4% giving you that long term fixed rate on new builds. So I'm telling you, that's where the opportunity is now. As far as the rent side, nationally, I don't see rents going up significantly anytime soon, and that's for most everything, single family rentals all the way up to huge apartment buildings. Rent increases in the single family to fourplex space, they showed some real promise last spring, a year ago, but as we got into summer, they didn't really materialize. Now, although you get rent increases historically, it's never wise to buy and just assume that that is automatic. But I want to underscore the fact that you really should not count on a rent increase over the next year. So that's new builds. Keith Weinhold 44:53 The other area ripe for opportunity. Here is burrs, buy, renovate, rent. Finance and repeat properties and among GRE listeners, burrs have been our most popular investment over the past two years. Yeah, Memphis, Little Rock, Birmingham and Kansas City, they are our hottest and most reliable burr markets, and we've really improved our burr operations since first helping you with those found the secret sauce, as far as helping you get the right provider that doesn't leave you hanging on the renovation, burrs are also good for you if you have fewer investment resources than what new build properties require. GRE coaching calls and our coaching program are completely free to help you with this now. Of course, our investment coaches listen to all the GRE episodes like you. They're aligned, and we have family guys that work here, like our investment coach Naresh. He has a wife and kids, and he's just the type of person that you want to see succeed in life and that you would enjoy working with over time. And we are all investors ourselves here, every one of us, so it doesn't hurt to set up a 30 minute consultation call to see if our GRE coaching program is right for you, some good, abundantly minded council for free. Our investment coaches have access to the best deals in real time. That alone is worth a connection. We're in constant communication with the top national providers in the best markets. So there might be an incentive today, like, say, a builder rate by down to 4% that didn't exist just two days ago or yesterday. So this is why investors are succeeding. They're also succeeding thanks to our recent Florida online live event. Connect with us to watch the replay and get in on these deals yourself. In fact, we have never seen so many incentives and price reductions in GRE history as we are right now. And see, here's the thing, when it comes to you making an offer below the list price, because our coaches work with other GRE listeners, they're going to know how low that seller is really going to go for you on that price. So that negotiation is some key information that you can learn. We have access to more than 200 deals nationwide, so contact our real estate investment coaches to get access and these burr properties can give you a super high ROI, because sometimes you can end up with as little as 10k or 20k of equity invested in an income producing single family rental. That's probably going to be 20k or more. And then with some of these developers that overbuilt in places like Florida, make that offer use good debt and take advantage of that interest rate in the fours. Buy low. And the reason that these new build deals provide positive income is because you buy at a lower purchase price overall, and you get a fixed rate in the fours, and you get a low property insurance rate, since they are new build properties, you don't need urgency right now so much as you need clarity, because there are opportunities, real ones, whether it's burrs in the Midwest or builder incentives in places like Florida, where you can Get those 4% rates. But the challenge isn't finding opportunity, it's knowing which one is right for you, and that's exactly what we help you do. And since our coaches are active investors themselves, they follow the same markets and the same providers and the same strategies that we talk about here on the show. So instead of guessing or going back and forth in emails, just get clear book, a quick call. It's free, it's 30 minutes, and it could save you months or years of going in the wrong direction. You can do that@greinvestmentcoach.com that's greinvestmentcoach.com the best thing you can do next is get aligned with the right opportunity. I'll chat with you in a week. I'm Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 3 49:35 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively the. Speaker 4 50:03 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com

Hear how real estate investors can transition out of active landlording while staying invested in the asset class. Keith speaks with Ari Rubin, founder of Flock Homes, about using a 721 Exchange to move from directly owned rental properties into a professionally managed partnership structure. They discuss why exit planning is essential, how this strategy can defer taxes, reduce hands-on management, and provide diversified, passive income and appreciation potential for long-time landlords and portfolio builders alike. Resources: To see whether a 721 Exchange could work for your rentals, request a free property evaluation at flockhomes.com/gre Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/598 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text 1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 Welcome to GRE I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, when it's time for you to sell your rental property, there's a vehicle you may not have heard of that allows you to exchange it into a partnership. This makes it hands off for you. Defers your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture, while you still can enjoy appreciation and cash flow. It's the exit strategy that helps you retire from landlording, known as the 721 exchange today on get rich education, Corey Coates 0:34 since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast, sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com Keith Weinhold 1:17 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally, while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com, that's Ridge lending group.com, Speaker 1 1:51 you're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 2:07 Welcome to GRE I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the voice of real estate investing since 2014 today's show should help a lot of people as you grow your real estate portfolio over time. You add to it and you multiply it. You do that by using more of your own money and more of other people's money and more of your equity from one property to buy another property. But we've all got to begin with the end in mind, today's show is about your exit strategy, how to sell your property, whether it's selling all of them or some of them, and you're doing that in both a tax efficient way and a management efficient way, because it's about how to exchange them into a partnership. Still get financial upside for appreciation and cash flow, but yet you achieve about as much passivity as what you would have with a Schwab or say, Vanguard mutual fund. Now, back when GRE began, over 11 years ago, we wouldn't have done a show like this because most new listeners were in acquisition mode learning about the GRE way, and that might still be true, but today, we've got both new listeners and longtime listeners that have engaged with GRE investment coaches and learned from listening to each weekly episode, and have built their portfolios and have turned get rich education into got rich education. Congratulations. A lot of you have now achieved financial freedom, and you're looking for an eventual exit. Now, even if you own dozens of rental properties like I do, you don't feel much management strain most of the time, because also, like I do, you outsource to property managers, but some of you self manage, and you can then achieve real relief when you exit before we bring in our expert guest and discuss The 721 exchange. Hey, you've seen me write about the Iran war in our newsletter, and you've seen me discussing it on YouTube. The short story is that war is really expensive, war is inflationary, and war in Iran could very well be setting us up for another inflationary wave like we had from 2021 to 2023 I'm probably going to talk more about it next week, if the war is still ongoing, and what it means to real estate investors. Also a lot of great episodes coming up here at GRE including the show debut. Two of Redfin chief economist Darrell fairweather PhD, who will be here with us soon as for this week, let's learn about an efficient real estate exit strategy. Keith Weinhold 5:17 This week's guest is someone that is going to help a lot of you, so I've really anticipated having him on educated at Harvard and Stanford. He went on to become a somewhat conventional investment manager, until he was motivated by his parents experience as Chicago landlords to launch another venture in 2021 which you'll learn about today. Welcome to GRE Ari Rubin Ari Rubin 5:42 Keith, thank you so much for having me on the show today, and to all your listeners out there. It's great to meet all of you, and thanks for listening in today. Keith Weinhold 5:49 Yeah, Rubin is spelled r, u, B, I N, yeah, I understand you've heard from some of our listeners Speaker 2 5:55 exactly, I actually heard about your podcast and your show from a number of our clients will go more into the problem that we're solving and the types of landlords that we work with, but some of them have been listening you to you for a long time. Some of them got motivated to get into real estate because of your show. So yeah, really excited to be here chatting with you today. Keith Weinhold 6:17 Well, thanks so much. Basically, what you do is you help people retire from landlording, but not real estate. We'll get more into that later. But a lot of times when investors have been in the direct real estate investing game for a while, they begin to feel like they've got their dollars trapped in this real estate game. And it can be easy to argue there's no other place you'd rather have it, but tell us more about that trapped feeling with managing rental properties. Speaker 2 6:45 Yeah, So Keith, maybe just to start out, I want to just talk about the problem that we're solving at flock. So as everyone knows, and there's a lot of resources out there, real estate is a great place, a great way to build wealth, and it's a lot of work, and it takes a lot of effort and a lot of skill and a lot of time, but we find that not enough folks think about, once you get in, how do you exit? And just for those on the show who are listening, who aren't even in real estate yet, or maybe they're just a couple of years into real estate, you always want to think about your exit, and at a certain point, once you've owned real estate for five years, 10 years, 30 years, at some point in your life, you're going to want to exit, and that's because, at the end of the day, managing and owning Real Estate takes work. You can hire a property manager, but you still have to manage even the best property manager doesn't really solve all the problems of being a landlord. For example, if you have an eviction, you still have to pay for that. If you have a massive capital improvement, roofs to replace, HVACs to do, you're still on the hook for that. Ultimately, you're liable when you own real estate, right? You could be sued. You have a feeling, and you should be responsible for your residence and for the homes. So at the end of the day, at a certain point, every single person in this world will get to the point where they're like, I'm done owning real estate. I want to retire. I want true peace of mind. But the problem with that is, when you're ready to exit, you got to sell. That's really the only way out. Maybe you're fortunate enough to have some kids who want to take over the business or the properties, but you know, if you're like a lot of clients that we work with, your kids, maybe they're on to bigger and better things. They've moved across the country. Or, you know, this generation doesn't fix things like the last one did, right? And so unless you have kids who are really, really ready to step up and be super hands on, you don't have an exit and selling, of course, triggers a huge tax liability. So when you sell real estate, you not only have to maybe kick out your tenants and stage the house and pay all the frictions and all the fees, the biggest thing is you have to pay capital gains and depreciation or capture taxes. And we'll come back into what all that means and all how that looks like. So in summary, when you sell real estate and you've owned for a long time, you could be faced with losing upwards of 30% of your equity, which is a lot of money. That's a big chunk of your nest egg, of your net worth. You also you love real estate, you've done really, really well with real estate. So at flock, we've built the retirement solution for landlords, and we'll go more into how this all works, but essentially, we help people with the most cost efficient, seamless exit strategy by exchanging their equity for shares. In our larger fund. So that's just very quickly, the problem that we're solving and some of the clients, the problem that we work with Keith Weinhold 10:08 this is important. I'm a longtime real estate investor. I have not self managed in many years, but I basically asset manage my managers oftentimes reading their monthly statements, replying to emails about various things, but yeah, there is some day in which I probably wish to not have to do that anymore, and indeed, selling it all would incur a steep capital gains tax. Now what I've done is I've done cash out refinances and 1031 exchanges along the way to continue to defer any tax obligation that I have. But of course, when I do a 1031, exchange, I grow my portfolio, and there's more to manage, Speaker 2 10:50 exactly. So you know, you just laid out two excellent options out there for ways to sort of consolidate, or, you could say, even better, leverage your equity in real estate. You can do a cash out refi, and that's of course, where you pull cash out of the properties so you're more liquid, or you buy more real estate, or you can do something called a 1031 exchange. And Keith, I'm sure a lot of your listeners out there know what a 1031 exchange is, but just for everyone listening in in or in case folks are less familiar, a 1031 exchange is essentially a real estate loophole. It used to apply to artwork and airplanes and a lot of other stuff. Now it's just real estate, and it's a part of the tax code that says you can sell your real estate, and if you follow this process within a certain timeframe, and then use what's called a Qualified Intermediary, you can roll those proceeds forward and buy new real estate and defer that tax liability into the future. Now the benefit to that is you just achieve tax deferral, but as you said, you still own real estate, and so for a lot of younger investors out there, a 1031 exchange is a really effective way to continue to grow their portfolio, or be more thoughtful about their approach. But for longer time real estate investors, a 1031 exchange doesn't really solve your problem. You still own real estate, you're still liable for tenants, for toilets, for trash, right? And so if you're trying to really retire from being a landlord, a 1031 exchange doesn't really do that. And of course, a cash out refi, all that does is just take on more debt and more risk and more liability. Great option if you're young and you're still trying to grow when we hear from a lot of clients, maybe not the best option in the second half of your life as you're really trying to focus on wealth preservation. Keith Weinhold 12:51 Yes, a lot of our listeners are indeed familiar with the 1031, tax deferred exchange. You're typically trading up and deferring your tax on the way. And that trading up, it really just gets you even more into real estate investing, because with almost every 1031 exchange, you're going to own more doors than when you began the process. However, a lot of people aren't as familiar with the 721 exchange. Why are people less familiar with it? Ari Speaker 2 13:21 great question, Keith, and you're right, less people are familiar with it. So in plain English, the 721 exchange, it's also part of the tax code. It's not a real estate loophole. It actually applies to equities or many other asset classes. And in plain English, what it says is, Keith, you own, let's say a million dollars worth of assets you can exchange. You can contribute those assets into a partnership and receive back a million dollars worth of shares or units of the partnership. And in doing so, it's a tax deferred exchange. There are some nuances that you have to be mindful of, just like in a 1031 exchange in terms of boots and cash out refis, but as a general rule, it's a lot more flexible and a lot more seamless than a 1031 exchange. And so again, Keith, you sell, you exchange, you contribute your properties into a fund or into a partnership using the 721 exchange. You now own shares of that partnership. You get all the returns and cash flow and ongoing tax benefits from owning shares in the partnership. To your question, why do less people know about the 721 exchange? It's very common in large commercial real estate, big real estate investment trusts have been using the 721 exchange for decades. The problem with it is it's really complicated to do. So these transactions are quite laborious. There's lots of paperwork. Historically, you would need an army of lawyers and accountants and tax professionals just to consummate one of these things. Surely, if you had a $500 million apartment building or office complex, you would be familiar with this. But until now, no one had really built this for the little guy. And I'm putting that in quotes, right? Because, you know, if you own 10 single family rental homes, 50 single family rental homes, even one single family rental home, you could have hundreds of 1000s of dollars, millions of dollars of equity. You're not such a little guy or gal, right? But these are the moms and pops who own the vast majority of real estate in this country. And so our idea at floc was to go out and, for lack of a better term, democratize access, to give access to this really powerful wealth preservation tool, the 721 exchange, a mechanism that's been used by ultra high net worth families and big institutional investors and big Wall Street firms for decades, and really enable it to the masses out there, To the millions and millions of hardworking Americans who have built up these properties, these portfolios, for decades. Keith Weinhold 16:27 I've got to say I had heard of the 721 exchange quite a long time ago, but it wasn't until last year that I became more familiar with it, and more familiar with what you do, and realizing that this could help an awful lot of people. You're listening to get rich education. We're talking with flock homes founder, Ari Rubin, about the 721 exchange, how it works and how it might be able to help you more when we come back, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, Keith Weinhold 16:53 let me throw out a simple idea, sometimes doing nothing with your money is actually a decision. Leaving it parked. Might feel safe, but over time, purchasing power changes. So the conversation isn't about chasing returns, it's about intentionally placing money somewhere. Freedom. Family investments works in real estate people use every day, housing, senior communities, essential properties, things tied to living and not trends. Their freedom notes offering is built for accredited investors looking for structured income backed by real assets, not speculation. I am an investor with them myself. The Freedom team makes themselves available to walk through their approach, structure and operating philosophy so you can ask questions and determine alignment before moving forward, while past performance doesn't guarantee future results, their historical operating philosophy has yielded 100% investor payouts backed by over 20 years of experience. If you want clarity before making any moves. Book, a clarity call at Freedom family investments.com or text family to 66 866, text the word family to 66866 Keith Weinhold 18:15 flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem, property or your whole portfolio, through a 721 exchange, deferring your capital gains, tax and depreciation recapture. It's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now Mom and Pop landlords can 721 the residential real estate request your initial valuation. See if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash GRE. That's f, l, O, C, K, homes.com/g R, E. Todd Drowlette 18:54 This is the star of the A and E show the real estate commission. Todd rollette. Listen to get rich education with my friend, Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. Welcome Keith Weinhold 19:04 back to get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, here on episode 598 we're talking with flock homes founder, Ari Rubin, where they help real estate investors retire from landlording, but not so much real estate with a 721, exchange is something that can be used for retiring landlords along with active landlords if they're just looking to offload one or two properties to exchange into this partnership that we've been talking about. And Ari on your website. It was interesting. I watched the video of you and a woman where you somewhat had to convince the woman to start this fund that did not have any properties in it yet, which is really interesting. And before we're done, we'll talk about. How many properties you have in the portfolio and how many investors you have, but this is something that an investor can exchange their properties into, and yet they still receive the financial upside of both cash flow and appreciation. So tell us more about that Speaker 2 20:16 exactly. So I'll just quickly explain how it all works. And I do want to also touch on our first client ever, our first landlord ever. Surely, everyone has their story of how they got started in real estate. But you know, for us, at the end of the day, it's a people business. You know, our clients are the millions and millions of mom and pop landlords out there. Shirley was a single mom, Navy vet physician, had this home that she used to live in. She knew she should be building wealth through real estate, so she held on to the property. It was the middle of covid. She had a long term tenant. The tenant moved out, and she didn't know what to do, and she got mailers every single day on, you know, oh, we'll buy ugly houses and we'll buy this thing, but she didn't want to sell because she knew she didn't want to sell. She wasn't a distressed seller, right? And when she sold, of course, she would be triggering taxes, and she knew real estate was a great asset class to be in, and she didn't want to give up all of that upside. So Shirley was our first client, and she still is with us today, very near and dear to our hearts. And yeah, you should check out the video online. It's an amazing story, and we have many, many stories like that, of families that we've worked with. So Keith, to your question of how it all works, exactly. So Keith or Shirley or Mom and Pop will sell their property. They'll exchange their property for the equivalent value of shares in our fund. So let's say it's a $300,000 house and there's no mortgage on it. We do take properties with a little bit of debt, but let's just say, for easy numbers, you sell the property and you now have $300,000 worth of shares in our fund. So first and foremost, you're no longer responsible or liable for the property. You don't own it anymore. You don't manage it anymore. The tenants, of course, the residents get to stay in the home. It is now one rental property of the many inside of our portfolio that the flock team manages. We collect the rent, we do all the renovations, we hold back for expenses, right? And you are now a fully passive shareholder in this larger partnership. So what does that mean for you? First and foremost, you did not trigger taxes on day one. You get to defer those taxes, just like you would in a 1031, exchange. And of course, you can hold on to it, pass it on to your heirs, who still get the step up in basis. Great. In addition to that, what does this mean that you own shares in this real estate? Well, you're going to get all the returns from the real estate just like you would with your own real estate. So what are the two things that drive returns? The first thing is your paper gains, right? Your equity appreciation. The market goes up in value. Our properties go up in value. You receive appreciation to your equity, to your account. By the way, sometimes markets go down in value. Real Estate doesn't just go up, right? And of course, as that happens as well, your equity account will go down as well. But we believe that over the long term, and if you look back at historical kind of performance of the real estate market, we really believe in single family as an asset class. So that's the first thing that drives your returns. It's the appreciation of the properties. And then, of course, the second thing is the net income. It's the rents that we collect from the properties, less the expenses, property tax, insurance, right, maintenance, vacancy, reserves, all of the regular expenses that you have. We also have, as a large institutional real estate owner, and so those two things together, one, the appreciation, as well as two, the net income drive your total returns from the flock vehicle. You could take cash flow from your investment just like you would from your real estate. We pay that out quarterly. It's never been late. We've been operating since 2021 you know, we have a lot of clients who leave their cash flow in to reinvest it and kind of increase their basis. We have a lot of clients who live on their cash flow like they would Social Security or a pension or something like that, just like they did in their real estate portfolio. Keith Weinhold 24:44 Now, people sometimes get sentimental about their own home, less sentimental about the rental properties, but if you have any attachment to it, effectively, when you exchange it into this fund, you're still helping get some return from your own. Own properties that you contributed into the fund there, but you're going to be more diversified effectively nationally with the real estate market then Speaker 2 25:08 exactly. And Keith, you bring up a really great point, which is a lot of our clients and a lot of real estate investors, they're sentimental about their real estate investments, like these are houses that they used to live in, or they built, or they've had the same residents in place for 515, 25, years. I mean, we've literally seen people who have had the same residents in place for a very, very long time, and they have that sentimental attachment. And our clients see one of the benefits to joining flock is they're joining together with other like minded owners to leverage the benefits of scale. They still own that house, but they own it with a bunch of other you know, we now have 1100 homes. We'll soon hit 1500 homes, right? They have some connection to that house, but they're much larger, which means better margins. They're much more diversified. So if, God forbid, something happens that one individual property, their risk is spread out. And of course, you know, they're more passive. They're no longer liable, so on and so forth. So a lot of people really like flock because of that sort of sentimental attachment they have to their real estate. By the way, we also have a lot of people who bought their turnkey providers, or they're just, you know, a business guy or a business gal, and they don't care at all, and they're just like, I don't even know the addresses on these things. Just take this and move on. So we've met and interacted with lots of different types of landlords over the years, Keith Weinhold 26:43 I'm a turnkey real estate investor. I have not seen most of my properties in person, so there's certainly no sentimental attachment to them. But let's talk more about how it practically works and feels for that investor that say they want to sell three rental, single family homes that total $1 million in value, whether that's their entire portfolio or those three properties are just part of it, would flack do an inspection and then handle the renovations and make an offer Ari Rubin 27:12 exactly so before I walk you through the process, I want to also just lay out what our incentives Are. We're very different than most real estate buyers. We're not trying to flip houses. We're not a flipper. That's not our business model. That's not how we make money. Our goal is not to buy your houses. You know, in the example, you said three houses worth about a million dollars. Our goal is not to buy them for 900 and flip them and make a quick buck, right? Our goal is to solve this problem for you, to bring you into flock as a client, to of course, then provide you with good financial returns, which means providing the resident with good service, bringing the home up to our standards, hardening the asset and making sure it's a great place to live, and it performs as underwritten. And so what all that means is upfront, we'll give you an initial valuation based on public data, other proprietary data that we have. We'll ask you a couple of questions about the house, and then before we close, we do inspect the property, and after the inspection, our final valuation will either go down in value, if not everything was represented, as you said, or it'll go up in value after inspection, our goal is 50% of the time to increase the value. Okay, which in real estate is kind of a weird concept, because which buyer wants to pay more money? Well, our goal is not to buy low from you, it's to create a fair system for all the clients that have put their properties into flock, right? So we'll then come up with a final valuation. Let's just say, like in your example, a million dollars for those three properties. We then sign what's called a contribution agreement. And by the way, during that period, you're doing due diligence on us. You're getting to know our team. You know people are entrusting us with a lot of money, their real estate, that they've worked, that they know. They know these residents, they know the every corner of that house. So we need to due diligence your real estate, you need to due diligence us, our team, our processes, our systems, our track record, the types of homes that we own. We'll show you every home that we own. We'll walk you through our financials. We get audit. We use a third party fund administrator. We get audited by KPMG every year to make sure our valuations, we use best in class service providers. You'll go through all this information. We do the same. That process typically takes about three to six weeks, and then you come to a decision, Hey, I like flock. I want to move forward. We come to a decision. We like that home. We want to bring it into our fund. It meets our threshold. It's going to be a good investment for all of our investors, all of our clients, in flock. And then we would move forward together that whole process about four to six weeks, and then closing takes about 15 days or so. Keith Weinhold 30:17 Okay, yeah, it's really important that you offer that renovation and that you take care of that there, I was relieved when I found that out, because really, that's the problem that you're looking to solve to get landlords out of that entire process. And they sure don't want to have to manage another wave of that during their exchange into the fund, and yeah, they want it to be hands off and mostly passive, and therefore have their homes in their flock fund be just about as passive as managing a mutual fund would Ari Rubin 30:47 be exactly. And that's how we want our clients to think about it. You know, we've seen some folks try to do the renovations on their own. You can do it. We never recommend it, and oftentimes it's more work and more hassle than it's really worth another big thing is, if there's a resident in place, number one for you, kicking out a resident is not a nice thing to do. It's also a drag on your financials. That's several months of no income, right? That you could be earning income, whether it's through flock or elsewhere, and you have expenses, you have insurance, your property taxes during that period. So yeah, we'll take on the whole renovation if required. It's worth adding, by the way, we don't take every property we walk away from, way more properties than we accept. Yeah, you have the buy box. We have a Buy Box, which I'll tell you guys more about. But in addition to having a Buy Box, if a property requires extensive foundation issues or extensive renovations. That's beyond our scope, really, if there's a lot of uncertainty in it, we don't want to be subjecting all of our existing clients to that risk. You know, our view is we never compromise on price, on quality, on risk, and so we don't touch, you know, really messy, really hairy stuff, but we aren't afraid of, you know, rolling up our sleeves, and we'll typically do renovations up to 30% of the value of the home. So we do do a lot of value add work. Some of that is on day one. If it's health and safety and the resident needs certain things, we'll do that on day one. Other things are more value add once the resident decides to leave at some point in the future. Keith Weinhold 32:23 Well, I'm so glad you brought up earlier about taking care of the tenant, because one of our core missions here at GRE is to do good in the world, provide housing that's clean, safe, affordable and functional. So when it comes to the ongoing property management, I imagine that plays into your Buy Box, where you're only going to have property managers in so many markets, exactly. Speaker 2 32:45 So we're in about 20 markets around the country. It's kind of a combination of higher yielding markets. These are more like Midwestern markets, Ohio, Michigan, where Memphis, where Baton Rouge. We're also in what I would call more like growth markets, certain markets in Texas where you see really strong net migration right yields are a little bit lower there Denver is similarly as a market where you see a little bit lower yields, but still really positive job growth and economic tailwinds to those markets. We're in about 20 markets. We're open to opening new markets if there's a right kind of partnership and a right strategic portfolio or acquisition or client there. But yeah, we don't take every home, you know. We don't do short term rentals. We really just focus on our bread and butter. What we know how to do, which is one to four unit long term rental properties. Keith Weinhold 33:39 Well, tell us more about that Buy Box. Ari Rubin 33:43 So typically, again, we're in about 20 markets or so, also looking to expand. We take single family homes, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes. We'll look at some condos, but as you know, some HOAs are a little bit too restrictive, and so we just try to stay away from that uncertainty, and then we have a certain yield profile and sort of price range that we're looking to hit. So in every market that differs, in Denver, we wouldn't take over. I think it's a $650,000 home, because once you start getting into the higher which in Denver is actually the median home price is a lot higher in Denver than the national average. Right? In other markets, our average price point, we're in Raleigh and around Raleigh, our average price point in Raleigh is much lower than that. So I'd say on average, our average price point per unit or per door is about $220,000 but yeah, one to four units, we unfortunately don't take pools. Yeah, we don't take properties with pools because of some insurance risks, although we have worked with some owners to bury pools, and it needs to be in a market, just lastly, where we can price it. So if it's a, you know, we're in Denver. That was where we started the business. That's where our headquarters is. You know, if there's a property an hour and two. 20 minutes outside of Denver, kind of in the middle of nowhere on four acres with it's just hard to price that. And so even if we can operate it, we need to make sure we can price it both upfront and then on an ongoing basis. So that's a little bit more about our Buy Box. But if you want to learn more, if you have a larger portfolio, of course, reach out to us. Well, you probably mentioned this, Keith, but it's flatcombs.com/gre, and we'll take a look at your property or your portfolio. Keith Weinhold 35:29 This can help you retire from landlording, but not real estate. Make it completely hands off for you, but still get financial upside in the form of cash flow and appreciation while getting that tax deferral. And you can effectively make this tax free if these shares are inherited by your heirs with that step up in basis. And you can avoid the capital gains tax, which is typically 15 to 20% depending on your income. And if you have a high income, there's a net investment income tax of 3.8% on top of that, you also had the depreciation recapture to repay if you just sell your property out on the open market, but a 721 exchange prevents you from having to pay for any of that. So you're really solving a terrific problem for people here, Ari and just a great exit strategy for those that want to retire from real estate investing or maybe just sell a smaller portion some problem properties. You have any last thoughts overall about the 721 exchange and how you're helping people with their exit strategy? Ari Rubin 36:36 Ari, this is like the best kept secret in real estate at the 721 exchange, we're now expanding it to multifamily. Eventually, we want to be doing this for every real estate asset class. I've heard of folks doing this for self storage. One day, we want to do this for gas stations, for small hotels. And really do this across all real estate asset classes. We think the one to four unit space is the most exciting, by far, the largest opportunity, and also the biggest opportunity to really create value for communities and for residents, which is something we're really, really passionate about. And so yeah, I would love to hear from you all. And Keith, thanks again for having me on today. This has been a great show, and I'm a big fan of your listeners and everything you guys are doing here. Keith Weinhold 37:21 Any savvy investor has to begin with, the end in mind, Ari had a convenient landing page put up to welcome a GRE, listeners again at flockhomes.com/gre this has been valuable, Ari. It's been great having you here. Ari Rubin 37:36 Keith. Thank you so much. You Keith Weinhold 37:44 Oh, this has been really informative from Ari Rubin today on an efficient exit strategy that a lot of real estate investors don't know much about, retiring from landlording and yet not retiring from real estate, you're staying in the game, and yet, what you're doing is trading away active management in order to get passive ownership. And it makes sense that they make it hands off and kind of a turnkey exit experience for you. They're not using that term, but I am. If you're looking to retire, you sure don't want to be the one that has to first jump more hurdles at the end and handle an inspection punch list and coordinate with contractors, so they're helping a lot of people, and they seem to be on a good trajectory for success. You know, really, as you're still building your portfolio while you're still in acquisition mode, it's kind of comforting to know that this is out there is an option. It kind of motivates you to want to build your portfolio more now that you know about other options at the end, even if a 721, exchange, time is decades away for you, I don't know if you caught that, they have 1100 homes in their portfolio. Now, as you see over on that landing page that I mentioned, they even simplify your tax filing. You just receive one consolidated annual tax packet prepared by KPMG. If you think it's interesting to you or you just want to learn more about the 721 exchange or get a free evaluation, you can do that again by starting@flockhomes.com slash GRE that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/g R, E, until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 3 39:39 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold 39:58 The preceding program was brought to you by y

Keith is joined by housing market intelligence authority Rick Sharga—a frequent guest on outlets like CNBC and Bloomberg who "quietly gets it right" rather than chasing clickbait crashes. Together, they dig into whether America really has a housing shortage and how that lines up with what you're seeing in prices and inventory. They explore why entry-level homes are so constrained and what that means for both investors and homebuyers. They also examine how mortgage rates, builder behavior, and demographic shifts could shape housing demand and investment opportunities over the next several years. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/596 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text 1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 Keith, welcome to GRE I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, does America really have a housing shortage? And if so, how long will it last? Those answers and more, with an expert guest and I today on get rich education. Speaker 1 0:19 Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com Keith Weinhold 1:03 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com Speaker 2 1:36 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:46 Welcome to GRE from Nantucket, Massachusetts to Pawtucket, Rhode Island and across 188 nations worldwide. America's favorite shaved mammal on a microphone has got his slack jawed act back on track for another wealth building week with you. I'm Keith Weinhold. This is get rich education. I'm still not wearing a pair of knockers, and I've returned here to bring you more value than your HOA dues. It's kind of crazy that America First put a man on the moon, and we're the first nation to put a man on the moon in 1969 and yet today, we have trouble housing our own people here on Earth. Shortly, we're going deep on does America really have a housing shortage first? Sometimes real estate investors can learn lessons from the stock market about the future direction of housing prices and demand and just simply what assets people have demand for, how AI is disrupting some stock sectors. Has been rather germane lately. One CEO made this perfect example. It's about how two different stocks travel search engine Expedia and Delta Airlines, those two stocks were once closely tied together. Their share prices used to be correlated, but they've gone in separate directions. See, Expedia offers you a service that can be replicated by bots, but delta has actual planes that take you somewhere, and it's hard for AI to replace that. This is why there's been a recent push toward more tangible stocks and tangible assets, a divergence, an attraction to assets that give you a share of either a tangible good, or, in the case of something like an airline, a service that's directly tied to something tangible. And similarly, commodities like gold, silver and copper cannot be replaced by AI. Neither can real estate. There is a growing sense to own things that can't be disrupted, dematerialized and demonetized by AI, like so much software can. In fact, as overall stock market valuations are lofty. You know, some people have become rather wary of an AI speculative bubble that perceptive to this demand. Just a few weeks ago, Goldman Sachs introduced an everything but AI index, yeah, where you can invest in a basket of companies that are sheltered from Ai disruption, this everything but AI index that's attracting investors. In fact, there's another trend that interfaces with real estate that just launched recently too today, you can wager on future homes. Prices through the platform, poly market, yes, place bets for profit or loss on the future direction of the median home price. In fact, one recent college graduate joked, I was born too late to afford a house, and born just in time to gamble on people who can buy a house? Yeah, you're probably familiar with poly market by now. It's the prediction market that lets you speculate on things like elections and Fed rate decisions and various geopolitical events and other real world outcomes. Well, they have launched a set of real estate markets that allow users to bet on future home values. The way it works is that you can wager on future home values in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and Austin, Texas, as well as US national home values. So that's six different markets. Now I haven't gambled on Poly market, I had checked it at times to get an idea of where people really think markets are headed or what's going to happen next. Because, rather than major media, where sometimes as a hype machine, they create headlines that scare you in order to try to get clicks, well, instead of all that, regular people are placing their money on polymarket, and you can look at what that action is like, because that can be a more reliable harbinger of future price direction at last check with a national median home price of about 420k with the numbers, poly market is using one month from now, 66% of people think that home prices will rise. And it's more nuanced than that. You can bet on just what price range you believe home prices will fall into one month from now. And this is nothing that I recommend wagering on, but besides an interesting trend, yeah, you can get that idea of where real people actually believe markets are headed. As we're about to talk to national housing expert Rick sharga on whether or not we really have a housing shortage, we've got new data about the level of housing permits. Of course, housing permits are a gage of the level of future housing inventory, because after a permit is issued, it's typically six to 12 months until a single family home is built. But I'll share that with you near the end of the show, because it makes sense to cover this with you in chronological order. We'll discuss housing supply first, and then I'll tell you about the future supply direction based on housing permits. Now, you know from the inception of this show in 2014 I talked about the why of real estate investing before the how with anything in life, it's only when you truly know why you're doing something that you'll profoundly care about the how and you'll want to do it well. In fact, when I do an in person real estate presentation, one of the modules that I teach most often is simply called Why real estate. The biggest Why is not altruistic, although that matters, and that's part of it. But instead it's that real estate pays five ways. That's the biggest why any GRE devotee knows that the five ways are simultaneously paid, are appreciation, cash flow, ROA tax benefits, and not inflation hedging. But specifically inflation profiting. Yet I have found multi decade real estate investors that don't understand this, the most valuable hour that you can spend is knowing all the ways that you're paid and seeing and believing how your total rate of return of 20% 30% or even 40% is not far fetched or risky, but it's actually common and even estimated conservatively. If you're initiated on this, you already know, but if you aren't, it can sound a little hard to believe what I just said right there, I recently reshot the entire real estate pays five ways video course, and it's the most valuable hour of investing video content that you're likely ever to see. It's premium, masterclass level content. I'm just giving it away for free because people need to know this. And actually, on the newest shoot, I've condensed it down into just 40 minutes of content across the five videos, one instructional video for each of the five ways you're paid. The videos average eight minutes. So that's about 40 minutes total, and they build on. Each other. So at the end of each one, you get to see your cumulative rate of return. It just keeps adding up, and you know exactly where all of the numbers come from. That's why it's more conducive to video form than audio form. I know that many of you have seen it, but if not, it is foundational, and I cannot recommend it enough. It's free and available to you now. At get richeducation.com/course, get that now, while it's on your mind. At get rich education.com/course, more next, I'm Keith Weinhold, this is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 10:39 Flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio, through a 721 exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture, it's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy now Mom and Pop landlords can 721, the residential real estate request your initial valuation, see if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash GRE, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/gre. Keith Weinhold 11:16 You know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program. When you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products, they've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom, family investments.com/gre, or send a text. Now it's 1-937-795-8989 Yep. Text their freedom coach directly. Again, 1-937-795-8989, Kathy Fettke 12:27 this is the real wealth network's Kathy betke, and you are listening to the always valuable get rich education with Keith Weinhold. You Keith Weinhold 12:46 Is America really short millions of homes? If so, that doesn't mean every market is undersupplied, and prices can only go up because of it. If there's a housing shortage, why are prices falling in some cities? So the shortage? Is that something that's real, or is it just misunderstood, and you're gonna learn what it means to you? I'm get rich education's Keith Weinhold along with an intelligence authority today that usually gets it right. In fact, I found an old clip of him on Bloomberg where he suggested home prices bottoming in 2011 and as it turns out, they sure did today, together, we're answering the question, does America really have a housing shortage? And my guest has often appeared in major media, CNBC, Fox NPR. He's the founder of the CJ Patrick company. Hey, welcome back to the show. Rick sharga, Rick Sharga 13:39 good to see you again. Keith, thanks for inviting me. Keith Weinhold 13:41 You know, it's funny. Four years ago, Rick and I found each other, and we sort of checked each other out. I found him to be an authority that just doesn't go on saying this bombastic and absurd stuff just to get attention. Instead, he quietly gets it right, and when he knew I had a real estate YouTube channel, similarly, I resonated, because I'm not one of these people that's constantly saying that housing prices are going to crash just to get views and then those crash. People never follow up when they're wrong, and they've been wrong for about 14 years now. But Rick, rather than prices, we're here to understand if there's really a housing shortage today, most agencies believe we have a shortage. Moody's will tell you 2 million. Zillow, four to 5 million. Congressional Republicans have gone on to say 20 million. I sure don't know about that. And then yet, Rick sometimes at the same time, you do see these conflicting stats, where it says that sellers outnumber buyers today, which sort of flies in the face of a housing shortage. So what is your take amidst all this? Rick Sharga 14:46 Well, Keith, I think what we're seeing is a fairly obvious example that if you torture data enough, you can make it say anything in the right you wanted to say. And there is a lot of confusion about how much. A housing shortage we really do have. It's not like we have 20% of the population unable to find anywhere to live. Most people still prefer to live indoors, and they've been able to do so, but the fact of the matter is that all of the math suggests that we are underserved in terms of the number of housing units available across the country, and we can go through some of the math. The big question, of course, is, how many houses are we short? How many housing units are we short? And the reason the numbers are all over the place, and as you suggested, let's set aside the Republican estimate of 20 million, because there's, there's certainly something political going on there, but the estimates range from around a million to as high as five or 6 million. And the reality is all of those estimates are counting something different. Some are counting housing growth versus population growth. Some are counting vacancy rates compared to historic levels, some are counting inventory available for sale today versus inventory available to sale in prior years. So each of these organizations, and they're all pretty reliable organizations, Moody's is certainly good. Zillow's research team is top notch. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the National Association of Realtors. None of these people are hiring dime store economists. They're all good folks, but they're all measuring something slightly different, which is why these numbers come out all over the place, and the one of the fundamental challenges is trying to figure out housing shortages compared to what, or compared to when. All of these estimates assume that there was some point in history when we had exactly the right number of housing units to suit the needs of the population. So they start with some point in time, and I think if you did enough research, you find they all start at slightly different points in time, and then kind of work their way forward from that and come to very different conclusions, again, based on where they started and where they ended up, and what they count. The one thing I would push back on a little bit from some of your comments in the intro is that I am highly, highly skeptical, extraordinarily skeptical of the reports that talk about how many more sellers we have than buyers, because that makes some wild assumptions about the number of people that are actually interested in buying a house. And I've never seen any research methodology that's really nailed that number accurately. Because nobody knows if you're thinking about buying a house right now, until you go to an open house until you do a search on on Zillow, or realtor.com or homes.com until you actually are applying for a loan or making a deposit. So the notion of being able to mind read three 40 million Americans to figure out how many of them are interested in buying, I think, is a neat trick, but I do think it's at least in part one of those methods that people use to get a lot of clicks to their website Keith Weinhold 18:05 right? This whole thing of and I think when we talk about sellers versus buyers, that's shorthand. What we really mean are, there are some stats out there that show that prospective sellers outnumber prospective buyers, in some cases, which, yeah, I think I agree with you there. I doubt that as well. And yeah, of course, I think you're getting on some of the nuance here. We're trying to predict how some people would behave. For example, how much pent up demand is there when we're talking about sellers versus buyers, and we're talking about a shortage, for example, say, the 28 year old living with their parents that could move out and afford to buy a home if mortgage rates hit 5% like for example, how do you count that? Or, how would you even know to Rick Sharga 18:53 it's a valid point. Keith, and I think that fundamentally, is my question. With that particular report, you really can't count that person. We do have some metrics that we follow, and it's funny, you mentioned that 5% mortgage, because as we record this, mortgages have broken that 6% threshold for the first time in a number of years. And just about every kind of mortgage you could buy right now is below 6% so that's a good thing. And every time we've gotten close to that 6% mark. In recent years, since mortgage rates doubled back in 2022 we've seen a huge influx of people applying for purchase loans, for those mortgage loans to buy a house, those numbers are up somewhere between 13 and 15% year over year right now, and that's before we've really had these mortgage rates dip below 6% so to me, that suggests there really is pent up demand out there, and I judge that just based on what I see in terms of a number of people actively applying for a loan. Keith Weinhold 19:54 Yeah, there's a lot of nuance here. HUD tells us that we have more. Homeless people than we've ever had in this nation. So that's sort of an extreme affordability problem. To your point earlier about how most people want to live indoors, and I'm sure not making light of homelessness. It's a sad situation, but we're always going to have homeless people regardless of whether we have excess housing or a housing shortage. We have about 146 million housing units in the United States. The census shows and suggests that 8 million of those 146 million are housing units where people have doubled up and are sharing space with non relatives. That's one way to think about the level of pent up demand within the shortage, Rick Sharga 20:44 I don't know if that's a result of shortage necessarily, or if that's a result of having the weakest affordability for people looking to buy homes that we've had in over 40 years. The last time affordability was as bad was the 1980s and the reason affordability was bad back then was because mortgage rates were at 1819, 20% and it made it very difficult for people to afford homes. But we're coming out of a very unusual cycle, and this is a little bit off topic from our inventory question, but it's the only time in US history when two conditions have hit the housing market back to back, if you go back to covid, coming out of covid, we saw home prices go up nationally by over 50% in about 18 months. It was a huge, huge, unprecedented increase. Yeah, and right on the heels of that, as inflation started to get out of control, the Federal Reserve had to take pretty extreme measures to get that back down. So they started playing with the Fed funds rate, and we saw mortgage rates double in 2022 in the history of the country, according to Freddie Mac we've never seen mortgage rates double in a calendar year. And in 2022 They not only doubled in a calendar year, they doubled in the space of a few weeks. So we're coming out of a period where home prices went up by over 50% and then mortgage rates doubled, and it just crushed affordability. So the people that have been looking to buy a $400,000 house suddenly realized they could only afford a $200,000 house, and there were none of those around. It's really why home sales have gone down as rapidly as they had volume of sales. In 2021 we sold 6 million existing homes. In 2022 it dropped to 5 million. And for the last three years, we've been sitting at around about 4 million annual sales of existing homes. And again, that doesn't suggest a lack of inventory, a lack of homes, because there are fewer people buying, and there's more properties staying on the market longer. But the underlying numbers, the underlying metrics we would look at, are where we can start to kind of deduce that there aren't enough homes. For example, you mentioned that there are about 146 million housing units across the country. Most recent census data I have from the end of 2024 says it's about 140 748, 40 748 million. So it's up just slightly from your number. That represents a growth of about 6.7% in housing units between 2010 and 2024 during the same period of time, the population went from about 309 million to about 340 1 million, and that represents a growth rate of about 7.4% so if everything else stayed equal, your population grew at a faster rate than your housing units did. And that suggests that even if the number of housing units was ideal back in 2000 it's somewhere less than ideal by the time we got to the end of last year, Keith Weinhold 23:42 we're talking with Rick sharga. He's the founder and owner of the housing market intelligence firm, the CJ Patrick company. We're answering the question, does America really have a housing shortage? We're getting a yes there. And before we're done, we're going to talk about, how long could the shortage persist? But Rick, you spoke to affordability, and I think that has a lot to do with the nuances within the shortage, and that brings up shortages within the luxury tier versus shortages in the entry tier. And the entry tier is really what a lot of our listeners and viewers are interested in, because we're used to buying those as rental properties. So can you tell us about that? Rick Sharga 24:23 It's a great point, Keith. And what we've been talking about so far is kind of a structural shortage in the overall number of housing units that could be purchased, could be owner occupied, could be rented. And one of the culprits there, and I will answer your question, I promise, one of the culprits there is that builders simply haven't built that much. If you look at the long term average, like 2025 years, the average number of housing starts was somewhere between 1.3 and 1.4 million a year coming out of the Great Recession in 2010 so you look at that last 15 year period or so, 12. Of those years, they've started less homes than that long term average. So builders simply haven't been keeping pace, not only with population growth, but also with just the ability to create enough homes in general, to offset the number of homes that are obsoleted every year, that get bulldozed every year. So there is a structural shortage. To your point, if you look at inventory available for sale, we are up about 9% year over year, but we're still down about 15% from where we were prior to the pandemic. So there are fewer homes for sale than there were back when the market was functioning more efficiently. The most drastic shortage is at the entry level builders simply have not been making a lot of entry level properties. There's a reason for that. There's some independent research out there, including some research from Fannie Mae that suggests that the pre construction cost a builder has to absorb before they break ground is over $100,000 across the country, on average, higher than that, where I'm calling you from today, in California, it's about 120,000 there. If your table stakes are 100,000 $120,000 it's really difficult to make a profit on an entry level property. So the builders, I think understandably, have been focusing on higher dollar, higher value properties and not replenishing that supply that we need for first time buyers and the kind of properties that real estate investors tend to like. The other problem we've had, Keith, is that when those mortgage rates doubled, the people who had purchased those entry level homes refinanced into a two and a half 3% mortgage and are now sitting on a $300,000 property, let's say or $250,000 property with a two and a half percent mortgage. And if they wanted to trade up, they'd be trading up to a four or $500,000 house with a 6% mortgage. And they simply can't afford to do that. So the combination of entry level owners staying put at much larger numbers and builders creating new entry level homes at much smaller numbers has really created kind of a crisis of inventory at the entry level segment of the housing market. Keith Weinhold 27:18 Yeah, when we talk about that crisis of inventory in what's available. I'm not talking about shortage numbers now. I'm talking about the active listing count. This means more or less available homes to buy. This includes single family homes and condos. We have an active listing count of around 1 million today. The historic average is around 2.2 million, and that peaked near 4 million during the global financial crisis. So today, only about one quarter as many active listings, available homes as at the peak, Rick Sharga 27:54 yeah, only about half as many as, let's call it a normal market, and that's one of the reasons. I think the first time you and I spoke on your podcast, we were talking about all the online snake oil salesmen who were predicting a home price crash. But that's one of the reasons why home prices haven't crashed, and why they've kind of continued to grow, at least at a modest pace, and in some cases now are starting to decline a little bit. But that lack of inventory on the market. When you don't have enough inventory to meet demand, or just barely enough to meet demand, that means that seller doesn't really have to negotiate all that much. That means that buyers are kind of at a disadvantage, and so as long as that's the case, you'll see home price stability. That doesn't mean that every market is going to see prices go up. But if you look across the country right now, if you look at markets where home prices are down even marginally year over year, you're looking at the Gulf Coast states, you're looking at some other southern markets, Las Vegas, Phoenix, you're looking at some outlying markets like Boise, Florida, certainly, and Texas. And those are markets where inventory is actually considerably higher than it was a year ago, and in some cases, considerably higher than it was back in 2019, if you look at markets where prices are still going up a lot, Midwest, Northeast, those are still markets where there's not enough inventory to meet demand. So that relationship between available inventory for sale and demand is really what drives pricing Keith Weinhold 29:23 this whole discussion, which is really about the supply, just in the economics one on one. Adam Smith of supply versus demand. A lot of people, just like including my dad, when I was telling him about housing, something he doesn't follow. And I told him that prices are up the most in the Northeast and Midwest. That surprised him. He was like, No, well, population growth is lower here and lower than Pennsylvania, where he lives. And that's when I brought up, well, they're under building there. So in parsing this by geography, Rick, I think another way that we can do it is parsing the housing shortage by the single family homes versus apartments, because it's. Pretty well documented that nationally, apartments could be seen as overbuilt, and single family is under built. Do you have any details with respect to that? Rick Sharga 30:08 We talk a little bit about that, and quick shout out to both of our home state, Pennsylvania, yeah, Phil, Philadelphia actually had some of the highest annual price increases right in their home sales last year. But part of that isn't just because they haven't been building a lot in Philadelphia or the suburbs. It's because we see people moving from higher priced markets into lower priced markets. So we have people actually commuting to New York who have bought homes in Philadelphia or the Philadelphia area. They can get much more house for their money there. They're not subject to some of the wage taxes that happen in New York State. They just get on that Amtrak and train into the city every day. So there is some of that going on across the country too, as we still see net migration of people moving out of states like California, New York and Illinois into nearby states where the cost of living is much lower. That slowed down since covid, since a lot of companies have been requiring people to come work back at the office. But it is still happening. It is still happening in generally the same direction you raise the issue of inventory for rental units versus inventory for, let's say, owner occupied properties, we have seen a plateau in the number of single family rental homes. So the stuff you're hearing out of DC, that you're seeing the media about the really important ban on institutional investor buying is really much more sizzle than substance. Oh, right. Institutional investors are owned and are buying a fraction, but we've seen over a million apartment units come online in the last 18 months. It's about the largest number of apartments that have that have sprung up and in that shorter period of time on record. And we've gotten to a point where in some markets, there's actually a little bit of an oversupply of those apartment units now that will balance itself out over the next couple of years, because multifamily building starts are way down too so we're not seeing a lot of activity there as builders hold off, waiting for this new inventory to get absorbed. But to put it in perspective, vacancy rates went from near zero back during covid in those apartments to over 6% last year. Rental rates have gone down from 15% year over year, increases back in 2020, 2021, to negative numbers nationally in the last year, just talking apartments, just apartments. So we have a short term mini glut, if you will, of apartments. It will be absorbed rapidly. We have 92 million people between the ages of 26 and 54 who are have either formed households or are about to a lot of them would like to be homebuyers can't afford today's prices, so they're renting instead. And about 5 million people a year are turning 35 which is when, you know, we parents start literally kicking them out of the house. So I think that rental overage will resolve itself, really, in the next 12 to 18 months. And if the builders don't start building new inventory by that point, we'll wind up with another shortage on the housing front, I'm of the opinion that we're at least a million homes short compared to what demand should be. I think the number is probably somewhere between one and 2 million. And again, I'm doing that simply based on a slight decrease in vacancy rates, population growth and the aging of the population. What could throw all of our numbers off? Keith is one of the X factors in demographics and population, which is immigration. Population growth, if it's organic, if it's by birth, does have an effect on housing, to an extent, but it's it's more nuanced, and it takes longer to really show itself if you're dealing with adult immigrants coming into the country, particularly immigrants who are coming in for jobs and have income that they can spend on housing, your housing demand goes up quickly, and that can have some local market repercussions depending on where the immigrants are going. Keith Weinhold 34:18 In Philadelphia is not a coastal city. Its cost of housing is surprisingly low to a lot of people, but it's not on a coast. Just look at a map. Well, Rick, as we're winding down here, how long could the housing shortage persist overall? Rick Sharga 34:33 I think we're in a period of time right now where builders are reluctant to overbuild. They got caught in the great recession with about a 13 month supply of homes available for sale, and then as home prices crashed, they were competing with their own inventory from the prior year, and many of them took a real beating financially during that period of time. So I don't expect we'll see builders overbuild anytime soon. And that tells me that we're probably looking at at least another three to five years before we can have a rational conversation about housing numbers kind of leveling off to be where they should be. We mentioned immigration. That is an X factor that could extend the housing shortage. If we start to see more immigration coming into the country, it could mean that we don't need as many houses as I suspect, if we have fewer people coming into the country. And the other x factor here is the boomers, the baby boomers of any generational cohort, probably have the highest home ownership rates right now and ultimately will age out of their properties. They've stayed there longer than any prior generation has, and that's also contributed to the inventory shortage, as opposed to the housing shortage. But as a friend of mine said, and it's a little macabre, but as he says, boomers will eventually leave their homes, either vertically or horizontally, so that will bring some inventory back to the market as well Keith Weinhold 35:58 housing supply. It is rather inelastic, and we're probably going to be in this shortage for a number of years. Well, Rick, tell us how and why people consult with you and then just how they can do that. Rick Sharga 36:12 Yeah, I work with mostly companies that are in the real estate or mortgage industries. Keith, I typically prepare a lot of market intelligence reports to them. It's real estate data, economic data, mortgage data. For some clients, I do foreclosure reports. They know what's going on in terms of delinquencies and defaults. For others, I do research on investor purchase activity, what they're buying, what they're selling, what they're paying, where they're doing all this. So anything that's data related to real estate data, mortgage data, economic data, I'm kind of neck deep in and I'm very easy to find on either LinkedIn or x. So if anybody's listening today and wants to connect on those platforms, just reach out and tell me you saw me on the GRE podcast, and I'll know you're legit. Keith Weinhold 36:56 Housing supply is coming up short, but Rick never does. It's been great having you back on the show. Rick Sharga 37:02 We'll do it again soon, Keith, It's great talking to you. Keith Weinhold 37:10 Do we really have a housing shortage? The answer is yes, and the number of units short is one to 2 million. The shortage is worst in the entry level home segment, which matters so much to us as investors, we are owning an asset that's going to have sustainable demand for quite a while into the future. Rick indicated that it could take perhaps three to five years just to get back into balance. Now, we recently learned that there were fewer housing permits issued last year than there were in any year since 2019 and housing permits are an indicator of the future home supply. They had their recent peak five years ago with 1.7 5 million, and last year, there were just about 1.4 million. So home permits issued are 19% lower today than they were back in 2021 this is a harbinger of supply, because from the time that a permit is issued, it takes six to 12 months to complete a single family home. It's about six months to build a tract home, and closer to 12 months for a custom home. For apartments, it can take in excess of 24 months to deliver that period of time from permitting to completion. So nationally, we should continue to see scarce supply in the one to four unit space, keeping upward pressure on prices again for the most valuable 40 minutes of educational real estate investing material around you can access my premium real estate pays five ways, master class of five videos, totally free. And you know how I operate. I don't try to upsell you to some paid course. Either. It's just truly free. I'll send it to you. You can access it at get rich education.com/course coming up on future episodes here on the get rich education podcast, we're about to go on a run. The next stretch of GRE is loaded. We've got fresh topics with some game changing monolog content that I'm going to share with you new guests, distinguished guests. Next week, the youngest guest to ever appear on the show is going to be with us. He's a 19 year old college student with a real estate investing related major. How does he see Gen Z's financial world? Is there any hope at all? The following week, we're going to break down an innovative way to sell properties that could completely change how you think about your exit strategy when it's all done, when it's time for you to retire from real estate, rather than a 1031, Exchange, which would just keep you in the real estate game and with more of it, do a seven. 21 exchange into a real estate fund. Have no more assets to manage, no more property managers to manage total capital gains tax deferral and still get financial upside. And then just four weeks from now, it's get rich education podcast episode number 600 debt is the American dream. So if you're serious about building wealth, be sure to follow or subscribe to the show. If you've already done that, I would really appreciate it if you told a friend about this show until next week. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 3 40:39 Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold 40:58 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com

Keith digs into what's really going on with apartments now that values in many markets have dropped 20–40%. You'll hear why larger multifamily properties have been hit so much harder than one-to-four unit rentals, and what that means for both current owners and new buyers. "The Apartment King," Brad Sumrok, joins the conversation to share how recent economic shifts, financing structures, and market forces have reshaped the apartment landscape—and why he believes we may be near a key turning point in the cycle. You'll also learn how investors are approaching deals differently today, what makes certain markets and property types more attractive right now. Resources: Learn more about Brad here. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/594 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text 1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold us. Apartment Building values have fallen 2030, even, 40% over the past few years. Investors lost millions. What are all the reasons that it happened? And when will apartments turn around? I'm joined by the apartment king today on get rich education. Corey Coates 0:26 Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold, writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com Keith Weinhold 1:09 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com you Corey Coates 1:40 you're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:59 Welcome to GRE from Monterrey, California to Monterrey, Mexico and across 188 nations worldwide. America's favorite shaved mammal on a microphone has got his slack. John, act back on track for another wealth building week with you. I'm Keith Weinhold. This is get rich education, and I'm still not wearing a pair of Dockers. We all know that the one to four unit space single family homes, up to four plexes have held under their values despite soured affordability, but five plus unit apartment buildings are a drastically different story. We're going to talk about just how much value they've lost recently, and the reasons why it's about more than just the interest rates doubling and tripling that began in 2022 Today's guest is an apartment educator. His students have had both losses and wins over time. I'll ask about both, because adversity is where you get the lessons now today, you might buy an apartment building at a steep discount compared to what it sold for five years ago. And who might you buy an apartment from today, it might not be the type of seller that you're thinking about because of owners defaulting you might now be buying it from a bank that had to basically repossess it. Yeah, you might try to buy it from a lender at 60% of the loan amount. Well, a lender doesn't want to do a 40% write down, so they're going to try to get more and see. That's how this could practically look today for an apartment owner that survived the crisis and is still standing today. They're asking themselves, now, why would I sell at a discount if I don't have to? So they're probably going to try to hold on. And then, of course, the tenants in these apartments don't know that any of this is going on now. I own a lot of single family rental homes myself, also apartment buildings in the one to one and a half million dollar range is where I've played, and often that ends up being eight to 12 units, because in that space, I don't need partners to invest in assets of that size. One to $2 million is also small enough so that you're not competing with institutional money and other players. Today, I'll tell you what I did with some of those buildings myself when interest rates reset about four years ago, and before you and I wrap up the show today, I've got something to tell you about what's coming in future. GRE episodes here stuff that's really unexpected as the apartment King waits in the wings. One last thing to tell you about, like I mentioned to you recently, investors say that they want an opportunity, but what they really want is certainty. Once certainty arrives, the opportunity. Is gone. Keith Weinhold 5:01 Our GRE live event last Thursday was a success. It is about how central Florida is the most compelling housing market right now, with the builder offering rate buy downs as low as 3.75% and, you know, I just ran the numbers on something, and I can hardly believe this. All right, right. Now owner occupied mortgage rates are near 6% this means investment property rates are almost 7% with the rate by down to 4% here's how your cash flow looks with a 30 year fixed rate mortgage on a 300k loan with a 7% rate, your p and i payment is 1996 at a 4% rate. It's just 1432, this is a reduction of $564 per month, a whopping payment difference. That's really the difference between treading water and stacking cash flow on these brand new build properties that we're talking about here in Central Florida. So talking about opportunity and certainty, that is a big measure of both. Yeah, before I ran the numbers, I didn't realize that the spread was this wide. With high demand for these properties, the builder does have some more available, a long term fixed rate of around 4% it should be up for you now you can see the limited time replay of GRE, freshest live event at grewebinars.com, in case you want to look into This again, grewebinars.com let's discuss the apartment market. Foreign apartment building values have fallen at 20% 30% even 40% over the past few years, depending on the market that they're in today, we're going to learn how bad it is, why it happened, and if that actually creates an opportunity here in the late 2020s, decade, our guest is known as the apartment king. He is the number one nationally known educator and mentor for apartment investing. He started with a bang in 2002 by making his first ever real estate investment, not a four Plex like I did, but a 32 unit apartment building, and he's now owned and invested in over 11,000 units and over 1 billion in assets under management. He's received awards like the naa independent owner of the year, and he's the star of the massively popular in person events that he puts on, which you'll learn about soon. Hey, it's been several years. Welcome back to the show. Brad sumrock, Brad Sumrok 7:46 hey, Keith. It's really good to be on again. Nice to be here. Keith Weinhold 7:50 Brad and I were together in person last month, and we also talked physical fitness. Then Brad is one of the fittest guys you'll ever meet in person. He just looks fantastic. We want to hear about your apartment forecast shortly. Brad, let's talk about the hard stuff. First, you've endured adversity since we last had you here several years ago. Tell us about that. Brad Sumrok 8:14 Well, look, I mean, I think anyone that's been serious about investing in apartments over the last five years. And I'll also say it this way, anyone who did a deal and say 21 the middle of 21 till probably the end of 2022 it's very likely that that property is worth less today than than it was when we bought it. So that, in itself, has created, you know, adversity, because I got into the business in 2002 and the market went up until 2008 and we went through a downturn in 2008 nine and 10, as is, I'm sure you're aware. And then the market went up again until around 2021, mid year. And then, due to so many reasons, and I could go into those reasons, but let me just just cut to the chase. That you alluded to is we had another downturn, and so the downturn, you know, impacts property values, it impacts confidence, it impacts investor appetite to do deals. It impacts just about everything related to the business, on the investment side, and the other business that I'm in, which is the seminars, the events and the mentoring. So it's been a big downturn, and we could go into those, you know, into the reasons why, and I'm sure you'd like to know my take on that. But now is a great time, because things are recovering, and one of the things Tony Robbins teaches Keith is pattern recognition. It's like I've been through two downturns, and I could see the patterns, and it occurs to me that we're at or near the bottom of a cycle. So like it's also a good time to be gearing up. Keith Weinhold 9:50 Now, many realize but for those uninitiated on this, the one to four unit space really didn't feel much pain starting in 2022 so much of that is time. Two people get long term fixed interest rate debt on the one to four unit property, but it's shorter term debt on five plus unit apartment buildings. So when interest rates went up, people soon had to pay those higher rates. They were underwater. That's really the genesis of so much of the apartment building pain. Brad Sumrok 10:19 Well, and I would say, look, it was, I'm going to throw a bunch of things at you here. So we had the pandemic, right? And during the pandemic, people got paid to stay home from work, right? The government printed, what, $5 trillion worth of money, right? And so that kicked off what became a period of, like, very high inflation. And you know, the published number was 9% but I think a lot of people experience certain items that were a lot more than 9% like, for example, for sure, in 2022 when we bought a 286 unit property, you know, we were able to replace all the appliances inside of a unit in The kitchen, you know, for $1,800 and even today it's like $3,200 so that's a little bit more than 9% and so we had that. So we had the printing of money, we had inflation, we had variable rate debt. Why did people do variable rate debt? The first thing I'll say is there is a place for variable rate debt. But what happened in 2021 and 2022 is the fixed rate lenders, which are typically the government sponsored agencies Fannie and Freddie. They were still lending money, but because of their criteria for lending, if you would go with one of those loans, you would get like 50% leverage the shorter term lenders that would give you the three year loans, you can still get like 75 to 80% leverage. So the vast amount of people that were buying anything in 2021 and 2022 I mean, I'm not just talking about myself. I'm talking about people with 2030, 4050, 70,000 doors all over the country, they were buying with short term debt. And historically, short term debt performs at or better than long term debt. I mean, think about it, when you get a long term, 10 year fixed rate loan and multifamily you have prepayment penalties. You know, when the market's constantly going up like it did, from 2012 to 2022 you could get that fixed term loan. You could pay it off early, you could pay the seven figure prepayment penalty, and you could still make lots and lots of money, and that's what people were doing. So when you bake in the prepayment penalties on long term debt, you know short term debt is oftentimes the better option. Well, nobody saw the Fed raising rate 16 times in 12 months. And look, I don't care what anybody says, Nobody predicted it. If they had predicted it, they would be probably the richest person in the world right now, right nobody saw a comment like, there may have been some people that said, hey, yeah, this is going to happen, or this is going to happen. But what actually happened with the Fed rates over a very short period of time was unprecedented. Unprecedented means it never happened before. So it's not something you could anticipate or something anyone can model. Okay? And so what that did is most of us had what's called an interest rate cap, which is an insurance policy that if the rates go up too much, that yours is capped. But the problem with those rate caps is they're only good for like, two years, right? So we're buying these deals in 2021 and we're getting short term debt, which is a three year debt. And in two years, in 2023 the rate cap expires, and now the rates are 9% instead of 3% and when we bought the deal, the rate cap insurance was $40,000 and now it's a million dollars. And so you're in a very awkward, unfriendly financial situation. And it wasn't just that. So it wasn't just inflation, it wasn't just interest rates. And many of us sung belt markets, specifically Texas and Florida, which historically have been some of the best markets to invest in, because of migration and no taxes, and then landlord and business friendly environments. Well, these states also suffered a lot of named storms, with, you know, hurricanes and wind storms and hail storms and so in these markets, at the same time, we had rising rates. At the same time, we had massive inflation. Now we also have insurance rates doubling or even tripling in some occasions. And then the final thing was, during the pandemic, a lot of the multifamily projects that were in the middle of being built, these development projects, they all slowed down. People couldn't work. And so back in 2020, or after we're fully recovered from the pandemic, some of these markets, like Nashville and Austin and Dallas and Houston and Phoenix, they got deluged Keith with new supply coming on, like a disproportionate amount of new supply. So there's like five. Five things that contributed to multifamily being really tough in the last few years. And so it wasn't just people with short term debt that had challenges. It was probably just about anybody that bought a deal within an 18 month timeframe that I outlined before that just really experienced challenges, and some of those people are still in deals, right? And so let's just take a deal that's, you know, a $10 million deal with a $7 million loan. Well, that deal right now might be only worth 7 million, yeah, and that's the opportunity. So the owner that has that deal may get punched in the face, so to speak, you know, by the market, and they may lose their equity in that deal, but the borrower coming in, or the buyer coming in, like one of my mentees right now, had a deal that was listed at 11 million, and he's picking it up for seven, which is, like, at or below the current loan value. So one buyer group's loss is the new buyer group's opportunity, if that makes sense Keith Weinhold 16:03 right? 100% there's nothing unusual at all about the mortgage rate levels that began to go higher about four years ago. The unusual part, and Brad has touched on it, is the rate of increase, with mortgage rates doubling or tripling in a short period of time, within about a year or so, but yeah, it's a great point. It's about more than the mortgage rates. It's about increasing insurance costs and increasing expenses of all types, like you talked about with the appliances there, and then, even if you were able to weather all that as an apartment building owner, with all of the supply coming on to the market, when supply exceeds demand, we know what happens to price, and we also know that you can't raise rents very much with all of this supply coming on the market, but the supply of new apartment buildings, that inflow, that wave, is beginning to die down, because builders got the memo quite a while ago that they need to stop building at such a fast pace in places like Florida and Texas and you know, Brad, there are a lot of asset classes that have been beaten up lately. We can always point to a few. You can look at Bitcoin or nfts or even commercial office space. Now those assets might bounce back, but they don't have to, because no human needs those things. But I expect apartments to bounce back because having a place to live is a primordial Maslow and human need. It's almost inevitable. In fact, shelter is at the base of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So a bounce back has almost got to happen. Yeah. Brad Sumrok 17:46 Look, it's becoming the big word right now in politics. Right is affordability. And so when you look at affordability, if you take a median priced home in this country of say, $400,000 I don't know if that's the actual median, but maybe it's around 400 420,000 100, $420,000 yes, to buy that home. And who's going to buy a $420,000 home? It's going to be a working class family making 60 to 70,000 a year, right? They could rent a median priced apartment unit for $1,800 a month, or they could pay a 20% or a 10% down payment on a $400,000 homes, and they need 40 to 80,000 down right, or maybe less, but they still need a down payment and that p i, t i, the principal, interest, tax and insurance is going to be around $3,100 okay, so there's a $1,300 per month gap, and that's a big, big gap for that working class family. And so where are they going to live? Like we're becoming more and more of a renter nation? Keith, and the statistics that I read say that only 27% of American families can even qualify to get a mortgage, yeah, on a $400,000 home. So we're becoming more and more and more of a nation of renters by necessity. And so the demographics like look, all markets are not equal. You got to know what's going on in your market. But there are markets, ie locations, geographies that have even a higher affordability gap. You know, some markets have a 2000 a month or a $2,500 a month affordability gap. So you're going to find more and more people renting in these markets. Keith Weinhold 19:37 Yes, there is a premium to ownership opening up that gap, and that's why we have this wave of renters that's really already begun. In about the last year, the American homeownership rate has fallen from 66% to 65% 1% doesn't sound like much, but that already means that we have 1.3 million new renters. We're going to talk to Brad some more, including about. His apartment market forecast you're listening to get rich education. Our guest is apartment King. Brad sumrock, more when we come back, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, Keith Weinhold 20:09 flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio through a 721 exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture. It's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now Mom and Pop landlords can 721, the residential real estate request your initial valuation, see if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash GRE. That's f, l, O, C, K, homes.com/gre, Keith Weinhold 20:45 you know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why? Fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program when you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products. They've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom family investments.com/gre, or send a text. Now it's 1-937-795-8989, yep. Text their freedom. Coach, directly. Again. 1-937-795-8989, Hal Elrod 21:58 this is Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning, and listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 22:13 Welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. We're talking about a sector we have not talked about very much lately because it's been in rather moribund condition, but we are beginning to turn the corner where there are more opportunities in apartment building investing, because it's been beaten down an awful lot. And Brad, that plays right in to your apartment forecast. So tell us about some of the highlights of your apartment forecast. Brad Sumrok 22:38 Yeah, sure. And one of the things that I want to share with you, Keith, is that, you know, back in the peak of the market, the market peaked, say, at the end of 21 early 22 there were so many investors that were in multifamily or that wanted to be in multifamily. And the other thing that caused this so called, you know, downturn that I didn't mention before is, let's take this $10 million deal. If a property was listed at $10 million you'd literally have 30 to 40 buyer groups pursuing that deal, bidding up the price. Yeah. And so a $10 million Listing would sell for 11 and a half million Okay, now what I'm seeing is that same $10 million deal might sell for a seven to 8 million and you might be the only buyer going after the deal. Wow. And how do I know? Because you said, like, I run a an investor community and and I have active multifamily buyers, and I coach them, and I look at their deals, and this is what's happening. And the other reason I know is I sold two of my deals personally in 2025 and both of the deals that I sold, I bought in 2015 where we had 10 year fixed rate debt. So we didn't sell because we had a three year loan. We needed to sell because we had a 10 year loan due. And look, first thing I'll say is I made money, because over that 10 year period, values did go up. They peaked in 2022 and they came back down that because I bought it so long ago. That's the one lesson that I think people also want to understand, is over the long term, the values always tend to go up, but there are short term ups and downs that one would need to be aware of. But when I sold these two deals like I didn't have many buyers one deal in particular. I mean, I had eight buyers going after the deal, but only one was anywhere close to what I wanted. So I was negotiating with myself, you know, telling the buyer and his broker, hey, you know the other guys are here, and you got to come up on price and you got to come up on terms. But truthfully, I was bluffing, because I didn't have anybody that was coming up on price or coming up on terms. And so part of why I'm answering this way is when you look at the forecast, one thing that that I want people to know is that those. Of us that are in the business now and that have our pencils up, and we're underwriting deals, and we're making offers, like I used to teach Keith, don't make lowball offers, because you'll develop a reputation of being that guy or that borrower or that buyer that submits lowball offers, right? And word will get around in that market? Well, right now, like low ball offers are expected, and I would encourage people, let's just say you make an offer that whatever the deal pencils out to. So if you know how to underwrite deals correctly, and they're offering 10 million as a listing price, and you're coming up at seven or 7.5 don't be bashful to make the offer, and you may be the only buyer in the game. So that's one thing is like the competition that I'm seeing right now on the buyer side is not a lot of competition, and that's definitely shifted to a buyer's market. So people need to know that. The other thing I would say, on the macro level, is there's still a lot of uncertainty out there, and the uncertainty is kind of becoming like what I would call a new normal. You know? I'll speak for myself. When Trump was elected and at the end of 2024 I thought it was going to be amazingly well for all of us real estate investors, right? And there are some things that have been like the big, beautiful bill that restores 100% bonus depreciation like this is a really good thing, but you know, the tariffs, the immigration policies, some of the things that he's doing, you know, they have mixed impact for us and our in the economy and in real estate and in multifamily. And the thing is, when he first started doing that again, like lenders, they didn't know how to price debt, like, what's going to happen with tariffs, what's going to happen with ice what's going to happen with immigration, you know? But now that we're a year in to his second term, I can tell you a couple things. Debt is back. Lenders are lending. They're confident. Lenders are issuing debt like you can get 70 to 75% of your acquisition funded by a commercial lender. The government agencies are lending. Freddie Mac is lending. Fannie Mae is lending, and they have a mandate to lend 20% more money in 2026 than they did in 2025 so that bodes well for people that want to get, you know, affordable workforce housing, which is my specialty, also known as Class B and Class C housing. So the lenders are lending like, there's a lot of debt out there. One of the challenges is the equity. There's a lot of institutional equity. But if you're going to the retail investor who got into the business three to five years ago. They don't want to hear about your next deal right now, they're wondering about, hey, what about the deals that I'm in? Right? So one of the things that I'm doing, Keith is, and I think, you know, this is like, you know, I build up a huge investor community from 2012 to 2022 and I did it by traveling the country, speaking at conferences, sponsoring trade shows, talking about the benefits of investing in apartment buildings, how it changed my life, how it enabled me to retire from a six figure income in just three years, and how I've helped many, many other people Do the same, and also just sharing experience today, every asset class, every 10 to 15 years is going to go through a correction. And so where we're at now. And I wasn't the only one on the forecast. I brought in John Chang who is the senior intelligence officer at Marcus and millichep, one of the biggest commercial real estate firms in the country, and he presented about 20 or 30 slides that by and large were very bullish on where we're at in the market cycle. Why now is a great time to be looking at apartment buildings, a lot of the same things that I've been talking about. Prices are down. It's a buyer's market. We have a huge affordability issue. More and more people are becoming renters, and so what I'm committed to do, Keith and I don't know if I shared with you my travel schedule, like when we met each other last month, but I'm on the road every single week going to another city, talking about where I see us right now in the market, and why people should be looking at deals and making offers right now. Because to me, you know, Warren Buffett said it best. He's like, you want to be fearful when everybody else is being greedy, and you want to be greedy when everybody's being fearful. And right now, people are on the sidelines. They're waiting for some green light, like for the Wall Street Journal to come out and say, Hey, now's a good time, you know? I mean, look, Trump, just the point of the new Fed chair, right? And so we know interest rates are going to go down like that's one of his goals, and the guy that he appointed is going to lower rates. So we're looking at a future, a very near future, where we have lower rates, and lower rates is going to create more demand, again, for people that want to buy. I invest in apartments now, look, if you wait another year, I still think it's going to be a good time, but I think we have a better time right now. Keith Weinhold 30:10 I sold one apartment building in 2022 for about $1 million and I sold another one of my apartment buildings in 2023 for about $1 million I had bought those in 2013 with 10 year balloon loans, so I was enjoying that nice fixed rate as late and as long as I could, until 2022, nine years and 2023, 10 years before the rate went up on me. But of course, my new buyer had to pay that rate, so it limited the amount that they could offer for it. However, to your point about investing for a long time horizon, I still had profits on those nine and 10 year holds, but yeah, to your point, Brad about the looser lending, this is huge. I read a summary of the latest national Multifamily Housing Council meeting, and one of the biggest takeaways that came out of that meeting is that there is abundant debt available. It's in increasingly attractive terms. And a lot of people think about mortgages, and they just think about the rates, and you should that's certainly important, but they don't think as much about the propensity for others to lend. How loose, or how tight are those standards? They're loose, yeah. Brad Sumrok 31:25 And, I mean, look, the first deal I did in 2002 the interest rate was 6.35% the rates right now are less than that, you know, as of the date of this recording. So, you know, I always talk about a base case of a $10 million deal. It may seem large to you or to people listening, but like in my world of syndication, where we're not just looking at the real estate piece, but learning how to raise money to buy real estate so we could have a bigger property that's professionally managed and become a true business owner like Robert Kiyosaki talks about, do you want to be self employed? I tell my students, buy a six Plex. Do you want to own an apartment business by 60 units and hire a management company? So when I'm talking about this $10 million deal, you know, you can get a $7 million loan right now for probably in the mid 5% and it would be non recourse, and you could probably get three years of interest only, meaning for the first three years, you're going to have a higher cash flow. So like, this is a really good loan compared to 2021 when we could get 3% debt. It's not but remember that 3% loan was a short term loan. You know, it wasn't a 10 year fixed rate loan, it was a short term loan, and we all saw what happened with that when they raised rates so many times in such a short period. So the fixed rate debt is very competitive based on, like, the long term, 20 year average, and it's lower than it was when I started. Keith Weinhold 32:55 Well, we've been talking about elements of your apartment market forecast, and of course, that's going to inform your Buy Box. Brad, you mentor students constantly and oftentimes we think about a Buy Box. We think about then in terms of geographic market, but as we look for an opportunity, we also might think about some other things in your Buy Box, for example, new build versus vintage build. So with all of this traveling you do, and you're in the markets, and you're informing students, and you're looking at students prospective deals as well. But tell us more about what a good buy box is for the near term in apartment buildings. Brad Sumrok 33:36 Yeah. So look like what is in the buy box, right? So one is going to be your location. And so, you know, how do I select a good location? Just some tips and strategies around that is, I look for landlord and business friendly environments. In other words, if the tenant doesn't pay, do they get to stay or not, you know, so I like to be in market so that they don't pay, that we could legally, you know, not have them consume our product for a long period of time. So I also look at things like job growth and population growth, affordability gap. New supply is a percentage of inventory, you know, the new supply coming online in a diversified economy. So, like, you want to get your geographies nailed down. Like, where you buy matters, like, there's no substitute to I would rather pay more for a property in a location that meets that criteria than less for a property that doesn't. Yeah. So geography is important. You want to pick your property size, like, how many units, or what's the price point. Okay? And this is huge, because if you're gonna buy your own deal with your own money, which is another reason I prefer syndication. Let's say you have pick a number, 100,000 to invest. Like you can only buy a $300,000 property, two units somewhere, three units somewhere, you know. Or zero units somewhere, right, right? So if you have expanded your you know, your mind and your skill set to do a syndication 100,000 doesn't limit you to your own money, you know. And then I would say, Well, what is a great size for a first time syndicator is I would target somewhere around 60 to 80 units, and at 100,000 a unit, which is a ballpark price for maybe a nice B class property or high C Class property, and a market that meets the criteria that I outlined earlier. You know, you're looking at, say, a six to $8 million property. And so what you could do from there, Keith is, you could say, Okay, well, you know, this is why, like in my educational course, I use a $10 million property, because the numbers are easy. But even just say, Well, I'm going to do an $8 million property, you'd say, Okay, I need two to 3 million down, depending on the debt, right? And then I'm going to get a the balance in a loan, you know, because you could get a 70 to 75% loan. So then you ask, Well, where am I going to get to 2 million, right? If I have 100 I need $1.9 million and so then you got to start thinking about like, do I have access to people or work or in the neighborhood or at the community or at the church, you know, or do I go to masterminds and conferences and meetup groups like, where I saw you Keith last month, like, there's a lot of investors there with a lot of money, right? And some of them are looking to be passive investors. And so, you know, there's a whole nother conversation around, you know, raising capital. And if you can't raise capital, then you may want to bring in some people on your GP team that could help you raise capital, as long as you're following, like the SEC compliance and again, that's another discussion. That's the importance of having the buy box so you have your geography, your property size, your property class. You know, again, if you just want the new construction stuff. There's some people out there, like big name, famous people, that are highlighting their 800 unit a class deals that they're buying. And of course, like you or I that are just getting started, can't go buy that deal. And so why? You know the institutions are going after the large A class properties in the best areas. And so where I've made my niche Keith, and what I would recommend most people start is start with the older vintage properties, start with the 1970s properties, and then maybe work your way up to the 1980s and 1990s properties. And why is this is because the institutions don't want those properties, and they're still able to be professionally managed. Like, if you go and buy 100 unit C Class property, as long as it's not in a bad neighborhood with, like, high crime or whatever like that. Like, these are very honest, hard working, working class people that need a clean, safe and functional place to live, and you'll be able to get better returns on a C or A B class, also known as like the cap rate. And again, that's another discussion, but you'll be able to get a better return on an older vintage property than you would on a vintage property. And you're not competing with the institutions, but you're also not competing with the mom and pops, because the mom and pops are going to take that 100,000 they have and go buy a duplex. You know, they're not going to want to syndicate a deal. They're not going to want to have partners. They're not going to want to deal with the so called complexities of buying a company. And that's what buying an apartment community is, Keith, it's buying a company. You're buying a business that has an income stream already being generated those customers, they're called residents. They're called tenants, you know, but if you just go upstream from buying real estate or buying an apartment building, we're buying a cash flow producing business that's existing, that's in place, and then our job is to figure out how to run it better and more efficiently. You the Keith Weinhold 39:04 You the listener, you might have access to, say, 500k in equity that's sitting in your existing properties. And some of these numbers that Brad and I are throwing around are rather large, $10 billion but one of the biggest epiphanies that I think your students have is that doesn't need to be much of your own money. We're talking about what's called the capital stack to take down a $10 million apartment building. Maybe you borrow seven and a half million of that. Maybe you raise 2 million of that from your other investors in the syndication, and then you put your 500k into the deal, and there you have $10 million in order to make that purchase. But yes, that does involve a learning curve and the SEC rules and all that. But the big takeaway here is you don't need much of your own money. You can leverage other people's money, even for the down payment. And Brad, you're also an expert at showing people how to pay almost. Zero tax, which is another discussion unto itself, but some of your students start with zero experience, and within a few short years, I mean, you've had hundreds of people that have either retired early or increased their net worth by over a million dollars. A lot of success stories, Brad Sumrok 40:17 yeah, look, I mean, I started with no previous real estate investing experience. My experience was going to college, studying hard, getting decent grades, becoming an engineer, you know, being fired once, being laid off once, and reading Robert Kiyosaki books that motivated me to to go out and seek specialized education. And I think it was Jim Rohn that said formal education, like degree could get you a job, and specialized education like you can get in a conference or a mastermind or a mentorship program. And that's also how I started. I went to a weekend workshop back in 2001 and I bought the mentorship program. And boy, I'm glad I did, because, you know, that's how I got into my first 62 units. So you don't need to have experience. What you need to have is a powerful reason, a powerful why? Why do I want to be financially free? Like apartments is just a vehicle. I didn't choose apartments because I love departments. I choose departments because they cash flow, they go up in value, and you have amazing depreciation benefits. Keith Weinhold 41:23 Yeah, I'm the same. I don't love apartments in a way. I don't love real estate. I love what these things do for me Brad Sumrok 41:30 exactly. Yeah? So, like, you don't have to have experience. In the other category, of people that have come into my community that don't have apartment experience, a lot of them have real estate experience, Keith, that are doing, like, single family homes, short term rentals, or maybe smaller, multi unit deals. And they listen to a show like this, and they're like, huh, I want to transition from doing these smaller types of assets with my own money and self managing to scaling into a syndication. Keith Weinhold 42:03 Brad has taken countless people from get rich education to got rich education. His core values are faith, finance, fitness, family and fulfillment. He is committed to helping people experience not just financial success, but personal fulfillment, purpose, contribution, freedom and Brad and his investor community have contributed over $1 million to charity. Is really the person you want to learn from if you want to think about going bigger with multifamily apartment buildings. This has been great, Brad. Let our audience know how they can connect with you and learn more? Brad Sumrok 42:42 Yeah, sure. So I would say this is where I should just be very clear here, okay, but I'm gonna give a couple options, because that's what I'm so of course, there's a website which is my first and last name.com, B, R, A, D, S, U, M, R, O, k, for those of you on social media, I respond to my own social so you'll find me again. B, R, A, D, S, U, M, R, O, K, on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. Keith Weinhold 43:13 Brad, it's been so valuable. It seems like American apartment buildings are in for redemption story here. It's been great having you back on the show. Keith Weinhold 43:29 Brad and I both emphasize physical fitness, and we chatted about that a good bit when we were together last month. I think he looks better than me. To summarize, the reasons for this historic collapse in apartment building values. It was the combination of soaring interest rates, massive inflation, spiking insurance costs, construction soared, and it created an oversupply, and that oversupply still is not absorbed. In fact, according to the outlet apartment list, the National multifamily vacancy rate recently hit 7.2% that's the highest in the history of the index, which dates back to 2017 and that's chiefly due to apartment oversupply. Have apartments really hit the bottom? Brad just said, we're at or near the bottom, and it's a good time to be gearing up as far as what's coming. To give you an idea of new apartment supply, what takes about two years from construction start to completion. And now you can't just have all US apartment construction come to a complete stop. You have to keep people working. And there are almost 400 MSAs in the United States, so you couldn't coordinate a complete ceasing of construction across every area. So how about the level of new construction starts in apartment units today, and the way that HUD counts it is the number of units started in buildings of five plus units the recent peak. Was about 600,000 annually in 2023 and today it's closer to 400,000 there it is that slowing pace of new apartment construction. If you jump into multifam, be careful of properties with deferred maintenance, because understand that you have a lot of underfunded owners Now Brad can tell you specifically what to look out for his rat race to retirement event is March 28 and 29th in Dallas. It's a two day hands on workshop. You'll learn how to find apartment deals, how to underwrite deals, how to raise capital management and your exit. Discover how you can retire in five years or less by owning apartments again. His website is Brad sumrock.com Keith Weinhold 45:49 coming up on future episodes here on the get rich education podcast. We're about to go on a run. The next stretch of GRE is loaded. We've got fresh topics with some game changing monolog content that I'm going to share with you new guests, distinguished experts, we're going to break down an innovative way to sell properties that could completely change how you think about your exit strategy of the 50 US states. I'm going to discuss some awful states to invest in, including ones with population loss. On another episode, a distinguished subject matter expert and I are going to dive deep on does America really have a housing shortage, not in apartments which are oversupplied, but is there a shortage in the one to four unit space? That's our topic, because you probably heard contradictory information in the media about whether there's a shortage or not, and then some outlets say there's a housing shortage of 2 million units. Others, 10 million. They're all over the place. We're going to sort it out on an upcoming episode. Does America really have a housing shortage? Then the youngest guest to ever appear on the show will be with us. He's a 19 year old college student that has a real estate investing related major, and since last year, he and I have befriended each other. He was born in about 2006 so it'll be interesting to see how he views the investing world and what they teach him about real estate investing in college today, he is probably the most impressive teenager that I've ever met in my life. Then six weeks from now, we will have an epic get rich education podcast episode 600 on a subject as paradoxical and complete with a GRE contrarianism That builds real wealth, debt is the American dream will be episode 600 if you're serious about building wealth, be sure to follow or subscribe to the show. We are going on a run. If you know someone in your life who needs to think differently. If you know one investor who's still waiting for perfect conditions. This will help them tap the Share button and tell them about the show until next week. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your daydream. Unknown Speaker 48:14 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold 48:42 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com

Keith looks at how a changing Federal Reserve leadership might shape the interest rate environment, then zooms in on what's really happening with homebuilders versus remodelers across the country. You'll hear about a lesser-known strategy some investors are using to step back from day-to-day landlording while keeping their income, and then we head to Central Florida to explore why one fast-growing market is quietly becoming a hotspot for new-build rental properties. Along the way, a longtime Florida builder joins the show to explain how they're creating affordable, investment-friendly homes and what kinds of rents and tenant demand they're seeing on the ground—plus a way you can learn more live if this opportunity fits your own portfolio plans. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/592 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text 1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the naming of a new Federal Reserve Chair. Then are homebuilders in trouble today? There are a dwindling number of them, and their profits are down. I'll talk to a homebuilder. Listen to what amenities tenants want today, and it's interesting. We'll learn how low of a mortgage rate builders will give you. Now there's an opportunity here today on get rich education. Corey Coates 0:30 Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com Keith Weinhold 1:14 mid south home buyers with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your return on investment as their North Star. It's no wonder smart investors line up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone headquartered in Memphis, with their globally attractive cash flows, mid south has an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and 4000 houses renovated, there is zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate with an industry leading three and a half year average renter term. Every home they offer you will have brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter in an astounding price range, 100 to 150k GET TO KNOW mid south enjoy cash flow from day one at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid southhomebuyers.com Speaker 1 2:17 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 2:33 Welcome to GRE from countersport Pennsylvania to Davenport Iowa and across 488 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you're listening to get rich education now more than ever, where you learn about personal finance and real estate investing matters. There's more AI generated content out there. This show is all flesh and blood me. There's also more clickbait content out there that says something like the housing market is about to have a price crash. No, it's not. They're just there to get short term attention. So your information source really matters today. New incoming Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, was recently named. He will replace the outgoing Jerome Powell on May 15. I want to tell you more about that in a moment. But first, just imagine if this scenario were to occur, say that we get a Fed chair that has to deal with really high inflation. And so what this Fed chair does is that he successfully brings inflation down, and he does that without triggering a recession that's called a soft landing. Well, you know what? That's exactly what Jerome Powell did the past three years. Yeah, that's what he's accomplished, and he doesn't get credit for it. He only gets a lot of criticism. Now this doesn't mean that I love Powell. I don't even know that the Fed should exist at all, but Powell got a lot of criticism for calling 2022, wave of inflation transitory, and being too late to respond to it. So he gets some credit here as his term of more than eight years winds down. Let's listen in to some of Jay Powell's recent comments about succession, Speaker 2 4:23 you've obviously experienced a lot during your time as Fed chair, served under multiple presidents. I'm wondering what advice you have for whoever your successor might be. Speaker 3 4:34 Honestly, I'd say a couple of things. One is, you know, stay out of elected politics. Don't get pulled into elected politics don't do it. And that's another thing. Another is that you know, our window into democratic accountability is Congress, and it's not a passive burden for us to go. To Congress and talk to people. It's an affirmative, regular obligation. If you want democratic legitimacy, you earn it by your interactions with the our elected overseers. And so it's something you need to work hard at, and I have worked hard at it so and the last thing is, you know, it's easy to it's easy to criticize government institutions so many ways. I will tell whoever it is you're about to meet the most qualified group of people you not only have ever worked with, you will ever work with and when you meet fed staff. And not everybody's perfect, but, but there isn't a better cadre of professionals more dedicated to the public well being than work at the Fed. Keith Weinhold 5:43 Yeah. So to Powell's point, the next Fed chair, worsh, does champion fed independence, much like Powell has. That is a good thing that keeps America from turning into a banana republic that maintains a strong dollar. Warsh was actually a Fed Governor back during the 2008 global financial crisis, so he's got that experience when he comes in as Fed Chair in three months, he's widely expected to lower interest rates more than Powell did, much like the president wants. Kevin Warsh looks a lot like Michael Scott from the office. He has got to be less bumbling than him, though, overall, the effect on real estate and mortgage rates by shifting from PAL to worsh, I mean, that should be pretty mild. Maybe you'll see rates go a little lower than if pal had stayed and speaking of rates, wait till you see how low the mortgage rate is that our homebuilder guest is offering today. What's really happening with homebuilders now? How much trouble are they in? Homebuilders have largely been maligned. Overall. There are fewer homebuilders today in America than there were 20 years ago, and there are more remodelers than there were 20 years ago, fewer home builders, more remodelers, and that's for a few different reasons. Over the past couple decades, we just have substantially higher labor and material costs, stricter building and energy codes, higher interest rates, and that disproportionately hurts long duration construction projects. We've got zoning constraints and land constraints that make ground up development slow and uncertain and risky. So while the number of Home Builders in America is down, the number of remodelers are up, because America's housing stock is getting older. Its median age is over 40 years, and that creates constant demand for upgrades. Capital prefers faster, lower risk cycles. That's what remodels offer, and homeowners with locked in low mortgage rates choose to stay in place. And what does that make them do? That makes them renovate and remodel, not move. So this is why, compared to 20 years ago, you have fewer home builders and more remodelers. Today, that's per the NAHB and the Census Bureau and all these forces, they've resulted in a lower profit margin for homebuilders. Yes, homebuilder margin compression for a lot of the bigger builders, including DR Horton, just as you might guess in this cycle, their profits were greatest in 2022 and they have fallen since then. Higher mortgage rates came in, and builders had to lose profits by offering more incentives to entice buyers. You're going to learn more about that today and how it really spells quite an opportunity for you and I. When the final change in national home prices was tallied for the end of last year, they had risen in 16,500 zip codes. All right, that's 63% of America's zip codes, and prices were lower from a year earlier in the other 37% home price gains were concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest, and the story there continues to be too many buyers and not enough homes. In fact, over 85% of zip codes saw price growth in Illinois, Connecticut, Wisconsin and Indiana, slow, steady, stubborn, kind of like winter refusing to leave. Losses were predominant in the Sun Belt. Prices caught their breath there. There was price attrition in Florida, with 96% of zip codes, so nearly all of Florida, then California, 78% of zip codes had a price loss. Texas, 75% of them and Arizona, 73% the biggest pocket of opportunity appears to be in Florida. Florida property is on sale. And because real estate is local. A lot of times we talk here nationally, but to get to that local level, sometimes you have to dig in to a local market to really find out what's going on. We're going to do that today. Now, central Miami, Orlando and Tampa, they're not generally the spot for obtaining cash flow from long term rentals. I've identified an opportunity. We'll get into that with this Florida homebuilder shortly. It's kind of funny. You'll run into people that say they want opportunity, but what they really want is certainty. How it plays out, though, is that once the certainty arrives, the opportunity is gone, and that's how to think about Florida and maybe Texas and some of these other markets today that have had price attrition. Keith Weinhold 10:48 Now, three weeks ago, here on the show, I discussed the 721 exchange for the first time. So I won't get into all those details again when it comes time for you to sell your investment property, the 721 can be the best way for you to cash out. Perhaps you've been investing in real estate for a while and you have turned get rich education into got rich education. How the 721 exchange works is they basically say you have a case where you're a rental property owner and you realize that you don't want the hassles of landlording anymore. Oftentimes, this can mean you're older and real estate investing already took you where you wanted it to take you in life's journey, but you still like the financial benefit that ownership gives you. What you can do is exchange your properties into a partnership and receive shares in that partnership. Now that's different than a 1031, exchange. That's where you trade up some of your property that you directly own for what's usually more and larger property that you directly own. Well, instead, here's the big deal with exchanging your properties into a 721, partnership. The rules stipulate that this is not a taxable event, and therefore you don't have to pay any capital gains tax or depreciation recapture. Now that you're an owner in the partnership, you still get some of the benefits of owning the property, like appreciation and cash flow and such, yet no management or landlording at all like you would have with a 1031 and with a 721 you get all these benefits across a greater number of properties and markets diversification because you're a fractional owner in the other properties that are in the partnership, not only your own, and when you eventually pass away, your shares are stepped up in basis and can be distributed equally to heirs and C It's surely easier for you to divide shares among, say, your three children, than it is to divide your 18 rental houses among three children Who are going to have different goals and varying degrees of financial savvy. So the 721, exchange is a great estate planning tool too. You will have this partnership that makes an offer to buy your property. You're exchanging them for partnership shares. There's a firm that does this called flock homes, and they have a certain Buy Box to be clear with the 721, exchange, you can basically trade your rentals for shares in a diversified, professionally managed Real Estate Fund. This means that you keep your hard earned equity defer capital gains and other taxes, and you still get access to steady income and long term appreciation without the hassle of landlord duties, and you can visit flockhomes.com/gre, and get a free valuation. Get an offer for your property, see if it fits their buy box and see how much they'll pay you. There's often no need to pay to fix up or stage the property for sale or pay agent commissions for a certain investor type. This really can be a rather life changing experience for you to liquidate some or all of your property have zero tax obligation and still enjoy income and appreciation. So again, what you can do is stop by flock homes.com/gre, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/g, R, E, let's discuss the home building climate today. Keith Weinhold 14:38 I'd like to bring in a premium Florida homebuilder guest to the show, Jim, because there has been more homebuilding in Florida such that some areas of the state have excess supply. And when you add that onto the fact that the hot pandemic migration to Florida has slowed such that home prices have made a rare dip in the state, that is why it. A timely topic. Jim, you're on GRE Welcome to the show. Keith, great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, and we did the IRL thing in Colorado there a few weeks ago. That was great hanging out in person. You provide entry level new build homes, mostly in Central Florida. And these are properties that are conducive to real estate pays five ways. These are properties that investors chiefly buy as rentals. So just bigger picture, tell us about that overall experience over, say, the last five years, as the pandemic wound down, Jim Sheils 15:35 yeah, as the pandemic wound down, obviously Florida had a lot of attention. Some of it, rightly so, some of it, I think a little more inflated and commercial attention getting thrown at it. And you know, the type of deals that you and I have always stayed away from were very popular in Florida. You know, we're talking really nice houses. Keith, beautiful, nice HOAs people got in in 2021 let's say, with those very low interest rates on a six or $700,000 home, but now they're realizing that it's not going up $100,000 a year as they thought. And when they try to sell it, well, people trying to buy in $700,000 home, they're not getting that low interest rate. And if these people try to hold it and rent it, well, it doesn't cash flow, so it breaks one of those rules. It's not putting money in people's pockets, taking it out. And so we're seeing there was a large distribution of those types of houses around Florida. And then there were some builders like us that really focused on what was the most needed, and that was workforce housing. Now workforce housing, though, Keith, as you know, a lot of the builders don't want to build it. Why? Let's be straight. It's because the margins are lower right. But as you know, with me and my partner Chris, it was always let's make less margin and do more volume. That was always our model, and that was the area of the market where we felt we could build it right, we could get it financed right, and we could manage it right to hit the five things. And so we're seeing today, post pandemic, there are still key markets where the population growth is still the highest, coming into Florida, the prices are still the lowest, and there is a shortage of this type of workforce housing. Keith Weinhold 17:11 Yes, you've identified a geography within Florida that have some of these characteristics like you're talking about. Tell us more about that region. Jim Sheils 17:20 Yeah, we call it the Ocala region, so Central Florida, just west of Orlando. Right now, for example, u haul does their U haul top markets rankings every year? So where are the most U haul trucks going to now, you don't want to be on their side where they're coming from, Keith, because that's obviously the opposite. But for the second year in a row, the greater Ocala area has been the number 1u haul destination place in the country. So there's still a ton of population growth going there. Central Florida, I'm not going to say it sat out the growth during the pandemic that a lot of areas of Florida did, but it was starting at such a low basis with such a small amount of attention that today, even when people say, oh gosh, like I just said, house is 600 700 800,000 we're building new construction single family homes for under 300,000 the 270s a lot of the time. And we're building duplexes sometimes for under 400,000 and a lot of our you know, investors coming from the west coast. Say, are these fully built? Are they? But again, Central Florida has had a great affordability. Remain intact. It has a large population going in. There is a ton of job resource just blowing up in the area. And as you know, these are the things we look for. So we bought a lot of lots there. I'm gonna give credit to my partner, Chris. He saw calla more than I did, and we bought a lot of lots there in 2020 so before all the rises. So we got into the land basis, right? So that means we can build them at a great price. Our land basis is low, and that obviously passes along to our clients. And again, Central Florida is a perfect match for our goal. Because, you know, our goal is workforce housing, that cash flows on day one. But also nothing wrong with fixer uppers. I own a lot. I used to do a lot, but the new construction seems to have a little bit more of a less involvement, which it seems like a lot of our clients want. Keith Weinhold 19:15 That was really prescient, as it turned out, for your business partner, Chris there to gobble up a lot of that land in 2020 before prices went soaring. And this is one reason why you can do things like offer a duplex for less than 400k That's a new build, which has some people saying like, does that thing include a roof even? But it surely does. These are very good quality livable properties. And the reason I have you here, Jim is because you are rare. There are fewer builders today than there were in decades past, and also those that build to your point earlier. They only want to build higher end properties, not the more affordable ones that you offer. We'll get more details on your price points and what properties. Products you offer later. But yeah, we have more remodelers today and fewer builders. And though it's a few years old, I found it interesting that census statistics show us that between 2007 and 2022 there are 73% more remodelers and 21% fewer builders today. Jim Sheils 20:22 Interesting. You know, Keith, I didn't know that, and that makes me scratch my head on like when you and I were in Colorado, we were talking about future needs, even with growth that occurred during the pandemic going all the way back to oh eight when a real shortage started to start, we are still at an estimated three to 5 million homes short in the US. It really perplexes me that the amount of builders like us will be going down and not actually entering the market. Keith Weinhold 20:47 Now, among those that are building, though, much of that is concentrated in the South, as I think we know, there's a recent resi club compilation show that 59% of current single family home building is in the south, and 41% is everywhere else. And how do you define the South? That's basically Maryland down to Florida, all the way out to Texas and Oklahoma. So you are pretty rare in some ways. However, where you're building regionally, that's not a rarity there, but yeah, having more remodelers today and fewer home builders, that's probably the result of a lot of things. You know, for one thing, just land and construction costs becoming that much more expensive over the past five years. Jim Sheils 21:05 Yeah, we've been lucky, too, as you know, Keith, you've been with us for a decade now. But yeah, and we transitioned a piece of our company where Sumitomo forestry, large Japanese group stepped in and acquired a piece of our property. That was a very exciting thing for all of us together, because we had done well, and, you know, started small and built up to a decent sized builder for Northeast Florida and then the rest of Florida. But now, with Sumitomo coming in again, they build 17,000 homes worldwide every year, between all of their builders. Now being a part of them, we get to use their national material accounts, so they get pricing just as good, if not better, than national home builders, and they let us do our thing, stick to our build to rent, working with investor clients. We're not retail buyer guys, really. We like working with our investors, but just getting those great discounts on materials, again, we're always looking to pass on savings to our clients. Of course, we got to make margins as well, but if we're getting in with deals like that, getting into the land right, and knowing the pinpointed areas to get into, we can get the best deal for everyone. And that's been a major part having such a big, successful partner like Sumitomo keep us healthy, viable and able to do things we could have not even dreamed of five years ago. Keith Weinhold 22:47 Yes, that gives you more capital and more options. Another unusual aberration in the market that really centers on a lot of what you do is that this fact that and this was mentioned on the show last year for the first time in my life, existing homes cost more than new build homes. Existing homes at about 420k nationally, and new build homes about 392k part of the divergence there is probably builder price cuts. So tell us more about that. Jim Sheils 23:14 I think the issue Heath is builders built for largest spreads, and people bought very emotionally. I think you're to give you a compliment a very unemotional real estate buyer. You're not looking at, oh, this is a very nice, you know, extra his and hers porcelain sink. And we're looking at fundamental numbers a good, solid property. And I think what's caused a lot of that is people did the opposite. Builders were looking for the largest margin they could get, which was on those types of properties. And then buyers were looking very emotionally, and they were told, Hey, this is going to go up 50 to $100,000 a year. So just sit there and hold on, sure you'll lose $1,500 a month, but don't worry about it. You'll make up for that every year. And obviously we're not seeing that's true. They could have really used your class about the five ways to get paid in real estate. And I think that that's what's doing it. And this is what builders do. I mean, everyone's in a business, and a lot of builders just focus on the largest margin. Now that's eating them up now, because those types of properties are not in demand. To build them on spec would be very dangerous, but you can see that that worked for a short term. We're very glad we went to the low margin workforce housing model, because I see that falling out of favor almost never even in Oh 809, Keith, when I was in the remodel game, a lot of the properties that were new construction coming out that time they were affordable, still did very well. Keith Weinhold 24:42 We're talking with a premium Florida homebuilder today, because they offer affordable properties that make sense for investors. But what about the demand? Where is that going to come from? Where is that going to be? And that's what's happening with the renter segment. We'll talk more about that when we. Come back. You're listening to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, Keith Weinhold 25:03 flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem, property or your whole portfolio through a 721, exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture, it's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now Mom and Pop landlords can 721, the residential real estate request your initial valuation, see if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash GRE, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/gre. Keith Weinhold 25:39 You know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program when you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products, they've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom, family investments.com/gre, or send a text now it's 1-937-795-8989, yep, text their freedom coach directly. Again, 1-937-795-8989, Keith Weinhold 26:51 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally, while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com Ken McElroy 27:26 this is Rich Dad advisor, Ken McElroy. Listen to get rich education with Keith whitehold, and don't twitch your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 27:40 Welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, we're talking with Jim a premium Florida homebuilder here at such an interesting time in the cycle, since supply is up in some parts of Florida, Jim and his team has strategically chosen a place that is still fueling a lot of net in migration in Central Florida, and that's where the rental demand needs to come from as well. Now nationally, we've seen the homeownership rate fall over about the past year, from near 66% to near 65% that does not sound like much, but a 1% shift means there are 1.3 million new renters in just the past year. So with that in mind, and the fact that this low affordability for home buying means that people need to rent or stay renters longer, provides some of the Sustainable demand. So tell us more about the rental demand in Central Florida. Jim Sheils 28:39 Yeah, you know, when we first went out there about a decade ago, Keith, I think it was 82 or 83% of all properties out there were owner occupied, which means it was a very lopsided amount of existing rental property available. And this is before the curve of population growth really took off. But when Chris and I went out there and we were assessing that small percentage of rental property that was out there. Gosh, it was old and kind of beat up. There was not a lot like the new construction that was available. So when we brought in new construction, we saw just the competition. Was hard to compete with us. You know, when it was an older, not so nice taking care of we came in and we saw a jump from, you know, doing older houses ourselves, you know, a person would stay about 13 months. But for the new construction in Central Florida, we've seen a jump to about three years. So that's really positive. People get into a new construction property they don't want to leave, whether that's half of a duplex or a single family. The duplexes are interesting because we're able to build those on infill lots and existing single family home neighborhoods, so a person who doesn't want to live in an apartment can live there, have their own yard, and they couldn't afford the whole single family, but to have half of a single family basically what a duplex is. It makes a big difference, and the people are in great demand of rental in Central Florida there because of exactly why. I said, Keith, the job. Course, continues to grow in Central Florida, extremely strong. The business incentives to come into the area by the local municipality is very, very good. So here's something interesting, Keith, the average salary in Ocala is about 72,000 and the average home price is about 298,000 that is a very healthy affordability one. Yeah, very, very good. And so that job source continues to pay very well. And we've talked about just the logistics centers and the Equestrian Center. That's the largest in the world. Now the villages are just 25 miles south. So Ocala becomes a bedroom community, and that is the second largest retirement community and growing in the US. So there's a lot of job source that allows people to live there at a good affordability. And so that combination of affordability with this extending job source has been really, really good for the Ocala region. Keith Weinhold 30:59 It's been said that the only place you get money is from other people, and we're talking about your renters in this case. So oftentimes these renters, they had their sense of privacy there, like, for example, do the duplexes even have fenced backyards for each individual side, Jim Sheils 31:17 depending on where they are? We will. Other times it hasn't been a requirement. We've done lots of surveys to see is it worth the price point to put in full fencing in certain areas. It can be in a lot of areas. Keith, they're just so excited with the price point not having to move into an apartment building that it hasn't even been warranted or necessary. Keith Weinhold 31:38 Yeah. So we're talking about livability characteristics here, because oftentimes new build rental property results in a higher tenant stay that longer duration, because they're the first person that have ever lived there, and it's also difficult for them to go out and improve their living situation unless they become a home buyer, and that's difficult to do today. Tell us more about the incentives and the property types and so on, because there really are some pretty exciting ones. Jim Sheils 32:09 One of the best things about Central Florida, Keith, combined with new construction, is insurance costs. Now you and I have laughed about the blanketed statement where you said, oh my goodness, you cannot get insurance in Florida. You can't get property insurance in Florida, or it's doubled, tripled, gone up 7x that is a true statement on certain properties. If you're buying older properties from the 1950s that are within a half mile of the beach on low lying ground, but new construction properties far away from the beach, that is a totally different things. So again, being in Central Florida, where we are, a lot of people think, oh, to insure a single family home there, that's going to be several $100 a month, when actually, you know, and you've seen a lot of our performer quotes, our insurance companies are getting a single family home done for about $65 a month on average, full coverage. And that's the advantage of new construction. Insurance companies are all about risk. They analyze risk. When you're on a new construction property built on higher ground away from the beach, they like that, and they do that a duplex. You're looking at about $100 a month. So incentive wise, we've really searched to team up with great insurance companies that get the best rates full coverage. And again, we surprise people when they say, Oh man, I thought there would be a whole nother zero at that monthly cost. And these are actual quotes, as you know, with working with a lot of GRE people. So that's one great thing, another great thing, Keith, that happened when we joined forces with Sumitomo. And again, Sumitomo 320, years old, one of the biggest powerhouses out of Asia, Warren Buffett, is very heavily invested in another one of the conglomerates, not the housing one we do, but he's very involved in one of their other companies. And when they came aboard, you know, we have no bank debt for a builder, which is rare. And since we have such a healthy balance sheet, we're actually able to work deals with mortgage companies where we'll do what's called builder forward commitments, Keith, and that means we will pre buy mortgages for our clients, for the homes we're building, and we will pass that savings along. So right now, you know, if an investment property in a duplex might be an average of 7% for anyone who walks in off the street to a bank. Right now, our most popular rate program for our investors, for single family or duplexes, is 3.75 Gosh. So as you know, for your five ways, if we want to get cash flow, there's a big difference. Yeah, we're getting affordable housing. But if the rate is over 7% compared to 375 that could eat up the cash flow with us being able to have this power to buy large tranches of money and pass it along and lock our people in again, an average right now at 3.75 is our most popular program, and that's long term money, then we're able to get that cash flow right off the bat. And you and I know how important that is Keith Weinhold 34:50 for this super attractive 3.75% long term mortgage rate on single family homes and duplexes. How? Much does the buyer have to come out of pocket at the closing table to buy that down themselves? And how much do you the builder participate in that buy down? Jim Sheils 35:07 You know, it depends Keith at different times, because there is a little bit of a fluctuation. Sometimes it can be as low as zero points or just one origination point to bring it in. It does vary. And also, if people say, hey, I really don't want to bring in any points. Well, that's fine. You know, if you don't want to walk in zero to 2% points for that, you can also just raise your rate up to four and a quarter and probably walk in nothing. So there's different things that we can do, but the goal of it is to have us have the brunt of it. And what I can tell you is, if the average person walked into a bank, and a bank wouldn't do this anyway. It's only for, again, builders with a certain size, but if you went into a bank right now and said, I'd like to buy my rate down to 3.75 the average Keith that this would cost a person off the street going into a bank would be 12 to 15% banks wouldn't even do it for an individual. But that's about the estimates when you look at it. So again, volume has privileged. The fact we're able to buy it down. It does cost us a good amount of money, but we're all able to save since we're kind of working together to buy these larger tranches. And again, the need of any investment for buying down the rate from the clients is very minimal. Keith Weinhold 36:18 Tell us more about the property types, new build single family homes, new build duplexes. Jim Sheils 36:23 You know, single family and duplexes are our main focus in 2026 for Central Florida, we've done the research. They're very high in demand. They rent quickly, and they rent long term to produce cash flow. Our average single family home under 300,000 we're aiming to after expense, make about $300 cash flow. Our duplexes should be about twice that amount, about just under $600 a month, or just over in cash flow. And then again, the prices are ranging from about 395, to 420, for a duplex. Again, these are in workforce areas where we're doing great, scattered lots. Scattered lot means there's already existing homes around. We like to go to an area where there's good a fundamental balance of homeowners and renters. So there's retail buyers that have bought their first home, and we will place our rentals in between them, whether it's a single family or a duplex. Keith Weinhold 37:13 We sure don't need to do a complete audio pro forma here, but those cash flow amounts something near $300 for a single family home, and about double that for a duplex. Is that using, you know, a bought down rate to about 4% and some of these other inputs you're talking about, like low insurance costs and a certain property tax rate, can you tell us about that? Jim Sheils 37:35 Yeah, property tax rate is property tax rate. We can get pretty dang close on property taxes, you know, based on millage and get that down. But when we do our performers, we absolutely go off of, you know, our average rate to be the 375, to four and a quarter. And then when GRE clients look at our performer, and they look at the insurance cost, that's an actual quote from one of our insurance companies that has insured hundreds and hundreds of these properties. Not a guess, yeah, so they know what they're doing. So yeah, those would be the assumptions made in there, and that's what we're basically getting on a week in, week out basis. Keith Weinhold 38:09 That is really attractive as we're talking about new build. I imagine there is some sort of builder warranty as well. Jim Sheils 38:16 There's a state mandated 210 warranty. 210 warranty is something we could talk probably a whole episode on Keith. But for what's good for people to know, basically what that means, you get two years coverage on the small stuff and 10 years coverage on the big structural stuff. And so that's why I like new construction. You know what? I used to personally just buy my own fixer up Return key properties from other people. I could get a one year warranty, and that's the best that really can be done. Now with new construction, we've gone from, you know, with our fixer upper homes, able to do a one year warranty, which is good at something. But now with new construction, we can do a 210 warranty, big difference, and also really helps the safety score of issues if they came up. Keith Weinhold 38:59 We were talking about new build property, and we tend to project relatively low maintenance and repair costs for an obvious reason, maybe your long term vacancy rate could very well be lower as well, due to my earlier point about a tenant wanting to stay there for a long time, because it's hard for them to improve their living situation unless they went out and bought their own place. And you have the low insurance rates, and you have the low mortgage rates, all contributing to positive cash flow on a new build property. And we think about that tenant and what gets the tenant excited? We start to think about some of those amenities. So tell us about what amenities are offered, including inside, in the kitchen and so on. Jim Sheils 39:38 Jim, yeah, great question, Keith. We've really gotten a great recipe for success for that. You know, we've been doing this a little over a decade now, and so you're always tweaking your build model. What do people like? What do they not like? What's good for durability? Let's look at maintenance and repairs. Let's look at turn costs. So our goal is always the dual focus. That's what looks good. And what lasts really well, yeah, because you want durability. When you have tenants, you want it to look good, so you sell it down the road, 510, years to a first time homebuyer, it looks great. You can sell it. But durability wise, you don't want a lot of extra expenses or maintenance and repairs. So we go durability. So what we found a couple of things. I always joke about this. I do not like the word carpet, Keith, that is a terrible swear word in real estate investing, I can tell you right now, if I could go back and this is not, you know, owning hundreds of rentals, if I could not have done carpet and just reversed it to like vinyl plank flooring, like we do now, or even tile, which was more, I probably would have been able to buy three or four of our duplexes cash with the amount of money, and that is not an exaggeration. So we do not do carpet. First of all, it seems like trends are changing. It's not in favor right now. So we do vinyl plank flooring, which looks really nice, almost like wood floors, super durable, though, for a young family that's going to be tenant occupied in your property and running around on it. That's great. Kitchen wise, again, we don't sell retail really. We like to work with investors, but down the road, our investor might want to sell to a retail buyer. So we know, you know, from our old fix and flip days of the FHA buyers, the kitchen's got a pop. So we always do, you know, we don't do the white appliances, which you know would save you quite a bit of money, and save us quite a bit of money. We do stainless steel appliances. We do all new cabinetry, you know, kind of the latest, nicer cabinetry, a little bit of an upgrade. And then, you know, butcher block countertops, those are going to wear in about a year or two. Keith, it feels really good to spend that smaller amount, you know. But we, we like to do the more durable, nice looking countertops, you know, that are, you know, just so much more esthetically pleasing and actually durable as well. Same thing in the bathrooms. A lot of new builders will do shower kit, which not a problem if you're saving money on a rehab, you know, but we would rather do tile, bring in the extra subcontractors to give tile, and then in the master we do the dual sinks, which this might sound like little stuff, Keith, but these are the micro movements that help get a tenant in quicker, stay longer and more rent. So we're always trying to do these extra things in the granite countertops, both in the kitchens and in the bathrooms. Those cost more upfront, but we see for long term of tenant we see, for the amount of rent we get, and for resale ability, because a lot of people don't think about that. You know what? In seven years you want to sell one of these properties? Well, it's a seven year old roof, it's seven year old plumbing, you're still in a great spot for an FHA buyer. And that esthetically pleasing flooring, bathrooms, kitchens. That allows an easier sale for them, because we want to look all the way around, not just a rental. I like to hold long term, but if you want to sell in five to 10 years, that's a very valid strategy. Keith Weinhold 42:48 I like carpet in my own home, but not rentals. But what you're sharing with us, Jim, this is absolute gold that's been brought to you through experience. This over improvement versus under improvement line in rentals, and it really has a lot of balance between durability and price. These are the sort of things that really matter, but you are selling predominantly to individual investors, a lot of mom and pop investors. Why don't you make more sales to the retail, owner occupied market, or to institutional investors, even though that might be cracked down upon now. But why don't you sell to those parties? Jim Sheils 43:26 Yeah, you know Keith, I did a lot of fix and flip to FHA buyers, and I'm an investor. I really like working with investors. So when this all really went back to is 2009 I had a lot of investors. I was in Northeast Florida. The deal flow was incredible. And I just had a lot of investors, you know, through my different networks and Masterminds, like, where you and I have met, and said, Hey, you're getting great deals in Northeast Florida. Could you help put some together for me? And so I had done quite a few fix and flips to retail buyers, and it just kind of hot on me, you know, way back then, like, Wow. I like working with investors. I like building portfolios. I also like the fact that when I'm normally building a portfolio for an investor, well, they hang out with other investors, and they're not looking to buy one property over the next five years. They're looking to buy five to eight properties over the next five years. great point. And so we just saw it as you gotta like who you work with, right? And nothing against first time homebuyers. But when I was rehabbing houses and selling them, golly, that was a lot of work. And then could be persnickety. Yeah, very persnickety. And so when Chris and I teamed up about 10 years ago, we had both gone through the same kind of aha, like going, Yeah, it seems great, but you could sell for more to a retail buyer. But again, like I go back to even the type of property we build, we'd rather do a volume with investors. Be a builder, buy investors for investors, and work that way. And I think it suits me. I think I would have probably hung up my shoes a long time ago if I was. Working with the amount of properties we've done with retail buyers compared to investors, honestly, and so I think it was just kind of, it was a preference, really, that made sense Keith Weinhold 45:09 to your point. Investors buy multiple properties, and that way there are fewer parties to deal with. And investors tend to be less emotional than those more persnickety, owner occupied buyers. Well, Jim, you make it easy for investors. Besides all these incentives, you also offer an in house management solution for these investors, often that tend to be out of state. Well, Jim, before I ask you, if you have any closing thoughts, would you the listener like to ask Jim any question directly? Well, you can, because I have a great event to tell you about next Thursday, the 19th, at 8pm eastern Jim here and GRE investment coach, Naresh will co host a live webinar for Central Florida new build income property. In fact, Jim, I think you know Naresh longer than I have, as it turns out, but this event is free, and you the listener are invited. We've had between 250 and 550 registrants for our past webinars. Not all of them attend live. So the benefit of you attending live is that you can have any of your questions answered by either Naresh or Jim in real time, and besides learning about the Central Florida market and more about home building, you are going to see available new build income property, real addresses with some of these rather grand incentives that we've talked about here, you might end up with a long term rate of about 4% again, it is Thursday, the 19th at 8pm Eastern. Sign up is open now at grewebinars.com that's grewebinars.com Any final thoughts here, Jim, for this great event coming up next week? Jim Sheils 46:52 I think we're going to dig a little deeper. Obviously, this is a conversation that was great, but moves pretty quickly when we talk next week, we're going to be able to dig into more of the fundamentals, some of the stats, and just get underneath the hood of why Central Florida is making so much sense, and just some of the rising stars that we're seeing there that we're very excited to be a part of. Keith Weinhold 47:13 You've helped our listeners for close to 10 years now. It's been an informative chat as always. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show. Jim Sheils 47:21 Thanks for having me, Keith. Keith Weinhold 47:27 Yeah, like our guest touched on Ocala, Florida now has national recognition as the fastest growing city in America, and that's for the second year in a row. According to a new U haul report, Florida is, of course, a rather landlord friendly state. In fact, Florida is the first state to enact a law that allows law enforcement to immediately remove squatters, distinguishing them from legal tenants. Now here's what's interesting and why I've identified this opportunity if Florida prices dipped because people were leaving now, that could be a red flag, because population loss is like gravity. Once it starts falling, it is hard to escape. But that's not what's happening. Instead, what we're seeing is a temporary overbuild hangover. Builders got ambitious. We're in a brief period where supply outran demand and prices softened. That's not decay. That's a sale rack. Any vacant homes are not stranded. They're being absorbed by Florida's still growing population, which has now increased every single decade since its first census count, back in the year 1830 back in 1830 there were about 35,000 residents in the whole state. Isn't that amazing today? North of 24 million, that is 700x population growth in almost 200 years, and it's still growing. That kind of trend doesn't reverse because a few builders over ordered inventory here at GRE this made us target and find in opportunity. This isn't an accident. Central Florida is this year's most compelling. Housing market in that region, Central Florida, is growing faster than the rest of the state at large, and it really sits in the sweet spot of this temporary imbalance. One long established builder overbuilt and now they're motivated. They know what investors want. So, for example, they don't build swimming pools with their homes. They also offer property tours, and over 90% of their tour attendees buy property. They're willing to offer terrific incentives at our upcoming GRE live webinar, like we touched on new build single family rentals, 270k and up duplexes, three. 95 to 420, long term mortgage rates as low as 3.75% you get low insurance rates since they're inland and new build positive cash flow and a builder warranty at the event. You're going to learn all about the growth drivers in Central Florida, why so many renters are moving there and see available properties. This benefits anyone looking for a clear, practical view of current real estate conditions. Joining live does matter, since you can have those questions answered in real time, not after the opportunity has moved on, you are invited for next Thursday, the 19th, at 8p m Eastern. This one is worth circling, not because it's flashy, because it's timed right. Sign up is open now @grewebinars.com that's gre webinars.com. Until next week. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 5 51:00 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold 51:29 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com

Keith challenges the usual "overpopulated vs. underpopulated" debate and shows why that's the wrong way to think about demographics—especially if you're a real estate investor. Listeners will hear about surprising global population comparisons that flip common assumptions. Why raw population numbers don't actually explain housing shortages or rent strength. How household formation, aging, and migration really drive demand for rentals. Which kinds of markets tend to see persistent housing pressure—and why the US has a long‑term demographic edge. You'll come away seeing population headlines very differently, and with a clearer lens for spotting where future housing demand is most likely to show up. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/590 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text 1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, is the world overpopulated or underpopulated? Also is the United States over or underpopulated? These are not just rhetorical questions, because I'm going to answer them both. Just one of Africa's 54 nations has more births than all of Europe and Russia combined. One US state has seen their population decline for decades. This is all central to housing demand today. On get rich education Keith Weinhold 0:36 since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com Speaker 1 1:21 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:31 Welcome to GRE from Norfolk Virginia to Norfolk, Nebraska and across 188 nations worldwide, you are inside. Get rich education. I am the GRE founder, Best Selling Author, longtime real estate investor. You can see my written work in Forbes and the USA Today, but I'm best known as the host of this incomprehensibly slack John operation that you're listening to right now. My name is Keith Weinhold. You probably know that already, one reason that we're talking about underpopulated versus overpopulated today is that also one of my degrees is in geography and demography, essentially, is human geography, and that's why this topic is in my wheelhouse. It's just a humble bachelor's degree, by the way, if a population is not staying stable or growing, then demand for housing just must atrophy away. That's what people think, but that is not true. That's oversimplified. In some cases. It might even be totally false. You're going to see why. Now, Earth's population is at an all time high of about 8.2 billion people, and it keeps growing, and it's going to continue to keep growing, but the rate of growth is slowing now. Where could all of the people on earth fit? This is just a bit of a ridiculous abstraction in a sense, but I think it helps you visualize things. Just take this scenario, if all the humans were packed together tightly, but in a somewhat realistic way, in a standing room only way, if every person on earth stood shoulder to shoulder, that would allow about 2.7 square feet per person, they would sort of be packed like a subway car. Well, they could fit in a square, about 27 kilometers on one side, about 17 miles on each side of that square. Now, what does that mean in real places that is smaller than New York City, about half the size of Los Angeles County and roughly the footprint of Lake Tahoe? So yes, every human alive today could physically fit inside one midsize us metro area. This alone tells you something important. The world's problem is certainly not a lack of space. Rather, it's where people live and not how many there are. So that was all of Earth's inhabitants. Now, where could all Americans fit us residents using the same shoulder to shoulder assumption, and the US population by mid year this year is supposed to be about 350,000,00349 that's a square about five and a half kilometers, or 3.4 miles on each side. And some real world comparisons there are. That's about half of Manhattan, smaller than San Francisco and roughly the size of Disney World, so every American could fit into a single small city footprint. And if you're beginning to form an early clue that we are not overpopulated globally, yes, that's the sense that you Should be getting. Keith Weinhold 5:01 now, if you're in Bangladesh, it feels overpopulated there. They've got 175 million people, and that nation is only the size of Iowa. In area, Bangladesh is low lying and typhoon prone. They get a lot of flooding, which complicates their already bad sanitation problems and a dense population like that, and that creates waterborne diseases, and it's really more of an infrastructure problem in a place like Bangladesh than it is a population problem. Then Oppositely, you've got Australia as much land as the 48 contiguous states, yet just 27 million people in Australia, and only 1/400 as many people as Bangladesh in density. Now we talk about differential population. About 80% of Americans live in the eastern half of the US. But yet, the East is not overpopulated because we have sufficient infrastructure, and I've got some more mind blowing population stats for you later, both world and us. Now, as far as is the world overpopulated or underpopulated, which is our central question, depending on who you ask and where they live, you're going to hear completely different answers. Some people are convinced that the planet is bursting at the seams. Others warn that we're headed for a population collapse. But here's the problem, that question overpopulated or underpopulated, it's the wrong question. It's the wrong framing, especially if you're into real estate, because housing demand doesn't respond to total headcount or global averages or scary demographic headlines. Housing demand responds to where people live, how old they are, and how they form households. And once you understand this, a lot of things suddenly begin to make sense, like why housing shortages persist, why rents stay high, even when affordability feels stretched, why some states struggle while others boom, and why population headlines often mislead investors. Keith Weinhold 7:20 So today I want to reframe how you think about population and connect it directly to housing demand, both globally and right here in the United States. And let's start with the US, because that's probably where you invest. Keith Weinhold 7:33 Here's a simple fact that should confuse people, but usually doesn't, the United States has below replacement fertility. I'll talk about fertility rates a little later. They're similar to birth rates, meaning that Americans are not having enough children to replace the population naturally and without immigration, the US population would eventually shrink, and yet in the US, we have a housing shortage, rising rents, tight vacancy and a lot of metros and persistent demand for rental housing, which could all seem contradictory. Now, if population alone determine housing demand, well, then the US really shouldn't have any housing shortage at all, but it does so clearly, population alone is not the main driver, and really that contradiction is like your first clue that most demographic conversations are just missing the point. Aging does not reduce housing demand. The way that people think a misconception really is that an aging population automatically reduces housing demand. It does not, in fact, just the opposite. If a population is too young, well, that tends to kill housing demand, and that's because five year old kids and 10 year old kids do not form their own household. Instead, what an aging population often does is change the type of housing that's demanded, like seniors aging in place, some of them downsizing. Seniors living alone. Sometimes after a spouse passes away, others relocating closer to health care or to family. So aging can increase unit demand even if population growth slows. So already, we've broken two myths here. Slower population doesn't mean weaker housing demand, and aging doesn't mean fewer housing units are needed. Now let's explain why. Really, the core idea that unlocks everything is that people don't live inside, what are called Population units. They live in households. You are one person. That does not mean that your dwelling is then one population unit. That's not how that works. You are part of a household, whether that's a house a Household of one person or five or 11 people, housing demand is driven by the number of households, the type of households and where those households are forming, not by raw population totals. So the same population can have wildly different demand. Just think about how five people living together in one home, that's one housing unit, those same five people living separately, that is five housing units, same population, five times the housing demand. And this is why population statistics alone are almost useless for real estate investors, you need to know how people are living, not just how many there are. The biggest surge in housing demand happens when people leave their parents' homes or when they finish school or when they start working, or you got big surges in housing demand when people marry or when they separate or divorce. So in other words, adults create housing demand and children don't. And this is why a country with a youngish, working age population, oh, then they can have exploding housing demand. A country with high birth rates, but low household formation can have overcrowding without profitable housing growth. So it's not about babies, it's about independent adults, and what quietly boosts housing demand, then is housing fragmentation. Yeah, fragmentation. That's a trend that really doesn't get enough attention, and that is the trend, households are fragmenting, meaning more single adults later marriage, like I was talking about in a previous episode. Recently, higher divorce rates, more people living alone and older adults living independently, longer. Each one of those trends increases housing demand without adding any population whatsoever. When two people split up, they often need two housing units instead of one, and if you've got one adult living alone, that is full unit demand right there. So that's why housing demand can rise even when population growth slows or stalls for housing demand. What matters more than births is migration. And another key distinction is that, yes, births matter, but they're on somewhat of this 20 year delay and migration matters immediately, right now. So see, when a working age adult moves, they need housing right away. They typically rent first. They cluster near jobs, and they don't bring housing supply along with them. They've got to get it from someone else. Hopefully you in your rental unit. Keith Weinhold 12:57 This is why migration is such a powerful force in rental markets, and you see me talk about migration on the show, and you see me send you migration maps in our newsletter. It's also why housing pressure shows up unevenly. It gets concentrated around opportunity. If you want to know the future, look at renters. Renters are the leading indicator, not homeowners and not birth rates. See renters create housing demand faster than homeowners, because renters form households earlier. They can do it quickly because they don't need down payments. Renters move more frequently and immigration overwhelmingly starts in rentals, fresh immigrants rarely become homeowners, so even when mortgage rates rise or home purchases slow or affordability headlines get scary, rental demand can stay strong. It's not a mystery, it's demographics. So births surely matter, but only over the long term. It's like how I've shared with you in a previous episode that the US had a lot of births between 1990 and 2010 those two decades, a surge of births more than 4 million every single one of those years during those two decades, with that peak birth year at 2007 but see a bunch of babies being born in 2007 Well, that didn't make housing demand surge, since infants don't buy homes. But if you add, say, 20 years to 2007 when those people start renting, oh, well, that rental demand peaks in 2027 or maybe a little after that, and since the first time, homebuyer age is now 40. If that stays constant, well, then native born homebuyer demand won't peak until 2047 so when it comes to housing demand, the important thing to remember is migration has an immediate effect and births have a delayed effect. Keith Weinhold 15:02 and I'm going to talk more about other nations shortly, but the US has two major migration forces working simultaneously, domestic and international migration. I mean, Americans move a lot, although not as much as they used to, and people move for jobs, for taxes, for weather, for cost of living and for lifestyle. So this creates state level winners and losers, and Metro level housing pressure and rent growth in those destination markets and national population averages totally hide this. So that's domestic migration. And then on the international migration. The US has a long history, hundreds of years now on, just continually attracting working age adults from around the world. This matters immensely, because they arrive ready to work, and they form households quickly. They overwhelmingly rent first. They concentrate in metros, and this props up rental demand before it ever shows up in home prices. And this is why investors often feel the rent pressure first those rising rents. Keith Weinhold 16:17 I've got more straight ahead, including Nigeria versus Europe, and what about the overpopulation straining the environment? If you like, episodes that explain why housing behaves the way it does, rather than just reacting to the headlines. You'll want to be on my free weekly newsletter. I break down demographics, housing, demand, inflation, investor trends and real estate strategy in plain English, often complemented with maps. You can join free at greletter.com that's gre letter.com Keith Weinhold 16:53 mid south homebuyers with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your return on investment as their North Star. It's no wonder smart investors line up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone headquartered in Memphis, with their globally attractive cash flows, mid south has an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and 4000 houses renovated. There is zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate with an industry leading three and a half year average renter term. Every home they offer you will have brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter in an astounding price range, 100 to 150k GET TO KNOW mid south enjoy cash flow from day one at mid southhomebuyers.com that's midsouthhomebuyers.com Keith Weinhold 17:54 you know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program when you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products, they've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom, family investments.com/gre, or send a text. Now it's 1-937-795-8989Yep. Text their freedom coach directly again. 1937795, 1-937-795-8989, Keith Weinhold 19:05 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com Chris Martenson 19:37 this is peak prosperity. Is Chris Martinson. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 19:53 Welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, and this is episode 590 yes, we're in my Geography wheelhouse today, as I'm talking human geography and demographics with how it relates to housing, while answering our central question today is the world and the US overpopulated or underpopulated? And now that we understand some mechanics here, let's go global. Here's one of the most mind bending stats in all of demographics. Are you ready for this? When you hear this, it's going to have you hitting up chat, GPT, looking it up. It's going to be so astonishing. So jaw dropping. Every year, Nigeria has more births than all of Europe plus all of Russia combined. Would you talk about Willis? Keith Weinhold 20:47 Yeah, yes, you heard that, right? Willis, that's what I'm talking about. Willis. The source of that data is, in fact, from the United Nations. Yes, Nigeria has seven and a half million births every year. Compare that to all of Europe plus Russia combined, they only have about 6.3 million births per year. So you're telling me that today, just one West African nation, and there are 54 nations in Africa. Just one West African nation produces more babies than the entire continent of Europe, with all of its nations plus all of Russia, the largest world nation by area. Yes, that is correct. One country in Africa produces more babies every year than France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, all of Europe, including all the Eastern European nations, and all of Russia combined. This is a demographic reality, and now you probably already know that less developed nations, like Nigeria have higher birth rates than wealthier, more developed ones like France or Switzerland. I mean, that's almost common knowledge, but something that people think about less is that poorer nations also have a larger household size, which sort of makes sense when you think about it. In fact, Nigeria has five persons per household. Spain has two and a half, and the US also has that same level two and a half. That one difference alone explains why population growth and housing demand are completely different stories now, the US had 3.3 people per household in 1950 and it's down to that two and a half today. That means that even if the population stayed the same, the housing demand would rise. And this is evidence of what I talked about before the break, that households are fragmenting within the US. You can probably guess which state has the largest household size due to their Mormon population. It's Utah at 3.1 the smallest is Maine at 2.3 they have an older population. In fact, Maine has America's oldest population. And as you can infer with what you've learned now, the fact that they have just 2.3 people per household means that if their populations were the same. Maine would need more housing units than Utah. By the way, if you're listening closely at times, I have referred to the United States as simply America. Yes, I am American. You are going to run into some people out there that don't like it. When US residents call themselves Americans, they say something like, Hey, you need a geography lesson. America runs from Nunavut all the way down to Argentina. Here's what to tell them. No, look, there are about 200 world nations. There is only one that has the word America in it, that is the United States of America that usually makes them lighten up. That is why I am an American, not a Peruvian or Bolivian, and there's no xenophobic connotation whatsoever. There are more productive things to think about moving on. Why births matter is because births today become future workers, renters, consumers and even migrants. But not evenly. Young populations move toward a few things. They're attracted to capital. They move towards stability. They're attracted to opportunity, and young populations move toward infrastructure. That's not ideology, that's the gravity and the US remains one of the strongest gravity wells on Earth, a big magnet, a big attractant. Now it's sort of interesting. I know a few a People that believe that the world is indeed overpopulated, they often tend to be environmental enthusiasts, and the environment is a concern, for sure, but how big of a concern is it? That's the debatable part. And you know, it's funny, I've run into the same people that think that the world is overpopulated, they seem to lament at school closures. You see more school closures because just there weren't as many children that were born after the global financial crisis. And these people that are afraid we have an overpopulation problem call school closures a sad phenomenon. They think it's sad. Well, if you want a shrinking population, then you're going to see a lot more than just schools close so many with environmental concerns, though. The thing is, is that they seem to discount the fact that humans innovate. More than 200 years ago, Thomas Malthus, he famously failed. He wrote a book, thinking that the global population would exceed what he called his carrying capacity, meaning that we wouldn't be able to feed everybody. He posited that, look, this is a problem. Populations grow exponentially, but food production only grows linearly. But he was wrong, because, due to agricultural innovation, we have got too many calories in most places. Few people thought this many humans could live in the United States, Sonoran and Mojave deserts, that's Phoenix in Las Vegas, respectively. But our ability to recycle and purify water allows millions of people to live there. So my point about running out of resources is that history shows us that humans are a resource ourselves, and we keep finding ways to innovate, or keep finding ways to actually not need that rare earth element or whatever it is now, if the earth warms too much from human related activity, can we cool it off again? And how much of a problem is this? I am not sure, and that goes beyond the scope of our show. But the broader point here is that history shows us that humans keep figuring things out, and that is somewhat of an answer to those questions. The world is not overpopulated, it is unevenly populated. Some regions are young, others are growing, others are capital constrained, and then other regions are aging, shrinking and capital rich. And that very imbalance right there is what fuels migration and fuels labor flows and fuels housing demand in destination countries and the US benefits from this imbalance. Unlike almost anywhere else in the world, it's a demographic magnet. Yes, you do have some smaller ones out there, like Dubai, for example. Keith Weinhold 28:04 But why? Why do we keep attracting immigrants? Well, we've got strong labor markets, capital availability, property rights, economic mobility, and US has existing housing stock. Countries today don't just compete for capital, they're competing for people. In the US keeps attracting working age adults, and that is exactly the demographic that creates housing demand, and this is why long term housing demand in the US is more resilient than a lot of people think. In fact, the US population of about 350 million. This year, it's projected to peak at about 370 million, near 2080 and of course, the big factor that makes that pivot is that level of immigration. So that's why the population projections vary now. The last presidential administration allowed for a lot of immigrants. The current one few immigrants, and the next one, nobody knows. You've got a group called the falconist party that calls for increased legal immigration into the US. Yeah, they want to allow more migrants into the country, but yet they want to enforce illegal immigration. That sounds just like it's spelled, F, A, L, C, O, N, i, s, t, the falconist Party, but the us's magnetic effect to keep driving population growth through immigration is key, because you might already know that 2.1 is the magic number you need a fertility rate of at least 2.1 to maintain a population fertility rate that is the average number of children that a woman is expected to have over her lifetime. And be sure you don't confuse these numbers with the earlier numbers of people per. Per household, like I discussed earlier, although higher fertility rates are usually going to lead to more people per household, India's fertility rate is already down to 2.0 Yes, it is the most populated nation in the world, but since women, on average, only have two children, India is already below replacement fertility. The US and Australia are each at 1.6 Japan is just 1.2 China's is down to 1.0 South Korea's is at an incredibly low seven tenths of one, so 0.7 in South Korea, and then Nigeria's is still more than four. So among all those that I mentioned, only Nigeria is above the replacement rate of 2.1 and most of the nations above that rate are in Africa. Israel is a big outlier at 2.9 you've got others in the Middle East and South Asia that are above replacement rate as well. And when I say things like it's still up there, that whole still thing refers to the fact that there is this tendency worldwide for society to urbanize and have fewer children. For those fertility rates to keep falling. And that's why the future population growth is about which nations attract immigrants, and that is the US. Is huge advantage. Now there's a great way to look at where future births are going to come from. A way to do this is consider your chance of being born on each continent in the year 2100 This is interesting. In the year 2100 a person has a 48% chance of being born in Africa, 38% in South Asia, in the Middle East, 5% South America, 5% in Europe or Russia, 4% in North America, and less than 1% in Australia. Those are the chances of you being born on each of those continents in the year 2100 and that sourced by the UN. Keith Weinhold 32:09 the world population is, as I said earlier, about 8.2 billion, and it's actually expected to peak around the same time that the US population is in the 2080s and that'll be near 10 point 3 billion. All right, so both the world and the US population should rise for another 50 to 60 years. Let's talk about population winners and losers inside the US. I mean, this is where population conversations really become useful for investors, because population doesn't matter nationally that much. It really matters locally, unevenly and sometimes it almost feels unfairly. So let me give you some perspective shifting stats. I think I shared with you when I discussed new New York City Mayor Zoran Manami here on the show a month or two ago, that the New York City Metro Area has over 20 million people, nearly double the combined population of Arizona and Nevada together, yes, just one metro area, the same as Two entire sparsely populated states. So when someone says people are leaving New York I mean that tells you almost nothing, unless you know where they're going. How many are still arriving in New York City to replace those leaving, and how many households are still forming inside that Metro? The household formation so scale matters, however, net, people are not leaving New York. New York City recently had more in migration than any other US Metro. Some states are practically empty. Alaska or take Wyoming. Wyoming has fewer than 600,000 people in the entire state. That's fewer people than a lot of single US cities. That's only about six people per square mile. In Wyoming, that's about the population of one midsize Metro suburb. Now, when someone says the US has plenty of land in a lot of cases, they're right. I mean, just look out the window when you fly over Wyoming or the Dakotas. But people don't really live where land is cheap. They actually don't want to. Most of the time. They live where jobs, incomes and their networks already exist. You know, the wealthy guy that retires to Wyoming and it has a 200 acre ranch is an outlier. There's a reason he can sprawl out and make it 200 acres. There's virtually nobody there. Let's understand too that population loss, that doesn't mean that demand is gone, but it does change the rules, especially when you think about a place like West Virginia. They have lost population in most decades since the 1950s and incredibly, their population is lower today than it was in 1930 we're talking about West Virginia statewide. They have an aging population. West Virginia has an outmigration of young adults. So this doesn't mean that no real estate works in West Virginia, but it means that appreciation stories are fragile. Income matters more than equity. Growth and demographics are a headwind, not a tailwind. That's a very different investment posture than where you usually want to be. It's important to understand that a handful of metros, just a handful, are absorbing massive national growth. And here's something that a lot of investors underestimate. About half of all US, population growth flows into fewer than 15 metro areas, and it's not just New York City, Houston, Miami, but smaller places like Jacksonville, Austin and Raleigh, and that really helps pump their real estate market. So that means demand concentrates, housing pressure intensifies, and rent growth becomes pretty sticky, unless you wildly overbuild for a short period of time like Austin did, and this is why some metros just feel perpetually tight over the long term, and others feel permanently sluggish. Population does not spread evenly. It piles up. In fact, Texas is a great case in point here. Understand that Texas is adding people faster than some entire nations do. Texas alone adds hundreds of 1000s of residents per year in strong cycles. Some years, they do add more people than entire small countries, more than several Midwest states combined. And of course, they don't spread evenly across Texas. They cluster in DFW, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, so pretty much the Texas triangle, and that clustering fact is everything for housing demand, yet at the same time, there are fully 75 Texas counties that are losing population, typically out in West Texas. Then there's Florida. Florida isn't just growing. It's replacing people. Florida's growth. It's not just net positive, it's replacement migration, and it's across all different types and ages. You've got retirees arriving, you've got young workers arriving, you've got young households forming, and you've got seniors aging in place. So this way, among a whole spectrum of ages, you've got demand for rentals, workforce housing, age specific, housing and multifamily all in Florida, and this is why Florida housing demand over the long term is not going to cool off the way that a few skeptics expect. Now, of course, some areas did temporarily overbuild in Florida in the years following the pandemic. Yes, that's led to some temporary Florida home price attrition, but that is going to be absorbed. California did not empty out. It reshuffled now. There were some recent years where California lost net population, but here's what that hides. Some metros lost residents. Others stayed flat. You had some income brackets that left California and others arrived. In fact, California has slight population growth today overall, so housing demand definitely did not vanish. It shifted within the state and then outward to nearby states, and that's how Arizona, Nevada and Texas benefited. But overall, California's population count, really, it's just pretty steady, not declining. Keith Weinhold 39:05 population density. It's that density that predicts rent pressure better than growth rates. Do something really important for real estate investors. Dense metros absorb shocks better. They have less elastic housing supply, and they see faster rent rebounds. Sparse areas have cheaper land and easier supply expansion and weaker rent resilience. So that's why rents snap back faster in dense metros, and oversupply hurts more in spread out to regions. Density matters more than raw growth does. Shrinking states can still have tight housing I mean, some states lose population overall, but yet they still have housing shortages in certain metros, and you'll have tight rental markets near job centers, and you've got strong demand In limited sub markets, even if the state is shrinking. And I think you know this is why the slower growing Northeast and Midwest, they've had the highest home price appreciation in the past two years. There's not enough building there. If your population falls 1% but the available housing falls 2% well, you can totally get into a housing shortage situation, and that bids up real estate prices. And when people look at population charts on the state level, a lot of times, they still get misled. When you buy an investment property, you don't buy a state, you buy a specific market within it, so the United States is not full it is lopsided. The US is not overpopulated. It is heavily clustered. It's unevenly dense, and it's really driven by migration. And perhaps a better way to say it is that the US population is really opportunity concentrated housing demand follows jobs, networks, wages and migration flows. It sure does not follow empty land. And really the investor takeaway is, is that when you hear population stats, don't put too much weight on the question, is the population rising or falling? Although that's something you certainly want to know. Some better questions to ask are, where are households forming? Where are adults moving? Where is supply constrained? And where does income support, rent like those are, what four big questions there, because population alone does not create housing demand. It's households under constraint that do so. Our big arching overall question is the world overpopulated or underpopulated? The answer is neither. The world is unevenly populated. It's unevenly aged, and it's unevenly governed. And for real estate investors, the lesson is simple. You don't invest in population counts, you invest in household formation, age structure, migration and supply constraints. Really, that's a big learning summary for you, that's why housing demand can stay strong even when population growth slows. And once you understand that demographic headlines that seem scary aren't as scary, and they start to be more useful. Why I've wanted to do this overpopulated versus underpopulated episode for you for years. I've really thought about it for years. I really hope that you got something useful out of it. Let's be mindful of the context too. When it comes to the classic Adam Smith economics of supply demand, I've only discussed one side today, largely just the demand side and not the supply side so much that would involve a discussion about building and some more things that supply side. Now that I've helped you ask a better question about population and the future of housing demand, you might wonder where you can get better answers. Well, like I mentioned earlier, I provide a lot of that and help you make sense of it, both right here on this show and with my newsletter, geography is something that's more conducive and meaningful to you visually, that's often done with a map, and that's why my letter at greletter.com will help you more if you enjoy learning through maps, just like we've done every year since 2014 I've got 52 great episodes coming to you this year. If you haven't consider subscribing to the show until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 2 43:57 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice, please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively you Keith Weinhold 44:25 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com

Keith explores two big themes shaping real estate investors' futures: Why more Americans are becoming "forever renters"—and how long-term lifestyle and demographic shifts (not just today's prices and rates) are quietly reshaping the demand for rentals. The growing conversation around eliminating property taxes—which states are making the most noise, and why the real issue isn't whether property taxes go away, but what would realistically replace them. Keith also zooms out for a quick year-end tour of major asset classes—from stocks and real estate to metals and crypto—so listeners can see where real estate fits in the broader investing landscape and what these shifts might mean for their wealth-building strategy. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/588 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text 1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com or text 'GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:01 Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the Forever renter trend keeps getting embedded deeper into American culture. What's behind it? It's more than just finances. Then there's been more talk about eliminating property taxes, if they go away, what replaces them? And we'll discuss more today on get rich education. Keith Weinhold 0:27 Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com Corey Coates 1:12 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:28 Welcome to GRE from Jamestown, New York to Jamestown, North Dakota and across 108 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and this is get rich education. Most investments reduce your income until you can start drawing on it and paying taxes on it in your 60s. That's a lot of decades of living below your means. Here learn how to grow your means and invest in vehicles that pay you when you're young enough to enjoy it and pay you five ways tax advantaged. Hey, there's a big misunderstanding about the housing market taking place right now. Yes, today's higher cost of home ownership contributes to Americans renting longer, for sure, but let's not make the mistake of thinking this is a new phenomenon just because home prices moved higher or mortgage rates began normalizing again a few years ago, that's not what it's about Americans renting longer. That is a trend decades in the making, and it has had and will continue to have major implications on the rental housing market decades into the future, buying your first home at 25 that was your grandparents or maybe your parents. Today, it kind of goes like this in life's journey for the wannabe homeowner, First comes the gray hair, then comes the mortgage. Last year, we learned that the average first time homebuyer age in America has moved up to 40. Back in 1981 it was age 29 per the NAR. More specifically one's real estate journey, it basically now goes like this, rent, rent, rent, have roommates again, go back to renting, chiropractor, Bank of mom and dad, then a mortgage maybe. Keith Weinhold 3:34 Yeah, the home ownership rate, it keeps falling among every age group, most sharply among 30 somethings. The translation here is that more renters are coming. For those in their 30s, the home ownership rate maxed out at 69% in 1980 it's fallen to just 47% today. Those that are older, for those in their 40s, the homeownership rate maxed out at 78% in 1982 it has fallen to just 62% today and so on. Every 10 year age group all the way to those age 80 plus, the homeownership rate has fallen for all of them over the decades too, every single age cohort. The home ownership rate has fallen over the decades, and that is all per the Census Bureau. I'll tell you why this forever renter trend just keeps strengthening in a moment. But if you don't own your home, here are your current housing options. You can live with your parents. Yes, welcome back childhood bedroom with those glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. Sadly, you can be homeless. That is really not good. Or the other option is you can rent something nice, new, modern, and energy eficient. The group in which home ownership has fallen the most are those 30 somethings. 20 somethings aren't even part of what the Census Bureau reported here. It fell most sharply in the 1980s and then again, after the great recession. And here's what I know you might be thinking because we have some of the smartest listeners around. I bet that during times that buying was cheaper than renting, the trend reversed. That's what you might be thinking. No, it didn't. Regardless of what is cheaper, over time, the home ownership rate just keeps falling despite those periods, whatever is cheaper renting or owning now the overall home ownership rate that's fallen just since 2023 from 66% down to 65% that might not sound like much, but a Full 1% drop there means 1.3 million new renters already, just since 2023 and now you might be thinking, well, this is like totally because home prices and mortgage rates have been higher since that time. They've been higher since 2023 you are, in fact, somewhat correct about the affordability on a median priced home today, which is around 420k, I mean a 10% down payment and closing costs, that means you're out of pocket, probably more than 50k and it's 100k plus for a 20% down payment. And this is often an insurmountable hurdle without financial help from the Bank of mom and dad. But this is all part of a longer, multi decade set of trends. And look, a lot of these trends don't have much of anything to do with finances. People are renting longer because Americans wait longer to marry and have kids, and this has persisted, whether economic cycles are good or bad, and certainly, regardless of what mortgage rate levels are, younger generations value flexibility. That's another reason people are renting longer. Also 30 somethings are just simply more comfortable with subscription models like renting. I mean, look at Netflix and Uber and Spotify. It's been decades since anyone actually bought DVDs or CDs. Yeah, renting is just sort of another subscription model. More. Boomers are also renting for convenience. They would rather play pickleball instead of mow a lawn. This is something that they figured out a while ago. Also higher consumer and educational debt keeps people renting. You've got buy now, pay later. Companies like Klarna that are booming and mortgage eligibility got sucked from souls when all this happened? Hey, I've got more a ton of reasons for why more and more people are renters today, and how this trend is your friend if you are a rental property investor. Keith Weinhold 8:13 Also, let's be mindful when we broke the gold standard in 1971 asset prices took off like a Blue Origin launch, and wages stagnated. That makes it tough to patch together a down payment and look, there is still an antiquated notion out there that apartments especially are like replete with paper thin walls and one in every five units is a meth lab. Have you toured apartment buildings, fourplexes, duplexes and single family rentals built in the last 10 years? Sheesh. Great amenities. Expect to see granite countertops, patios, fenced yards, gyms, sometimes even pet spas at Class A apartments, washer, dryer in unit. I mean, that has been standard for a long time, LED lighting, smart locks, increasingly office nooks for remote workers. Those are the modern amenities that you find in a rental. So the bottom line here is that as Americans age, there is an elongated renter stage of life. It's not just prices or rates, it is lifestyle. And this is why, even when affordability improves, the homeownership rate should continue to drop. More rental demand is coming. So yes, an elongated renter stage, this forever renter, if you will. That is somewhat about finances, but it is more, and this shapes the landlordtenant landscape for decades. And of course, your advantage here at GRE is even if you live in a High Cost part of the nation, we know how to buy here, say, a brand new build to rent single family property in an investor advantage place like Indiana, Missouri, Alabama or Florida, and we get it for, say, 300k or so, and you get a tenant that will pay you rent for four years or more in a lot of cases. So we've been talking about where the rental demand is coming from. It is both a lifestyle choice and a financial consideration for your tenant. Now this forever renter trend, that's something that really matters if you are providing housing to people. But some real estate trends just move so slowly, so glacier like that, you can kind of get lulled to sleep, until one day you look up and a trend has crystallized like the one that I just described. Let's compare a trend like that to something that people think matters a lot, and this does matter, but its importance is overinflated, and that is, for example, the President's nomination of a new Fed chair this year, and how that's going to move the real estate market. No, not as much as people think, as we've learned here, mortgage rates actually don't have that much to do with home prices. And yes, mortgage rates do move. They are correlated with the Fed funds rate. Yes, they are. When one is high, the other will be high. When one is low, the other will be low. They just don't move in direct lockstep. Let's listen in to the remarks of one Donald John Trump on the matter, because he talks about housing here. This is about a minute long, and then I come back to comment when Trump says him, he is apparently pointing to Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, who was in the room at the time, but as you'll hear, he's not expected to be the Fed Chair selection. Speaker 1 12:06 Have you started the interviews for the Fed chair? Yes. Who have you interviewed? Ithink I already know my choice well. I like to him, but he's not going to take the job very fast. You like Treasury better, right? Much better, sir. So we are talking to various people and the I mean, frankly, I'd love to get the guy currently, and they're out right now,but people are holding me back. He's done a terrible job, hurting housing a little bit. The truth is, we've been so successful, we've blown past his interest rate. Stupidity. He's been wrong. That's why I call him too late. He's too late. Jerome, too late. Powell, he was recommended to me by a guy that made a bad, you know, bad choice, and it's too bad. But despite that, it's having very little impact, because we have, you know, we have all of these things happening, but it has an impact on housing to a certain extent. He's a fool. He's a stupid man, but we have some very good people Keith Weinhold 13:09 yeah. So this matters, but it's as much entertainment and almost comedy against a demographic trend like the Forever renter propensity, a calendar year recently ended. It's time to make a quick rundown of the overall investing landscape. Once in a while we do that. It's good to check the movement on other asset classes outside real estate. It's our asset class rundown for last year, the s, p5, 100 was up nearly 17% that's the third year in a row of double digit gains in the year that Warren Buffett stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, there's a warning. The S and P Schiller price to earnings ratio soared above 40 for only the second time in history. That's an indicator that stocks are overvalued. The only other time that happened was during the.com bubble in real estate, single family home values were up about 2% per the NAR just over 1% per Kay Shiller, apartment building values were flat to a slight decline. There is no such thing as an official apartment building Price Index, CPI inflation, up almost 3% on the year. It now hasn't been at the Fed's target of 2% or lower for a calendar year since 2019 Yeah, it has run hot all that time. Last year, mortgage rates fell from 6.9% to 6.2% and then, as you would expect, the yield on the 10 year treasury note also fell from 4.6 to 4.2 The dollar fell hard with a thud down 9% its worst performance since 2017 WTI oil prices fell from 70 bucks to $58 that's an 18% decline, but really the story of the year among all asset. Classes is what happened with precious metals, gold up a staggering 68% over the past year, touching an all time high of about $4,500 silver, up about 155% leaving investors flabbergasted and slack jawed, touching an all time high of over $80 platinum and palladium had near triple digit gains the real price of gold. This means inflation adjusted even jumped to its all time high last year, significantly surpassing the previous peaks of 1980 2011, and 2020. Realized this. More than 80% of all the recoverable gold on earth has already been extracted. Silver has been the top performing major asset class. In fact, today, a little one ounce silver coin is worth more than a 300 pound barrel of oil. Sticking with the topic of metals, inflation finally killed a penny. The last one was minted in 2025 in Philadelphia, ending a continuous run of the US minting the penny since 1792 no more. Bitcoin was down 6% falling from 93k to 87k the NASDAQ is aiming for near round the clock trading. It currently trades 16 hours a day, five days a week. They are looking to go up to 23 hours a day, five days a week in the second half of this year. That's our year end asset class rundown Keith Weinhold 16:34 coming up in future weeks of the get rich education podcast. I am going to do an episode on overpopulation versus underpopulation? Is the world over or underpopulated, and is the United States over or underpopulated? This obviously has huge implications for the housing market. Then on another episode, we're going to discuss a real estate axis strategy we've never discussed before, called the 721 exchange. Now you might have heard of the better known 1031 tax deferred exchange, but the 731 is different. When you get older as a property owner and you realize that you don't want the hassles of landlording anymore, you can sell your properties to a partnership. The 721 exchange dictates that this is not a taxable event, and therefore no capital gains taxes or depreciation recapture are due. Property owners still get the benefits of cash flow and the appreciation across a greater number of properties and markets, and it's a great estate planning tool as well. Yes, that's the 721, exchange. We are going to cover it here. When it comes to investment real estate, I guess we cover nearly everything that's coming up on a future episode. As for today, we're talking about property taxes, if they go away, what replaces them that comes up shortly? Visit get richeducation.com to learn more about how we help you and what we do, and to get connected with real estate. Pays five ways type of properties. Visit gre marketplace.com. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get rich education. Keith Weinhold 18:23 You know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why? Fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program when you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products. They've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom family investments.com/gre, or send a text. Now it's 1-937-795-8989,yep, text their freedom coach directly. Again, 1-937-795-8989, Keith Weinhold 19:34 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage, start your pre qual and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally while it's on your mind. Start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com Jim Rickards 20:05 this is author Jim Rickards. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 20:22 Welcome back to get rich education. Episode 588 for the 12th consecutive year here, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, I look forward to perhaps meeting you in person this coming weekend, as I'll be attending the real estate guys create your future goals retreat event in Colorado Springs. You probably remember that we have had the events host and leader, Robert Helms, of the real estate guys on the show with us here several times in the past. What a class act I am spending a few extra days after the event in Colorado Springs to both look at local real estate in that market and climb the Manitou incline, that's this grueling climbing challenge up a slope of Pikes Peak. If you want to climb with me after the real estate guys event, bring your running shoes and I'll lead a group of us up there Keith Weinhold 21:13 if property taxes go away, what replaces them? Realtor.com recently had a terrific article about this that you can look up the property tax revolt is spreading, but the replacement plan isn't let's look at the probability and possibility of eliminating property tax. Think about how property tax elimination would increase the value of your property well, because now every buyer could afford to pay more, since they won't have that property tax expense. And of course, if you were to remove property tax as a line item from your income and expense statement, your cash flow could double, triple, or even five or 10x depending on your current cash, on cash return. But that cash flow part is less likely because most efforts to eliminate the property tax, they focus on homes, primary residences. Well, several states have either active legislation efforts or these sort of informal grassroots movements to significantly cut down or just totally abolish property tax, but no state has fully eliminated them yet. The most prominent efforts are in five states, most notably Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has made the most noise about it. He proposed eliminating property taxes on homesteaded which are primary residence properties, and he aims for a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to achieve this, that is 10 months from now. And that proposal, it's still pretty early in the legislative stages, and the state is also considering property tax rebates in the meantime. Now, even if you own rental property, and property tax were only eliminated on primary residences, it would still cause the value of your property to boom pretty nicely, even if it didn't help the cash flow. The state that's made the second most noise is Ohio. A grassroots organization has called Citizens for property tax reform. They have actively campaigned to place a constitutional amendment on their ballot that would just totally abolish property taxes statewide. Third most is Kansas. They propose legislation and that aims to effectively bump up sales tax to replace property tax. The fourth out of five is North Dakota. Let's look at what they're doing following a failed 2024, ballot measure to just totally abolish the property tax outright. Well, there's a new proposal from the governor, and that seeks this phased out elimination for most homeowners over a decade. And see, North Dakota has a slightly better chance of pulling that off, because they can fund that from the state's Legacy Fund, that's their oil well fund, and then making the fifth most abolition of property tax noise is my home state of Pennsylvania. Lawmakers have introduced bills to eliminate all property tax. They also aim for a constitutional amendment to put that issue before the voters. So they are the five states that have made the most noise, and that's what their approach is. Keith Weinhold 24:43 Now, seemingly for most of my life, homeowners and landlords have griped about property tax, saying it's the most ridiculous tax of them all, because you pay it year after year after year in perpetuity. And it just never goes away. Unlike other taxes that are just a one time tax, even if your property's mortgage is paid off, you still have a house payment, and that is largely due to property tax. Understand, though, that currently a lot of states give you a reduced property tax once you reach a senior age, usually age 65 plus some start as low as 61 but when it comes to eliminating the property tax, there's a part of the conversation that's really important, and it has been notably absent, and that is a novel solution to replace the lost revenue. And it gets rather interesting to look around and see where else the money might be raised if they eliminate property tax. See, and this is really important to understand, property taxes generate 70% of local revenue, up to 90% of school funding and 25% of all state and local tax revenue in aggregate in Florida. Okay, that's just in Florida those numbers, but a lot of states have a similar scenario, and in Florida, that comes out to about $50 billion a year. That is a big hole to plug, that is a big gap to fill, and it underlines both the burden homeowners are currently shouldering and how hard it's going to be to fill that gap with anything that's more stable or equitable, that's going to last as a funding source, yes, 90% of school funding. You heard that, right? If you talk to an old timer, you know sometimes you still hear an elderly person refer to property taxes as school taxes. So see, this question of, Do you want to abolish property taxes? One reason that's become louder and louder these past few years, and why you hear more about it is due to that increased affordability strain. That's why you're hearing more about it now the question, do you want to abolish property taxes? That is the wrong question. A grassroots push to AX the property tax that's gained traction, really, among some senior homeowners facing property tax bills that are as high as their mortgage. Once was last summer, for example, in Mahoning County, Ohio, the tax delinquency rate hit 18% almost one in five people having trouble paying their property tax, and that county had more than 70 million in unpaid property taxes. In some neighborhoods in Youngstown, as many as one in three homeowners were behind. And in Cuyahoga County, which is basically Cleveland, values jumped 32% on average after reassessments that fueled a $60 million dollar increase in past due balances this whole do we want to abolish property taxes? Question? You're going to see why that's the wrong question and why it's incomplete, because that slogan that skips the only part that really matters here, and that is, what is the replacement plan, realistically, taxpayers should be asked if, in lieu of property tax, they'd rather pay higher sales taxes or higher income taxes, or for those with no state income tax, like Texas or Florida, pay one for the first time. I don't like those answers. I wish governments would spend more efficiently, but that's not the angle that we're looking at here. Property taxes are the true lifeblood of local governments. I mean, they fund everything from public safety to roads to schools, and just because property taxes disappear, well that doesn't mean that the need for firefighters goes away, that the need for police officers goes away, or the infrastructure for public school systems is going to be gone, or the roads go away. So if property taxes are cut, then another revenue generating device has to emerge to keep services funded and running. And it's a little funny. I've been talking about certain states here. But of course, property taxes are exacted and assessed at the county and local level. And look, I mean, you know how the world works, you know what the nature of society is. As soon as someone has their income stream, they quickly grow into that lifestyle and the new larger spending pattern. So taking away an existing income stream or even reducing it a little, I mean, that can almost trigger outrage and protests, for example, the outcry that we had last year about cutting snap payments. But it works this way. With anything. I mean, sheesh. For the majority of Americans, if you cut their income even 10% they would struggle to survive. They would struggle to put food in the fridge. So these repeal the property tax campaigns, they often avoid the reality of the replacement math. Keith Weinhold 30:19 Now, some states have taken a swing at replacing property tax revenue, but few, if any, have succeeded. Now, Nebraska lawmakers, what they did is they floated higher cigarette taxes as a way to fund a goal of cutting their property taxes by 40% I mean, nice try. But according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, that tax base was far too small. I mean to tell you more about what a terrible miss. This example is Nebraska cigarette taxes. They raised about $52 million in 2024 while property taxes raised $5.3 billion that is 100 times more, not even close, even if you could raise more money in the short run, excise revenues like this cigarette tax, they're pretty volatile, and they often shrink as the demand ebbs and flows. So it really makes them a poor backbone for expenses that grow over time, and they don't eliminate the cost so much as concentrated. So what they do is they sort of shift this broad civic obligation funding all this stuff, police, fire, school, from homeowners onto a much narrower group, in this case, people who smoke. That is not going to work for Nebraska, all right, well, what about a bigger deal, like replacing it with sales tax? Well, they run into a different problem. Local economies are not built the same. You might have a sales tax heavy tourist County, well, they can raise far more money than an agricultural county. And Florida is a clear illustration. They have lots of tourism and lots of agriculture replacing property taxes with sales tax. That would require eye popping sales tax rates too. According to the Tax Foundation Florida statewide, they would have to go from 7% to over 15% sales tax in Florida. But it gets even worse, because counties with a thin sales tax base would have to charge over 32% sales tax. My gosh, that is not going to work, all right. Well, how about another big one? Let's have income taxes replace property tax in a lot of states. I mean, the income tax that's large enough to raise pretty meaningful revenue. But the trade off is that income taxes come with their own sort of economic and political distortions, and once they're added, you know, they rarely stay confined to the tidy swap that voters were promised. I mean, look at New Jersey. They adopted an income tax in the 1970s to provide property tax relief, but over time, that swap proved hard to manage and hard to enforce, and now today, New Jersey has one of the highest effective property tax and state income tax rates combined in the nation. So the point is that all these property tax replacement tools are just inherently piecemeal. Each tax or fee has like this different payer base or some different vulnerability. I mean, if tourism dips, for example, revenues could drop really fast. And the same is true if a regulated industry contracts, or if consumption patterns shift. And you know that volatility, that's manageable for some narrow program, but that is dangerous as the foundation for essential services like public safety and street maintenance and police and schools and fire. Well, how about forgetting all that? Let's just have the government then totally get out of providing public safety and not have the government provide street maintenance and have the government get out of schools. I mean, we used to have more private companies provide you with some of those services. We didn't even have a federal income tax at all until 1913 other than a temporary one to fund the Civil War. But all of that is a bigger topic that we are not going to get into today. The point is, instead of asking the question, do you want to abolish property taxes? The better question is, which replacement are you choosing and who pays for it? Because local costs come on, they're just not likely to shrink anytime soon. After all, all of this schools, fire and police departments, public works, divisions, they're all subject to the same inflation and the same rising costs as the rest of the economy is so the property tax is unpopular. As it is, it does have one functional advantage. It is tied to this immovable base of properties. It's collected locally, and it's designed to fund on going services. That is not to say that some homeowners don't need relief. Some of them clearly do. But eliminating property taxes, that just does not eliminate the underlying cost of government. All it does is reallocate it, and that reallocation can get messy, that shifts a bigger burden onto a smaller share of taxpayers, whether it's smokers, like it was in Nebraska, or whether it's rural shoppers like the Florida sales tax example, or doubly on working homeowners, like it is in the New Jersey income tax example. I have studied this, and I have not seen novel approaches that really keep communities funded without creating some new distortion somewhere else. But unfortunately, one thing that I have seen is this repeal rhetoric, and it makes these political platitudes all that want to just conveniently skip the replacement plan, but it all sounds good and popular when someone stands up there and says that they want to eliminate property taxes. So really the honest question on a ballot. It's not, do you want to abolish property taxes? The honest question is, are you willing to pay higher sales taxes or higher income taxes or adopt one for the first time and accept the distortions that those choices to create to eliminate the property tax? I'm not going to get into the political side of all this, because that's not what we do here. The bottom line is, though, that you're probably going to hear more about the property tax going away. It is unlikely, of course, as income property investors here, property tax is largely built into the rent. It is passed along to your tenant, and a small reduction would help you out, probably not so much on your cash flow side, since most of these proposals are only for primary residences, but even a small property tax reduction on primary residences that would boost all property values, even rental property in the one to four unit space. But you shouldn't expect much here. If property taxes are eliminated, there is just no easy and viable replacement. That's your answer today, if you represent a company that serves real estate investors get rich. Education has over 3 million IAB certified downloads and 5.8 million total listener downloads. You can learn more about advertising on the show at getricheducation.com/ad, that's get rich education.com/ad Speaker 2 37:51 for the production team here at GRE, that's our sound engineer, bedroom jampo, who has edited every single GRE podcast episode since 2014 QC and show notes Brenda Almendariz, video lead, Binaya Gyawali, strategy Tallah Mugal, video editor, Saroza KC and producer me, we'll run it back next week for you. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, Don't Quit Your Daydream. Speaker 3 38:17 nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice, please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively Keith Weinhold 38:45 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building, getricheducation.com

Keith shares a mindset-shifting quote from John D. Rockefeller that challenges the idea of trading time for money. He revisits some of the year's most powerful real estate investing lessons, and breaks down the big forces shaping today's housing market—affordability, supply & demand, demographics, and interest rates. All of this sets the stage for his data-driven national home price outlook for next year—without the usual crash-and-doom hype. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/586 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text 1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review" For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com or text 'GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold 0:00 Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, learn from a quote attributed to the world's first billionaire, it will change how you see wealth building. I'll explain why national home prices have never crashed. Then it's gre, 2026, home price appreciation forecast. You'll learn the future the exact percent that home prices will appreciate or depreciate next year. Today on get rich education Speaker 1 0:29 since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com Corey Coates 1:14 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:30 Welcome to GRE from Lake Huron, Michigan to Lake Tahoe, California and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you're listening to get rich education. You know something I love, quotes that shift your entire mindset, paradigm, and once your mind is shifted, actions follow. Actions develop into patterns. Those patterns become habits, and habits become the new, transformed you few quotes hit harder than the one from resource tycoon John D Rockefeller. He lived from 1839 to 1937 in fact, Rockefeller is widely regarded as the world's first billionaire. His quote, you might have heard it before. It is this, he who works all day has no time to make money. That sounds paradoxical, even provocative. It's sort of like it's inviting you to come in and want to learn more about it. And this is because most people's concept of income generating is to work 40 hours a week for a salary or an hourly wage. But what does that quote really mean? He who works all day has no time to make money, and be sure to capture the all day part of that quote that ties right back into the show that I did with you two weeks ago about the K shaped economy breakdown, where you learned about how capital compounds labor doesn't most people sell their time for dollars, but trading time for money makes you too busy to actually build Wealth. Working and building wealth. Those things are two separate distinct activities in how you're investing your time and energy. Now, most people start out with a wage or a salary job. I surely worked by pushing brooms and cubicle dwelling before investing in my first rental property. But if you're working all day in a job, physically or mentally well, then you're consumed by tasks that only pay you. Once you're occupied, you can often get exhausted and you're only concerned with short term output. You're focused on the next deadline, not the next decade, when all your hours are spent on labor, you have no bandwidth to do what you need to do, which is, create vision, acquire assets, build a portfolio, develop systems, learn tax strategy, evaluate investment deals, network with like minded investors, or refine your strategy with a GRE investment coach. Be cognizant that labor only pays today. Wealth building pays forever. Even if your work a day job, salary doubled, you would have to ask, how would that even build wealth? You could retire earlier, but you would have to keep working the hours, and let's remember that wealth equals freedom. You can't architect a wealth plan from the assembly line. Now, that's something that Rockefeller would have agreed with. Wealth requires less. Leverage and labor has none. So working all day means no leverage. You are the engine instead making money, that means using leverage, and instead of you being the engine, well, the engine is something else, like assets, systems, technology, other people's time, other people's money, and borrowing to inflation profit. Rockefeller believed and proved that leverage beats labor 100 to one. He's not discouraging work. In fact, it's just the wrong type of work, because he was one of the hardest working people alive. And really the bottom line here, with this quote, he who works all day has no time to make money, is that Rockefeller meant that if you spend your life doing tasks, you'll never rise high enough to own things that pay you for life. Earning a living is a different activity than building wealth, and once your mindset is shifted, actions follow, yep, actions develop into patterns, and those patterns become the new you. well as the last episode of the year on the show here, 52 weeks worth, I sure hope that I've helped you think, learn and grow your wealth, as have our guest contributors here early in the year, the father of Reaganomics was here, a man that frequently advised a president inside the White House. He told us how much he dislikes tariffs. Tariffs block free trade, and trade improves our lives. Major apartment investor, Ken McElroy, was here this year, and he predicted that the American home ownership rate will fall below 60% that would be major it's currently at 65 if the home ownership rate falls to 60% that would unleash millions of new renters into the market, and it has not been that low in decades, if ever you got a lot of mortgage insights with chailey Ridge, including learning how you can qualify for income property loans without a w2 job, without a pay stub or without tax returns by instead getting a DSCR loan. You'll recall this year that I discussed 50 year mortgages, and I did that before it even hit the news cycle, telling you that it could be coming and that it could be proposed. I explained why I like 50 year mortgages more than 30 year loans, but be aware it is not imminent that they're coming. Also this year, economist Richard Duncan and commentator Doug Casey discussed the Fed. Richard told us how the President is trying to totally restructure who serves on the Fed, trying to get low interest rate pushers in there. And then just last week, Doug and I discussed how fed decisions just keep hollowing out the middle class. A and E television star Todd drillette told us how to negotiate. I had four good discussions with our own investment coach, nuresh this year, more than usual, a pastor and I discussed a rare topic, what the Bible says about money. You learned how to use AI in your real estate investing and when not to. We had a few episodes about that. But above all the shows this year, they were about you, probably more than any other year that we've had here. I did more listener question episodes where I answered your questions as you wrote in, and I also had more listeners come right onto the show and tell me how this show has personally built their wealth. And of course, this year, I got to meet more of you in person when I served as a faculty member on the terrific real estate guys Investor Summit to see and I got to meet you personally for more than just a handshake. The event was set up so that chances are you had dinner with me as well. So rather than this show being a one way chat from me to you this year was more of a dialog between you and I and more two way communication. A lot of new topics are coming for next year, both me teaching and some great guests. If there's something on the show that you'd like to hear more of or less of, let us know. Write into us or use your voice to tell us either way you can do that. At get rich education.com/contact, let us know what you want to hear more of or less of. Do you like shorter term tactics like when and how to increase the rent? Or do you like mid range tactics like how to constantly do cash out refinances and get a tax free windfall from your properties every year. Or do you like more of the long term strategies like specifically how you profit from inflation? Let us know what you like again, at get rich education.com/contact, now, even if you're listening 10 years. Years from now, which I know you very well. May, I'm going to break down next year's home price appreciation forecast, but I'll do it in a way where you'll learn how to analyze a market for all time coming up. It's gre 2026, national home price appreciation forecast. Learn the future to the exact percent. First listen to this from Freedom family investments and Ridge lending group, because I'm a client of both myself and they can help you. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold Keith Weinhold 10:29 you know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program. When you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products, they've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom, family, investments.com/gre, or send a text now it's 1-937-795-8989, yep, text their freedom coach, directly. Again, 1-937-795-8989, Speaker 2 11:40 the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President Caeli Ridge personally. While it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com Robert Kiyosaki 12:14 this is our Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Author Robert Kiyosaki. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold. And there is, I respect Kate. He's a very strong, smart, bright young man. Keith Weinhold 12:35 Welcome back to get rich education. It's episode 586 the last show of the year. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, I am proud to present to you in this segment of the show gre 2026, national home price appreciation forecast, where I use my insight and experience so that you'll learn the exact percent that national home prices will either appreciate or depreciate next year. It's the fifth consecutive year that we're doing this. I nailed the first three spot on and then this year happened. I'll get to reviewing my track record, total accountability. First understand something, real estate values have never crashed in your entire lifetime, even if you're 90 years old, to grab eyeballs, slack jawed, tick tock. Call them crash talk. Economists keep making awful predictions about a housing price crash, and none of them have been worse than one that published last month in Newsweek, which outlines a as it's called, correction worse than 2008 and says national home prices will fall 50% five zero, starting as soon as next year. That's absurd, and I can't believe that a respectable publication would platform a view from an analyst like that, and I'm not going to call out that Doomsayer analyst's name. That's not my style. I'm sure you can find it that crash is about as likely as one social media post changing your political affiliation later today. Look, doomsayers don't care about you. They make dire predictions because they care about them. It elevates their clicks, their followers and their name recognition, and they never hang around to follow up on that prediction, but it harms you, because you miss out on the equity gains, and that's the real damage. In fact, this particular analyst also called for this year to have the second largest home price decline since World War Two. Well, national home prices have only fallen twice in that time period. In fact, going further back. Back to the 1930s Great Depression. They've only fallen twice. Yes, that means home prices have risen every single year since the 1930s except for two periods, a small decline of less than 1% around 1990 and then, of course, the severe downturn from the housing bubble and great recession from 2007 to 2011 or 2012 that's where prices dropped in total, 25 to 26% from peak to trough. Now why do I say that that period around 2008 was not a housing price crash. Well, because it wasn't. Instead, it was a slow bleed. The definition of financial crash is a sudden, sharp and widespread drop in prices. That's the definition. Well that can happen in some other asset classes like stocks or Bitcoin or perhaps even precious metals, but not real estate. It is neither sudden nor sharp. The worst year, 2008 saw home prices drop 12% in that one year and some of the other years bracketing it, home prices fell three to 4% in each of those years. So then during this time period of price attrition, during the global financial crisis, each month, real estate values fell just a few tenths of 1% maybe half of 1% or even one full percent, not a crash, a slow bleed. This means that it took about five years for values to fall, a total of near 25% I mean, that makes it really clear that it's not a crash. And again, this period was about 2007 to 2012 don't get me wrong, it was bad. I was a real estate investor both before and during 2008 but to call it a crash is hyperbolic, and that is because words mean things. I think a lot of media consumers get so conditioned to mass media sensationalism that they've forgotten what a crash even means. At some point, it begins to bend our very lexicon back around 2007 I remember I frequently checked a website called implode meter. Yeah, that's the name of it. It tracks, failing banks. I looked the other day and implodemeter.com is still in existence, even though it's not nearly as spicy as it used to be during the GFC, because lending has been pretty stable for a long time, and loans are well and carefully underwritten. So home prices are unusually stable over time, because, in a sense, housing is not a normal market. It is slow, regulated, credit driven, and it's emotionally sticky, even though rental property is less emotional. Well, the values of one to four unit property are tied to primary residence values, and that's where the emotion exists. So if you put all those together, you get prices that creep upward most years and rarely fall at all. Nationally. The real estate market moves too gradually to be crash susceptible. It is the place for real wealth building values also are not going to double annually if you want to scroll for dopamine hits from the couch. Well, you can do that with a prediction market like call she or in crypto with altcoins, while your real estate keeps leveraging dollars in a stable way in the background. That's how you can think about it. All right, so we've established since the Great Depression, home values have fallen twice and once substantially. Well, right now, home prices are up about 2% year over year. Most places have appreciated, especially the more affordable markets. Not only has home price growth been slow, though, rent growth has been slow as well. Single Family rents are up 1% per totality. Apartment rents are down one to 2% per Zumper. But back to our focus today, forecasting national home prices. Everything we're discussing is nominal price change, meaning not inflation adjusted, and it's single family homes up to fourplexes. Well, as we use context to build up to the big reveal today, where I'll tell you the exact percent that home prices will rise or fall next year. Could 2008 happen again any time soon? Let's isolate that out. It's important to look at history rather than. Having some uninformed hunch in both periods with price attrition around 1990 and 2008 these two falls have some attributes in common. So let's look at that. What led to these rare falls in home prices, irresponsible lending, forced selling, a vacancy issue and overbuilding. All four of those factors were in place during those two periods now leading up to 1990 the irresponsible lending was on the commercial side. That was the savings and loan crisis, but it did trickle into the residential market, and then in 2008 it was on the residential side. But of all four of those factors, none of them are in place today. Zero borrowers are strongly underwritten because they've got those full documentation loans, and virtually no one is forced to sell in a fire sale. In fact, homeowners still have these record equity positions of about 300k fewer than 3% of homeowners have a negative equity position, and there is no vacancy issue. Because, in fact, we've been under building. We'll look at that. So for next year, no substantial price of drawdown is coming. None's expected. We can isolate that out. Since I was investing directly in real estate through 2008 I know what happened is that when people walked away from properties, they did so because the economy got rough, their variable rate mortgages rose, they couldn't make their payments, or they just had no motivation to make their payments because they were underwater and had zero protective equity. In a lot of cases, it's almost impossible for that to happen today, homeowners can make their payments, and they're motivated to do so because they have that erstwhile equity to protect, like I said last week, through the Census Bureau data and realtor.com we know a couple things. Four in 10 homeowners have no mortgage at all. They own their property free and clear. Among the group with mortgages, 70% of borrowers still have a mortgage rate locked in at under 5% and blending those together for you means that then 82% of borrowers either have no mortgage or they've got a rate under 5% this translates to really affordable payments, along with The protective equity, even if inflation heats up again, it still cannot touch a borrower's mortgage payment amount because it is fixed. As we're leading up to the big reveal of next year's number, we're about to look at affordability, supply, demand and the effect of mortgage rates on prices. Of course, that word affordability, that has been the most central word to home buying for a couple years now, affordability will improve in three main ways. If either home prices fall, mortgage rates fall, or wages rise, it takes at least one of those three things, the good news is that this year, wages have been rising faster than both stated inflation and home prices. Wages have been rising close to 4% that looks to continue at least into the early part of next year. Well that improved affordability allows home prices to move up, and it gives room for rents to move up as well. Now when it comes to mortgage rates, if you're new to listening to me, it will be groundbreaking for you to realize that today, mortgage rates are low, and increases to mortgage rates usually lead to increases in home prices, not decreases. If you're new here, both of those facts might leave you saying what I thought it was the opposite. How can that be? I won't spend much time on this because longtime listeners already know these two things, but they do go into the forecast the long term 30 year fixed rate mortgage averages 7.7% per Freddie Mac thirst, that set goes back to 1971 and rates are lower than that now, and mortgage rates have risen 1% or more seven different times since 1994 and home prices increased all Seven times right alongside those rising mortgage rates. In fact, when rates more than doubled in 2022 what happened? Home prices soared to their highest appreciation year in a long time. It reinforced this so, yes, way higher rates equaled way. Higher prices. It's not that one directly causes the other. This is correlation versus causation. It's because rate increases confirm that the economy is doing well. I have discussed that extensively in previous episodes, so mortgage rates actually don't have that much to do with home prices, and that's why it is hardly going into the forecast for next year. I'll tell you what trying to forecast mortgage rates to then use that to predict home prices, that is a fantastic way to waste your time. Now, 1x factor that could make that different for next year is that this President, he imposes his will to make rates low no matter what. So even if the economy is good, which typically leads to higher rates, wholesale push to make rates low, and that's an artificial phenomenon. Wouldn't that make home prices boom if we had a strong economy and low rates? The fact that affordability is still historically low today, though, we appear to be off the bottom. Affordability is still historically low today, that has less to do with mortgage rates than most people think, since, again, rates are low when they're in the low sixes, like they currently are. Instead, affordability is soured, because over the long term, decades, wages haven't kept up with true inflation. That's what's really going on with affordability and what everybody misses, and because affordability is still strained, home prices cannot rise a lot, say 10 or 12% next year. That can't happen on a national basis next year, now, a bill is advancing through Congress now to make housing more affordable. It's got bipartisan support relaxing zoning requirements in such a bill that could help build more homes, but if the government tries to help by making access to loans easier, that is going to lead to even higher prices and really will not help with affordability beyond the short term. In fact, just this month, the Fed has resumed QE quantitative easing. And that effectively means that it is ramping up the number of dollars being printed. And these are just more dollars in existence coming in to chase real estate and every other assets values higher we look at the employment picture. Although unemployment has been ticking up lately, it is still low at under 5% what about housing supply versus demand? And future supply versus demand? Well, this is basic econ and it will totally affect future prices. Actually visited the home of the father of economics, Adam Smith in Scotland this year, the man that nearly invented the supply demand concept starting with supply. I think anyone in real estate knows that generally, over six months of housing supply is too much. Under six months is too little. Six months is sort of that balanced point. What does that really mean? Well, months of supply is how long it would take to sell all the homes currently for sale if no new listings came on the market. All right, that's all that means. Well, currently, that level is 4.2 months that is low, and that puts some upward pressure on prices as well. Another way to think about it is with the active listing count of single family homes and condos. All this means is the number of homes currently for sale and available to buy right now. That's what active listing count means when you see that statistic out there? Well, one and a half to 2 million is the normal level of units needed to adequately house our growing population, for single family homes and condos. Well, that figure bottomed out in 2022 and it's only hovered around one or 1.1 million for a few months now, we are under supplied, and it takes a long time to build our way out of it. Now, apartment buildings are a different story. They are oversupplied, but again, today, we're here focused on the future price direction of one to four unit properties. So that's supply, not as tight as it was, but still on the tight side, and then demand. Where is demand coming from? It comes from us. There's more of us. As our population keeps growing, there is a lot of housing demand coming. Not only is there pent up demand from those trying to afford a home as soon as they can, but more broadly. Demographically, I will point back to that period where there was a surge of us births from 1990 to 2010 there were over 4 million births every single one of those years, births peaked in 2007 if you add 40 years to that, because 40 years is now the average age of the first time homebuyer. That's still a mind blowing figure to me, 40 years the average age of the first time homebuyer. You add that to 2007 that peak birth rate year, and this demand won't even peak until about 2047 Speaker 2 30:36 and this doesn't even include additions from immigration, demand, demand, demand, propping up prices for decades, but for next year, improved affordability, which is expected that boosts the demand for those that have the capacity to pay. Well, considering everything we've covered, I'm about to reveal the number for next year. But first, I mean, gosh, don't you wish everyone actually followed up on their past forecasts, like I'm about to I don't think I've ever seen a price crash predictor follow up, because they're always wrong. Well, what is the track record of get rich, education, home, price appreciation forecasts. It's the fifth straight year I'm doing this, and I always release the forecast in the final days of the year in anticipation of the coming year, just like you and I are doing together now. For 2022 I said that prices would rise nine to 10% the year ended, and they came in at 10% 2023 a lot of people said home prices would fall because they had just seen a terrific run up. I said a price fall would not happen, largely due to that jaw droppingly low supply that we had then. I said zero, there wouldn't be any change. They came in at exactly zero. There was no price change in 2023 for 2024 I forecast 4% they came in at exactly 4% this is all documented. You can go back and listen to those episodes. They're all near year end. So yes, three straight years, I nailed it to the exact percent. How about this year? Just before the year began? Do you remember what my forecast figure was from listening here about a year ago, it was 5% home price appreciation. The year is not over yet, and real estate statistics move pretty slowly. Figures lag, but we pretty much know where it's going to end up. And as we look at this same stat set that I consistently use, which is the NARS national median existing single family home price, it is 2.2% as of late in the year, and it's almost certainly going to end up at 2% appreciation. So I would call that a miss, probably not a terrible call, but far enough apart to call that a miss, 5% forecast versus 2% actual for this year. That's the track record. So before I reveal the number for next year, in the last four I've nailed three of them spot on, and why was appreciation less than I expected for this year? Well, a few reasons. One of them is that inflationary pressure from tariffs was postponed. That Tariff Schedule was changed more times than anyone could have possibly forecast, and affordability stayed stubbornly low too. And here we go for 2026 how much home price appreciation or depreciation do I expect? Well, I haven't said this in any of the previous forecasts, because it's the easiest thing to say, and I often avoid saying the easiest thing, but this is just what I see coming, and that is, I expect more of the same. It's the first time I've said more of the same, which is drumroll here, 2% home price appreciation for next year. No wild figure or hyperbolic material here, in order to attract attention that is my best target for the truth, I'm here to do my best to be accurate and help you make the most informed decision, 2% for next year. So a 500k property today should cost you about 10,000 more dollars next year, and as we know, with a figure like 2% which is less appreciation than the long run historic 5% or so, with this 2% appreciation on new purchases, you leverage that five to one with your 80% loan, and you get a 10% return on your down payment. And you add in the other four ways real estate pays to your 10% leverage appreciation and at historic norms, you can end up with a 29% total ROI. That's realistic. I outlined the math of that in an earlier episode this year when I discussed how real estate pays five ways in a slow market, there you have it, 2% forecast home price appreciation for next year. If you want the charts that support the forecast and more, there's a way for you to get a hold of that, and also the best real estate maps, stories and investment opportunities that you won't see in any headlines. They are all in my free weekly newsletter. The newsletter also gives you access to my free real estate pays five ways. Video, course, that is it. GRE letter.com Get it all at one easy place. Gre letter.com I look forward to talking to you in the new year. I'm Keith Weinhold, don't quit your daydrem Speaker 3 36:06 nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold 36:34 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building, GetRichEducation.com