The Bold “From Dreamer to Doer” Blueprint for Building Wealth and Impact with Diego Corzo

[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. It’s Matthias here. I just wanted to introduce a guest. We have Diego Corzo coming out of Austin, Texas. Diego is perfect for this podcast. Diego started off reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, as many people do. Decided that real estate was the journey. And now is both an investor and an agent. I won’t tell his whole story in this intro because he’s about to tell it to you firsthand. But Diego is an inspiration, I’m sure, to many and has had a lot of people reach out to him because he shared his story. And it’s a good one. So definitely check that out. So a little bit of an update for our world. Erica is still out with her recovery from her meniscus surgery. It’s been incredibly painful.

[1:16] We will be a week out tomorrow at the time of recording. And she has been doing what she can to help around the house. I think it drives her crazy not to be able to do things. Of course, the kids are all kind of missing her and what she normally can do. They’re all kind of having to get used to this current reality we’re in and how we’re limited. Everybody’s been a little bit stressed, a little bit afraid. At the time of recording, this is Monday. So we’re just coming out of the weekend where people were home. And we had to, yeah, just kind of survive. But we have been incredibly blessed by our community. It’s been really, really moving to see how many people have stepped up to help us. And I feel so fortunate for it.

[2:07] It reminds me of what Erica has talked about often. I think we mentioned this a couple times in the podcast as well. But the importance of having a third place. And ours has really been our gym, our CrossFit gym. And we’ve been in a tribe there. And those people have shown up from that community to really support us. We’ve had other people outside of that community as well. We’ve had family, of course, help us as well. And we’re blessed to have family around that can. But it’s just really incredible that we’ve had the gym owner came and was at her house from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., I think, on Friday. And we’ve had somebody that just showed up out of a casual conversation, showed up on a Saturday and 15 minutes from the conversation starting to help for a few hours.

[3:08] And it’s just been crazy, the amount of love and support we’ve gotten. So the concept of the third space is really you have your home, you have your work, and then you have a third place. And I think a lot of people probably get that at church. That’s probably a really good place to get that. I think that you can get it in a lot of different places. And you might have more than one third place. You might go to church and you might have a gym, for example. I would just say the difference that I feel in this gym to maybe a different type of gym is that you go through classes and you kind of build a different bond because you’re doing the same thing with people. So if you go to the gym just to lift weights, you might have people that show up around the same time that you kind of small talk with.

[3:56] You might help them. But they’re all doing their own thing. And you may not really become friends with those people. But if you go into a class where you’re all doing the same thing, you have that extra guidance, you really develop a different level of bond with those kind of people. And I think it’s partly due to the things that you endure with them, which sounds terrible if you’re not at some of the exercises. But you feel amazing after you do something really hard. And then you feel like you are connected with somebody after you do something really hard with them. And so if you are an agent, if you are an investor, if you think that networking has anything beneficial in your life, even if it’s not related to like if you happen to get sick or need support and you need that extra help, even if it’s just to have another community, it’s such a good place.

[4:48] It pays for itself in dividends. I would argue you get into better shape. You’re going to be more motivated to exercise consistently. And you’re going to have a new friend group. And I think it’s such a valuable thing to do. So if anybody’s here listening and needs an extra push to try something like CrossFit, I think Orange Theory is another great one. I’m sure there’s cycling classes, Zumba. I mean, there’s all sorts of things like this. I’m sure yoga classes are similar. It’s just a new entrance to a new community that I think is so valuable. And we have felt incredibly blessed because this has been a hard season for us. It’s been challenging. And I don’t know how we would have done it if we didn’t have this community supporting us.

[5:36] So that’s my little plug. Go out there, be healthy, exercise. We are social creatures. We are meant for tribes. A gym class is a perfect size for your tribe. And so I can’t recommend it enough. It’s been such a big piece of my life since starting something similar to Orange Theory like five, six years ago. And it’s such a huge piece of my life. I would love to have something like this consistently forever. And I’m hopeful. I know that I’ll be a better person. Happy-wise, stress-wise, health-wise, community-wise because of it. So find your third place. That’s all I got to say about that. So now moving on to Diego. Diego is, again, he was actually in D.C. for a conference. So we could have almost met in person.

[6:27] And then I’m going to go to Austin for a conference in a few months. Eric and I are. So hopefully we’ll be meeting up there. But Diego is an awesome, awesome story. His background, everything that happened to lead him into the business of real estate. A lot of obstacles, things that people might have resigned themselves to not being able to do at all. He’s achieved a ton. So I definitely recommend this podcast to anybody who is interested in sales tips and investing. So without further ado, here’s Diego.

[7:06] Welcome back to the REI Agent. I am here with Diego Corto. Diego, thanks so much for joining us. You are usually out of Austin, Texas, but you’re actually traveling for a conference. And closer to my neck of the woods, we should have met up in person to do this interview. You’re actually in D.C. Yes, yes. Thank you very much for having me here. It is a pleasure. Yeah, Diego, we talked a little bit before this podcast started, but you are a poster child for this podcast. And so I’m really eager to get into this. Let’s just start with how your journey began. What got you into real estate in the beginning? Yeah, yeah. So basically, I’ll share this story. So I was in college and my buddy Pascal, he’s one of my best friends, he threw me this book.

[7:56] I was 21 years old and he’s like, bro, I just read this. You should read it too. And it was Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Yes. And that book basically teaches you two things. You can either trade your time for money or you can make your money work for you. So at that point, I knew that I wanted to build wealth in real estate. I just didn’t know how yet, but that I was going to make it happen. Right. So fast forward a couple of years, I moved to Austin, Texas. I graduated from college. I got a job as a software developer in tech for General Motors. And while I was at my job, I wanted to buy a property because I wanted to do what, after listening to BiggerPockets, I found about that podcast and they mentioned house hacking.

[8:45] And I was like, okay, house hacking will be the easiest way for me to get started by investing in real estate. So I found a realtor that was going to be able to help me out. But in that process, I have my immigration situation, right? So I am what Congress calls a dreamer. It basically means that I am undocumented. So I couldn’t work or drive till I was 22, though. The DACA program allowed me to get a job and be able to get a social and a few things. So the lenders at that time, they said that, hey, because of your immigration status, we can’t give you a loan. But that realtor, I felt bad that I wasted his time two weeks before closing. I was like, Victor, I feel bad that I wasted your time.

[9:38] Is there anything that I can do to help you? I’m pretty good at tech. We became friends and I began to drive him around, too, because I wanted to build wealth in real estate, right? But I couldn’t do it yet. So I got my license because I drove him around and I was like, this seems like I could do this. I could do this. So in 2014, I was able to get my driver’s license. I mean, I’m sorry, get my realtor’s license in 2014. And I began the person that I began driving around. He became my mentor and I started my journey as a realtor. And I did that part time up until 2015, which was when I quit my job and began being a realtor full time. That’s awesome. Hey, we have parallels. Yeah, we have some parallels there.

[10:32] I got my license in 2014 as well. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, it’s interesting enough, we don’t need to go into this rabbit hole, but I know that, so I was actually born in Mexico. My father was a U.S. citizen, as a U.S. citizen. My mother was a Swiss citizen. And interestingly enough, there was some concern about, you know, since I wasn’t born in the U.S., what might happen now. So not to go down that rabbit hole, but yeah, everything is good for you on that front. And my really good friend is from El Salvador, and he loves to joke about me being Mexican whenever we go out because he doesn’t eat anything spicy. And so whenever we’re at a restaurant, somebody comes out and they’re like, do you want some hot sauce to go with it?

[11:25] He’s like, no, no, no, he’s a Mexican. Oh, man, that’s funny. That’s funny. Anyway, let’s get back to real estate. Yeah. So that’s awesome. Okay, so when were you actually able, you told me you bought a house, like a house hack. When were you actually able to buy one then? After you had done the business for a couple of years? Because you need to have a couple of years of experience, right, to be able to. Yeah, so I actually, so I bought my first house hack six months after I got my license. Okay. And I found a lender that could help me buy a property, putting 5% down. I lived in the master bedroom and rented out the other three rooms. So I began living for free. And that is what allowed me, basically gave me that head start in investing in real estate.

[12:14] And then I did that every year because a lot of people think, number one, that you need 20% or more to buy a house. Right. And then that you cannot qualify for an owner-occupant loan, like that you need to live there two years. And even though that is true, you can actually do it once a year. So I began doing that again and again. And then that’s how I, then by that time, I began then, as we were chatting earlier, I began house hacking, then multiple homes. And I began increasing my income as a realtor. And I began to save as much as possible. So I was a big believer in sacrificing the big, like the big things up until later. One of my first mentors, Adam Carroll, he said, build a bigger life, not a bigger lifestyle.

[13:07] So I invested more in experiences in things, right, than just actual things. So you weren’t leasing a Porsche your first year of real estate, is what you’re saying? No. No. I had my Honda Civic, Honda Civic and Honda Accord. And then I got a Tesla in 2020. Nice. So, but throughout those years, I was living below my means and buying properties. Yeah. Guys, this is exactly what my book is going to be about. This is exactly what I preach. Not everybody has the luxury of bouncing around from house to house. It becomes harder when you have a family, that kind of thing. But this is exactly it. I mean, like it is delaying your lifestyle, delaying your future rewards, et cetera, to build up that base first.

[14:00] And that’s exactly what you did. You know, I love to think about it as, you know, once you have your expenses covered, which brilliant of you, you had your mortgage covered. That’s a huge one. Insurance is another big one, right? I mean, we don’t have insurance, self-employed people, really good insurance anyway. And so, you know, you can work to different goals and you can set yourself up to have, you know, that income thing covered. And then, you know, let’s say, okay, I need $5,000 a month to live. Let’s get that covered, et cetera. And then as you build that base of cash flow, you can kind of start enjoying things a little bit more, increasing things a little bit more, getting yourself a Tesla.

[14:43] So you told me, yeah, what else have you invested in then? Well, and here’s the thing, right? It is a mindset, right? That I began to… So I am part of a mastermind group called Go Abundance. And they gave me an opportunity back when I was 23, 24, that they didn’t have to. But I was… I found my way into a room of millionaires before I was like… Like I was a kid. And they heard my story, my immigration story of coming here when I was nine. And then I’m like, wait, so you couldn’t drive till 22 and you’re 23 and you’re in this room. We want to help you out, right? So they introduced me to the formula called becoming a hundred percenter, okay? And that is basically the formula that if your monthly expenses are $5,000, as an example, and you have passive income coming in at $500 a month, then you put 500 divided by 5,000 is 10.

[15:50] So you’re a 10 percenter. It’s like Diego, if you focus on getting to a hundred percenter, you will get a level of financial independence. And then you can do whatever you want afterwards, right? Because you at least have that. Now, of course, the older you get, right? The more expenses, like you said, family and stuff like that. That does increase it. So maybe now it’s 10,000 or 15,000, right? But the idea here is that you’re investing to become a hundred percenter. And if people like this is something that they don’t teach you in school, unfortunately, right? But imagine if you just had that mindset that, okay, I’m either collecting bills or I’m collecting assets that pay for my bills. That was the mindset that I had, just like you said.

[16:36] And so I began to, so for example, I began to buy some properties that would later give me that level of financial freedom, right? And buying some properties in Austin. I have a quadplex in McAllen, some properties in the Smokies and so forth. Yeah. Oh, that’s so cool. I love that. It’s such a great way to live. And, you know, people might dismiss that or because it’s hard and they don’t want to really do what it takes to kind of get there, that hundred percenter rule. And they might say, like, you know, I always want to work. I don’t really want to be retired. But that’s not the point. You think about what you can do with your time and how much more effective you can be to pursue bigger, more fun things.

[17:28] Like, you know, you talked about now that you have a team. So some people might have a little bit of hesitation, reservation about doing that kind of thing because they’re going to be responsible for others. They might be worried that they’ll distract them from their day-to-day business or day-to-day earnings. But that’s just one example. I mean, you could look into having a passion for, you know, some sort of charity, something that you can, you know, make a lot bigger than yourself. And without kind of setting this base, this foundation first, you’re really going to have a hard time achieving those things sustainably. So tell us about how you kind of got into building a team and, you know, what the timeline, the, you know, the stuff and all that.

[18:11] Yeah, yeah, for sure. So we based, so my business partner and I, I, who’s not my business partner, he was first my mentor and he was very busy. He was doing 40 to 50 deals by himself and he was going a little bit crazy. So I was like, hey, I need, I don’t have, so let me backtrack. So I’m a big believer in finding your unfair advantage. And with investing too. So unfair advantage within business or investing, it can be people that have money, right? You either have the money, you have the time, you have the network or you have the knowledge, right? So you should partner up with people that compliment each other. Because if you have the money and you partner with somebody that has the money, he’s like, well, what are we going to do?

[19:06] We don’t have the knowledge. We don’t have this, right? So Victor, my business partner, back then, he had the knowledge on the market. He had the network and he was building so that he can have the money, right? At that point, I had all the time in the world. I didn’t know anybody in Austin. I did not know Austin. But I was like, okay, this is perfect because you have your network. You have the clients. Let me work them so that I can learn. And then as I build my network as well. So I leveraged him. He leveraged me. And then it wasn’t until a year. So I did all the buyers. Like I was doing all the showings, the buyers, everything. And we had a split. And then I read the book, The E-Myth. And that book basically like, that book for me was like, okay, I need to put everything into checklist.

[20:03] I need to do this, do that. And then we hired somebody. He became our office manager or like transaction coordinator. And then it wasn’t until 2020, like 2019, 2020. By that time, I had done 33 deals by myself. Victor was doing another 50 and we were about to do our own separate deals, splitting that one admin. But what happened was I shared my story of how I had like 20 some doors by the time that I was 29. And they got featured on BiggerPockets. That podcast got a few people to call me. They were like, Diego, how did you do it? You’re a dreamer. You’re undocumented. And we want to learn more. And a few people, one of them was in Austin. His name is Andres Bustamante. He gave me a call and he was 23.

[21:04] We went to lunch and I was like, dude, you’re just like me. I’m 29. You’re 23. I can mentor you. Like I can help you buy, do the properties, do the house hacking and all of that stuff. And he was an agent as well. So then I go to Victor. I’m like, Victor, we need to create a team. He’s really good. You have somebody else that wants to do this. Let’s work together. And so in 2020, we became the number one team in our Keller Williams office. We sold, I believe it was like $89 million or $96 million, something like that, 2020. That was my best year. I did 56 deals by myself. And I had another $25 million under contract by the time the year finished. I worked a lot. And that’s when I was like, okay, it was just me and the transaction coordinator.

[22:06] So then after that, in building the team, Victor and I began working our clients with the other agents in the team. So then that’s when we didn’t give them leads. We gave them clients that they can work, right? And we were the number one team four years in a row in our market center. And then in 2024, last year, we moved from Keller Williams to Realty of America. And we’ve been with Realty of America ever since. We are, I’m one of the founding agents of the company. And we are now 1,600 agents in 13 states. So we made that shift. We made that move. It is incredible. And our team now, that’s forward a couple of years, we are 17 agents. Last year, we sold over 300 homes. And if everything goes well this year, we should sell around 500 homes with the team.

[23:10] We have admins. That’s amazing. Wow. What a story, man. Yeah. But I started driving him around. And I was like, hey, I think I can do this. And then now we have this team. And what’s cool is the culture that we’ve built. And the go-getter culture, the, hey, we do what it takes. We don’t have excuses. And we’ve attracted everybody into the company, like into our team. We’ve never made a, like, hey, we’re hiring or anything. But we make everybody read, if they haven’t read yet, The Miracle Morning, How to Work and Influence People, The Seven Levels of Communication. Those are some really good books to make sure that the number one, we really care. We put our clients first. We call it, if you make a mistake, you don’t fail.

[24:12] We call it a class or a lesson. So I’ve taken the refrigerator class that I forgot to include it on the contract or the curtains, curtain rods. Yeah. Like different classes that we take as realtors, right? They’re like, oh, my gosh, I have to pay this for the client. And we always do what’s right for our clients. Yeah. Yeah, that’s awesome. Those are great, great resources, great books to read for sure. And what a great, yeah, core concept for the team. And it sounds like everything you’ve done has been really organic growth. Do you do heavy marketing to get leads? Do you pay for leads? Or is this all kind of based on your spheres? Yeah. So what’s crazy is that we’ve done everything through referrals and social media.

[25:06] So we don’t pay for any leads. We don’t do like the whole Zillow or realtor.com, Facebook marketing or anything. We just do social media. For example, we have a guy. His name is Julio. He does YouTube videos. And we just hold them accountable to their goals. It’s been really cool to see how they’ve been sharing. And everybody has their own thing, right? That’s what’s really cool. We just give them the tools and the accountability to make it happen. So what’s that look like? Are they sharing through your team account? Are they kind of creating their own thing within the team brand for that? We have a team brand, but each of them is basically an individual agent that they can go out and they do their property tours.

[26:01] We show them how to share. We make everybody. They have to share three stories a day about being a realtor. And we tell them. Whether people like it or not, perception is reality, right? So we’ve had times where it’s a brand new agent, but for two weeks, they’ve been sharing three stories a day. Whether when they either shadow us or we make them do their first 10 days. We make them do three sample offers so that they know how to write offers and stuff like that on their own. So that the buyers call them. So they post, writing an offer, writing an offer. And so people see them later and they’re like, dude, you’re killing it. And it’s like, well, they don’t know that I haven’t had any like, hey, I’m just getting started.

[26:54] I don’t have clients. Right. But people think that. And then this means that they get top of mind when somebody does it. So then they get introductions. Hey, this agent is killing it. I’m going to, he’s a buddy of mine. He will help you out. And that has happened a few times and is just by them taking action and showing we make the team members also as they’re starting now go out there and check out the new builders that are in the, in, in the suburbs or within Austin. And they have to post on social media about it. That way they know what’s out there. They know the incentives that the builders are doing. They’re getting educated. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. That’s really cool.

[27:41] Forgive me if you mentioned this, but how has your admin changed or grown since onboarding this many people? So right now we have, we have one lead admin. He does a little bit of the, of the hiring at times. And then he gets, so we found the best, the best one we got him through Cyberbacker. Uh, there’s a website that, uh, they are, they come already trained. That’s our main one. And then from there we, we found the other ones, um, offline, like through, I don’t know, like on, on, on, on like jobs at pH stuff like that. Um, and then we, so we have two that are on the finance side that they’re submitting, like our green sheets, like our, our stuff for the, so that we can get paid. Right. We have two, uh, we have two, uh, we have two, uh, we have two, uh, we have two, uh, covering that.

[28:38] Uh, we basically have, for our agents, we have from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. There’s always two admins available. Um, so that everybody’s on a WhatsApp group with all the admins and, uh, and they have access to them from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wow. Okay. That’s really cool. Yeah. The, the power of the internet, right? I mean, it’s pretty amazing how. That becomes our transaction coordinators are there, right? Like, like all of our admins doing that. And then we have one that does like the, like the just listed, just sold, the marketing, the graphics, stuff like that. Okay. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. That’s really cool. Um, so as, as you, you’re, what does your day look like now? Uh, so you’re, you’re, you’ve got multiple things.

[29:36] So you’re co-owner of a new, uh, brokerage, right? Uh, that’s, that’s a national brokerage, right? National. Yeah. It’s national. We are, we’re opening California, Texas, Chicago, Virginia, the whole DMV area. Okay. Um, Washington DC, Maryland. Um, and then, uh, in Kansas city. And then like we’re all, we’re all, we’re opening Kansas and Missouri and we’re opening up in Florida soon. Uh, okay. Nevada, we just opened. Okay. Um, and Arizona as well. That’s exciting. So that’s, that takes up time. You’re, you’re an agent, a team leader. Uh, and are you, I assume you’re still investing, right? You’re still. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right now I’ve, uh, I’ve transitioned a little bit, uh, more into hard money loans.

[30:27] Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[32:22] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[34:19] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[36:16] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[38:13] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[40:10] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That has helped. That’s awesome. It’s really cool. It’s a great example of how, you know, being in tune with the market and how you can, you know, provide value to others. I really, I mean, that’s what you’re doing when you’re sharing that information to your sphere. They follow you as an expert and you showed them an opportunity that somebody was able to take advantage of. So that’s, yeah, that’s really cool. Yeah. And, and, and you have to, to care, right? One, one of the things is that I don’t think of myself as a salesperson, as a realtor. I think of myself as an educator.

[41:03] Yeah. I’m educating the families that I’m helping on how they can better sell their home or buy a home. And then that education side builds trust. When you build trust with people that may found you on social media or that you don’t know, right? But the conversations about building trust really helps, right? So for example, if I have a person that calls me and they said, Hey, Diego, John told me that you’re out, that John gave me your information. He said, you helped them out. I’m looking to buy a home. I’m like, Oh, great. What did John say about me? Oh, John said this, this, this, this, this. So they’re already saying that I’m great. I don’t even have to say anything about that. Right. I may like, uh, edify that, or I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I might say, Oh yes, this is what we did for them.

[42:06] They were very happy. Then I mentioned something about like helping them more as a family, blah, blah, blah. And you build a rapport and you build that trust. Yeah. They say, great. What are you looking for? And then boom, the conversation starts. Well, and this is exactly the example or a good reason why working warm leads is my opinion, better than completely cold leads. Uh, everybody’s coming to you, uh, at this point, uh, you know, with some sort of desire to work with you, to talk to you about what it would look like. You’re not, uh, calling them and they, you know, you got their information cause they got kind of scammed into clicking a button on Facebook or whatever. And now they’re like, why are you calling me?

[42:50] And you’re not starting at that point. You’re starting at a point where they’re like, Hey, we heard that you’re awesome. Um, we had people that really enjoyed working with you or, you know, Hey, we really enjoyed your, your content. You put out online and we, we had some questions about X, Y, Z. It’s a totally different conversation. And for me personally, that’s the, that’s the, the route I want to do. Those are the conversations I want to have. I don’t want to be, uh, fighting for, uh, trust. And cause I mean, you said that you are building trust still, and that’s important, but it’s a very different conversation to build that trust. If, if there is a warm introduction. Yeah. And you can do the same thing.

[43:24] Like, of course, if somebody is like cold, cold, cold, that’s fine. Right. And of course we’ve, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve, but if they find me on social media, um, they’re a little bit cold, but if they say, Hey, yeah, I found your social media. I always say, Hey, that’s great. Uh, what did you like about my social media? And I, Oh, I liked the way that you share about this, that you’re using very knowledgeable. Oh, cool. What else? And then boom. Right. And then from there, then we start that conversation. But it’s those subtle things that make it, um, that builds on that trust. Yeah. A hundred percent. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Diego, do you have any golden nuggets you could share, uh, to our listeners?

[44:14] Uh, if, if you have something that, you know, is great about living a more balanced life, getting started in sales, getting started in, um, and investing or just in general. Yeah. Um, one, one thing that I would say for anybody, that’s an agent, right. That wants to work with investors. Um, I put this acronym, uh, that I learned from one of my friends is called scale. Okay. So when you’re helping with, when you’re helping investors as an agent, you scale. So S stands for strategy. What is this strategy? That’s going to help with that investor. C is capital. A is the analysis. L is the lead flow of the deals. And then E is execution. Right. So S the strategy that’s going to help that client. C how are they’re going to buy it?

[45:09] So that you can give them the right resources, DSCR loan, house hacker, owner, occupant, whatever analysis. You want to make sure that you’re analyzing the property, whether how the investor wants to do it, midterm rental, short term rental, long term, uh, co-living. And then L is the lead flow of setting them up in the searches so that you can find those properties and E help them buy it. That’s brilliant. Yeah. I love that. And, and what a, what a additional value you’re going to give to clients. And, you know, I’m sure they’re going to refer you out, um, to others as well. They’re looking for something like that. That’s great. Yeah. Uh, Diego, then what about a book? You’ve mentioned a couple.

[45:54] You’re obviously a big reader. Uh, do you have any current favorite ones that you, you’re, you would recommend or just some that are fundamental for people to, to read in this space? Well, um, yeah, that is, that that’s good. Um, I would say, so the three, I mentioned three books earlier, right? Um, but reading the miracle morning is really good. Um, and then how to win friends and influence people, seven levels of communication. Um, and then. Um, and then there was one more. Yeah. I mean, just reading those books would set you up. And if you want to add another one, think and grow rich, um, really, really good book. But again, those books are, are really good in the way that they just help you think in different ways and apply them.

[46:46] Um, I feel like those books have been very, very impactful. Um, they’re, they’re excellent books. They really are. They’re very, very good. And, uh, you know, I, I mentioned this a few times on the show, but, uh, how to win friends and influence people was a problem. I, that was my, that was my start into the, this kind of world and this kind of space of, of self-help, whatever you want to call it. And it was, it was weird at that time that, you know, just felt like it had such negative connotations that you’re going to read a self-help book. And I, uh, but that was my first one. And I joke with Eric all the time about wanting to, to drop off that book to somebody, uh, anonymously and just like, you know, slide in their mailbox.

[47:25] Don’t put a name. Yeah. But if I feel like they, they might need some of those skills. For real. And, and they help. I mean, those are, those are skills. Like, like, for example, I’m not the best at remembering names, but I try to like ask them for their name, stuff like that. Yeah. A hundred percent. And, and I think one of the big ones I like to that, so I was, uh, in a behavior management or behavior specialist role, uh, when I was getting licensed and before, uh, in the school system. And I tried to mentor kids with some of these books as well. Like I had them read the, uh, seven habits of highly effective teens version in a high school, which I actually really highly recommend if anybody, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s easier to read than the adult version.

[48:12] I can’t imagine. But anyway, um, I, we, we went through one of the biggest ones that I, I, I was teaching them and want other people to realize too, is that when you make a mistake that happens, right? You, everybody makes mistakes, but blaming others and, uh, making excuses for yourself just makes you look bad. And if you take full ownership in that mistake that you made and like, say, I’m, that’s a hundred percent my fault. Even if you feel like it isn’t, that’s a hundred percent my fault. I’m so sorry that this happened. Uh, this is what we’re going to do. Uh, that, that makes them start creating excuses for you. And you just look, you know, like a much better, um, person at the end of the day there.

[48:53] So I think there’s, there’s some gold in that book for sure, even though it’s so old. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I agree a hundred percent. Um, yeah. Well, Diego, this is awesome. This has been such a great conversation. I feel like we’re, uh, uh, kindred spirits, uh, from, from different areas. Would you tell me, uh, anywhere people could, could reach out to you or, or find out more about you, follow you on social media? Uh, when it was a realtor, et cetera. Yeah, for sure. They can go to real Diego Corzo, real Diego Corzo on Instagram. That’s the easiest way to connect with me, to answer questions. Um, and for anybody that’s, that, that heard the podcast, um, send me a voice message or a video, uh, with one thing that you learn, uh, from it.

[49:43] That is a hack. I’ll give you one, one, one last hack that I would say for realtors. Um, you have to do it in, in a genuine way, right? But happy birthday, if it’s their birthday, uh, sending them a video through Facebook or Instagram. Instagram is 15 seconds. Or I think Facebook, I don’t know. But like, you just need 15 seconds. And what I do is like this, right? So it’s like, hey, Matias, just wanted to, just wanted to do this video to wish you a very happy birthday. Have the hope that you spend it with your family, with your kids, and that you have a blast. Take care. Boom. That’s it. Right? But the amount of messages that I’ve gotten back that say, I’ve gotten so many texts. You’re the first video.

[50:30] Thank you so much. It’s like, it’s incredible. Right? And it takes you 15 seconds. You have to genuinely do it. Right? Yeah. But it’s sometimes saying that is much easier than typing. Yeah. And it does. It separates you. Are you, sorry, are you putting that on their timelines or anything like that? Or is that like a direct message? Direct message. Yeah. That’s great. That’s a really good tip. Thank you. Yeah, for sure. Hey, Diego, it’s been such a great conversation. Like I said, Kindred Spirits, I really appreciate everything you share, all the gold nuggets. Everybody reach out to him or, you know, follow him for more. But Diego, thanks again. I hope we meet in Austin soon. Yes, for sure. Talk soon and see you there.

[51:17] 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. All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.