From House Hack to 81 Doors While Working a Full-Time Tech Job

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0:00 Hello and welcome to the owner meeting podcast by Moldy Family Strategy. Today I am joined with Matthew Wang, a friend
0:07 of mine. We are here in person in Texas. Matt, I rarely do in person podcast. Welcome to the channel. Well,
0:12 thank you for having me on. I am so excited to have Matt on. He is a programmer at a massive company that will not be named, but he has done some
0:20 very cool things in real estate. Started in single family, has joined multif family strategy, and has bought a bunch
0:27 of units by himself with partners. The scale at which you have sped through this is fairly impressive and by
0:34 impressive I mean incredible. So welcome to Xiaomat. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Absolutely. Matt, tell us a
0:39 little bit about where you started before you bought any of the multif family before you had a million7 units like you have today. Just kidding. We'll
0:46 get to that that real number here in a minute though. Where did you actually start with your real estate journey? Yeah, so four and a half years ago I
0:53 bought my first home. So first-time home buyer. It was a large five-
0:58 bedroomedroom, three-b home, single family home in Berian, Washington, which is near the airport, near the Seattle
1:05 airport. And it I actually ran as a house hack. I copied a guy named Todd
1:10 Baldwin who did house hacks a lot in the Seattle area. I saw his videos on YouTube. I said, "Let me try that. Get my foot in the door on
1:16 real estate." So, I lived in that single family home and I house hacked it for four four
1:23 years. So, I love the house hack. I started in a house hack condo, two bed, two bath,
1:28 had a roommate, got married. My wife and I kept that roommate for the first year of our marriage. That kept our cost
1:33 basically zero. Roommate paid about 80% of the mortgage. Uh for those who aren't familiar with the house hack, and if
1:39 you've ever heard Bigger Pockets, you've probably heard of this strategy, but you can do it in multif family, you can do it in single family. Give us the 30,000
1:46 foot view of what is the house hack and how did you use it in the single family. Yeah. So, the house hack is there's two
1:54 versions of it. Version one is you buy a single family home, you live in one bedroom, and you rent out the other bedrooms. So,
2:01 you have a bunch of roommates. The other version, which I'm not talking about here, is you buy a multi-family
2:06 unit, a multif family property that has one to four units. You live in one unit,
2:12 you rent out the other units, but they're not your roommates. I did the former five- bedroomedroom home. I lived
2:18 in the smallest bedroom uh and I rented out the larger bedrooms. Had four roommates. So, five of us living at the
2:24 home. I played landlord, I played roommate, I played friend. That's that's what I did. So, one of the weird things with
2:29 roommates, mine was really good for a long time and then they got a little bit weird and a little bit depressy and
2:34 changed the vibe of the whole house. Yep. That was right right around the time it was me and my wife and a dog and I was
2:39 like, I think it might be time to live by by ourselves. Five roommates or I guess four
2:45 roommates, five people. How did the roommate situation? Did you have any weird roommates? Yeah. So, overall it went well.
2:51 Yeah. Um, good. I The hardest part and the most important part that I think I did pretty well was finding the right people to
2:58 bring in. Very important. If you're renting to your roommates, they are people you want to live with.
3:03 Part of my criteria, which I listed and vetted for when we did a walk through and I did a tour of the home, was
3:09 personality and culture fit. Like that mattered. It did make Lisa harder. It took a lot more effort to find the right
3:14 people, but it prevented major problems. That said, I did have I did have two
3:20 roommates that were problems. And in four years, I cycled through about I think the number is 12 people. So, it
3:26 was a lot as a landlord. And 10 of them were great, two of them were problematic.
3:34 One of them ended up being an extreme alcoholic. It was a nightmare. I could talk for eight hours about all the
3:40 things we saw. He lived with us for only one month. So, how do you get rid of a roommate? You have like you have an extreme issue.
3:45 He moves in. What were the signs of the extreme alcoholism except for I assume all the alcohol disappeared instantly?
3:50 Yeah. Uh, well, things started out great. He lived at the home for 10 days, no problems. And when I did the background check and everything, he
3:56 passed with flying colors, stable job, money in the bank, good credit score, good communicator, checked all the
4:03 boxes, things are good for 10 days. And then he came home one day, middle of a Thursday workday, and he was just off.
4:11 Wasn't sure what was going on at first, but then after, you know, the next few
4:17 days, we learned he went on a multi-day bender and it just got worse and worse and worse, and we realized something is
4:23 extremely wrong with this guy. And then things just proceeded from there. Okay. So, he lives with you and three
4:28 other people, assuming you were fully occupied at the time. Correct. So there's four of us normal people and then one of him five five
4:35 people total. How do you get rid of a roommate? This isn't like a normal eviction process, I
4:40 assume. How does this work? The simple version is him and I actually had pretty good report when he was sober. When he when I caught him when he
4:47 was sober, I essentially prepared how do I talk to him and get him to agree that
4:53 the correct thing to do is move out. and when he's sober. And part of why he
4:59 he passed with green check marks and flying colors is he was super friendly, very caring, very nice, and
5:05 understanding when he's sober. And so I caught him when he's sober. I told him, "Hey, based off what's going on, this
5:10 isn't working out. Not a right fit. The other roommates are uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable.
5:16 I don't think we can continue forward." And essentially, he understood, he actually felt really bad and agreed to, okay, I will move out. So I I got lucky.
5:24 It could have been worse. I was going to say in Washington state on a technical level is that do you have any legal
5:29 recourse or if he said no I'm not moving out what would the what would the situation have been then? So, I'm still
5:35 not a Washington legal expert on tenant laws, but I did consult an attorney briefly and the attorney said with the
5:42 way the lease was written up, I don't remember the exact details, but along the lines of because the way the lease was written up, because you didn't give
5:47 enough notice ahead of time, he's allegible to like renew his lease so that now on the next lease, you can give
5:53 him proper notice before he gets out. And it was something along the lines of if he really wanted to push it, he could
5:59 stay another like nine months. Just a casual nine additional months. Yeah, it was some combination of because
6:05 I'm not giving proper notice in time, he has the ability to renew. So once he's renewed, now you can give
6:11 proper notice in time. And then additionally, I think if you were to take it to court, there's a long wait to get through court.
6:17 And then even after you get the judgment, there's a wait to get the judgment executed. So like add it all
6:22 up, it could have been And is it the same process evicting a roommate as it is evicting any other tenant? More or less?
6:28 I don't think so. when you when you live in the home, you actually have more control. Okay, that's that's good.
6:34 Yes. Okay. So, for example, one thing I know for certain is fair not to say that I didn't do this, but like if you want to be
6:40 extreme, fair housing laws don't apply the same way when you're looking for roommates. So, in roommates, I can pick and choose
6:46 who's approved and lives with me. Whereas, if I'm renting out that home is the whole building, the first person
6:52 that that applies and is qualified, they're in no matter who they are. So, I get to pick and choose who my roommates
6:58 are, which is good. like I'm looking for like culture fit, right? So, not that I not that I, you know, was was mean and
7:04 and selective, but just an example of how the rules are different. Attempting not to rent to raging
7:10 alcoholics. Yeah. Exactly. Reasonable things. Exactly. And and you live there. You have the ability to pick and choose a
7:16 little more. Yeah. Okay. So, you you did the house hacking strategy. Do you still house hack? Technically, yes, but in a totally
7:22 different way. So, I just bought a duplex at the start of the year. I moved in Olympia, Washington, which is for
7:27 those who aren't familiar, that's an hour south of beer. It's about an hour and a half south of Seattle.
7:33 Yep. And Olympia is the capital of Washington State. Yep. Same same bad politics, a much
7:38 prettier area in my opinion. Yeah. And and so I bought a duplex. I live in one side now and I have a tenant
7:45 on the other side. So I've now switched to the other house hack model I was describing. But no more roommates. I
7:51 think while it went well for four years, I believe my roommate era has come to an end. I don't I don't foresee a need to
7:58 ever have roommates again. That is excellent news. I I've I felt the same way when the roommate era was
8:04 done. I think that the the the live-in like the roommate house hack is a
8:10 fantastic way for people to get started. I would agree. I I and I had a much smaller property than you did. I made like $120,000 on
8:18 that in a two-year hold. two and a half year old. Awesome. Awesome project. Did a little live and flip there. I did all
8:23 the rena myself. It was a little project. First time I ever made six figures. You had a full house with like
8:31 five roommates. Do you still hold that house or did you end up selling it? I do. I still hold it. I really like the home. I actually really like Berian. I
8:37 think it's kind of a undiscovered gem of the Seattle area. And so I want to own that home because I like it. I like
8:43 their I like the home. It is currently now under property management and just leased as an entire home. That's awesome. That's awesome. How much
8:50 equity do you think that you've built in that through your time holding it from when you bought it to where it's at today? Yeah, it grew. I think it grew about
8:56 200,000 in equity. There we go. And did those four roommates did that completely cover the
9:02 nut there? Were you living completely for free or better? It was just shy of free, but that's
9:07 still a massive win. So, with me living in one unit, it might have been negative a few hundred bucks in cash flow a
9:13 month. Okay. So, so, so net net you can live in the Seattle area, one of the most expensive markets in the country for
9:20 $200 a month is a couple hundred bucks a month. Yeah. And you're building all this equity at the same time.
9:26 And you make $200,000 to do so. Yeah. That's an incredible deal. That's a great way to get started. You cut down
9:32 one of your largest expenses to basically nothing and you get a property in a high appreciation area in a very
9:37 expensive market basically for free. Yeah. How much did you put down on that house, by the way? I actually did the minimum.
9:44 6%. Uh, that was the minimum I could do at the time to meet the maximum loan amount
9:51 for the King County area at the time. There we go. What was the What was the the total amount down?
9:56 I think it was around It's I think it was around 60,000. So, for $60,000 in the Seattle area, you
10:04 can get a house that cost you almost nothing per month to live in. What a great strategy.
10:10 Yeah. Thank you. and you're going to hold that a lot longer and it will keep growing and that's excellent place to do
10:15 so. While I don't love living in Seattle, which is why I moved to Texas, Seattle is a market that has always
10:22 done consistently well in appreciation. It has continued it. Never ever bet
10:28 against Seattle as a real estate market. It has always done well. Yeah. Market. And even though I've made the
10:34 two, you know, 200 in growth, I've seen Berian not appreciate as much as Seattle
10:40 proper or rent nearby over the past three or four years. I think it's coming because there's nowhere else to to
10:46 I think it's coming. And I think if I just hold on to that property for worst
10:51 case 5 years, but another two to three is my rough approximation. I'll probably make another couple hundred thousand
10:57 doing nothing just by holding on to it. So, and we're going to get into the dozens of other units that you have. and
11:02 you've scaled unbelievably quickly and it's been incredible to watch the journey. But you're in Olympia now.
11:08 That's right. That is not the Seattle area. Correct. You are significantly south. You're actually closer to my resort.
11:13 That's right. Why Olympia? Yeah. So, I joined your mentorship and it became
11:20 clear through the lessons for people like me trying to get started, it's recommended go find a secondary or even
11:25 tertiary market. Lower barrier to entry, less competition, yet still plenty of money to be made. I think that's the
11:31 misconception a lot of people have. They think small market tiny market somewhere between small and tiny like ah there's
11:36 no money made. Turns out there's a lot. The the margin is higher. The difficulty is a little higher in managing but the
11:42 ability to buy but I think barrier to entry lower. It's all about the margin. It is so much easier to cash flow in those markets.
11:48 But we've consistently found and you can still make tons tons of money. So with that in mind, tons of money is good. We like tons of
11:54 money. And with my goal, I'm all in on this rocket ship ride to hit my goal. So I said, "Okay, I'm going to take that to
11:59 heart." Combine that with combine that with I've also heard through the mentorship and that Robin Hood event
12:05 last year with with our guest speakers. You have a Can you manage and run properties from afar?
12:11 Absolutely. But you will have a competitive advantage if you live in your market. Yes. So I combined the two. Go find a
12:17 secondary or tertiary market. You have an advantage if you live in it. I'm trying to move really fast my goal. So I
12:22 want to maximize my my advantage. I settled on I got to move towards the market I want to build a portfolio. And
12:29 I settled on my goal is to build a portfolio in the triangle of Olympia, Washington. Aberdine, which is 50
12:35 minutes to the west of Olympia. Brandon Turner started in Aberine. Yeah, that's what I've heard. That's
12:41 what I heard. And then 30 minutes to the south, Centria. So, it forms a triangle.
12:46 I've settled on those are my target markets and target area. And Olympia is
12:53 the nicest and smallest city I'm willing to move to to pull it off. I could have moved to Central. I could have moved to
12:59 I wouldn't have moved to Aberdine. Um I settled on Olympia. So Olympia because
13:04 Olympia is not too small is quite nice and it's actually only an hour to go
13:09 back up north towards Reton where my family lives and go see them. All right, so Olympia, dude, I'm a huge fan of being close to your properties. I
13:16 just realized, everyone just realized we took a break because if you're watching this on YouTube, my hat just flipped around magically. Matthew,
13:21 my hair might have moved. Well done, Matthew. You look even better. Uh dude, so you moved to Olympia, you're growing there. Talk to
13:28 me a little bit. I want to talk about Aberine next. Talk to me about your larger portfolio. You own in Washington
13:34 State, you own in Burian, you own Olympia. Where else do you have properties? Yeah, so I have five single family
13:40 homes. House hack in Washington, three small single family homes in central Florida and one single family home in uh
13:49 Tulsa, Oklahoma. How hard is it to manage that many markets? So with the propert managers I have,
13:55 easy. I do little to nothing. I've just had to approve some decisions,
14:00 maintenance requests, replace a oven, help set expected rent. That's it.
14:06 Otherwise, they're on autopilot with property management out of state. Dude, that's awesome. Now, you joined
14:12 multif family strategy, and I always mention this whenever I have someone from multi family strategy on. This is not an ad for multi family strategy. This is the thing that you did.
14:18 Why multif family? Yeah. You you were succeeding in single family, right? You're you're property, you're basically living for free. You're
14:24 buying rentals that are cash flowing that are basically handsoff. At what point did you go multif family
14:30 is the path? Yeah. Uh I didn't at first. I had just learned okay single families work.
14:36 They'll be slow. But if you buy a single family, hold on to it. In 5 years you'll look back and go well I don't regret
14:42 that decision. So I thought that let's do it. I started to shift from up till up till about a year ago I was
14:48 predominantly stock investor. I still believe heavily in stocks, but I've come to learn over time, especially after the
14:54 house hack, I think real estate's the better way to go, more powerful. Strongly agree. And so, I've been shifting more of what
15:00 I have into real estate. So, I was doing single families. I found a way to buy them out of state through a company that
15:05 kind of provides white glove service for buying out of state investments, get them set up. That's that's why it was
15:10 easy. And I was going to keep going on that path of more and more single family. But then, uh, I actually got
15:17 persuaded by Cody to try the mentorship. This is back when Cody was part of the mentorship. And I I had known Cody a
15:22 little bit because I'd run to him in a couple real estate events. There's a funny story about how he actually showed up at my house unexpectedly for New
15:30 Year's as a friend of a friend. So that was totally wild that it happened. Is this the Berian house?
15:36 Correct. He showed up out of the blue New Year's Eve as a friend of a friend bringing a friend over and I was like, I
15:42 can't believe this. So I got to know Cody a little bit. Yeah. Already. And then he reaches out to me, tells me about the mentorship. I
15:48 eventually sign up going okay this by coding Christian who are the real deal I'll take the leap of faith and see if
15:55 it's something that can really change my trajectory in in real estate given given that I'm already very interested in real
16:00 estate once they're taking the course I realized okay this course is the real deal what they do is what Cody and Christian have done
16:06 and continue to do is is phenomenal and I think I could go really far really
16:12 fast with what they teach so then it clicked and it went okay multif family
16:17 is the way to I think uh you know in in in some of some of it's either your words or Cody's words. I I get them mixed up at this
16:23 point, but go bigger sooner. Yes. You probably both say that. I absolutely believe that. I wish I
16:29 started bigger sooner. I started duplexes eight years later. Yes. And if I were to do it all over,
16:34 anyone watching who's getting started, if I were to do it all over, start with a quadplex, house hack or quadplex because it's the combination of house
16:40 hack, which is good way to get started, and you start bigger right away. That's
16:45 going to speed up your journey in many ways. I really like that. I really like that. If I were to start over, that's what I
16:51 would do. And don't limit yourself to a four. Correct. If you happen to find a great duplex while you're looking for the four, still
16:57 buy it. Absolutely. If you happen to find a great 12plex and you can buy it, let no money down, still do it. Don't I see a lot of people
17:05 make the decision like four is the biggest residential. I'm only looking at forplexes now. Right. Yeah. Keep your options open. But
17:12 if you're able to find that quad, that's I think that's the perfect way to start. That's I absolutely agree.
17:17 Do the duplex or I just bought a duplex in Olympia. That was my first ever multif family. So case in point. There we go. Shortly after that, you
17:24 closed in Aberdeen, right? So my life has been a rocket ship ride since I set out on this really
17:29 aggressive goal on a super short timeline. In January, I closed on the duplex in Olympia. In March, I moved
17:37 into it. I had to get the existing tenant out so I can move in. A week or two later, I close on a quadplex in
17:43 Aberdeen. So, it's just boom, boom, boom. Um, yeah, the Quadplex is the largest building I have myself so far
17:50 that I, you know, I found, I bought, and yeah, it's out in Aber. And then you have one more market, well,
17:57 two more markets. You have Washington. You worked with me on a project in Texas. Yes. Now, I don't partner with a ton of
18:04 people, especially from the mentorship. The goal of multi family strategy is solely that people learn how to buy their own stuff. It's perfect
18:10 replication. That's the goal. You can build this business yourself. It's not easy as you've learned, but it's it's ludicrously simple. Very, very
18:17 simple to do. We worked together on a 44 unit in Texas. What made you after you're already, you know, you're
18:22 starting to buy stuff yourself? You've bought a bunch of single family, you're actively closing your multif family. What made you go, "Hey, I'm also opening
18:29 to partnering in a brand new market on a 44 unit building." That's a crazy new arm of the rapidly growing real estate
18:36 business of Matthew White. Once again, that's another big jump because I have, you know, prior to doing that
18:42 deal with you, I'd never been part of an LLC. I've never done LLC. I've never like given an individual money or, you
18:51 know, yeah, an individual money to to run a deal and invest it like all that's new to me. I was familiar with other
18:57 types of investments, your more traditional stocks, bonds, high yield savings accounts that you're giving to a company, right? Or buying a slice of
19:04 ownership in a company. totally different than giving an individual that you trust, right? So, all that was very new and of course there's a lot of
19:10 hesitation at first. I don't know. And you know, early on I didn't know you as well as I know you now. So, of course,
19:16 I'm still like, "Okay, do I trust that this guy Christian and Caleb can execute? I'm not f with how LLC's work.
19:23 I've never done a legal review of an OA. Uh, how do I do DD on a property I've
19:28 never seen before?" Right? So, there's a lot of hesitation, a lot of concern, but
19:34 I think it all starts with you're really good at pitching and you pitch an offer that's hard to say no to.
19:41 By the way, if you want your offers approved, uh do an offer people can't say no to. Yeah. So, once you laid out like here's
19:48 here's the property, the plan, and the expected return, it's like, okay, this
19:53 is so sweet. I want to lean in and figure out how I can get to my point to say yes. So
20:00 then I go through all the things I just described. How do I do OA? How do I do DD on a property scene? How do I learn
20:07 about LITC? I didn't know anything about LITC. Um so it was as much a you wanted to add
20:12 these skills of being in the partnership as it was it was also a great financial
20:18 investment. Yeah. I mean being totally honest, it's the financial investment. The great
20:23 financial investment is the hook that gets me really interested, but then I'm someone who likes to both because I'm
20:30 doing real estate myself. I want to learn as I go as opposed to super hands-off investors that are just like,
20:35 "Here's money. I don't care how it goes." So, I'm I dive into it because it's this is a perfect opportunity for me to learn to go do it myself.
20:43 Um, and and also do due diligence on on the investment at the same time. Oh, that's incredible. Now, you're
20:51 you're personally buying by yourself in Aberdine right now. Yes. You are working on multiple projects
20:57 there. I know you're working on going under contract, so we won't we won't say anything's happening before it happens, but you're absolut absolutely working on
21:04 trying to expand in Aberdine. Yeah. For those who don't know, Aberdine is in the middle of nowhere. Like my resort's
21:10 in the middle of nowhere, Washington. Aberdine's you drive another 30 minutes. Why Aberdeen, Washington?
21:16 Yeah. It's kind of funny. You know, at first I wasn't going to do Aberine. In fact, I was cautioned by both in the
21:21 mentorship. I was cautioned by both yourself and Cody. You guys said we wouldn't do Aberdine. We don't recommend it. And so, I wasn't
21:28 going to do it. But I partnered up with um I won't say partner up, but like I I found a broker who's also an owner. You
21:34 know, we all we talk about owner relationships. We've become really good friends. I really like her as both
21:39 broker and she's a very experienced owner. And this is six or seven months ago when we were trying to find onmarket
21:46 multifamilies in that triang I'm sorry in just Olympia and Centrellia at the time. Yeah, those were my two target markets at the
21:52 time. There were very few onmarket deals at that time. We looked at everything that was on market. Nothing nothing
21:59 penned out. So then she suggested have you considered Aberdine? And I even
22:04 relayed my concerns. Well, I was cautioned. Don't do it. She kind of nudged me towards well at least take a
22:09 look. I look at on market deals there and suddenly it's like, well, while things aren't penning in Olympia and
22:14 Centrella, the opposite is the case in Aberine. There's a lot of very interesting deals in Aberdine that might
22:20 math and be a good opportunity. So, now I'm interested. But there's a reason.
22:25 There's a reason they math well. Yeah. Aberdine is not beautiful. It's definitely got its challenges, but
22:32 mostly water. Lots of water. Lots of water. It's on the ocean in a rainforest.
22:37 Yeah. And it did have at sea level. I forget what decade it is, but if you go look at population graph of A time, it did have a huge
22:45 decline. I've re very recently learned that was when the logging industry changed there. Um,
22:50 so there's a lot of old buildings down there. A lot of the old logging buildings, right? And so population has leveled.
22:56 It's not declining, but it's leveled off. So my initial worry was, so even though my broker nudged me that
23:02 direction, I said, "Let's go look at a deal out there." When I drove through Aberdine, I went with the mindset of let me drive some neighborhoods and get a
23:07 feel for the area to see how does it look and feel. So, I think you learn a lot by just literally walking or driving
23:13 the streets. Yeah. And that's when a lot of my fears got abaded, which is good. I was originally
23:19 concerned that Aberdine is a dying city and you I would absolutely not have invested in that market if it's a dying
23:25 market. But when I got there and I walked the streets and I looked around, I saw positive signs. every like fourth
23:31 home in on neighbor in in neighborhoods has been remodeled, renovated. Every fourth or fifth home, uh the shopping
23:37 area, there's a Walmart and a lot of stores around centered around that Walmart. That area looks fresh, updated,
23:42 modern. There's tons of people there. Parking lots full. There's a lot of activity. And there's a couple of those signs that just showed me, okay, by no
23:48 means is it dying. In fact, people are putting time and money investing in this market. Their new construction builds going on, new apartments. They've got
23:55 they've got a few key players that keep their job market going. They've got the
24:00 largest college in Grace Harbor and that college is actually really nice. So, there were signs of okay, not a dying
24:06 market. It's definitely at least a stable market and that's a good place for me to just get started. If it means
24:12 I can find a small win quick quicker, I'll take it. Yeah. So, that's kind of why I settle on All
24:18 right. Ay, that's awesome. And the fun thing with settling on specific markets, you're get
24:24 able to expand again and again and again. And what ends up happening is you get some control over rents. You get
24:29 they use the same renovation teams, the same property management teams, the same legal teams.
24:34 You get all these efficiencies of scaling in one location. Matt, how many units do you currently have in your
24:40 entire portfolio? Partnered and personal, just combined, how many doors are you currently a part of? Okay, I have to break it up because I
24:46 don't think about them together at the same time. Personal, I have 11 units. Five single family duplex quadlex
24:53 partnered up. I've never counted them all together. You got a 404 55.
24:58 26. Yep. And then 26. 26. We're working towards
25:04 Was that 81 units right now? 44. Math is hard on on camera. Uh 44 + 11 55 plus 26. Uh 70 81.
25:13 81. I did it. Okay. Although I will say those partnered ones I I don't I don't know
25:19 mentally I don't feel like they are the unit count that you know that I can add because I'm not I'm not the main
25:25 operator. No, but on those you're an active member. It's is a joint venture on those
25:31 ones. Those are interesting and I think this is important to recognize on a podcast a lot of people flash unit
25:36 count. Yeah. You notice in podcast I don't usually oh you have hundreds of units. I have what I own of hundreds of units. Nothing
25:44 beats owning your own real estate. Yeah. And most of my LLC's, not every single one, but most of them, I have a clause
25:49 where at some point in the future, we'll refinance and I own 100% of the real estate. That's a lot of my LLC's, right?
25:55 Some of them are just straight joint ventures with other operators who, you know, like, and trust, and that comes with its own set of pros and cons. I
26:02 like the way that you mentally handle that, though. These are mine and they're mine and this is my business and my
26:08 business has 11 units right now and you're about to go potentially under contract for another I have an offer out for 13 more units in
26:15 Aberdine right now. There we go. Not bad. So, you'll more than double that portfolio. That's the goal.
26:21 But you're treating it like I think you should. This is my one business. Then I also have a business where I invest with
26:27 other people and I do joint ventures. And you do kind of keep those in separate silos because it's not like you
26:32 have the exact your 11 units here are 100% yours. That is a different thing. That is a completely different business.
26:39 A partnered real estate business. Exactly. And you know, here's how I like to think about it. We like to use the word investor a lot in real estate. I
26:47 actually don't like that term for the way it's currently it's typically used. Um, if you buy and own real estate,
26:53 let's say, oh, you're an investor. I actually like to say like we call it mentorship. If you're buying and owning and taking
27:00 care of and running and operating real estate, you're an owner. To me, maybe this comes from my stock
27:06 and bonds and high yield savings account background. I like to call it investor when I hand off money and I don't have
27:11 to do much and it it grows. Yeah. Whether it's through someone else, a company, a business. So, I feel like I'm
27:17 an owner of my 11 units. So, when someone asks, "How many do you have?" I own 11 of them. And then I invest with you because I
27:24 help make decisions, but you're you're the main operator. So I'm I'm pretty uninvolved in the most day-to-day. So I
27:30 feel like that's where I invested whereas I own over here. If you want to drive down to our senior
27:36 living facility, they love you on the dayto-day. You'll have a you'll have a blast and you can play bingo. Let's do it.
27:41 If that's not the highest and best use of your time. Yeah. Last time I was there, I got soaked. I
27:46 got absolutely drenched last time. We were down in Stevenville, Texas, and it flooded. Apparently, it's all over
27:51 the news, and we just we just chose a a random Sunday to go down. There's rivers
27:57 of water. They're closing lanes of the freeway. We're just bombing down in my Toyota Tundra. This is all good and
28:03 fine. We get there and I was like, man, I'm kind of worried about some of the drainage on some of these properties. They're like underwater. Turns out this
28:10 is like a historic flood where they're shutting down parts of the city. Uh people are like boating in the streets
28:17 and we're here just walking the properties outside like, "Oh yeah, no, you know, occasionally rains in Texas." We tried to cross the parking lot and
28:23 I'm pretty sure both our feet got completely just like we stepped in water up to our ankles.
28:28 It was it was a pretty wild experience. You don't have to do the day-to-day on every property you own. And you have
28:35 property management on on a lot. The goal is to not have to do the dayto-day. Yeah. But there is a difference. There's
28:41 absolutely a difference in being an owner and being an investor, right? And I would say this to all of my investors. I am super excited to make
28:48 all of you a ton of money together and we're going to make some decisions together. I'm really happy that you guys
28:53 get to be investors because being an owner has a lot of extra stress. It has a lot of extra work and it is my
28:59 favorite job in the whole world. It's fun that you're growing your personal portfolio. That is a a great thing to do. If there was one takeaway that
29:05 you've had from all that you've done. So, so quick summary, you've house hacked, you've done single family, you've done multif family, residential
29:11 multif family, you've done commercial multif family, you've bought buildings by yourself, you've professionally
29:16 managed, have professional management in and out of state. You've been an investor in larger multif family deals,
29:22 senior living, renovation, and stabilized. You have done an unbelievable amount of things in real
29:29 estate in a very short period of time. Yeah, it's been a rocket ship, right? if someone had a similar goal of I want to
29:36 get to an income level where my passive income is similar to my active income which I think is a great place for a lot
29:43 to be because magically the job that you love becomes optional then and it's different going to work even if you love
29:49 your job it's different going to work knowing that hey if I left I'd be okay
29:54 I'd be okay it's a magical place to be if someone else wanted to get to the same place what is one thing that you
30:01 would share to them that would get them there faster I'm going to repeat what I said before because I think it's the most important thing you can do early on. Go bigger
30:08 sooner. Don't limit yourself to my first property or my second property has to be a single family or duplex. Push that
30:16 first or second property to quadplex. Or if you're feeling really ambitious, you go commercial, five units or more
30:21 because that will speed up your journey real rapidly in many different ways from
30:27 income produced, equity gained, learning how to scale, learning how to manage
30:33 more at the same time, the size of the the repairs and renovation project, like the list goes on. You're forced to go
30:39 faster in many ways, learn quicker, and go and at the end of it, you go, you know what, that actually wasn't so bad.
30:45 I can go big, even bigger now. So, go bigger, sooner. Here we go, guys. This is another
30:52 episode of the owner meeting with one of the fastest growing owners I've ever met. Here at my house in Dallas, Matt
30:58 Wang, successfully through the mentorship program. I do want to point out one last thing. Everyone in the
31:04 mentorship program would have been successful with or without us. The goal is exactly what you said, help people go
31:09 bigger, faster, with less mistakes. If you can play the best game you can, I absolutely recommend you get in
31:16 community with other people. Whether it's multi family strategy, whether it's someone else who has a different strategy that aligns with you better,
31:22 get around the people that allow you to move faster than you can by yourself and you will play this game at a much higher
31:27 level, much quicker, which is why we do the owner meeting. If you're busy, you're at work, you're listening to the
31:32 car, we'll do the owner meeting for you. So guys, this was Matthew Wang. We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for
31:38 having me.