The Relentless Rise of a Real Estate Visionary with Eric Martel

[0:00] Welcome back to the REI Agent Magnificat, Eric Martel. A real estate investor and an author of Stock Cribing Your Time for Money, Eric bought his first apartment building at 18 while still at university, spending nearly a decade as an actuary, then lost millions in stock after year overnight in the dot-com crash of 2001. That week, a call launched him on a mission to build true passive income. He has completed over 650 flips to win more than 85 million in transactions, founded Martel Turnkey to help everyday investors buy cash flow and rentals, launched Flip Systems to help 500 plus clients start and scale their investing businesses, and most recently launched Red Brick Equity, a fund giving accredited investors access to the state with Alex.

[0:47] Eric, welcome to the REI Agent Podcast. Thank you for having me. Eric, that’s quite the intro, man. That’s a lot of stuff you took. Eric, when I started very, very young and I am relatively old. I always say, what have you been buying the apartment building at 18? What got me? There haven’t been more behind the scenes to get you to do this. What got you started? Well, from an early age, I realized that my parents didn’t have all the answers, and then they didn’t really understand how the system worked. You know, you would see people that would start a business. I mean, for me, like, I still remember like a man, a businessman that had like a food truck. And, you know, he was just doing food truck things.

[1:35] And then my parents were kind of like feeling sorry for him. And, but he was doing his food truck. And eventually that food truck turned into a restaurant and that turned into a restaurant chain. And that turned into different businesses like flower shop, candy shop. And I was like, wow, we were, we felt sorry for him, but we should have felt sorry for ourselves for not knowing how things are working. So there’s a couple of things like that that felt a little bit off. But when I was very young, I realized that my parents, again, didn’t have all the answers. And I had all kinds of evidence for that. And eventually I met when I was at university, I met a real estate investor, and he was just a regular community college teacher.

[2:20] He was not smarter than everybody else. He was not working harder than anybody else, but he managed to build a 36 unit apartment building. He was working with an architect to build, to build a shopping center. And he was working on a project to do a nursing home. And I was like, well, this is amazing. I mean, this guy’s no smarter than my parents, but yet he’s able to do all of this. So when I met him, I said, I want to, I want to learn what you, I want you to mentor me. And this is, this was the beginning of my journey. And through him, I was able to acquire an eight unit apartment building with no money down. And it was still cash flowing $250 a month. Wow. What did your parents think of that?

[3:05] They were not happy. So actually their reaction was kind of like, well, you know, if you, if you can make these kinds of, buy these buildings and stuff like that, then you don’t need, because they were, I was at university. So they were paying for my, you know, my apartment and my, you know, my expenses. So if you can buy an apartment building, then you don’t need our money. So they cut me off at that point. So I was forced to live off of my apartment building and my girlfriend at the time. So, so that’s it. Yeah. They were really not happy. And again, you know, so they didn’t really quite understand, you know, the system. They didn’t know that I bought this with no money down. They didn’t ask any question.

[3:49] They were just very upset by that. But that kind of, you know, after that point, it was, you know, I was trying to replicate that through, like, as I graduated, I graduated in actuarial science, actuarial math. So I started working as an actuary, basically converting all these defined benefit pension plan into 401ks, kind of, and then similar. And then I moved on to, I didn’t really enjoy that. I was, I knew I was destroying the retirement system. And, um, so I decided to kind of move off of that and start doing my own, my own business and technology. And, but everywhere I was going, I thought that, you know, I would be able to redo what I had done at 18 years old, but there’s a lot of things going on because you have the money.

[4:43] Now you think that you can, you can, there shouldn’t be any issues buying a property, but these cash flowing rental properties there, you know, you have to be in specific markets. If you’re in a big city, they’re hard to find. And even if you have the money, the, the, sometimes the, uh, the numbers don’t make sense. So I did that in San Francisco and LA, there was really nothing that was penciling out in terms of cash flowing properties. You would have to put a lot of money into these properties, uh, as a down payment in order for them to, to break even. So that means 0% cash on cash return. And you have, you know, uh, 50% of them, of the purchase price that’s in the property. So it didn’t make sense to me.

[5:25] Yeah. So I started, I had to look for something else. So I started looking out, out of state. Sure. And that’s when we ended up in the Midwest. So in the Midwest, we found a lot of different markets where these, uh, we could find cash flowing rentals. They were a decent price. And then they were in high demand from, uh, for renters. Yeah. It’s, I’ve heard it be described a little bit of like the investing pyramid, um, where if you can maybe start your base off, uh, you know, cashflow heavy markets, um, depending where you’re at, I mean, if you’re in LA, if you’re in San Diego, yeah, it’s going to be impossible to, to cashflow probably. And, um, but, you know, pulling onto those assets for a while too, has benefit.

[6:09] There’s greater appreciation. So, uh, you know, starting off with the base of the pyramid, if you will, where you’re going to get a lot of cashflow and kind of support yourself. Um, and then, and then maybe start looking at some creative ways to buy a more expensive property, maybe in the, in the LA or whatever that, that will, you know, if you’re doing a midterm or a short term rental or something that will kind of make it better, like the cashflow better, but, um, it’s probably the asking, but it’s more of an equity play for a long term for us. Yeah. And so it really depends on kind of like how much money, uh, you have, like if you have a lot, a huge amount of money, if you have like 20, 30 or $40 million, it’s okay to play on equity.

[6:53] Uh, but I think the first phase of everybody should be to achieve financial freedom. And in order to achieve financial freedom, you need to build a portfolio of cash flowing assets. So that’s your first goal. The first goal is really buy your time back. And then after that, once you’ve, you’ve bought your time back and you know, your cash flowing solid and you still have equity, then you can look at investing in other assets where it’s a little bit more like equity, uh, equity focus. Sure. But, but even in these markets, I mean, you would be surprised, um, to hear like that. And everybody that I talk to is surprised to hear that this asset, uh, the, when I invested in Cleveland, for example, the, the appreciation for the markets where we invested was between 14, uh, was around 14% annually.

[7:44] Oh, wow. It was incredible. It was, it was more than, uh, in California, but people don’t, don’t realize that. I mean, you look at some other markets, um, you know, I mean, if you look in Phoenix and stuff like that too, like the appreciation was significantly higher. So, and I can talk about California because I lived there and I knew exactly kind of like the, the mentality that, uh, that people have. And, um, so yeah. Sure. I, when you talked about investing in the Midwest, did you also move out in Midwest or did you stay? No, I stayed in California. I think my, my philosophy is, uh, invest where it makes sense, live where you want to live. So this is something that, uh, my, because if you live in a market that doesn’t take it, like California, you live in San Francisco, you want to, you want to invest in single family rentals and you don’t have the money to buy an apartment building and anything, then you can’t invest pretty much.

[8:42] You need to have a huge amount of money. I tried to invest in, in California and you need to have a lot of money and the returns on that investment is very low. Um, so even for the retail flip, I mean, you get the, uh, you get the, you get the, you get the cash on cash return on the retail flips. It’s probably going to be, you know, three, 4%. And you have to put a lot of money at risk and you have any kind of delay, you know, and your profits are gone. Um, tenant laws or. Oh yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, but even for retail flips, you know, just, this is just for my own information. I’m originally from Ohio. I thought that was the Midwest that I went to Kansas. Um, and then, and people in Kansas said absolutely not, that is not the Midwest.

[9:23] That is the East. And I’m just curious how that line clock continues to go as you go west. For me, for me, there’s a coast. And then there’s the mid, there’s a mid middle America. Uh, I guess we could call it middle America, but the coast, all the coast, like I’m pick on California, but it’s the same in Washington state. It’s the same on in New York, New Jersey, uh, Florida, where I live now. It’s like, you know, these, these markets, they don’t make sense. They only make sense for people that have a lot of money and they, um, yeah. I mean, they’re not, they don’t have to worry about anything else. Even if they lose money, it’s not, it’s not a big deal for them. Eric, you bought your first apartment building at 18.

[10:05] You spent a decade as an actuary watching the plants appear and lost millions in stock options. I forgot that. At what point did you decide that you didn’t know that the retirement was broken? How did that shape the way you build off now? So I felt that the, the retirement was broken pretty much after I, when I lost, like, I lost like $7 million in the stock market with the stock options that I had, uh, that was in the dot-com crash. And, um, so I was working for a tech company and then I had tons of stock options. And then when the market tanked, then, uh, with the dot-com crash, then basically most, most of that stock options were worthless. And then I had salvage a little bit of money on the side.

[10:51] And then that also basically went down like 40% or something like that. So I learned two lessons. I learned, uh, diversification across multiple asset classes. So I’m a big, uh, I know a lot of people are invested a lot in the stock market and they think it’s great. And it’s going to continue to go up. I hope so, but you have to be diversified because if the market goes down or when the market goes down, you’re going to want to fall back on an asset category that is, uh, that is more solid and proven and just diversify. Being diversified in the stock market is not, it’s not diversification. When the stock market crashed, the whole thing crashes. So that’s one thing. And then at that point, that’s when I realized that, uh, I say, what am I going to do?

[11:34] Like, I’m spending a lot of time working. How am I going to retire my 401k? I felt like this is 401k. I have a whole, we can talk an hour about the 401k and how this is, it is not, it’s not meant for retirement. It’s not a retirement plan. And you would be much better off to take that money and invest in cash flowing rental or cash flowing assets. But I look at that and I say, well, the 401k, like I would have to spend so much, uh, save so much money in my 401k. And I’m gonna have to make sure that this, that I get like such a high return in order for me to retire. And that I said that that’s not going to work. Um, so I had to find another alternative and it didn’t make sense for me that you would save, you would, you would make money, you would make money, you make good salary, and then you would save that money and put it in the 401k in the hope that it grows over the next 30 years of your career.

[12:28] It continue to grow at, at least 9%. And then that you can actually use that money after that to retire and, and take that money out that, uh, at retirement. What if I want to retire early? Well, there’s penalties. Well, what if, uh, you know, what, you know, all kinds of the situation. If I’m sick, if I, if I find a great investment and I want to take some of that money that I save to invest in that, well, there’s penalty or you’re not allowed. You can only do this. Like, why am I locking that much money away where I can, if I could find another asset that would be more flexible that where my money is not locked in and, um, where I have total flexibility. And there are different cash flowing assets.

[13:10] You know, stock market is one of them. Yeah, definitely. You can definitely go and buy dividend stocks and it’s very liquid, but you should also, uh, in my opinion, do, uh, cash flowing rentals or cash flowing real estate. Because you can see, as you invest in cash flowing assets, you can see your passive income grow, you know, year after year after year. And eventually a lot of the people that I talk to that I wear, we kind of like map out the plan for retirement. They’re very surprised to find out that if they invest, um, the way I’m suggesting with cash flowing assets and rentals that they would be able to retire in no matter what age they are, like around five to 10 years from where they are today.

[13:54] So a lot of them are very, very surprised by that. So that’s kind of, uh, my philosophy. And, uh, they also asking me all the time, like, it’s my philosophy, but it’s also backed by numbers. So I created a couple of tools to basically help people, um, you know, come up with a plan for financial, financial freedom. And, um, so these are kind of like some of the nuggets that I have to share with, uh, with your audience if they want to, um, to get involved. Yeah. I see you have, uh, you built three different businesses, Martell Turnkey for passive rental, a business flip system for people who want to flip and scale, the rent equity for accredited investors. Um, how do you think about each vehicle and which one’s right for which investor for investor?

[14:40] And where does someone with no experience serve? So, uh, it really depends on, you know, where you want to, where, what you have in terms of resources, how much money you have is very important and how much time you have. And, uh, so these two components make a, make a big difference. Uh, so if, if you are an individual who is, uh, very busy and you are an accredited investor, that means that you, you’re making like a $300,000 a year as a joint, as a couple. And then you, or you have a million dollars in equity beside your primary residence. Then I would probably invest in red brick equity because everything is going to be managed. And our average return there is around 15%. So that’s probably hands down the easiest thing you have to worry about.

[15:27] And it’s apartment buildings, cash flowing apartment buildings. Uh, right now we have like three of them in Chicago, for example. So that’s, that’s pretty good. If people want to have, uh, they want to have, they want to get more involved. They want to get their hands dirty then and actually go through the process of, uh, of buying a distressed property, renovating it, renting it out. And then either refinancing it or selling it at the end. Then flip system is the right solution because we, we’re going to coaching you how to, how to find, how to manage these deals from beginning to end from close to close. Uh, we’re going to help you find the distressed property. Uh, I know you have a lot of, uh, real estate agents and brokers, uh, in your audience and, you know, we’re working, we’re partnering with a real estate agent and real estate brokers to work with them.

[16:20] We build, they become the broker becomes the team on the ground for our investors or our community. And we, we coach our, our investors on what to look for, how to analyze the deals, how to work with the broker, the property manager, the contractor, and then go through this entire process. So it’s very beneficial for the real estate agent because they start building a relationship with someone that’s not just going to buy one house every 20 years. They’re going to be buying one or two or three houses every year. So in terms of getting commission, you’re going to get a lot more commission as an agent doing that. Um, so, so that’s the flip system, that’s the flip system method. If you are interested, if you’re not an accredited investor, but you don’t have that time or the, you don’t feel like this is the right thing for you to be dealing with construction.

[17:13] Then you have Martell turnkey, which is basically turnkey single family rentals. The advantage of that, that, uh, company or the products there is that you can gradually build your own portfolio of single family rentals. So all these properties are cash flowing from day one. They have a tenant. They were recently renovated and they are in the middle America. And, um, so, you know, and we connect them with the team on the ground, the property manager with the insurance and, and all of that. And so that’s a great way to get started. No, it makes a lot of sense. I think if, you know, the agent isn’t really wanting to be, uh, super active or, I mean, I think, yeah, like you said, I think the, the red brick equity or syndications good performance syndications can be a brilliant thing for agents who are real estate professionals.

[18:04] Um, uh, at that destination, uh, it’s a really good thing for people to do. And if you’re not quite an accredited investor, um, and you want to build up somebody, you want to build up your net worth, you know, or however you want to go about it. I like those other options, but ultimately, yeah. Yeah. I mean, getting to, um, have a 15% return, for example, um, on your money is, is really hard to be in the stock market, et cetera. But you didn’t even touch on the, the tax, possible tax benefits as well. Uh, oftentimes these deals will do accelerated depreciation, uh, which can have a pretty good, uh, you know, reduction of your tax liability. You’re earned like normally, if you’re, if you’re not a real estate designated professional tax wise, you can only, uh, take depreciation off of your passive income.

[18:51] Um, so like if you’re getting cashflow, you can, you can, you know, use depreciation of that rental against that cashflow. Um, but if you’re a real estate, doesn’t make professional, if you’re making $200,000 a year in commission or whatever, um, you can actually take a much larger chunk off that income from something like what he’s talking about. Um, so if you’re not quite there at the equity level of being an accredited investor, or maybe you’re not comfortable with it in the US or something else, those other options are really good too. I mean, so we basically got ourselves to be accredited investors through, uh, doing the BRRRR method, which is kind of what we were talking about. Um, and where we were able to flip houses, we sold some, we kept some, um, and that was able to build up our equity, uh, to the point where we are, you know, as a provider to investors from that.

[19:37] Um, and so it’s, it’s, uh, yeah, it makes a lot of sense that this works really well for, um, agents. And then you don’t have to be worried about, you know, I’m talking to us. And then you’re talking to us and that’s kind of things that we don’t want to be, if that’s not who you are, if you don’t want to be dealing with the, the, the, the, the, the, the more labor side of having. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s really about, to me, it’s a lot more about time. Uh, also like the time is a big component. So if you, if you don’t, if you have the time, sometimes you can compensate for lack of skills and lack of money. Even because then with more time, which is what, you know, when I was 18 years old and I bought that apartment building, it’s because I had time.

[20:19] I’d had no money, but I had time, time to analyze 500 deals to find a one deal that’s going to work. And my broker every week was telling me, Eric, it doesn’t exist. You won’t find one every week. So I’d have found one, but it took a long time. So time is a, is a big, is a big factor here. And then kind of like the skills and interests as well. So if you don’t like to do the renovation piece of it and you want to start building a passive income portfolio, I mean, Martel Turnkey is the right way to do it. Or red brick equity. And we’re always looking for deals. I know you have a big network of real estate brokers and agents. So even on the commercial side, we’re looking for apartment buildings, you know, 30 to 30 to 70 units, cash flowing and basically below market rent.

[21:06] And then if we bring them to market rent, they’re cash flowing. So that’s the kind of building that we’re buildings that we’re looking for. Eric, I want to go back to the university when you invested in that apartment building. You mentioned that your parents cut you off. I’m curious over the years, as you, as we grew your business and things started to evolve and you started to become more successful in that. How did the relationship with your parents evolve at the same time? Did you find avenues in to continue that conversation with them? Did they become a bit more open minded? No, they were they were always they never understood. They never understood and they never understood. I mean, still very frequently.

[21:48] I mean, they both passed away now, but my father passed away last year and still he was introducing me as a, oh, my son. This is my son, Eric, and he’s an actuary. Well, I haven’t been an actuary since 2000. So even before than that, probably 2017. What? No, today? What? Maybe like 1980, 1990, something like that. So it was ludicrous to me. I said, Dad, I’m not, I’m not, I haven’t been an actuary forever. So, so it was kind of strange. So there’s a man in denial. So they never really understood. I tried to explain, but yeah, kind of. You ever tried to get some questions pointless. What did you say? You ever tried to get a bridge? No, no. I think that’s the one that often gets people to think a little bit differently.

[22:40] If you’re thinking like, you know, if you just had, you know, my sense, education, school, good job, pension, that kind of stuff. It is really hard to understand. I think possibly start now. Did you have a follow-up question? I didn’t mean to take off. No, I think that was a great comment. No, I was just thinking that that must have been really hard and not even have your parents get to it or they could acknowledge it out loud. Just like even introducing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it would be nice sometimes to be acknowledged, but that’s not, that’s not what I’m seeking. I mean, I kind of like got rid of that kind of like need, I would say early on. So I just move forward. That’s all I do. Did you, I guess I did want to ask too, did you stay in contact with that mentor at the university who got started?

[23:32] No. When I moved away, basically that mentor kind of, yeah, he just disappeared at that point. Okay. Yeah. I tried to contact him and even the book that I wrote, like Stop Reading Your Time for Money, I talk about, I talked about him and I tried to contact him and say, I talked, I talked about you in there and how important you were in my life. And yeah, nothing. Hopefully he received that message at least from you as a teacher. I would imagine that. I feel good to hear. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Whatever you do, whatever you do, do it for yourself. You won’t be disappointed. I was going to ask you about your book. You just said Stop Reading Your Time for Money. For a real estate agent who is closing deals all day but not start building their own for work.

[24:19] What is the honest conversation you would have with them about their income? Is that the same as wealth? And what are the first real steps in creating natural wealth? Yeah. For real estate agents? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, for me, I mean, the conversation that I have with the people, the real estate brokers that I work with is they get it. They’d rather build a relationship with someone that’s going to buy two, three, maybe more houses every year. I mean, this is much better, much more satisfying. I make more money also to work with an investor like that. So, and over the years, you’ve built the relationship and all of that. So, you know, go ahead. Well, and in terms of them wanting to actually build wealth, not just their income.

[25:10] Oh, okay. I see. Is there, what would you say about them? I mean, they’re in a very unique position, right? So, they see, they walk the street. I mean, I work remotely, so I don’t drive in Cleveland or St. Louis or Detroit or any of these cities. But as a real estate agent that’s on the ground, you have a unique opportunity to see all the properties that are there and then knock at doors and then say, Hey, you know, I’m a real estate agent, blah, blah, blah. Would you be interested in selling the house? And you build a funnel of properties like that, and you can pick and choose the one that makes sense for you. And then build a network of contractors and figure out the property management piece of it.

[25:55] Either partner with the property manager or have, or build property management in house. You have a, you, if you build a business like that, I mean, this is going to be within a few years. You’re going to be really be very satisfied, I think, with, with your position, your situation. Yeah. Absolutely. But that’s really the right way to do it. I mean, I wish I was able to kind of like be invest where I live. Unfortunately, that hasn’t really, I haven’t found the intersection of that. But, you know, if you, if you, if you invest where you live, I mean, this is, this is great. You can walk and knock on doors. And if you’re really just getting started, don’t have much capital to invest in something, maybe aren’t able to do a cash offer and do a blip.

[26:41] And I know there’s a lot of ways to do it, but if you’re wanting to kind of take it, maybe a little bit slower to start, you know, the house, like that can, that can, you always need to have a place to live. So if you can make a rental work long term, like if, if this property is going to cash flow eventually, maybe it wouldn’t run away and you can get into it for a little money down, live there for a little bit, run out the rooms, run out the basement, whatever, to, to make that work, reduce your income, start to do your living expenses, save up for somewhere else to go, maybe do it again. That’s a great way to invest in your area. It’s a win-win you can, you can start building poorly that way as well.

[27:17] It’s probably not going to be something you want to do forever. I remember before I was an agent, we bought with an agent and we were looking at, I remember, kind of going to do like a D-plex or something or something to that extent. And I got a no. And, and you know, like it’s, it’s once you are, you know, the thought of doing that now with our three kids, little kids like that, just, it sounds impossible and the same. And we probably would do it elsewhere for property. But there’s a time and a place. And I think at the beginning of your career, you might need to hustle a little bit more, a little bit more, and that’s another way that you can kind of get started. You know, if you do that three times, you fast forward 10 years, you might have, you know, in the market, you might be in, uh, that’s just from that.

[27:59] Yep. Also if you’re, yeah, if you’re a real estate broker too, I mean, you, there’s a lot of new real estate agents that are just getting their licenses and they don’t make any money. Um, so, you know, build a team of, uh, eager, younger, uh, real estate agent and have them pick up the phone, drive and knock on doors and, uh, build, build a funnel of properties like that. Uh, you make money on the commission side, work with a company like, uh, like me, like Flip System, and then to sell, you know, to sell these properties off market properties to investors. Uh, I mean, that’s a, that’s a great way to do it. It’s very dynamic, dynamic market that way. Yeah. Um, the other thing too, is private money lending.

[28:43] So obviously there’s hard money lenders. There’s a lot of those around, but to me, the best is really private money lending. Uh, because you’re basically, it’s not so much a loan, but it’s not, it’s, uh, the money is, uh, you’re kind of renting somebody else’s money. It becomes your money. So when you go, you talk about cash offer. So if I, if I borrow a hundred thousand dollars from a friend of mine and say, you know, I have this deal that I want to do. And, uh, here’s all the data. I’m going to pay you 8% or 10% interest per year. And I’m going to pay you every month. Um, I can go and turn around and say, he said, yes, you put the money in my bank account. I start paying him like a month of interest.

[29:23] I can go to that property that, uh, and put an offer, a cash offer on that deal, because that money is mine now. So I am paying interest on it, but I treat it like my own money and I can go and invest in that, uh, in that property and make a cash offer. So that makes it a lot faster, a lot easier and cheaper. Typically your friend is not going to ask for points. They’re not going to ask for a huge interest rate. Uh, they’re not going to have all kinds of paperwork that they have to do. Normally just a promissory note, maybe not even a lien, you know? So, so yeah, to me, that’s the big, that’s the big one. If you’re flipping something like, for example, there too, like if you have another deal, why not to continue that relationship?

[30:03] Right. Just continue to do it instead of paying them back. Uh, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It keeps rolling. I mean, after that, you just, once you sell that first deal, you just say, you know, I just finished the deal. I can pay you back or I have this other deal. Uh, if you want to continue, I’ll just continue to pay the same amount of interest. And most of the time they say, Oh, you have my money. Okay, sure. So I have, I have people, private money lenders. I’ve had their money for at least 10 years now. Uh, they’re always surprised when I tell them that, uh, we’re moving their money from one property to the next. Um, Eric, what, uh, what you, you dropped a lot of gold nuggets already. Um, do you have another gold nuggets?

[30:42] Yeah. Well, so I think that, uh, what, there’s a couple of things to that, uh, that I can help people with. I think that if you’re planning to, if you want to achieve financial freedom, you can, uh, you can contact me and, uh, at, uh, pretty much everywhere on social media. And I, I have like a tool, I have a few tools that can help you kind of put a plan, a plan together on how to achieve financial freedom with cash flowing rentals. So, you know, just reach out to me and then, um, and then we can, we can set something, uh, to do that. Um, I was just gonna say, we’d be typically at the end, ask about the, uh, what your social media is and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. So my, my social media is Eric Martell official.

[31:26] So pretty much anywhere on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Uh, so just, you know, just reach out to any of these meetings, just send me a DM or whatever and say, I saw you on this, uh, on this podcast. And, uh, I heard you had a tool for financial freedom and I’ll just send them the link. So you’re going to enter some information about how much money you have in your 401k, what’s, uh, how much money you’re making, which state you’re in. And then, uh, what’s your passive income target, how much money do you need to make a month to be financially free. And I’ll show you, uh, in that, uh, I’ll record a video and we can even talk one-on-one and I’ll show you exactly how you would invest and how quickly you could be financially free.

[32:08] Um, what about a favorite book or one that you think is fundamental that everybody should read or one you just currently enjoy? So there, there are a few, uh, one of them is, uh, if you haven’t read Rich Dad Poor Dad, you should read it, uh, for sure. Uh, but I know that some of the younger, younger generation probably didn’t read it. It’s very good at kind of like setting up some concept in terms of the personal financial statement. It’s a little light on how you do it. So that’s where, why I’m here. Uh, but at least get the concept of you having a personal financial statement and understanding that you’re going to be a little bit more. So that’s kind of like, how do we do the shift to get the income from salary and have the income coming from your assets instead?

[32:58] So that’s a, so I think it sets a good stage for that. Uh, the other one that I like is what got you here won’t get you there. Uh, so that’s another kind of interesting book as well that describe that when you’re working full time, you have a certain set of mental, uh, mentality or a certain, yeah, certain mentality when you’re working nine to five. And, uh, when you go and you start to become a real estate investor, you have to change your mentality. You also have to change your identity. Uh, it’s a little bit different. And I have this, you know, when you have a LinkedIn profile, sometimes it’s kind of hard to go and say, I’m a real estate investor. And you get rid of your other jobs. And then your boss calls you and say, Hey, the hell you supposed to work.

[33:44] You’re working for me. Right. Um, so there’s that identity concept as well. And when you meet other people at, at meetups or conferences, real estate conferences, um, you’re going to have to introduce yourself as a real estate investor. And this is the more you get into this, um, change in identity and mentality. Uh, I think the more, uh, empowering it’s going to be. So that’s, so that’s the, the other book, what got you here, won’t get you there. I don’t know if I’ve read that one before. I haven’t read it. Um, so yeah. Well, Eric, Hey, thank you so much for being on the show. Um, I guess you, you said socials did. What about for finding a book? I don’t know how to find a book. Can you repeat that?

[34:26] I’m sorry. Uh, how would the people find your book? Um, it’s on Amazon. Oh, so it’s on Amazon, Amazon. Stop trading your time for money. Yeah. Okay. Well, Eric, yeah. Thank you so much for your time and being on the show. My pleasure. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the REI agent. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week, visit REI agent.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.