One Basketball Coach's Leap of Faith Evolved Into a Life of Real Estate Mastery with Cory Jacobson

[0:00] Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Matthias, an agent and investor. And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist. Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing. Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors. Ready to level up? Let’s do it.

[0:23] Welcome back to the REI Agent. Erica, always lovely to see you. Good morning. On and off the screen.

[0:34] We had an awesome guest today, Corey Jacobson. Corey and his partner, they do podcasts. They have a coaching program now. They’re investors. So it was a really good episode. He’s a motivating guy. You can tell he just is passionate about coaching and this phase he’s in. So it was really a fun conversation. It was. And we realized we have a lot in common with him. We talked quite a bit about voluntary adversity and doing some of the hard things, even though they make you feel pretty uncomfortable. They help you move to places where you’d like to be. Mm-hmm. And which is something that we talk about all the time. We haven’t mentioned it a whole lot here recently, but we, you know, talk about it some in like doing our cold plunges, which I haven’t done as much in the winter because it’s just.

[1:25] It’s time to get that adversity. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.

[2:33] Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.

[3:44] Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.

[4:55] Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.

[6:06] Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.

[7:17] Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.

[8:28] Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.

[9:39] Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. If I want to be about the Eagles, I can certainly turn into that. I’ve been literally riding this high for so long. And I don’t know, man. I don’t think we’re going anywhere anytime soon. That was just too fun. So we’ll see. No, that was great.

[10:39] Corey, you have a partner in crime. Ryan, can you say his last name for us? Yeah, this one you might need me to chime in. So Bevilacqua. It is how it sounds, but people have messed that one up. Ryan Bevilacqua. Yeah. Where’s that from? Do you know? Ryan’s actually from the Cape in Massachusetts, but it’s Italian. And he doesn’t look Italian. He looks more Irish, but he’s got kind of half Irish, half Italian. And that’s my best friend. We’ve been doing business together for, I’ve been friends with him for 14 years. We’ve been doing business together for seven and he’s, you know, we’re a two headed monster. So. That’s awesome. Yeah. I guess, tell us a little bit about your origin story. How’d you get started in real estate?

[11:20] Yeah. So this is an interesting one. I used to work for the Philadelphia 76ers. So I’m like through and through, you know, been in Philly for a long time. I was running their youth camps. Um, I’ll make this not too long, but basically I was making $35,000 a year. So, you know, to some people that may be a lot of money, it, it’s, it’s not a lot of money in my opinion, but I was, I was doing what I loved. I was coaching basketball. My boss there was like, I’m going to get you a raise. Like, I want you to stay. Uh, you know, the raise was five grand. I was like, wow, this isn’t really going to affect me that much. I’d love to stay, but I’m not sure how. And he’s like, you know how you can stay.

[11:59] You should, there’s all these young people that work here. You should buy a five bedroom house and, um, rent for the bedrooms out to some of the people that work here. And then you can live and you can make money while you live and that can help you stay here longer. So he, you know, this is one of my mentors. I, I, I really loved him. Uh, shout out to Todd. Um, and I actually took his advice. I bought a three bed, two bath. I lived in one bedroom, rented out the other two bedrooms. I went from paying a thousand dollars a month in rent to living for free. It didn’t keep me working there too much longer. Cause I was like, I want, went into sales and I kind of changed my mentality to try to make more money.

[12:34] Uh, but that kicked started my journey. I was able to save up there, buy a duplex, uh, cashflowed a couple hundred dollars a month. But three years later I was able to sell it for a hundred thousand dollar profit. And that’s when like Ryan and I started to partner together. We’d been friends forever. Uh, we started a social media, uh, shout out to out at wealth juice official. That’s a social media. We started a social media podcast and our real estate company in like beginning of 2020 all in the same time. And just figured, you know, people will probably follow along with our journey. I bigger pockets is amazing. It helped us get started, but I think there’s a lot of stories of people that have a thousand units that started in 99.

[13:07] And it’s like, it’s, it’s hard. It’s not relatable to buying today. So hopefully people started to follow along. We started when we had three units. I had my house hack. I had one duplex and ride as primary residence. And we just said, hopefully people listen in. Uh, we were able to brute force our way to like eight units between the two of us, um, in the next couple of years. And then the podcast and the social media really is what springboarded stuff. Partnerships formed. We got into rooms with people that we never had any business being in rooms with. Um, and we started to really network and organically kind of create those partnerships and eight units turned to just over 80 units between some between me and him, some between partnership, general partnerships on an 18 unit, a 43 unit, a, uh, a seven unit.

[13:50] And most recently we have a 10 unit on our contract in different markets. And that was really like how we started, but it was just, um, it was connection and putting ourselves in the right rooms with the right people. So I gave you the, the last six years in like, I don’t know, what was that? Two minutes. So that’s, that was very concise. Thanks. Yeah. That’s amazing. And you, you guys were both still with your W two at that time, right? Yeah. I haven’t let, I left my W two job. I don’t know when this podcast is going to be released, but I left my W two job in September. Uh, so six, you know, six months ago, really. So I, we were all building this up through, you know, us saving up money with our W two jobs.

[14:30] Both of us, Rye still has his, we use it for getting loans. We, you know, he has a family. I’m, I’m not single, but I’m, I don’t have kids. Um, and I think that the partnership aspect has been amazing for both of us. And we, you know, that’s how we’ve been able to kind of parlay ideas off of each other. And, uh, and yeah, that’s how it’s, how it’s gone. And now it’s gone. Wow. Congrats, man. How did you come to the decision to leave your W two finally? Um, we talked about this prerecording, this whole voluntary adversity thing. I think that, uh, I don’t believe that my full potential was able to be realized unless I went all in and I put it off for a long time. I’m 33. Um, I was like doing all this on the side.

[15:14] I worked for my family’s business. Um, I loved my family. There’s, if you know about family businesses, there’s pros and cons to that. Uh, and I was in sales, I was making good money. And I just thought, you know, I’m not going to be able to really drive this thing forward content wise, uh, buy more real estate, create our coaching program and get it off the ground unless I’m full time. And I just said, no, one’s going to come knocking on my door, telling me it’s the right time. It’s just, that’s just not how it works. Right. Um, I wasn’t, I’m, I’m, you know, I have a pretty high risk tolerance. I didn’t burn the boats day one, but after four or five years of doing this, it’s like, you know what?

[15:49] Like I’m never going to know. And I’d rather have, you know, uh, oh shit, I messed this whole thing up rather than regrets. So I just said, let’s do it. Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. I mean, I think there’s, there’s a lot of things to unpack. We should definitely get into the adversity. Uh, we have to, we talk about this all the time, but I wanted to also ask you, uh, uh, one of the other themes that I’ve been kind of thinking about a lot here recently is showing up just super simple, uh, concept of showing up. And, uh, you know, you, you said you have a high risk tolerance, but I’m sure you have some legs, right? I mean, you’ve, you’ve obviously built some legs at this point. You should be able to jump in, you know, you could take it further.

[16:30] Um, so I mean, there is some like proof of concept there, right? A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, I, so burning the whole burning the boat strategy is like, I, you know, I, I haven’t been investing for a long time in real estate. My, we always tell people that it kind of takes 18 months to two years for your properties to season anyway. Right. Like we’re a general partnership in a bunch of projects. We didn’t see any dollars as general partners for 18 months. So now they’re starting to really like make us the money, the depreciation. We’re saving all this money on taxes. And I said, you know, if not now, then, then when, like what, when is the right time when I have three kids? Like, is that, am I going to feel more comfortable diving all the way in?

[17:06] Like I want to build this foundation. So I just, it, it, you know, I have, we, Ryan and I invested in the 401k with work. We invested in the brokerage accounts. You know, I have like kind of some, as you mentioned, legs to the table to stand on a little bit. Um, and then my thing is like, I, I love creating relationships and connections and selling and, and trying to get people to buy into, to, to us and, and, and our vision. And that’s the coaching program. That’s like mainly what I do full time. The real estate is now like parlayed on the side of that. We teach people how to buy their first and next rental property because of how much that first one changed my life. I was like, if I can help people do this, if I can help people see the light and, and one property can change it all for you.

[17:48] It changed everything for me. I mean, that just as an example, that property that I bought three bed, two bath for $250,000 that I thought I was overpaying for at the time is now worth $400,000. My mortgage is $1,500 a month and I can rent it for $2,700 a month. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s one property. That’s a big deal for somebody, you know? And it was for me until we got into larger projects, but it’s like, if you can, everyone thinks that everything’s so expensive. And I, you know, you hear that all the time and like people said that in 2017. So like, what are you going to think in 2033? Like get in the game and let’s, let’s show you how this can change your life. And just because it, it really changed ours.

[18:26] I think it’s a very true rule of thumb is that, you know, I experienced this as well. When I buy still, even though I know this is that I always feel like I overpay. Like every time, every time, even if we’re getting like a slamming deal, like I’m like, Oh, if I could have just gotten it. Like, I remember saying to the, to the, to my agent at the time who I hadn’t, I didn’t use after that because I just didn’t know any, like, it was just a one-time transaction. But I was like, am I really going to like, I was splitting the difference between $4,000. I almost was like, I don’t want to spend $4,000 more. And meanwhile, that appreciation happened in about four months. So it’s like, you know, there’s this psychology and this analysis process that people have to get through.

[19:08] And I think the best way to get through that is to surround yourself with people who have done it a few steps ahead of you who’ve just seen it. And that is what changed the game for us. I like to, I like to point out that, you know, my parents, we just sold the family home, you know, 30 years of, of that appreciation you’re talking about. And, you know, I think they, would they buy it for like 85,000 or something when they, when they bought it, it’s like $85,000 and sold for, you know, I don’t know, three something. But, but all I have to say is like, they were probably squabbling over like 50 bucks or $200 at the time. Like it was, yeah. Yeah. The joke is you can buy something for three raspberries back then. Right.

[19:48] But like my, my parent, very similar story. My parents bought a property for $300,000. My dad lost a bunch of money in 08 in real estate. But he has two properties now. One of them, it was my primary, like the place I grew up in. He sold, bought it for 300, sold it for 850. And he made all this money off of it just by holding it for 25 years. And now he has a shore home that he bought for 450,000. That’s worth 1.3. And it’s like, if you can, two homes, like two properties that just, he didn’t even rent these out. They just had them, you know, obviously the thought is like that, yes, there are liabilities when you live in them. Right. But, you know, he had somebody approach him one month down the shore and he was like, I want to rent your place out in August.

[20:27] I’ll offer you $25,000. He was like, I’ll see you later. All right. You can have the place, right? So the opportunity to like, to have that is based on just owning cash flowing assets or even just assets that we’ll appreciate over time. A hundred percent. Yeah. I think to your point. Yeah. If you get in and you have time, if you’re not forced to sell, that it’s been a winning formula for a long time. Yeah. So this, this voluntary adversity piece that you’re talking about and the risk tolerance are, is that something that’s always been a part of who you are? Or has that been something that’s come up recently in the last couple of years? You know, sports are like the best metaphor for life. I think, um, I, I always, uh, growing up, I was like a decent athlete, but I was really intense about it.

[21:19] Like I always took it so seriously. Sometimes I wish I took it a little less seriously, but I, what I, what it trained me to do is like team atmosphere, like putting yourself through hard things in order to get pushed through on the other side. So, I mean, like since high school, I feel like I’ve always kind of been like that, but there’s been a few influential people that have like changed the way I’ve thought and add my let’s one of them. And he, he says, I have this tattooed on myself. I love it so much. He says, keep your promises to yourself. And, um, what it really means is that in order to build self-confidence, you have to keep your promises to yourself and you have to do the things that you say you’re going to do over and over again.

[21:58] So much so that you build up so much confidence in yourself that you’re really not concerned about the opinions of others. So that comes through in involuntary adversity as well, where it’s like, if I put myself through this thing, I trust myself so much so that I know I can do this thing that you’re not really, you don’t really have a chance to knock me down. Like you can’t say anything that’s going to affect me. I already did this. I do the work. I go to the gym five days a week. I, I make the prospecting calls. I help the people that I say I’m going to help even as simple as, Hey, I’m going to send you an email after this. You know how many people just don’t do it? It’s like, what, what, how can we trust the word of somebody if you’re not going to say what you do, what you say you’re going to do?

[22:34] So I think those two things go hand in hand. I haven’t always been like this. I think, you know, a lot of people have this like wake up call and you turn 30 and you’re like, you know, am I trustworthy? Am I the person that I say I am? When I look in the mirror, am I happy physically, mentally, spiritual, whatever, all of those things. So I think voluntary adversity trains you to say, if the hardest thing I’m going to do today is my, is something that I put myself through, then whatever comes next is pretty simple to me. I don’t need like my house burned down. One of our rental properties burned down, but I did a really hard workout this morning and I’m glad I did that. And I’m like, you know what?

[23:10] This is real estate. Like you just deal with it. I think it trains your mind to think like if somebody else has went through this and dealt with it and came out on the other side, don’t you think I can? And that’s, that’s a mouthful there, but that’s my, my take on voluntary adversity. No, I love that. And it sounds like over the years, especially recently, it’s more so you’ve honed it. Um, even though it sounds like it’s been kind of alive and well in inside the whole time, but I haven’t really talked about a lot on a podcast. So I’m glad I thank you for bringing it up. I mean, that’s maybe you’re confirming that I’ve honed in on it. I don’t know. I, I, I, I love the topic, but it feels good to talk about.

[23:45] I think it’s, it’s, it’s, you’re missing out on not putting yourself through those things to train yourself because your life and your world is habits. Totally. I mean, I always say, you know, you never, you never crave what you need. You always crave what you want. And, and the things that you need are usually very uncomfortable when you go through them, but you feel a million times better when they’re done. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, I’m not a big, like cold plunge guy. Like I’ve done a few, like they’re cool. Like I, but like doing that and having that really hard three minutes, it, it allows you to be like, you know, are the things that I’m, that are going to happen mentally, like through the rest of the day, are they going to be as hard as that?

[24:26] Probably not. So that’s the, I think that’s the point of it. We, we, yeah, we, we built a cold plunge out of a freezer. And one of the things that got me to kind of take the, I had kind of been thinking about this and we ended up finding it. We, we flipped the house that had a standup freezer. I was like, Oh, that’s going to fit better in our garage anywhere. I could use this chest freezer for a cold plunge one day. And then I heard, um, he were in Dr. Andrew, Andrew Huberman, uh, say that one of the things that he likes to do is do something really difficult before he has to take on a challenge that is what otherwise he would probably procrastinate on. Uh, and so in my mind, I was like, Oh, that’s perfect.

[25:02] Like you get in the cold plunge and then you immediately start a task after that, that you would have, you know, procrastinated on otherwise. And I haven’t done that a lot, but the cold plunge has definitely been a, uh, really, you know, people might argue a little bit about the, the benefits. I think the health benefits are there. Some people I’ve talked to argue that, you know, it’s kind of not, there’s not a lot of longitudinal studies about it, but, uh, I do think if, if it’s only that mental training, that is something that is definitely something like you have to get in. And you have like, it’s just, that’s hard. And if you get through it, you have just, yeah, like you said, strengthen that habit.

[25:39] You’ve gotten yourself further along to the, you know, I’m doing things that are hard, that are good for me. Um, you’re, you’re exercising that muscle. So I, I wish I was, uh, I wish I was in the, uh, high school athlete, uh, world because I feel like I would have gotten a lot more of this discipline stuff earlier. Something I’ve always thought about. I did work a lot in high school, but I never had that, like that. I feel like physical exercise really is like a more tangible. You see the results, you feel the results, um, from putting yourself through something difficult and then seeing progress. Um, then it, it can be a little bit less tangible when you’re, when you’re just showing up to a podcast, uh, for many years, which I’m sure, you know, I was going to say earlier, like, you know, we have that, that show up phase, right?

[26:23] Where you’re just going to show up and grind through it and you’re not sure if it’s going to get anywhere, but you’re going to keep showing up, keep showing up, keep showing up. And eventually, you know, progress happens. Yeah. I mean, I, so I coach high school basketball because of the love of it really. And we’ve had a few guys go to the NBA and I think it’s really high level stuff. Uh, I, I think about it from a standpoint of if most 15 and 16 year olds and 17 year olds are trying to figure out if they can get high or, you know, or play video games or whatever, like which they do. And maybe these kids do as well, but if their day is filled with practice and really, really tough practices and lifting weights and then the pressure that these kids are under to perform, like we play in front of, you know, three, four or 5,000 people.

[27:07] These kids are, they’re kids, you know, like the, if you can like train that in your head early at like the, I can see the anxiety and the pressure. Like if you’re doing that at 16, 17 and you repeatedly do it, like you can’t convince me that by the time you’re in the work working world, cause not everyone’s going to play professionally, that that’s not going to give you a leg up. Somebody who doesn’t put themselves through that. Even if you just play high school basketball at a public school and you don’t play in front of thousands of people, like you are putting yourself through the work. Like, and it’s, um, I think it carries on and that’s why I, you know, obviously you don’t need to be an athlete to be successful.

[27:45] Like, but I just think that it’s like this cheat code in a way early in life to show you what the real world’s kind of like. I mean, if you, you have to win early and if, if you’re not being given participation trophies, you’ll kind of feel what it feels like that. You’re like, once you leave college, you’re like, what, like, what am I doing? Like, no one’s teaching me what to do. No one’s coming to save me. So that to me was like, I never really realized that till later. Cause I didn’t play it like a super high level. Like, but it, it helped me for sure. Yeah. Corey, you talk a lot about, um, like putting, giving back and teaching other people and, and trying to share the knowledge that you’ve built.

[28:24] And then you, you also mentioned earlier about kind of building a community, um, or, or being in touch with people who are doing the same things you are, or who have done more and learning from them. So I’m just curious how your community has changed since you guys got into the investing world, you know, six years ago. Yeah. Yeah. So Brian and I have been putting out the, the free game, free content for five years. Um, and we do a podcast every week. Now it’s twice a week. We’ve ramped it up. We, you know, put out content on Instagram. And what I found that people are lacking is that there’s an abundance of, of information out there. There’s so much, you can, all the strategies work. You can flip, you can wholesale, you can do Airbnb, you can do short term rental, you can do long term.

[29:06] You can do all this stuff. They all work. But what is the clarity behind what is going to work for me? Can somebody hold my hand and show me? I live in California. I live in Michigan. I want to do this. This is how much I have saved up. Like the community aspect of watching people that are a few steps ahead of you, not 30, but a few that have seen what you want to see that can look over your shoulder and say, yeah, Jamie, or yeah, Trish, whatever your name. Like, this is a good deal. You should make an offer on this. I’ll tell you because I looked at a property like this and now I’ve owned it for 18 months and it’s done X, Y, and Z for me. And now that can give you, that can blow analysis process out of the water for you.

[29:44] So I think people came to us and said, what’s the next layer to this? The free content’s amazing. Like, do you guys teach? Do you guys coach? And I’m a coach at heart. I love to do it. So in August, we started our coaching program, teaching people how to buy their first and next rental property. If you have 15 units and you’re trying to get to 50, like I can help you, but I can really, really hone in on people that are looking to get their first few. Because we’ve done it over and over and we’ve helped people over and over do it. And I found that watching people get the right connections, build the right team, having the people that have helped us in our journey help them. It’s been a world of difference.

[30:21] And people sometimes just need that push like that. Hey, I’m 85% of the way there. Just I’m going to push you out the plane and you’re going to have to build a parachute on the way down. And it works because you’ll analysis paralysis yourself to death if you think that you alone with your coworkers or your friends who have no care in the world about real estate, they’re going to tell you not to do it. And until you’re in the rooms with people that are like actually doing the thing, I think you don’t get that picture of like what it could really look like and how it can really benefit you. So I don’t know if I directly answered your question there, but the community is growing. We got 40, 50 members in a few months and we’re selective.

[30:56] We want to work with people who are go-getters, who are ready to take this thing down and like who are coachable and who want to change their life. Because it really, I mean, my goal is one property a year for 10 years as an investment vehicle on the side. I didn’t think I’d be doing it full time, but you get around enough people that are like doing really high level things, some osmosis kicks in and you’re doing the high level things too. So true. I mean, I think there’s such a two elements there, such a good value to have a coach, to have somebody that’s going to be able to help you through, that gets to know you, that can help push you when you need to be pushed and give you the confidence or whatever you need to kind of take that next step.

[31:37] Because you’re right. I mean, I think a lot of people have that analysis paralysis. But yeah. And then surrounding yourself with people that are ahead of you. That’s great. I think also just not negative. Like a lot of people, I think, I don’t know if you went through a phase where maybe people were maybe jealous, envious of you or kind of would hate on you for the moves you were making and kind of it was just maybe sending out their own insecurities. But it’s just, you know, you got to surround yourself by people that will lift you up, right? I’ve really never had the whole like people hating on me thing. People were very supportive in the beginning. I don’t know why they were. But I’ll tell you like the tagline for corporate America is like, we want you to do well, but not better than me.

[32:20] Right. So that’s the feeling that I got when I was working a full time job is you’re like, well, I have all these people out there. They’re like, don’t do that. That’s too risky. Like, why would you do that? I’m like, because I don’t want to play it safe. And I don’t want your job in three years. Like, I don’t want like, I don’t want what I’m looking at here. I don’t want this life. And no disrespect. Some people just want the safety. And I think that’s great. Like you can live. There’s a million ways to live a life. Live it how you want. But I know I didn’t want it. So I’m like, I think when I started to interview people who were successful, I really noticed that the real estate entrepreneurship game was not this greedy, like rich asshole thing.

[32:55] Like at all. It was more so like abundance and giving. And once you’ve made it to this stage, not my stage, but a few stages ahead, the joy you get isn’t in the money. It’s in like watching other people become successful. And there’s an inherent selfishness in that a little bit because maybe you helped them. But I think it’s like, it was eye opening to me to watch, like to be around people that really wanted me to succeed. And really, guys, it started from like, I was, hey, this whole like, can I buy you coffee? Can I pick your brain? Can I do that? And like I kept seeing that over and over. And I was asking people that. And I’m like, nobody wants to do that. It’s like, that’s not the, some people are nice enough to do that, but like actually go to them and fill a hole in their life or their business.

[33:38] And then those people are going to pay attention to you because there’s a lot of people listening probably that are trying to get their start. They’re trying to buy their first. They’re trying to build their agent business. And it’s like, if you can fill voids for other people that are a couple steps ahead of you, and some of that is paying for a mentorship program. That’s, that’s the value that you give them the exchange of the dollars and they coach you. I think when you’re, I just, we talked about sports. You have coaches your whole life. You have professors in college. You get out of college and you’re like, maybe you don’t go to college, whatever it is. But you get out of the school and you’re like, what now?

[34:14] And you, when the stages and the stakes are the highest, you, you say that you shouldn’t have a coach. You shouldn’t be taught. Like, so it’s interesting because the internet is like a very, you know, you have to make sure that these people are legit and there’s scams everywhere. But to, to put, some people put that down. And I just think that it’s, it’s never been more beneficial. If we had had mentors in the beginning, we would have mentors. 300 units, you know? So, yeah. Yeah, completely. We’ve done this podcast, I guess, coming up on a year here in a month or two. And it does seem like there’s themes that keep emerging through all these different conversations. And, and one is that abundance mindset.

[34:53] It just really feels like everybody has started from nothing at some point. And they’ve learned so much from other people who have done it. And they want to share what they’ve learned. And they want to help other people succeed. And then that, that big action that keeps coming up too. You know, like don’t get stuck in the analysis paralysis. You want to take big action and don’t let fear stop you. Even if it can feel a little scary, but it does take a little bit of courage. And then that, you know, just show up and don’t be attached to the outcome. Those seem to be showing up in our podcast over and over and over. I don’t know about you. I’m not sure what kind of conversations you guys have on yours.

[35:27] But it’s just. Yeah, I mean, all of the above, right? I think it’s, it’s just, if everyone’s saying it over and over again and people are doing it, like why not just be scared and do it anyway? And like that was my kind of mantra. I was like, I just, it is scary. It’s, if it wasn’t scary, it wouldn’t be worth doing. And, and, but you, but if you allow that fear to consume you, then you’ll never get on the other side of where these people are telling you, they’re giving you the blueprint. You just got to do it. And I, every single person that’s come in, whether it’s through our community or just people we’ve talked to that have just pushed through the fear. I mean, you get through on the other side and then your problems that you thought were problems are just minuscule and then you have bigger problems.

[36:05] Then you tackle those ones. The irony too, is that it is ends up being a lot safer. Like I can’t, I understand the fear of jumping into the unknown and doing something on your own. I totally don’t want to dismiss that. But once you get the momentum going, once you show up enough that you have the legs that are there, you know, you have some income coming in, it is safer. I mean, there are, you know, obviously I’m not going to try to get political on this or anything, but there, you know, government jobs have always seemed to be a very safe route. People are getting laid off. There’s have always been, you know, like working for a good corporate company that you move up layoffs happen there all the time.

[36:43] And so like, you can’t control that. And you’re, you’re really just learning how to become a functioning cog in a machine. When, if you are in the entrepreneurial space, if you’re an agent, if you are an investor, you’re really understanding the world a little bit more fundamentally where you’re, you’re looking for needs that you can fill. Um, and once you kind of unlock that, you can really take that and apply it a lot of different places. So even if there’s a market crash, um, or whatever, and, and, and real estate sales are down. If you also have an investment portfolio, you probably are going to be in a better place, right? Um, if everything’s tied in real estate and the real estate’s down, um, you might find that you could apply that value, uh, you know, filling the, the need in the, in the, in the, in the marketplace in a different area, but it’s, it, it is really ironic that it seems like the unsafe, the risky move, but really it ends up being way more secure, uh, than, than a corporate job or a government job.

[37:44] Yeah. Just time makes it safe. That’s the thing. Like time in the market makes it safe. And I think that people confuse safety with comfortability, but comfortability is the, the anti to growth. So that not, no, I’m not going to paint entrepreneurship in this light that everyone should do it because not everyone should do it. But if you’re having, if you’re listening to this podcast episode and you’re having those feelings, like I’m just like built for more, like I don’t see myself interacting with these people in the same way. I don’t, I don’t want to play it safe. I don’t want to just, you know, waltz through life and let it, it take me in the directions that it decides if you want to take control, if you’re, then you’re probably there’s some there, you might be built for this entrepreneurial thing.

[38:26] The only thing that I’ll say is that it, it, there are swings left, right, up and down and you have to dodge them. And it’s not linear. It can be exponential, but it’s not linear. And I think that, um, we learned that quickly in the real estate game, you know, our third, third property burnt to the ground. It’s crazy. And I, you know, thinking to myself, like, do we, you know, is this, does real estate not work? Like, did we make the biggest, we had the biggest problem that could have potentially happen, happen. Do we suck at this? Like, I can’t believe it. It turns out it worked out fine. You know, like that’s why you have insurance. Like, that’s why you’re able to take that cash and, and move it into a different property.

[39:06] And we’re getting a higher return now. But I think that, um, if you don’t have people around you that are telling you, like, I’ve been through this, like it does suck. You’re going to get through it. Um, if you don’t have that, it can be lonely. And then maybe you do give up and you go back to safety. And, uh, I just try to get out of my comfort zone as much as I can, because I know that on the other side of it is, is just better and, and bigger. And then eventually knowing that there needs to be some sort of contentedness with your life because, um, yeah, bigger and better and, and, and striving for the, the, the highest all the time. Like there’s always another mountain to climb. So, um, but once you have your basic needs covered and you have, and you can really like pursue the passions that you want to pursue, I just think life gets more fun.

[39:57] Absolutely. I have, I guess I have two questions. First, what you just said made that piqued my curiosity. What are the passions that you’re wanting to pursue? I’m doing it right now. Uh, which is cool. It’s fun. I, I, I love the coach. I love to teach. Um, I think I’d love to travel a little bit more. I’m in a phase right now where I’m like my head’s down, you know, like I’m, I’m in the work, but I love the work. Uh, so it’s like, I, I think my passions are really surrounded by like, I love connections. I love people. I love creating relationships. I love watching other people win and grow and like having me be a little piece of that pie. So coaching, I love doing that. Um, I love to travel.

[40:37] I think that that’s like, you know, you live your life in seasons. The last three years I’ve been, it’s not like I don’t travel at all, but you know, I’m not 100% fully abundantly financially free yet. I, I have some freedoms, right? And I got to take gratitude in that. So I think, um, the passions are really coaching, teaching and mentoring. Um, I, you know, I like real estate. Like I don’t love buildings, you know, like I think that people get that confused. Like my passion is real estate. I mean, my passion is, I, I do love the design and the Airbnb space and creating a cool experience for someone that that’s, that’s a passion of mine. And we have a few Airbnbs. Um, but I think it’s really like, I’m doing the things that I’m passionate about already.

[41:18] I just want to do them at a grander scale. Mm hmm. Yeah. And then I, I was also curious, can you tell us about the, the deal that you, um, had the most fun with? Yeah, for sure. Deal. I had most fun with. So the deal that went the most South ended up allowing me to pursue the deal that I had the most fun with. Um, which is, isn’t that, I mean, that’s like the moral of this podcast right here. Right. So, um, Ryan, I, we’ve, I have a couple, we just got a 10 unit under contract in, uh, Queechee, Vermont that we’re turning from, uh, long-term, um, units to midterm because we’re very close to Dartmouth college and Dartmouth health. So we’re, so that’s fun because I’m doing it with a partner who we met through the podcast and we met through social who has become, we’ve done multiple deals with him.

[42:07] He’s boots on the ground. Ryan and I are like the marketing investor relations deal, underwriting, uh, capital raising. Like that’s what we bring to the table there. That’s a fun deal. But the most fun deal is, um, my girlfriend went to university of Tampa and she brought me down there, uh, just to visit a couple of years ago. And, uh, I was like, you know, I’d love to own a property down here. Like I live in Philadelphia. It happens to be 50 degrees today, but yesterday it was 26. And I’m like, you know, I just want to be able to be, to live in multiple areas. So I, I, you know, kind of put my head down. I went to work. I tried to find some properties down there. I flew down there a couple of times.

[42:45] I met with the right people. I created a relationship with somebody who’s now is a lifelong friend who found me this property with a beautiful backyard and a pool. And I was able to roll some funds from a project into this. I, uh, it’s, it’s a three bed, two bath. I use it as a short-term rental. I furnished it. I spent a bunch of money and I’m recouping those dollars now, but it, it did, you know, $110,000 revenue in 2024. And I can, I, at any time I can say, Hey, I want to go down there and enjoy it. I want to go down and spend time there. And, um, so that to me has been so fun to be able to be like, I can snowbird at 33. Like this, I’m not special. Like I’m like, I, I, I’m not, I’m telling you, like I didn’t, I’m, this isn’t a rags to riches story.

[43:28] I didn’t come from nothing. I grew up in middle class, but I’m just like, there was something that I thought like, why, why could I not do this? Like people have done, if somebody has done it before, who’s my age, why couldn’t I do it? And now I have this place that I go down a few times a year. Talk about fun. I mean, we were just down there in January and I’m like, it’s 67 degrees and I’m not freezing and it’s, that’s fun. So yeah. Yeah. Totally. That’s awesome. Yeah. We, we, uh, we haven’t dove into the short term space at all. Um, other than on my sales hat, uh, we’re looking at turning a property into a midterm rental. Now we’re having a lot of fun with that and we’ll see where that, that journey leads, but it’s just amazing how more and more opportunities will present themselves.

[44:12] If you’re in the game, if you’re, if you start, like if you, you get that first rental that you overpay, right. And you’re like, how am I going to afford this mortgage? And then fast forward a few years, you all of a sudden have equity that you can play with it with an equity line or selling it, whatever. And it just more and more doors open. So to your point earlier, like with time, uh, you know, it just becomes a lot more safe and it’s becomes a lot more fun. Yeah. And you can pull in and then you can really have the, uh, the options to pull money out of projects. And like, you know, I took out a home equity line of credit on my primary residence to invest in another project. And I think, you know, you got it, but you can’t buy your second without buying your first, you know, and I think your second becomes a lot more scary.

[44:54] Like, you know, it took us three years, three, two years of searching and like working through that analysis process. It may not that long, 18 months of working through that analysis process by the first, but my second, a year later, but my third, four months later, but my fifth, you know, it’s like you, you just get better, you know, it doesn’t really get easier, but you get better. And I think, um, that’s, you gotta jump, you gotta dive in headfirst. If you, unless the world turns completely upside down and I know it has over the last five years, but not enough so that if you buy a property in 2025, if I’m talking you into 2045, if you don’t have equity and you don’t have a nest egg from that property, then something went drastically wrong.

[45:34] And I mean like globally, like maybe we’re not here anymore. That that’s like what real estate can do for you. Yeah. A hundred percent. And then you get into fun things too. Cause like this, this property, we don’t have the appraisal back end. So we don’t know exactly what we’re getting, um, with the cash out refinance, but we’re able to float the whole project on equity lines, um, and then cash out more than we, uh, put into it. So you got a pure burr strategy, you know, tax-free income, um, from whatever extra, you know, we got it off the top. Uh, and then hopefully it will perform well to, to be determined. So you guys are burring in 2025. Everyone says you can’t do that. Look at that. You’re doing it.

[46:14] I think it’s, and it’s a burr midterm rental. Is that, that’s what it is. Yeah. And that’s okay to, to, yes. And that’s the key there. Cause I don’t know if it would work, um, longterm, it would be very close. It’d be very tight, um, longterm. And so that’s why we scripted it over into midterm to, uh, make more money, uh, and make, you know, with the higher interest rates to make that all pencil out. Uh, cause it’s a cool property close to downtown that we wanted to keep. And, and so you just got to figure out a way you got to get a little more creative sometimes to, to make it work. I think that’s the, the, probably the most advantageous strategy of 2025, 2026 is midterm. Uh, we, we bought a, this is like, you know, my partner is buying, he’s, he has 400 units and he never buys a turnkey property.

[46:59] He’s how can you make it work? You know, you got to force it. How can you raise money from investors if, if, if you buy a turnkey property, because you’re not gonna be able to pay them back. We found a turn, a recently flipped 10 unit property. And we were looking at the numbers on like what it rents longterm downtown bars, restaurants, 15 minutes from healthcare tech institutions. Like it’s in, it’s in the spot. It’s on a country club. Uh, we haven’t closed yet, so maybe I shouldn’t be given this whole thing, but we’re, we’re under contract. Um, and the, the turning the $2,000 a month rents into $3,000 a month rents times by 10, each of the units it’s, uh, it becomes a home run and we only underwrote it with turning six of them because we just figured, you know, maybe, maybe the demand isn’t there, but it’s a 0.4% vacancy rate.

[47:46] And it’s so I say all this to say, uh, you, you can do so many different strategies in 2025. You can buy turnkey properties. You can change the way that your, your customers are your tenants. Right. So like what are, who are your customers? Are they longterm? Are they short term? Are they medium term? And I think with COVID and having, um, people work in all different areas and all different capacities, remote that people are traveling to work. Like I’ve, I’ve done it. I’ve gone down to Tampa and worked for a month. And if I didn’t have a place on there, I’d do it and I’d rent. So I think, um, I love the midterm strategy. I think it’s one of the ways you can make properties that otherwise wouldn’t pencil out, pencil out, especially in a market where people think everything is super, super, super, super expensive.

[48:32] Yeah, man. I love how you talk about this, Corey. I just, I can tell you’re really excited about it. I can tell you really like it. And I feel like anybody listening will, it’ll make them feel really excited about it too. And, and so often I think it’s really tough to do that first property, um, to figure out how to do it, which I love that you pulled the, the coaching piece of it in, in there. Cause I think that could be so helpful for somebody to, to just give you the little bit of a push that you need. And so I love that you guys are offering that. Yeah. I thank you. I think it’s, uh, it’s, it is, I hope you can feel that it’s a passion of ours. And, um, you know, there, there are many, you don’t, you know, you don’t need to hire us as a coach.

[49:12] There are tons of coaches out there that can help you, but I do feel that we bring a unique perspective, uh, based on our journey and what we’ve seen and the people that we’ve already helped. And, you know, I don’t win unless the people that come into our community win, you know, if they’re going and telling other people that we’re doing a great job and we’re helping them every step of the way, then I’m winning. If we’re there, they’re not getting the value that I’m doing something wrong. So I just want it to be known about that. Like in really anything, like you got to bring it, you got to bring it, you got to bring the value or, you know, you can just be labeled as a coach that doesn’t actually really help people.

[49:47] And I don’t think that that helps the, the overall sentiment about coaching and mentorship in 2025. Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I agree with that completely. Uh, do you have a book that you would say is fundamental for everybody to read or one that you currently really like? Yeah, there’s a bunch. Um, I just recently read a hundred million dollar leads and a hundred million dollar offers by Alex from Ozy. I’ve really been getting into his, uh, content recently. And it’s funny, it’s like, we’ve been doing some of the things that he’s talking about in this book. I didn’t even realize it, but now we’ve like put gasoline on the fire. Um, and that applies to any business with anyone, a hundred million dollar leads, a hundred million dollar offers.

[50:33] I think you want to read offers first offers, then leads, because you need to decide what your offer is. And this applies to anything you’re off. Your offer is to go, you you’re an agent. You need to sell homes. Like you should be building content around that. I mean, that is the 2025 business card. That is the virtual resume that people want to see. If somebody hands me a business card, I, I lose it. That’s not, it doesn’t work anymore. And I think, but if I can say, Hey, go check out our social or go check out our, our website and you can be like, wow, this is, you guys are putting really time, energy, and effort into, to bring the value, the free content. It’s, it is the foundation of what our real estate portfolio has been built on.

[51:14] So those two books spell that out exactly how to do that. And I would highly recommend you’re not too late. You’re not too late to the game. It’s just, it takes, you know, doing content and, and being, it takes a, it’s a part, part time, full-time job. It should be, but like you can do it part time. So, yeah. Yeah. Alex is brilliant. He, I mean, yeah, he’s, he’s amazing. Um, and I, I have, I think I’m like halfway through offers. I have so many books from this podcast that I’m reading at the same time. And then I go in spurts and different ones, but, um, yeah, I love that book so far and it’s been really good. So I’m excited to, to read leads as well. Um, Corey, if there’s a, is there any place that people could, uh, reach out to you?

[51:59] Is there a website, social media? What’s the best place for them to find you all? Yeah. The best place to find us is our Instagram and that’s at wealth juice official. You’ll see Ryan, my ugly mug on there. We do this, like the two of us, uh, together. Um, he is the integrator, the behind the scenes guy more so mainly because he has a full-time job and I’ve kind of become the visionary, the face. And, uh, but we have podcasts twice a week. We release podcast episodes Wednesday, Saturday. Uh, we post content every day, multiple times a day. Um, really to try to educate people on what they might be missing if they’re going to let real estate and the opportunities pass them by. So wealth juice official on Instagram is where we’re most active.

[52:42] YouTube. We’re trying to build up as well. You can check out our podcast, the wealth juice podcast. And then, um, yeah, those are the best places to, to get in touch with us. If you DM us, it’s me responding. So, um, would love to chat with anybody who’s really about anything, but anybody who’s interested in trying to get in the real estate game for sure. I love it. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you, Corey, for joining us. It has been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. This is awesome. You guys are great. Thanks for listening to the REI agent. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week. Visit REIAgent.com for more content until next time. Keep building the life you want.

[53:19] All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.