Jason Hartman begins this show with investment counselor Adam as they discuss the Balanced Budget Amendment. They also talk about a mortgage relief fund in Colorado and how to protect yourself during a crisis. Inflation becomes part of the discussion. Later in the show, Jason brings on Curtis for a client case study. Curtis has purchased 13 properties in the past 3 years and discusses his experience with a huge insurance claim. He goes into his future long-term plans.
Investor 0:00
I kept reading and listening and then went forward in the podcast that I went to your website. And I looked at the site see half of the different properties and the numbers. I started learning about the numbers and what they meant. And being the skeptic I am and being a techie, actually with a program to go and scrape your website and other people’s websites and redo the calculations just so I could prove it out myself. And eventually, I came to the conclusion that real estate is a great deal.
Announcer 0:27
Welcome to the creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You’re about to learn a new slant on investing some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world’s most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine self made multi millionaire who’s actually been there and done it. He’s a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who’s owned properties in 11 states had hundreds of tenants and been involved in thousands of Real estate transactions, this program will help you follow in Jason’s footsteps on the road to your financial independence day. You really can do it. And now here’s your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.
Jason Hartman 1:17
Welcome to the creating wealth Show Episode Number 1100 and 14 1114 1114. This is your host, Jason Hartman, coming to you today from beautiful Dallas, Texas, The Big D, where it is very chilly. In fact, it almost feels colder here than it did when we went to the Ice Hotel last year with the venture Alliance.
Adam 1:41
That’s because the beds there had fur on them.
Jason Hartman 1:44
Oh, maybe that was it. Maybe that was it. Well, hey, as you might have heard listeners, that’s Adam and Adam is here back on the show to do the intro with me. And after that we’ve got a client case study. I think you’ll really enjoy this story. They’ve got 13 rental properties now. Their real estate investing career. Adam, you know how it began? It’s an amazing story. ready? I’m ready bagels. Yes. Not where I was expecting you to go bagels inspired this couple to get into real estate investing and because there was a hole in their retirement plan, right. Oh, haha, that’s pretty good. Adam is a part time comedian. When he’s not when he’s not on the show doesn’t pay the bills. Yeah, right. Exactly, exactly. But you know what we just did Adam here in Dallas. We just walked over from the hotel here to the JFK assassination site. Now, I got to tell you, right around well, shortly after you were born, I’m guessing Adam. Yes, I’m, I’m the senior person here. And I saw the movie JFK, the famous Oliver Stone movie. We had Oliver Stone’s son on the show before He talked about many of his father’s projects. And that movie intrigued me so much about the JFK assassination that I actually flew to Dallas in the early 90s to visit the former Book Depository where Oswald supposedly took the shot from now, Adam, you live in Austin, and you were just in Dallas this weekend, although we didn’t see each other here. Have you been to that site?
Adam 3:27
I have not been I was at the perot museum with my son. And that’s actually a really cool museum. I could spend a whole day in there. I didn’t have a whole day. But that’s more like dinosaurs and earth and science stuff.
Jason Hartman 3:38
But so it has nothing to do with ross perot in his career.
Adam 3:41
No, I didn’t. I was a little surprised. I didn’t research it at all before we went and so I was a little surprised whenever I walked in, and it was dinosaurs and space and all that. Got it. Got it. Well,
Jason Hartman 3:51
you know, I kind of think it’s too bad. perot didn’t become president. What do you think of that? Or maybe you weren’t really painted. You were a little young back then
Adam 3:59
as little young But based on what I know, from what I’ve heard about his policies that probably wouldn’t have been my cup of tea. Really?
Jason Hartman 4:06
Wow, I’m kind of surprised. I mean, I know you probably supported Clinton. But, you know, perot was sort of a, you know, he appealed to both sides. It’s all about the economic stuff for me. I don’t think he would have gone the way that I want to these days. You know, the famous line from H. Ross Perot, when he ran for president, his I think his most famous line was probably that giant sucking sound. And he was he was referring, I believe, to NAFTA. I’m pretty sure he was referring to NAFTA back then when he said that, and he was talking about how, you know, all those jobs would be sucked out of the US economy. And he was exactly right. That’s exactly what happened. So, I don’t know. I think perotta shook stuff up too. And you know, even no matter what side you’re on, everybody will agree that Washington is a mess, and it’s just an insider’s game and politicians, no matter what side or on, you know, they don’t represent the people anymore. And they’re so detached from us. And it’s just sort of it. That’s a universal complaint either side of the aisle I find and Do you agree? What do you think? Well, I would definitely agree. But he supported the Balanced Budget Amendment. And that would be a death blow to the United States. So yeah, you know, that’s an interesting one, because I’m glad you brought that up. Because on the face of it, that sounds like a responsible idea, you know, on the face of it. I mean, I’m sure you’d agree that at face value, right,
Adam 5:31
right. It’s a it’s a great way to run a home. Right, terrible way to run a country.
Jason Hartman 5:35
Now, why do you I’m curious why you say that, because the only way you could balance budget is if the government takes out as much as it puts into the economy. It has to be even and the only way you can do that is to stagnate, your growth, your growth has to be zero. If that happens, your economy can’t get bigger, and it can’t get smaller. So it’s just it would crush our GDP growth. I do agree with I think a, as much as not having a balanced budget amendment allows politicians to be very irresponsible. The flip side of that if we did have one would just curtail growth. You know, it’s sort of like, you know, I’d almost compare this to the Dave Ramsey philosophy. We had Dave Ramsey’s number two man on the show, and he said all kinds of silly stuff that didn’t make sense. But don’t get me wrong, folks. I’m not hating on Dave Ramsey, because I think, for the audience he serves, he’s carrying a really good message for people who are irresponsible and get themselves into debt and spend money on stupid things. I think Dave Ramsey is great, but I don’t think he knows anything about investing. You know, he’d be like, oh, by everything with cash, you know.
Adam 6:54
He gets your life to a point where you can actually think about investing
Jason Hartman 6:57
Right, exactly. So if you are under Water, and you’ve got a bunch of credit card debt, you know, debt from being irresponsible. Dave Ramsey is the guy you need. And you know, that’s really a good message for anybody who has looked up to and everybody has people have looked up to certain, you know, mentors or idols right, you know, there for certain stages of your life. And sometimes you need to kind of divorce from them and find a new mentor, a new guru, if you will. And I agree with you, that’s a great way to put it. So you’re you’re right, a balanced budget amendment would make the country a much smaller country. And so the Dave Ramsey philosophy would be like the Balanced Budget Amendment, the other side of the philosophy would be, you’ve got to take risk, you’ve got to take on some debt. And really counter intuitively the debt is actually less risky. You know, that’s the less risky position. And we’ve got an interesting story about that the article we were just talking about OFF AIR Adam, about Denver. tell the audience what’s going on in Denver. I, I posted this in our private Facebook group. Now the venture Alliance has access to this group. And it was pretty interesting because what do I always say? The best insurance is a high loan balance. Tell us about that story.
Adam 8:17
Yeah. So obviously the government shut down because compromise is dead. So Denver is saying, hey, if you’ve been furloughed, actually, they’ve expanded it past furloughed, if you have, if you’ve experienced an income reduction due to involuntary employment changes the official term. They’re offering a grant for two months of mortgage payments, which they’re saying a maximum is $5,000 total, and you can apply for it. And if you get it, it’s free money. It’s not alone, son of interest free loan. It’s just $5,000 they’re giving you so you can pay your mortgage and not be foreclosed on or go into bad credit situations. The partial government shutdown, which I think is kind of awesome in a way. But, you know, not really, but
Jason Hartman 9:04
sort of, kind of awesome. And I’m sure you’ll disagree with me on that, Adam. But we don’t need to go there be too long that discussion will go go get that one later. But this is not a federal government thing. This is just a Denver thing, right? It’s been paid for by the city or the county, one or the other. Right. And so, so it’s a local government thing versus a federal government thing. But the point is, and why I posted this article is because it shows yet another have so many examples, Adam, where the people who do the seemingly right thing, they work hard, they make extra mortgage payments and they pay off their house, they pay it off early, right? Or they pay all cash for their house, they get burned the most, because they’re not going to get any of this free money. Okay. Similarly, when big natural disasters happen, like the old Hurricane Katrina and I remember, we reading all the articles about that the mortgage companies and the State’s Attorney General’s they put a moratorium on lenders saying don’t force anybody to pay their mortgage for six months. Now. That’s fine. If you have a mortgage, you get this relief. Great. But what if you don’t have a mortgage? Does someone send you the equivalent of your mortgage payment every month? No of what it would be you don’t get anything
Adam 10:28
get six months of zero?
Jason Hartman 10:29
Yeah, exactly. So the best insurance has a high loan balance. And there are some marginal exceptions to this one that I’ve taken advantage of a little bit in my Florida property. And I explained that on a prior show, but by and large, really, you’re just better off not using the property as a bank. You’re better off using the property as a property and it’s the most debt favored asset class in America. It’s the most tax favored asset class. America, and of course, the most historically proven investment in the world. So
Adam 11:05
yeah, interesting. And not only that the city’s doing it. But then banks, I’ve been hearing stories about banks around the country are starting to get ready to make deals with people already the federal employees so they don’t have to go after him. It’s happening now to not just Katrina there. I’ve been hearing about mortgage companies talking to furloughed workers and saying, you know, let’s work out a deal beforehand. So this doesn’t become a thing. Yeah.
Jason Hartman 11:28
Yeah. You get no help if you’ve done the seemingly right thing and paid your mortgage off. So having that loan balance, you’re going to get some relief, you’re getting some help. So that’s really interesting. Thanks for bringing that up in the Balanced Budget Amendment. Adam. So I told you that this client case study we’re about to hear was inspired by a package of bagels and what I meant by that, and you’ll, you’ll hear our clients say that here in a couple of minutes, is that inflation is so real So significant, and most people don’t realize it, because it’s not just the price of things going up. It’s the size of things getting smaller. So I am looking at Consumer Reports, November 2015 issue. I just grabbed this, you know, before I got on the plane and it says three years old, four years old at well, three and a half, little more than three years old,
Adam 12:23
which means you move to three and a half year old magazine.
Jason Hartman 12:26
Yes, I do. I tend to keep a lot of stuff you know, I’m kind of bit of a packrat. So I grabbed this and I was reading it on the plane. This article is entitled that empty feeling. Have you ever felt duped when opening a bag of chips or a bottle of pills, only to see a lot less product than you expected? Learn how to shop smarter. See the inflation they can either raise the price of something or give you less of it, which effectively is the same as raising the price. So on the Hershey giant nope chocolate bar was seven ounces. Now it’s 6.8 ounces on the Ivory soap bar. It went from 4.5 ounces to just four ounces in 2012. And they show pictures of all this stuff which is fascinating, less fattening ice cream. Well, how about a larger package with two less bars in it? This one really surprised the writer. It said really wrote Jocelyn would have Salem, New Hampshire, and she sent Consumer Reports a photo of the the 12 box and now the 10 pack box of hood ice cream sandwiches. Right? I love ice cream sandwiches by the way. Hey, audience listeners, if you ever want to get on my good side, just bring me an ice cream sandwich. Those are good. Okay, chips, NyQuil and dayquil. pills. Okay, you know you’re getting less and less the at the package sizing is the same. a jar of peanut butter. It’s got a big dimple in the bottom. Now in the plastic to take up space. So they don’t have as much peanut butter, the minus the lid that you screw on to the laundry detergent, you know, when you got a big bottle of laundry detergent, they make that lid now so big, you know, because it’s a cup that you put the detergent in, right? And they’ve been able to make it the package look the same. And it used to be 64 ounces. Now it’s only 59 ounces. Oreo cookies are smaller now. They just give all these examples and that’s just inflation, inflation, inflation, so you’re really paying more, and my philosophy of investing is based largely on inflation to stop destruction. You’ve heard me talk about that many times over the years. So there we go. So you’re saying
Adam 14:43
when I land in San Diego for meet the Masters, I need to go get a box of ice cream sandwiches for you to bring to the hotel.
Jason Hartman 14:50
You could do that. But please don’t bring it from San Diego because you’re gonna want to be landing in Orange County last year. Yeah, that was last year.
Adam 14:59
And I was just in San Diego. So some top of my head.
Jason Hartman 15:02
Yeah, yeah. Well, this time, folks, you’re coming to Newport Beach, California, on March 23, and 24th. And we’ve got a beautiful hotel venue there. Jason hartman.com slash masters for more details on that tickets have been selling very quickly. So we look forward to seeing all of you there. We’re going to be announcing a couple great speakers real soon. And it’s going to be a great event. This is our 21st anniversary meet the Masters event. So we look forward to seeing you all there and Adam. Time waits for nobody. We got to get to our guest interview our client case study. You ready? Let’s do it. Here we go. What is the sort of the one trick, the hack the secret that really empowers people to success, income property, the most historically proven asset class in the entire world.
Jason Hartman 16:04
Let’s break this down and look at some of the strengths of income property
Curtis 16:08
as an asset class. And I found that this event is really helpful because I am totally a newbie to real estate investment. And so I picked up so much information.
Jason Hartman 16:18
One of the great things about it is that it’s so fragmented, right? embrace the fragmentation. actually been learning a lot about the tax benefits to real estate and a lot of I’ve been investing actually well over 10 years now. And I learned a lot of new things today. The other advantage of this weekend is networking, meeting new property managers, meeting new area specialists and then seeing the product
Curtis 16:46
that have to offer that changes year by year.
Jason Hartman 16:50
We always love it when clients volunteer to come on the show and share their story and share kind of a client case study. So I saw This appointment booking come up someone booked an appointment on my link recently, and I called him up and we’ve got Curtis risk Chuck on the phone. And his wife Karen was not able to make it for the call today. But Curtis, welcome. How are you? Hey, Jason. I’m doing great Friday before a long weekend. There you go. It’s good to have you on the show. And you are in Raleigh, North Carolina. Is that correct? That’s correct. Fantastic. Well, just before we started kind of formally doing the interview here, you were telling me about your story and what got you interested in real estate? I guess it was bagels, right?
Curtis 17:31
That’s right. It started way back in 2008. Right after the crash. Uh huh. I went to the store to buy groceries. I looked at the six pack of bagels and I saw that the price would increase 50 cents. And I thought how can there be no inflation? I just saw a bunch of inflation in front of me. So I started me down a journey about questioning what people were telling me what what I was hearing from the media, and it rolled back a lot of I’ll call it brainwashing and propaganda. that had been pushed on me. Eventually I came to the conclusion that, you know, maybe that’s a little extreme, but I think for one case or losing proposition, it’s gambling. And after losing the money in 2008, I didn’t want to gamble anymore. So I started learning and researching and moving forward. And eventually I came across you believe it or not on carry lessons on capture. And you said some things that really resonated with me so and I looked up your podcast, and I’m a bit of a skeptic. That’s my nature. And so I actually started listening your podcast, I went back and I actually think your best podcast of your early 1211212 100 Thank you for talking about things like how inflation is actually leveraged in your favor with real estate, right and being a numbers guy. I started looking into this and I actually went, I couldn’t find your original podcast, but I bought I think the transcript off of Amazon. Yes. Yes, I went through that. So I kept reading and listening and then went forward in the podcast that I went to your website. And I looked at the site, see half of the different properties and the numbers. So I started learning about the numbers and what they meant. And being the skeptic I am and being a techie, actually, what a program to go and scrape your website and other people’s websites and redo the calculations just like it prove it out myself. And eventually I came to the conclusion that real estate is a great deal. Yeah. Problem.
Jason Hartman 19:31
Yeah. What’s the problem? You have a skeptical wife? Why?
Curtis 19:35
Why was even more skeptical? Right. And so the way I convinced her was that he had a conference in Orlando, and I asked her if she wanted to go to Orlando, where we had to go to the conference, and it was the Orlando thing first, I think that’s waiter to come. So we went to Orlando. We listened to the speakers. She’s skeptical, right. So she listened to speakers, talk to people that were right beside us, and they had already bought houses and they’re having happy with the results. And then she got off a went talk to Aaron who was in the back of the room, right. And she grilled him I think for about two hours on financing issues of financing issues, mortgages, whatever she could think of. He handled it. And she walked me and said, Let’s do this. We didn’t buy a house that day. But when we started the ball rolling when 2016 we bought three houses 2017 bought two houses, and then in 2018 and bought six houses. properties in Memphis, Little Rock, and in Jackson, Mississippi. Fantastic. Spend the full speed Yeah.
Jason Hartman 20:35
So now what are you up to? Are you up to like 13 or 14 houses then all together? We’re up to 13,030 you’ve got 13 properties there. Okay, great. And Curtis, you know what I didn’t ask you just so the listeners can get kind of get a little context here. What do you do for a living?
Curtis 20:53
I am what’s called the technical director for a high tech firm. So I oversee a bunch of software we develop And the engineers that are under so I’m I don’t do any more coding. I’m the guy who actually Shepards everything to make sure it gets done. And I’m a problem solver. That’s what I did. Yeah.
Jason Hartman 21:13
So you have that analytical mind. And you even created a, you programmed a little program to scrape our website and get the property information, and then redo it with your own calculations. That’s amazing.
Curtis 21:27
Wow. Yeah, that’s a skeptic in me, it’s one of the things is that they had different interest rates. I love that I want to normalize everything. And you know, it’s not like you start off with a little thing and gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Eventually, I went to multiple sites, and it helped it helped to convince me right being sort of a skeptical guy. Right, right. That’s fantastic.
Jason Hartman 21:46
Okay, great. So you’ve got that, you know, software engineer background. You know, that skepticism and what is your rights do? What’s her background? My wife is in the quality department of a hospital here. It’s a big hospital right? She’s in compliance. She looks after making sure all the regulations are followed. Yeah. And if there’s a problem with respect to that she has to intervene. So she has a very busy job as well as I do. Yeah. And she’s so she’s doing regulatory compliance. Now you’re up to 13 investment property. So congratulations on your success there. And what really got you interested was it sounds like you know, that you realize there’s more inflation than you’re being told, right? And of course, income property performs extremely well, against inflation, doesn’t it?
Curtis 22:36
Right, right. You gain equity, right? Because the price goes up. And then equity is leveraged by the ratio, right? Or it increases by the ratio of your leverage, right? Which really, you know, knock my socks off. Yeah, you get to go into that. You get a multiple right. And then your tenant pays your loan. You get some cash flow, and it gets that was the name lation induce debt destruction, right. That’s that’s the one people don’t usually realize. Yeah.
Curtis 23:02
Oh, and you get the tax break, don’t get the tax breaks really important tax benefits. Yeah,
Jason Hartman 23:05
most tax favored asset class in America, and the most historically proven asset class in the entire world. I think that’s what I say, at least along your journey of buying properties. Tell us about that. I mean, what I always say and I know people struggle with this, it’s a very fragmented industry. You know, there’s just a lot of different players that property managers you have to deal with. Some are just bad and some are good and some are just mediocre and, and some are outright crooks get all types, you know, they’re all different in that that’s kind of frustrating, a little bit, right? Because you can’t standardize things super well in our business. But also the benefit is that keeps the big institutional players out of it to some extent. I mean, they’re here a little bit. We all know that you know, Blackstone and invitation homes we’ve all heard of those big institutional investors, but by and large, there are Really small player in the overall market size in the aggregate. Tell us about some of those experiences and how you overcame challenges or, you know, tempered disappointments or anything like that.
Curtis 24:11
I hate to disappoint you. But it’s been a great experience so far. And that the one of the things that really drew me to your organization was that you had vetted the turnkey provider, as well as the management company. And you said that you’re a champion for your customers. And so I figured, well, that means he has leverage over these people. So there’s something goes wrong, you know, Jason Hartman and team can ride to my rescue. And so far, I haven’t had any issues in the sense of with the turnkey vendor or the management company. The management companies have been exceptional, responsive, quick, professional. It’s great. You know, for somebody who’s really busy, this is a great way to invest. Now, I have to say that being a skeptic, we went outside of your network. We did go to another turnkey vendor, we went to you know, the place where the They did their work. They had this beautiful binder with pamphlets. And we looked at it. And then they went to show us the houses. And it was not what I expected. And you know, the thing that scared me is we went to an older house. Look at this. This is a great investment property. They went into the basement, and there was literally a electrical junction box with four wires coming out and one of the sides hanging in midair. Wow, hanging in midair. Yeah. So at that point, it was, well, we’re not doing anything with this team of people. And we went back, we went back to your organizations because I hate to sound like commercial, but they’re just quality people.
Jason Hartman 25:35
Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And we we work hard on that. And I tell you, we miss out on a lot of business by really being you know, people in our industry think we’re too rigid, you know, and it’s a tough balancing act because of course we want to have more business but and more inventory of properties. But you know, you just can’t cut corners. You got to maintain quality. So I’m glad to hear that not every experience is that positive, though, you know, people do have challenges with this stuff. And it’s definitely far from perfect. It’s just better than everything else. That’s all I can say.
Curtis 26:12
Well, yeah, the my threshold may be a little higher than normal because I have, I deal with a lot of stuff at work. And so I just looked at some stuff as it’s the way you get business done. Right. And one of the things that happened to us is, a year ago on a bed in Memphis, one of our houses the water here to pipe broke, and the tenant was away for two weeks and they came back to find, I guess, a stream of water flowing through their driveway, totaled the house, right? Yeah, it’s the property management company. Just handle those all. So one tip I have is if your property management company has struck a deal with a local insurance company for landlord cake, that local insurance, that’s we had changed that over just a couple of weeks before and because we had done that it saved us so much grief because it was a local insurance. company, they had a plan made just for us. They paid our mortgage for several months while everything was being reconstructed. You know, in some ways, it was challenging emotionally. But from a time standpoint, there was very little drain management company handled everything. So we were just very impressed. That’s fantastic.
Jason Hartman 27:21
So how good insurance that is definitely important. Do you know how much that claim was? I’m kind of curious. Did you get involved and see the the price that the you know what the insurance company paid?
Curtis 27:31
I think it was around 55 K. Whoa, that is
Jason Hartman 27:34
a big one. Yeah. That is a big one. But you know what, you’ve got a rehab house. I mean, they probably got 1 billion right now.
Curtis 27:46
Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. And did you I’m curious, did you lose your tenant during all that time? I mean, where did the tenant stay or did they just move to another property, then he had to get a new tenant. So the tenant had tenant insurance and so they We’re able immediately to move I guess, to a hotel or motel or something. And there are great tenants. But we couldn’t expect them to wait around for three or four months. So they actually went somewhere else. And then we got another tenant. Right. I think the rehab took about five months, believe it or not.
Jason Hartman 28:13
Wow, that is I think that’s the biggest one I’ve ever heard of. I’ve never heard as a claim that big or rehab that long. That’s pretty extensive. Well, the water heater was in the know. So we went all through the house. Yeah, that’s all through the house. That’s an unusual design to you know, definitely. Well, what are your plans? For your real estate portfolio? Are you still buying more properties?
Curtis 28:38
We do plan on buying more properties will get up to our 18 because my wife and I are both on our primary. And then we’ll just we’re not sure you know, we may move into notes. We may move into you know, maybe multifamily syndications. I think investing in hard real physical assets. that generate cash, right is the thing to do coming up. I mean, that is where my focus is. Yeah, none of this paper stuff that can evaporate. Yeah,
Jason Hartman 29:10
yeah, no, I agree with you. I mean, no matter what, and I’ve tried almost everything out there. In terms of investments. I just like the hard asset, the best, it’s the best. And I don’t like syndications, because you know, that’s commandment number three, thou shalt maintain control, you’re violating it, because the syndicator can rip you off. And I just got a call from a New York Times reporter about a guy that was out peddling have fun, and it’s like a 1.2 billion with a B dollar fund. So it’s a big Fund. The SEC is all over them now because they they are alleging that they were running a Ponzi scheme. Those tax lien investments I did you know, I filed a lawsuit claiming that that company was running a Ponzi scheme. And now I’ve been burned on my first first position loan, the first position mortgage, I got burned on some seconds before, but never a first until just recently. And I’m going through that now we’re going to have to take a real haircut on that deal. It looks like, you know, when you when you hold the paper, there are all these lending rules that you have to abide by and all this stuff. It’s pretty complicated stuff, you know, to navigate that world and just the idea of buying a house and running into someone that’s just simple. You know, it really is a simple asset class, and that’s what I love about it. Yep,
Curtis 30:29
I agree.
Jason Hartman 30:30
Yeah, good stuff. So um, do you have retirement plans? Or why real estate investing just to make more money or do you want to get out of the rat race and retire? What’s the plan?
Curtis 30:43
So that is at least a huge portion of our retirement thoughts, right, you know, you have this rent the rent should track inflation to some degree. I can trust that you know, 75% of that rent or cash flow will come in and 25% will be for something Sort of disbursements of sort of the ratio I’m finding. And so that was what we’ll use for our retirement plan. I’m a huge part of our retirement funds month to month, you also get all the other benefits. So, yeah, we’re planning and that, in fact, if all goes well, my wife will take an early retirement, and, you know, she’ll be the one managing the portfolio. Fantastic.
Jason Hartman 31:21
Now, any management tips for people, I mean, I’m glad to hear you’re having such a good experience with the property managers. But you also have to manage your own affairs, you know, bookkeeping a little bit, and things like that. Any thoughts on, you know how much time that takes every month to manage the 13 properties? You know, any any tools that you’re using to do that property tracker or otherwise?
Curtis 31:44
Yeah, at the moment, we aren’t using any external software other than a spreadsheet. I’ve just made it a habit every Saturday, roughly every Saturday to spend about an hour going through things. When things come up from the property management company. They come in by email deals. Right away, don’t let them accumulate or wait. I usually find that that makes things a lot easier. One of the realizations I’ve come to is that when you talk about the real estate investment mechanism, it’s the people that matter. And so what mattered the most to me was from a property management, having people I could trust that I liked, that had experience. And so that mattered a lot to me just from a sleepy well perspective, from a, you know, a bookkeeping perspective. Well, we’re using excel at the moment, right, and I have an income tax accountant that manages all the other stuff and I just plopped the papers on his desk. He’s really good to
Jason Hartman 32:42
have that’s good, good for you. Good for you. The team is I you know, I’ve said this often. I’d rather have an A team, you know, in terms of the local market specialist and the property management company, in a bee market than the other way around because the team is so great. Critical. It’s just so critical to have a good team of people, including our team. And that team on the ground, the boots on the ground, so to speak. So yeah, that’s great. I couldn’t agree more that that’s very important part of it.
Curtis 33:13
Yeah. When you invest in real estate, I think we didn’t really invested in as the people that are on your team. Right? Right. You’d lay the cash at once, but it’s the people that really make that investment sin. Right,
Jason Hartman 33:25
right. Including the tenants. By the way, you know, a lot of people don’t ya kind of consider that. And I said this on the show before, I’m sure you probably heard it, but I’ll just say it again here. You know, when you think about it, someone is spending 33% to 40% of their monthly income on your property. And it’s literally like you have all of these tenants working for you. You have 40% of a person’s income. That is hugely significant. I mean, what other business can say that they get 40% Someone’s income, right? Apple Computer can’t say that. He No, no other. No restaurant can say that. Nobody can say that except a landlord. The landlord gets a third to 40% of their monthly income.
Curtis 34:16
It’s amazing. I guess it depends if they consider the government of business, right? Well, fair enough.
Jason Hartman 34:20
Yes, the government gets a big percentage too, especially in New York or California. Yeah. No question about that. Good. Good stuff. So you and Kieran have been married for 33 years, right? That’s right. Fantastic. And you never thought about real estate investing sooner in your marriage.
Curtis 34:38
I wish I had, I really wish I had, it took a large amount of deprogramming to stop looking at my 401k of the stock market. And my job I have to deal with data. So I had the choice of listening to the propaganda or listening the data eventually the data one out there led me down another path and then, you know, again, learning about the four or five ways that Real Estate works in your favor is like, Okay, this is no brainer. But is it real it? It sounded too good to be true. So I was hyper skeptical eventually I convinced myself. I wish I’d known earlier. The good news. I think it’s good news is that we’re speaking to our children. So my son who’s 24 and graduated just bought his own house. It has a renters he’s house hacking, I guess. My oldest daughter is just buying right now. Their first property rental property, even though they don’t have their own house, right. They’re buying a rental house. Fantastic. So
Jason Hartman 35:32
that’s how I’m able to pass it down. Yeah, so that’s what we’re doing. I lived at home at my mom’s house. I bought a rental property at age 20. And I didn’t move out till I was 22. So, being a landlord first is very important. That’s a good idea. Yeah, really good. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. Curtis, thank you so much for sharing this great story. I really appreciate it. And I’m sure all the listeners will appreciate it. They always love hearing client case studies. And listeners out there. If you’re one of our clients, and I know many of you are thousands of you, please reach out to us. We’d love to have you on the show. We always get so much nice feedback on these interviews and people just really appreciate it. So thanks for giving back. Curtis, thank you so much. And thank Karen as well. I know she couldn’t be here today. Next time, we’ll have her on and appreciate your story and just want to wish you a happy investing. Thank you, Jason YouTube. Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss any episodes. Be sure to check out the show’s specific website and our general website Hartman. Mediacom for appropriate disclaimers and Terms of Service. Remember that guest opinions are their own. And if you require specific legal or tax advice, or advice and any other specialized area, please consult an appropriate professional and we also very much appreciate you reviewing the show. Please go to iTunes or Stitcher Radio or whatever platform you’re using. Sing and write a review for the show we would very much appreciate that. And be sure to make it official and subscribe so you do not miss any episodes. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
