#2 - Freedom Hacking With Kristi Kandel

[0:00] This is the Wealthy Investor Show, where we don’t just talk about your wealth, we also talk about your holistic health. I’m your host, Matias. And I’m Erica. And this is the Wealthy Investor.

[0:15] Welcome to today’s episode of the Wealthy Investor Podcast, where we dive into the world of real estate and personal empowerment with none other than Christy Candle. Christy is the powerhouse behind the IND consulting and the Freedom Hackers movement, where she’s not just transforming properties, but also lives. With a seasoned career spanning 17 years, Christy has navigated through the intricate world of real estate and corporate projects to now managing over 100 million in development projects annually. After breaking away from the typical nine to five, Christy founded her consulting firm, empowering emerging developers to not only seek financial returns, but to create valuable assets to enhance communities. Christy embodies the spirit of a freedom hacker, living life on her own terms and achieving freedom in time, relationships, money, and purpose. Today, she’s here to share her journey and insights, offering strategies that can help you achieve financial success and play a transformative role in your community. Stay tuned as we explore how Christy leverages her expertise to mentor,

[1:12] invest, and inspire. Don’t forget to connect with her on LinkedIn, Instagram, and her websites to learn more about how you can be a part of this rewarding journey. Link in the show notes. Let’s get inspired to make our mark on the world of real estate and beyond with Christy Candle. Welcome to The Wealthy Investor. I’m here with Christy Candle. Christy, you are an all-star real estate developer, and you formed successful businesses. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your history with development and then also the businesses you started. Yeah, so I grew up in a farming community in Ohio. And while we didn’t have a lot of money, our parents, they taught us three things that really stuck with me and transformed my life.

[1:55] And the first one was that I could be and do anything I wanted. And I believed that. So in our makeshift gym in the basement, I put a quote up that said, shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you’ll be among the stars. And then every time I wanted to get something, whether it was buy a bike or buy a computer or something, I just started a business to go make the money to have it. I mean, shoot, I remember pitching our local bank. This is back in the day where people would have to get a physical check and then go cash it at the bank each week for your paycheck. I’ve read about that. Yeah, yeah. I’m totally dating myself here. So I remember pitching the bank manager and I said, all right, I really want this laptop computer. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to go to Sam’s Club. I’m going to get all this candy and I’m going to sell dollar bags of candy outside of your bank to everyone coming in to cash their checks. And I’ll have this thermometer and I’ll show you how much I’m making. Can I sit outside of your bank and do it? And he looked at me and he’s like, yes, ma’am. He’s like, you can go ahead and do that. Like that was a great pitch. Go for it.

[3:04] That’s amazing. This is great. And I remember once I’m the local hardware store guy actually came down and he told me, he’s like, what are you doing here? He’s like, you’re taking business away from me. You can’t be here. But sir, I got permission from the bank. And I just remember him yelling at me and I packed up my stuff that day and I went home and I guess I started crying to my mom. She got so mad. She’s like, no, you did everything right. She’s like, you don’t worry about that. She’s like, you did it right. You keep going. So I was like, okay, all right. I faced adversity. I overcome it, overcame it. And I just kept going. That’s amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, okay. And I was, I was young enough and naive enough to really believe that I could do and be anything that I wanted. The second thing they told us is they said, you know, you guys should really try and go to college if you can. They’re like, that’ll open doors and opportunities that we didn’t have access to. So what they told us as well is we don’t have a lot of money. So you’re going to need to get really good grades in high school so you can get a scholarship to go to college.

[4:17] So that was always in the back of my mind. So it was like, all right. I, and because they told us the why, um, not just go to college because we said so, but because it’s going to give you opportunities we didn’t have access to. Now I’ll say fast forward to today. I don’t necessarily agree with that same logic, but a whole lot has changed since then. So back, back in the day though, that was a legitimate step forward. If you had that piece of paper, uh, from college, it did open doors for you. Um, so I ended up going to college and start, thought I wanted to be a computer programmer until I realized very early on that I like people and talking way too much. So the thought of sitting in front of a computer and typing away, I was like, not for me. So I switched to sales and marketing and graduated as quickly as I could. And then the, the third thing was the summer before my senior year of high school, I had the opportunity to go to California and spend a month with my uncle, Chris. He was my mom’s oldest brother and he had lived quite the life and he and I always had such a tight bond.

[5:22] So he lived in the Inland Empire, but when I was out there, he took me to, uh, San Diego and we went to Coronado. We went to Del Mar. We went to La Hoya beaches. I love sports. We went up to the Staples center and we saw everything sports and was just like, Whoa, this is where the Lakers play. Hey, we sat in California traffic. Yes. It’s as terrible as it sounds. We also, uh, on the weekends, he would take us and we would go look at model homes. And now keep in mind, I’m from a small town in Ohio. We’ve never lived in a house that was newer than 50 years old. Everything creaked, nothing worked right. So we’re looking at these million dollar houses on California with all these brand new finishes. I remember walking into those one house and we opened the door to a room. There was a movie theater in this house. I was like, what? You can put a movie theater in a house? I didn’t even know that was possible. Like what?

[6:22] So it was little things like that through the whole trip that just, there were things that existed that I didn’t even know existed in my world before. And my uncle was huge into tech. So we actually spent hours. Uh, he was telling me about his computer programming books and we were looking at that. Which is probably why I went and started my degree in, uh, computer programming. But then we also spent hours taking computers apart and putting them back together and then taking them apart again and doing it. So it was, it was such an incredible experience that. Yeah. He’s very, very, very special part of my life. So did that like the, the introduction to that different type of world, that’s what kind of, what lit the fire under you maybe to, to really pursue bigger things location wise. I know that you live by the water now, right?

[7:13] Yep. Yep. Yeah. It really, I mean, growing up, there was this concept of life that you, you grow up, you go to college, you get your degree, you go work for 40 years, giving the best hours of your day and the best years of your life to making someone else’s dream come true. And then, oh yeah, you can retire. Now you can start living. I couldn’t ever really wrap my head around that concept. And when I went to California, it just opened my eyes to a different way of doing life. Like maybe you don’t have to follow the book exactly. So the number one thing I took away though, was make sure that I live in a place that I want to live. So that quality of life. So for me, it was after college, am I moving to California, Florida, or North Carolina? And I decided California was still a little too expensive.

[8:05] Hindsight. I was probably a little scared of jumping straight to California. North Carolina seemed too much like Ohio. So I was like, Florida it is. Give me the beaches. Give me that. So I actually… What’d you end up studying? What’d you end up like graduating with? I graduated with a degree in sales and marketing, which to this day, I mean, I could sell ice to an Eskimo, but I couldn’t tell you anything about marketing. In fact, the new company I just launched, one of my co-founders, she is a marketing guru. And I’m like, yeah, that stuff, nope. A lot of piece of paper that says I can do it, but nope, I’m not an expert at that. Yeah. That’s the practical use versus the theoretical. Exactly.

[8:52] Okay. So then after college and moving to Florida, is that when you first started getting in the development world or how’d you get into that space? Yeah. You know how there’s some moments where you know something big is about to happen that is changing your life? I had one of those right after college, but before I moved to Florida. And because I knew I was going to Florida, I was like, all right, I guess I should try and get a job. So I’d flown down to Florida and went to a job fair. And a week after that, I got a call back from the hiring manager of a company and he’s like, hey, the manager really liked you. Can you do an interview? Yeah, totally. I went back to Ohio though to grab my stuff and to finish packing up to move.

[9:32] So can we do a phone interview? And he told me, yeah, I’m sure we can. But earlier that day, I’d gotten a call back and he said, yeah. So the manager said that they don’t do phone interviews because a lot of people say they’re moving to Florida, but they don’t actually move. So I was like, oh, so I remember being on a break. I was waiting tables at Quaker Steak and Lube. And I was looking up flights and the cheapest flight I could get was $400. That was my entire savings. I was like, dang. So I called my dad and I was like, dad, I’ve got this job interview, but it’s going to cost me $400. And I don’t know if the job’s going to be there if I wait. So am I crazy for considering buying this? And him, we knew how tight money was across the board, but I also knew that he didn’t want his baby girl to go to Florida without a job.

[10:27] Granted, I waited tables, so I would have got a job somewhere. I was going to figure it out. Sure. But then as we were talking, it became very clear to me. And I was like, you know what, dad? I said, I’m going to do it, but I’m not buying this ticket for a job interview. I said, I’m buying this ticket and I’m making this $400 investment in my future. And one day I’m going to look back and I’m going to smile at the courage that that younger version of Christy had to make that choice and to take that leap while knowing that that $400 is nothing to her today. And I went down, I got the job and just so happened that that was in the fall of 2007, right when the financial crashed and everything was happening. So throughout the next year, and we actually, it was an external sign company. So like all the signs you see on buildings or the ground signs, the pylons, the monuments along the road telling you what businesses are inside. We were doing that, but we were doing that on the new construction side. So as the economy is tanking and the world’s tanking, my entire office in Florida got laid off. Our headquarters was in Chicago and everyone got

[11:40] laid off, including my boss, except for me. And as luck would have it, which again, I’m a huge proponent of luck because luck is when preparedness meets opportunity. And there’s some amount of luck that happens across the board with anyone who is successful. And so as luck would have it, CVS pharmacy was not happy with their current sign vendor and they were developing locations in Florida and my company got the chance to work on it. Well, being the lone person left in Florida, I got assigned to the account and it was, it was insanity because we picked up projects at various phases of the development cycle to where we were picking up projects. They were trying to open for business and they didn’t have signs. And even though we came in late, there was no excuses, especially when you’re working with a national tenant like that. So I rolled up my sleeves and I said, challenge accepted. I’m about to learn a heck of a lot. And I worked the entire state of Florida from Miami all the way up to Jacksonville. The only places I didn’t really touch were the Panhandle and the Florida Keys. 60 to 80 hour weeks working with hundreds of municipalities, architects, engineers,

[12:50] the contractors, superintendents, the developers who were building them, the CVS pharmacy PMs. And what they didn’t know is that I just refused to fail. I’m not going to lose. I don’t care if it’s going to take 60 or 80 hours. I don’t care if it’s something I don’t know. I’m just going to figure it out, which ended up paying off dividends because what I realized through all of that experience was that, whoa, this whole commercial real estate development world, this is awesome. And I saw dollars that was being made by the people who are doing the development. I was like, whoa, and I’m the lowest man on the totem pole pretty much being the sign company. So one day in the field, I remember being out with one of the developers who is the preferred developer for CVS by that point.

[13:41] So they did most of the locations. And I just looked at Eric and I said, hey, what’s it take to be a developer? And he looked back at me and he said, well, you know, for us, it’s not necessarily if people actually know real estate development. He’s like, we’re a smaller company. So for us, we want the right person and the right culture fit. We’ll teach you the business. So I remember just getting this big old smile on my face and I looked at him and I was like, great. When do I start? And three weeks later, I started working with their development company. Okay. And so then you spent a while with them before breaking out on your own or what that looked like? Yeah. So the next step with that, about two weeks into working with that company, I get a call and it’s Eric and he’s with David and they’re out in California. Immediately inside of me, I was like, California? I didn’t even know they were in California. What is this? And they wanted help doing sign research and landscape research for a family dollar because they were out there doing due diligence and market research to see if California was a market that made sense for a family dollar,

[14:50] which again, this is now 2009 at this point. So we’re well into the financial crisis. We’re well into everyone struggling. So dollar stores at the time were doing quite well. So I ended up that that was in August. By December, I had convinced my company that I was the person who should go to California and open our office because I was the only one without a spouse and I was the only one without kids. And both our company and Family Dollar, this was still proof of concept phase. We didn’t know if it would work. So I was like, guys, I’m the lowest risk person. And to me, I was like, I just wanted to do whatever it took to get back to California because that was the land of opportunity. That was the land where anything, truly anything is possible. So by December, I had convinced them that I should be the one to go out there. By June of 2010, I physically relocated to Orange County, California. And from there, another whirlwind of rolling up your sleeves and making anything happen from San Francisco down to San Diego. I was working on hundreds of projects of development projects.

[16:00] So now I was taking the whole thing from initial due diligence through entitlements, through permitting, doing the dry utility consulting, and even doing the construction management in my early to mid twenties. I worked with hundreds of municipalities, utility providers, DOT districts. We found and vetted architects and engineers and contractors. I mean, it was insanity. So again, I honestly probably know the state of California better than I know the state I grew up in. Just because I’ve had everything. Yeah. So it was about four years in where one of my mentors looked at me and she’s like, you know, you’ve got the experience of someone who’s been in the industry for 30 years, just in the past four years. I was like, Ooh, do I now? Entrepreneur brain takes off. What does this mean? Uh, okay. So then I thought, well, I know, I know single tenant developments, but what about the bigger stuff? What about the, the larger projects? What about commercial industrial and, and the housing projects? Like, let me go figure that out. So I went and worked with a developer in Newport beach and it took me all of three months to realize the bigger projects. It’s all the same. You just get

[17:16] more time and more money. And it’s with development about knowing the right questions to ask. So you can outline the process so that way you can know, okay, well, here’s how we do this one in this place. And because I had already worked on hundreds of projects, both in Florida with the signage, but then also in California with development, I knew how to talk to the municipalities, the architects, the engineers. And I was like, I gotta, I gotta do this because what I saw by being in California, like I was making well into six figures. I mean, that was insanity. I, according to everyone back home, I already made it. So why was I trying to do something different, disrupt? Like that was success. Like I was, I was good. Yeah. But I, and I had a great quality of life and I was playing beach volleyball professionally on the side, which, uh, it was super fun hobby. I was like, work hard, play hard. I guess I’ll sleep when I die. Through all of that, I was exposed to so many people who were so massively successful and wealthy and none of them were happy. I was like, why am I climbing this corporate ladder to this destination where all these people are?

[18:23] If nobody’s happy. And it just really made me think and question my premise. Like, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? So when it came up and I was like, Hey, you’ve got this experience. You’ve got a chance to go be an entrepreneur and start your own company. I was like, all right, well, if I don’t, if this ladder isn’t going where I want to go anyway, I’ve got to go back down and start somewhere. Why don’t I start making my own dreams come true? So that’s when I, that’s when I took my life into my hands and I started my own company. I let my lease in a Newport beach go. I went and I bought an SUV. I tested out three different ones laid in the back of all three. And I was like, all right, worst case scenario. I don’t make any money. I just think I’m like, okay, that’s it. Hey, worst case scenario on anything. That’s, that’s my test. And like, as long as I’m not going to die.

[19:14] All right. That could be worse. Yeah. So it started my company. Now I’m at the point where I’ve got eight employees spread throughout the country, four contractors. Um, and we manage over a hundred million of real estate development projects a year. I have my own portfolio of rental properties, uh, in three States that are a combination of short-term and long-term rentals. And it really, after the first year and proving that, Hey, this is definitely a business. Uh, I don’t have to go back and work for the man. This wasn’t some fun attempt. Right. You weren’t sleeping in the back of the Jeep. Yep. Nope. No, never had to. Never had to go. The only time I slept in my car was during COVID when my dog made me buy a truck and a truck camper so she can go travel the country with me. So never in that SUV. And so where, where’s the development located? Where are you focusing?

[20:08] I mean, you said all across the country, is that where it started? Like, I mean, you started to start in Florida or. So since a lot of my development experience, uh, prior to starting my company was California and all of my relationships, that’s where a majority of our projects are. Uh, today we’re building the hydrogen fueling stations for the hydrogen powered cars and semis out in California. It’s pretty, pretty awesome to be their development arm. So basically our, uh, one of our main, uh, partners started, they were three professor, two professors and one marketing guru from a car company. And they, they started their hydrogen company and they needed a development arm because they knew, they knew how to get the government grants. They knew where this stuff needed to be. They knew how to operate the stations, but they had no idea how to get the stuff permitted in California.

[20:56] So it’s been an amazing partnership from that. Um, we also focus on affordable housing. So that is nationwide. Um, so if, whether it’s partnering with someone doing it and we’ll just, add a component to it, if it’s our own project. And then recently it came back to the fact of, you know, when I started my company, I wanted to, and I proved that it works. It was my goal to bring as many people in as possible to give them that same quality of life, um, and that same freedom that I had found. And, you know, you get to a certain point and it’s like, yeah, but I don’t want to scale up and be this massive conglomeration. So how can we continue to make a big impact without necessarily growing our company exponentially? And that’s where it just, it made a lot of sense that we should, we should create something focused around development.

[21:47] So initially it started, let’s create this freedom hacker movement, which a freedom hacker is someone who a freedom hacker is someone who takes life back into their own hands and succeeds at life. They break away from society’s norms. They succeed at life on their own terms and they get their version of freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationship and freedom of purpose because everyone’s definition of that is different, but at least like, let’s give them the chance to have that choice to go have that freedom. So then we use real estate development as our mechanism for how we can help people get there. And that’s through empowering our local entrepreneurs and investors to become that local real estate developer in their community. Oh, I love that. That’s fantastic. I mean, that’s basically everything that I’m doing here. I mean, that’s, you know, the why behind real estate investing behind everything is not just to get money. I mean, it’s to live a life that’s free, to make my own decisions, to, to do my crazy eclipse trip that I was telling you before we got on air, uh, to, you know, be able to get my family to, to go to somewhere fun and not really have to ask off

[22:58] or not really have to worry about PTO or whatever. So yeah, that’s absolutely, that’s fantastic. I love it. Um, how long has that been going on now? How long have you had the, uh, freedom hacker movement? So that we just fully came into concept, uh, towards the end of last year and it’s involved. Now we released, we, we just got our, our whole marketing put together. So that’s all launched and out there. We have our starter course. That is the belief and just explaining to people what commercial real estate development even is. Um, and then why they can do and be that developer. And then we’ve got in production, our full course that will take it soup to nuts from start to finish and guide people through that process. Um, but someone said something last week that really resonated with me and it was wisdom comes from experience. It doesn’t come from knowledge, which wisdom is just a deep understanding of something. And when it comes from experience, that means it comes from taking action. And I was like, yes, exactly. Cause I’m not creating these courses so we can make money off the courses, creating these courses so that

[24:10] people are empowered and they take action and they go transform their communities. That’s what we want to do. That’s what we want to empower and get out there because we’ve got our primary and our secondary markets, the professional developers. Great. There’s tons of information out there, tons of market studies. They know what’s happening. They know the national tenants that want to be there. Awesome. Go do it. But what’s lacking. And what I realized when I took that trip across the country with my dog and the truck camper is that all of these communities in our smaller and medium sized towns, we all have the same issues. We all have aging housing infrastructure, aging infrastructure. We all have incorrect housing products for our current needs. We all have businesses that we’re starting or we want to expand that don’t have the commercial spaces to go into because business has changed. And we don’t have like the places that we want to go out and play and enjoy others in our community. So our smaller and medium sized towns are really hurting from that standpoint, but we have amazing people in those communities, truly amazing people that if we just give them the right tools,

[25:13] they can go be the change makers in their community. So that’s, that’s the thing that fires me up and gets me out of bed. Someone had asked the question, like, what would you do if you knew you’d never make a dime at it? But like, what still fires you up? And I’m like, it’s that, it’s that communities. Let’s empower our people. Let’s invest in main street over wall street. I love it. Yeah, I definitely are. Our community here where I live in Virginia has definitely gone through a lot of that process. And what was downtown was, was it just a wasteland when I, when I was young and now it’s like a vibrant community. And there was, it took a lot of intentionality. It took a lot of, it took a vision from an organization to kind of help bring together like exactly what you’re talking about. I’m sure there’s a lot of communities out there that are, you know, far behind the swing of that. Have you found any resistance or struggles with talking to the local governments as far as trying to approve certain developments? I know that’s been an issue in our area. I’m sure you have experience with convincing the locals to go with your plan. I mean, that had to have come up.

[26:21] Yeah. So there’s, there’s a couple of different things that come to mind with that. You know, being the outsider and trying to take my projects, like trying to take a family dollar or CVS to a community, you have real challenges and pushbacks. There’s people inside of those communities who don’t want those national tenants and brands. And I’ll tell you what, I’m one of them now. It was great for the experience, but let’s get our local businesses to be the ones that have the pharmacy or to have the, the local grocery store or whatever that is. So that’s where, and one of the key things, and actually one of our free webinars that’s coming out next is that we’re, we’re explaining to people why they have six unique advantages to being that local developer in their community. And that’s one of them. That’s, that’s your local trust, your relationships, you’re all of that. And from that angle, what we found, I mean, just for example, in January, I went up to the upper peninsula and I spent time with my co-founder Lynn and in our local real estate developer company. And because she was a local, she was able, it was a last minute trip. We’re like,

[27:26] Oh, this would be so great. I was going to Chicago. So it was, Hey, I’ll come up here first. She was able to set up so many meetings with the city managers, the regional planners, the banks, the smart zone incubator, some of the businesses, the economic development corporations. Like we had a whirlwind tour. I, this two days flew by so fast. I planned a trip up there, um, in October just to hang out and relax and have fun. And what I found through that is that everyone was so hungry and wanting to empower their local people. I mean, the city manager took us on a tour of a couple of properties and then also took us through the old university buildings that left town overnight. And it was so awesome to think about things like we had turned one of those old university buildings into an amazing multi-generational space that has maybe 55 plus and active seniors on one side.

[28:17] And on the other side, young professionals and graduate students. And then in the middle, there was this awesome cafeteria and it was like, Whoa, what if we turn this into like a commercial kitchen concept? And we had local businesses who could set up and they could all share in the, the, uh, infrastructure to where they’re not paying the same cost as having their own location. And now you’ve got, you know, live music or art and wine nights or, you know, like workout classes or, you know, different, different things. And, uh, it was just so inspiring to see the local community that really can unite and they have businesses. Like, I mean, they’re literally building like rockets there and they’ve got a young community of young professionals coming in and they have nowhere to live. So it was just so cool as an outsider to come in and see all the potential there that a big developer will never spend the time getting to know that community. And they will never understand the amazing qualities that are there or the potential of it. And then it’s worth investing in, but the locals can, and we can empower those locals to do it. So I would say you’re,

[29:20] you’re probably in some communities, you are going to hit the opposition, but that’s where by engaging and finding those emerging developers and those local real estate, um, developers, that’s going to open a whole lot more doors to where our reach can be bigger and we can just empower that local person to go make the difference. And if they hit certain obstacles and roadblocks, we’ll be able to coach them through that. Yeah. I found in the smaller and medium towns, they’re already trying to start some programs to inspire that change and to get people moving. So, um, I would say you’ll, we’ll hit opposition, but it’s probably going to be less frequent than we’d imagine. That makes a lot of sense. I think that the nimbyism probably is a lot turned down, a lot more turned down when it’s like revitalizing something that is, uh, like, you know, an eyesore and that would be something cool and exciting as opposed to, yeah, like your, your, your dollar general, your Walmart or whatever in their backyard. So like, it’s, that makes a lot of sense. And especially with those local connections, I mean, that,

[30:20] that, that’s awesome. I bet that you get through much more easily. If we went, if we can pivot a little bit, I was curious about like you, you obviously are a go-getter. You obviously get after it. And, and you said you could sleep when you die. Um, what, what kind of, what kind of self-care do you do? What do you do to, uh, make sure that you’re firing on all cylinders all the time? Uh, do you have, you know, exercise any, any kind of routines like that? Yeah. So I will also say that philosophy of I’ll sleep when I die. I also threw that out the door at some point, because if I don’t take care of myself and if I’m not getting the necessary sleep, I’m not going to be a peak performer. So I’ve learned that over the years and I’m a constant work in progress and learning. I would say today, what I do is, and I would also caveat it saying there are times when you have to go out and you have to grind and you have to push through and you have to put in the time, but then there are other times where you don’t need to necessarily do as much. So I would say where I’m at the point right now. So I have several very successful companies that, uh, I’m a member of strategic coach and they

[31:32] really teach us how to create those self-managing companies and empowering and elevating your team to, to, to do that. Um, so my normal routine, I will wake up every morning. I will do a meditation. I will read my gratitude list and I will write down notes from the day before of even just one thing that it was like, that was, that was a really cool thing. I’m really grateful for that. I will read. Normally it’s, it’s some kind of a book that’s going to help me in business or personal life or something. So I’ll read for a little bit. I will take my dog on a walk to the beach and back. So it’s about a 30 minute walk and I leave my phone at home. So it’s my additional time of my quiet time of being present and being there. And then I’ll come back and I’ll do some kind of workouts, whether it’s Peloton or Pilates or yoga or a pool workout or a, whatever it is, I’ll do some kind of workout.

[32:29] And that’s every morning before I start my day. Now, granted, I’m a nine to fiber. I go to bed at nine and I wake up at five. So by the time I’m out, it’s pretty close to eight o’clock in the morning. And I just, I absolutely, I used to stay up late. I’m like, Nope, I love going to bed at nine. I love just, and I don’t set my alarm. I just naturally wake up sometime between five and five 30 and I start my day, but now it’s eight o’clock and I’ve already taken care of me. And because I’m full now, now I can give to others. So then I allow my, my day to get started from there. That makes a lot of sense. I love it. And those morning routines are amazing. And it sounds like you have excellent sleep hygiene.

[33:06] If you can just go to bed at the same time and wake up on your own without alarms. That’s, that’s definitely living the dream. I can’t always overhear. I have a three four legged kid. I do not have tiny humans. So that allows me to have a more set schedule, which I understand. No, but it’s amazing how, how quickly that comes back after you have a little baby and there’s bad days, but it still works. Any, with the personal finance stuff, you talked a lot a bit, a lot about, um, kind of just jumping in and taking risks. Um, is there any strategies or things you would suggest people thinking about doing the same things to like have a certain amount of reserves to, you know, get through the hard times that they’re looking to start something new? Uh, you know, is do they need six months, 12 months of kind of capital to kind of keep the ship running if, if, you know, they’re just not bringing anything in, um, anything like that you could recommend? So I’m a big fan of being a minimalist and not, not having too many things that cost you money. So keeping your, keeping your expenses down in general, because you really want

[34:20] to watch the more money you make, you can really have that income creep to where you go. Oh, my lifestyle is creeping up to match that. And in California, I was guilty of it when I still had the job. And that was something I’ve been conscientious of ever since to where, um, I think it also comes down to people’s risk tolerance and risk profile to where what makes them comfortable for me. I’m one person and I have my dog. So I know, okay, well I can live very, I don’t have to spend a lot of money and I can be comfortable. So I have that threshold. Um, but then I really liked the idea of before, and I don’t buy depreciating assets. I’m, I’m normally always taking my money and then investing it into something like a rental property or an Airbnb or something that’s going to generate more money. And then I’m spending that money on my fun stuff.

[35:11] Sure. So I, in every property I have, we have our bank account and we say, okay, here’s our minimum reserve that we need for this. Uh, we used to have three months after COVID. We were like, you know, let’s make it six months. We’re all going to feel a little bit better and sleep a little bit better at night if we have six months of reserve. So every property has a six month of reserve. If we know we have a big thing like a roof or something coming up, we’ll set big chunks aside and we’ll, we’ll put it in there. And then after that, once it gets to certain thresholds, that’s when we’ll take the, um, shareholder distribute or the owner distributions. Okay. To do the fun things. Exactly. Exactly. So it’s just, I, because I’m actively working and engaged in, in things that bring in income, I try to not take too much from my properties. I totally could, and I could live off of it, but I try to leave those in there or take the money and invest it into something that’s a low risk to where it’s making money back, whether it’s putting in my infinite banking, whole life policies.

[36:10] So that way I could be my own lender or, um, if it’s investing a high interest savings account, things like that. Okay. I love it. And then that’s a good segue into your real estate investing, uh, career or, or your history. Uh, can you tell us a little about, about what you’ve invested in, what your portfolio consists of? Yeah. So my very first property that I bought was a townhome in Tahoe and I, it took me until my late twenties to actually invest in my own property because I had this thing where I didn’t want to ever feel stuck or trapped somewhere. So I didn’t want, I thought that I was putting down roots if I bought a place to live in, which then when I realized, I’m like, wait, I’m still splitting my time between Southern California and Tahoe, bought a townhouse. Uh, also because my CPA said I needed more tax deductions. And I was like, okay, I guess I’ll invest in real estate. And then I started understanding the power of that.

[37:08] Um, but the first townhouse I bought had a entrance on the first floor is two bedrooms and a bathroom. The second floor had a bedroom and a bathroom. And then the third floor was the common area. So living room, dining room, kitchen. And because I was splitting my time and it was in Tahoe and one of my very good friends to this day, who I’m going on a trip to Japan with next week. Um, but she taught me the power of short-term rentals. She’s like, you should totally rent out your first floor, help you decorate, blah, blah, blah. So I rented out the first floor on Airbnb. And I realized after that first year, I was like, Whoa, my mortgage HOA and utilities were all covered by the people who stayed downstairs. I just live for free. So I think from that day forward, I never paid for a place that I’ve lived again. I can’t help it. I I’m a constant house hacker. So that townhouse turned into another townhouse in that community turned into a single family home across the street, turned into a fourplex two blocks away. And that those were, those were the, the Tahoe ones. And then, um, I also invest, we ended up buying a fourplex in Carson city, a fourplex in Reno,

[38:20] uh, because I grew up in Ohio. I have a handful of, uh, properties in Columbus. Now, I think now I’ve got a sixplex, a fourplex, a sixplex, a fourplex, a duplex, and a single family. And then in Florida, I’ve got a couple of duplexes. Um, and it’s a combination of short-term and long-term rentals. Typically what I like to do is go into a market. And if it’s four or six units, then we’ll maybe make one or two of those in Airbnb. Uh, that way we can always have eyes on the property. Uh, it gives us a chance. There’s some of our tenants who, um, we need to raise the rent on paper, but there’s things that we need taken care of at our Airbnb. So it’s like, Hey, if you take the trash to the street while your rent just went up, you know, we’ll give you a deduction, um, to where you basically, so on paper it looks good, but then it’s also giving them a break. And because we make the extra money from Airbnb, then that allows us to do that. I love that. That’s a really clever way of, uh, I love that. It allows you to have a heart, but also it’s still money. And like our fourplex in Tahoe, the, we’ve got three bedroom, three bath upstairs and studios below. And it allows

[39:28] us to keep the rent of the three bedroom, at least a thousand dollars under market. And it’s like, yeah, we could make an extra thousand bucks. We could make an extra, you know, I guess 24,000 a year, but at the same time, life isn’t just about money because I know that Joan and her family, they go work in Alaska and they do fishing during the season and they come back to Tahoe and they do cleaning and security at the casinos. I’m not trying to take every penny from them. I do. We slowly raise the rents over time. We make sure that we’re, you guys need a new bathroom. Boom. We’ll build a new bathroom. You guys need a carpet. We’ll do the new carpet. So it just, it gives us by doing that unit mix like that. It just gives us the flexibility to be creative and be human.

[40:08] That’s really cool. Do you manage yourself or do you have, you always outsource that? I self-manage. Um, I say that because even if you hire a property management company, you’re still managing them. So I just found it because I have multiple other businesses. Uh, there’s several people that end up working with me that want to work in all my different funnels because they want to keep exposed to all the different ways and keep work interesting. So, uh, we created our own, uh, systems and processes, uh, our own management team. We use tenant cloud for our long-term rentals. We’ve got our whole system set up with Airbnb for our short-term rentals. Uh, we have our own software in Wrike, which is like Monday or Asana.com. So every business runs through Wrike. So that way, no matter who’s working on it, they’ve, they’ve got the checklist, the steps. So, um, we’ve built a pretty well-oiled machine when it comes to property management. And then that way, if someone for any of our companies, if someone were to go on vacation, you can just assign those tasks to someone else and you know, the balls aren’t getting dropped. So it’s, it’s evolved over

[41:13] time. I’m like, I’m a, I’m a serial entrepreneur. I’m constantly starting companies. So it just made sense. Let’s just keep it all in-house and let’s empower our team and give them different ways to work. That’s really cool. I love it. And I think that like at the end of the day, uh, I mean, you can get great property managers, but I think that often it’s easier to care more about your property that you own. And so I haven’t handed that torch off either. Nobody cares more about your property or your businesses than you do. So that’s, that’s the bottom line when it comes down. And that’s where I found in my companies that, that we, we do a profit sharing model to where it’s just like, Hey, let’s all act as the business owners. And then they can all see, they can learn the different facets of what it takes to run a business. Uh, because so many times, like you work in your one silo at a company, you don’t know how the business actually operates. And I’m like, my goal is to empower and to give my team as much information as possible to where they could go start their own company. And if they do

[42:10] awesome, I’ll probably be their first investor, but then it’s awesome. My job to create a culture and a team that they don’t want to leave. So it’s that, that constant of, all right, well, I’m going to give you guys as much as possible, but now that means I need to step up my game and make sure this is a place you want to continue to show up and work and be part of. That’s amazing. Would you have any great real estate advice for someone wanting to get started or somebody that’s already in it, looking just to grow their, elevate their game? I would say the biggest advice that I would have is just always, always be resilient. And I say this because the minute you stop doing a W2 and the minute you start doing something on your own, you’re going to have life throw every possible curve ball at you. And if every time it happens, you go, why me? Why did it happen to me? You’re taking the victim mindset. And instead, if you go, Oh, I anticipated a curve ball happening. I’m going to pause and choose how I respond and then go ahead and respond to the things that happen in life.

[43:20] Because I mean, I’ve, I’ve had the gamut. I’ve had crazy things happen on my development projects, my rental or my properties that I’ve bought over the years and remodeled. I mean, we’ve, we’ve had all sorts of drug issues. We’ve had Homeland Security bus. We’ve had physical security cards being made at a stash house at a property that we ended up buying. We had a fourplex that we were completely gutting and remodeling during COVID. And since we were nice to our tenants and we knew it would be hard for them to find a new place, we gave them a 60 day notice instead of a 30 day notice in January of 2020. Well, one of those tenants took advantage of that and we had the COVID moratorium and she ended up staying eight months rent free, creating all sorts of other issues there.

[44:06] I just, every, every property has a story. And at some point I’m going to write a bunch of short stories about them. But the biggest thing I would say is, you know, just be resilient. I mean, heck the place I’m in right now is, is my duplex in Fort Myers beach, Florida, the fall of 2022, we got wiped out by hurricane Ian. I biked in three days after because I thought I saw my roof on CNN and I was like, maybe I still have a house. And that was, it took me two and a half months to even be able to move back home. And I’m one of the lucky ones. 90% of the Island was destroyed. It was completely gone. Um, and it’s, it was an insane mess dealing with, with FEMA and SBA and insurance, which is a joke, but then also to then get permits and rebuild. Uh, I think just last week, I might have got my last final inspection on a permit to fix up the place. And again, I’m one of the lucky ones. Um, so it’s just, just know that the only thing you can control in life is your response to things that happen. So don’t fight it. Just know that like the purpose of life is to live it. So of course you’re going to get curve balls, but just take that approach. Yeah. Don’t let it

[45:19] stop you. Don’t let the fear of those curve balls stop because it, I mean, it, I think a repeating thing that I’ve heard from you is, is you kind of just jump in and you have faith in yourself. You’re going to figure it out because you are resilient because you, uh, will put in the time that is needed to, to work it out. That’s, that’s inspiring. Do you have a favorite book you could recommend? Yes. Who, not how by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy. That book, I remember I was, it was during my trip across the country, uh, traveling with my dog and we were at my sister’s house in Morgantown, West Virginia. And I remember listening to a part from who, not how that just made every light bulb go off in my head because I thought, Oh, well I’m a business owner. So I’ve got to learn and master everything first and then I can give it to someone else. That’s not true.

[46:10] And also if something feels super heavy to me and I keep putting it off, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be something that, that is heavy or uncomfortable or horrible for someone else on my team to do. In fact, it might be that they get a lot of joy out of that. And I found that out when I hired my CFO, um, and controller where a lot of the operations side of the business that I didn’t realize felt so heavy to me because I had just gotten used to doing it so long. When I gave it to Kamaki, she absolutely loved all the parts I hated. I’m like, why the heck did I hang onto this for so long? So huge fan reading the book, who, not how, um, because you’re delegating things to elevate your teammates. And that’s just huge.

[46:54] All right. I love it. And you know, there’s gotta be, there’s computer programmers out, out there in the world. Right. And there’s a people, people, everybody has different things that fire them up. Exactly. So then what about, uh, do you have a favorite deal that you completed?

[47:12] Development or investment? Yeah, I would say my favorite deal would be the third property I bought. I had, it was when I was living in Tahoe and I had gotten a dog and she just, she just told me, she’s like, mom, I would like a backyard. So I had been listening to bigger pockets and I was like, all right, well, they said you could send out these mailers. And I knew across the street that there was this older housing community, but in front of that, right by the lake in Tahoe, they were about to build a million dollar condos. And I also knew that the event center was getting built in the parking lot of the casino. So it was in the South shore of Tahoe. And I was like, whoa, once those million dollar condos are built, once that event center’s there, this whole community right here, that’s a little run down, that’s probably going to go up in value.

[48:03] So I remember watching some series on Netflix and I wrote letters. I typed out the letter, but hand wrote the envelopes and mailed them to all 67 properties in that community. And a couple of weeks later, this grandma Shirley calls me and she’s like, Hey, Christy, I got your letter. And here I was thinking the mailers didn’t work. And she lived over the hill in Carson city at the time. And she’s like, you know, I’ve owned that property. I built that house. I’ve owned that property, but it’s been a rental for six or seven years. And I think it’s time to let it go. She’s like, why don’t you and your, your dog come over, um, this weekend, check it out. See what you think. I’m like, what this worked like, this is amazing. So I go do a drive by and I’m like, oh my gosh, like this house, it was a piece of work. All right. The backyard was like a jungle.

[48:55] I’m not even kidding. Like there was like 10 to 20 feet of random landscape and plants that were grown. Uh, and it looked a mess from the outside, but I do development. I do construction. I completely remodeled the first two townhomes that I owned. I knew, I knew I could do it. So when I toured it, the house was a, there was a three bed, well, kind of a four bedroom, one and a half bath. I say that cause there were toilet stubs and it was in complete disarray. The prior tenants, they were bartenders in the community. I mean, we found all sorts of drug paraphernalia, bullets, tread, this, this property needed a piece of work, but it was a gold mine. I could see it. I could see the potential. So I told grandma earlier, she’s like, well, I was like, how much do you want to sell it for? She’s like, you tell me now. She’s a very savvy business woman, very savvy, very smart. I got to know her and know her story. And I said, okay, well here, based on the market, here’s where it’s at. Here’s all the things that need done to your house just to make it livable. I said, not for the upgrades I’m going to do, but here’s what it’s

[50:00] going to do. And I backed into that number. I gave her the logic. She said, okay. I was like, wait, what’s happening? So then I basically spoon fed the deal to my realtor. And I said, can you do it for a 3% flat commission? Because you’re going to represent both sides. Let’s just get it done. So, and I bought that house as a, um, as a primary home. So I think I put what, like three and a half or 5% down. The purchase price was $3.55. I then went ahead. And the only thing I had grandma Shirley do is I said, I can’t, I don’t know what I can’t see. So I said, if you take care of the backyard and you get that all cleaned up, I’ll take care of everything else. So she hired one of the neighbors and did it. That property now, um, because, so I split my time between Tahoe and Southwest Florida, that property net, I’ll Airbnb when I’m gone. It makes me somewhere between six to $14,000 gross a month. Now it’s ridiculous. And it’s completely remodeled. Um, because of some things that were happening in Tahoe, I, we just, we were looking up different pricing and maybe 1031 in some properties, but one, that thing is a great cash cow, but it’s not worth

[51:13] like over 900,000. Wow. And that’s on an interest rate. That’s less than that might’ve been like a 4.75% where I thought, Oh, it’s a super high rate. Yeah. Right. That’s just one of those properties where it’s like, Holy cow, you get the ridiculous cashflow. Plus you get the ridiculous appreciation. I’m like, that is one of my favorite properties because my dog made me do it. Like my dog is a very good investor. Yes. Savvy. It sounds like you had the dog telling you or in part of the letter, cause she invited you and your dog to come toward the property. I remember hearing a bigger pockets, like the authentic, tell your story. Just a human, like it works. I love it. That’s amazing. Yeah. I mean, all I love your story is really, really inspiring. I love the fact that you seem to have, you know, that embedded confidence, um, that allows you to jump into things and know that you can back it up. And I think you’ve proven that to yourself over and over again, that probably helps as you go forward. I mean, is there anything you could, any, any day-to-day tips or any kind of tricks that you could think of that might help others foster that kind of commitment to themselves?

[52:31] I know I’ve heard people talk about showing up and fulfilling what you say you’re going to do for yourself that day. So if that’s going for a walk or whatever, I mean, is there anything like that you can think of to help foster that? Yeah. Cause I mean, probably a lot of people are capable of doing big things and just, they’re scared of taking that leap. So any advice you’d have for that? Yeah. And I think that’s the thing. Every step of the way I felt the fear. I was scared. I just, my, my passion, my vision and my why were always so strong enough that it allowed me to feel the fear and do it anyway. And the thing is, once you prove to yourself that you can do it, and I did baby steps at first, just to prove to myself, like, will this work? Will this work? As you do that, you grow confidence in yourself to be like, whoa. And honestly, when you think about every challenge that life gives you, I would say, take the time to reflect, take the time to look back at your past.

[53:30] Someone told me last week, and it was just this amazing bomb of you can’t learn from a past you don’t remember. So take the time to pause and reflect and think about all those times where you overcame hurdles, because it’s actually your own experiences that are going to give you the confidence to say, I’m going to try this out too. Let’s see what happens. Because if you fast forward and you go, what’s the worst that can happen? As long as you’re not going to die, do it anyway. So your ego gets bruised. So you don’t do it perfect. What do we say at the beginning? Wisdom comes from experience. It doesn’t come from knowledge. Don’t waste your time. Go ahead and educate yourself, but don’t let that stop you from taking action. I love it.

[54:17] This has been fantastic. Again, I mean, do you have any ways that people can connect with you or follow you on social media? Yeah, I’ll give you my terrible with this. I started getting active. If we can link that I’ve got an Instagram. You can follow our freedom hacker movement at freedomhackermovement.com. We also have our local realestatedevelopers.com. If you want to check out the courses and go that route. So yeah, you can check us on Instagram, check us on either of those websites. We’re engaged. We want to help empower other people to transform their lives, transform your communities. So however we can help. It’s fantastic. Thank you so much, Christy Candle, for joining us. It’s been a really inspiring conversation, and I’m sure that you are going to continue to transform the world, not just yours, but now all sorts of communities across the country. So thank you so much for all you’re doing. Thank you for having me.

[55:15] Thanks for listening to the Wealthy Investor Podcast, where we talk about wealth and holistic health. If you enjoy our content, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and hear new episodes every Thursday. If you really like our content, you can follow us on social media at thewealthyinvestor. Wealthy spelled W-E-L-L-T-H-Y.