I was in the music business for the first half of my life. The digital download came along and forced me to start over at the age of 34. And and

after about 6 months of trying to figure out what I was going to do, all roads kind of pointed to real estate. Real

estate, it’s the final frontier where the average person has a real shot at getting really wealthy. When you borrow

a depreciating asset, money to purchase an appreciating asset, real estate, that

actually puts you on the right side of inflation. So, while inflation is eating everybody else up, it’s actually making you wealthier. Did you continue your

agent business while building your own investment portfolio? It was really just me learning the investment side while I was still being

an agent. And once I got my first investment deal done, then I was like, I’m never representing anybody else in

transaction again as an agent. It’s a totally different equation when you stop thinking about it as how much

individual money injections do I need in order to survive versus how much

consistent recurring revenue can I build up through rental income. It’s just a totally different way to think about it.

I can take the word passive. I can take the word income. I can put them together and kind of figure out what it means. But as an intention, being rich and

wealthy was you need to make as much money as you can and stack your paper. That’s what I thought rich was. And that brings me to the second thing that I

learned was this new definition of wealth. It’s not having a lot of money. It’s just having more money come in each

month than what it costs you to live where that money is not directly tied to your direct involvement. Welcome back to

another episode of the Hybrid Real Estate Professional Podcast, the show where we help busy professionals build their own real estate side business they

can operate in just 20 minutes a day. Today I have a special interview with Matt Tero from Epic Real Estate. Matt’s

background story is incredible. From his time as a Marine during Operation Desert Storm, 15-ear stent in the music

industry, and a humbling reinvention of his life at age 34. After many trials and tribulations, Matt found his footing

as an entrepreneur and real estate investor. He runs a popular YouTube channel and mentorship program where he

helps investors get over the initial hurdles of investing and start their own portfolios of cash flowing real estate.

Without further ado, let’s get into it. Welcome to the Hybrid Real Estate

Professional Podcast, where we dive deep into the intersection of career, family, and finances. Learn the mindsets, tips,

and strategies to help you on your personal journey to build a life of abundance and purpose for you and your

family. Now, here’s your host, Aaron Amin. [Music]

Today, I have Matt Tero from Epic Real Estate. Matt has a a pretty incredible YouTube channel where he breaks down

tons of uh current trends and uh lots of real estate investor education. He also

runs a uh coaching program and uh he has a very storied background. Uh but before we dive into that, I would love for you

to just give a quick introduction in your own words. Cool. Thanks, Aaron. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. I was in the music

business for the first half of my life. The digital download came along and forced me to start over at the age of

34. And and after about 6 months of trying to figure out what I was going to do, all roads kind of pointed to real

estate. Started as a real estate agent and then decided that I’d rather make profits instead of commissions and then

turned into a real estate investor. I love it. You’re also in the Marine Corps, correct? That’s right. I was in there for almost

six years. Amazing. Yeah. There’s so many investors that I’ve met and some of the best investors that I’ve met actually have a

military background and I’ve always liked to pull on that thread a little bit because I think some of the common themes I I see are the discipline and

the the ability to work as a team. There’s just some common threads among those investors. I’m wondering are there

any parts from that chapter of your life that you think have really armed you as a real estate investor and an

entrepreneur? I think boot camp in general, like just going through that basic process, that was four months of

basic training and then an extra month of Marine combat training. So during that process, just right in

the beginning, it does a lot for your sense of common sense. You know, you you

learn logic, right? And you learn, okay, you need to get that done. Well, no one’s going to do it for you. That broom

ain’t going to sweep the floor all by itself. So there’s a lot of that type of mentality in when you’re getting there.

So I think that translates to civilian life and in business where others that

didn’t have it or weren’t raised that way, they might be lacking and not knowing they’re lacking. And I think

also just everything in in the Marines is is a process, right? You you have

your your desired outcome and you have the beginning point. You just take it one step at a time until the mission is accomplished and you don’t stop until it

is. So if there were two things, those would probably be it. Yeah. So now one other thing that we have in

common is music industry. So I worked on the concert side. I was a concert promoter. I worked for the largest uh

event producer in the world. I worked in the Las Vegas office, which is where you live now.

And I worked in Seattle for a stint and then Las Vegas for a bit. But I think you were on the record side of the industry, correct?

Yeah. Yeah. When I got out of high school, I got a gig for I don’t know if

you remember, there was a rapper named Rodney Ow and Joe And they gave me a thousand bucks for a beat that I

made and I was hooked. I was like, “Wow, I just programmed this little thing on

this little toy in my bedroom and I got $1,000.” And at the time, I think I was what, 17? That was a lot of money to me

at the time, especially for doing something that I did would have done for free. And so that kind of planted a seed

of like let’s just keep on doing it. So I kept meeting new people and getting paid and meeting new people, getting paid and meeting new people, getting

paid. Then I got signed to a recording contract actually while I was in the Marine Corps. And that’s another story

if you want to go down that road of how I got out of the Marine Corps. But I did that was as an artist and then that

didn’t go anywhere. But I did was able to arrange my own record label. I got major label distribution with EMI. So I

had global distribution and did really well and you made my million before I was 30.

Wow. Okay. So you made money on the artist side. Yeah. So well I didn’t make the real money till I became the label owner with

the distribution deal. That’s when I made the money. Got it. You teed it up for me. So now I got to ask how did you exit the Marines?

Oh, got it. It’s funny because I was like they weren’t even this nice to Elvis Presley when he was in the army

when he tried to get out. But while it was after a desert storm, Operation Desert Storm, which was like the quote

unquote the good war where we kicked butt really fast and we came home and we’re like America and everybody was euphoric and it was all everyone was

aligned and on the same side and everybody’s happy. But that right when we got out of there, that’s when I got

the contract from the recording in from EMI records. And I said I said, “Wow, I

can’t go anywhere though cuz I’m in this and I have this amazing lifetime opportunity.” So, I just took that up to the to my sergeant and he says, “Wow,

this is pretty cool. I don’t know what you should go ask the captain. I don’t got any say over this.” So, I went to the captain and the captain, “Wow, this is the coolest thing I ever said, but I

can’t do anything about it.” So, he sent me up to the colonel. Colonel said, “Wow, I ain’t going to stand in your way. Let me set you up appointment with

the base general.” So, I went to the base general and then the general was like, “You served your time and we

appreciate your service. If you want to get out, I’ll let you get out as long as you give me an autograph when you get there.” And I was like, “All right.” So,

it was like it was effortless. It was a breeze. and he just signed the paper and he said you’re free to go. So that was like at right at my 5y year mark

and that that’s one way to run up the flag pole. It’s probably pretty hard to work your way up the chain of command in in the military any other way.

Yeah. It was everyone was like so starruck by this little piece of paper I

had that had the EMI’s logo at the top of it, this letter head. And people were like, “Oh, wow. This

looks so official. This is like Hollywood.” Like most everybody in the military seems like they’re from the Midwest or the South, so they don’t have

a lot of exposure to Los Angeles and Hollywood. So that was a really big deal to them. I think that’s probably what greased the wheels for me and got me up

there. Yeah, that’s fascinating. And so you already mentioned at the top that so disruption is the theme where the

digital download came along. You’ made a lot of money. You had the major label distribution and then outside factors.

It wasn’t your own fault. Something came and disrupted the entire Never my fault, Aaron. Go ahead.

But but so it sounds like things basically changed overnight. Is that It did change overnight because you know

the we were a hip-hop label but we’re like the the independent earthy conscious type of hip-hop the cuz at the

time it was all about NWA and gangster rap. So we weren’t like the cool rap if at least for main as far as mainstream

was concerned but that audience that independent audience and it could have been rock music could have been dance

music was all the same though. people that embraced the independent music scene. They were the ones who embraced

the digital download before anybody else and they got on to Napster was the big

deal and then there was all of the how gosh what do they call those things Bit Torrent things that down those things

and so all that computer sharing stuff and it put us out of business in about 6

months and we had no clue as to what happened cuz the music store stopped

buying our stuff and then they started sending it back for returns and wanting credit and money back and we’re just

like, “Wait a minute, we been doing this a long time. No one has ever sent anything back. What is going on?” And

pretty soon, like I would say 6 months after we’re out of business, almost every major record retailer in the

industry was out of business. And this all happened before even iTunes had even formed yet. What happened really fast

before mainstream even knew what happened. So, in hindsight, it’s crystal clear, but at the time, we’re like, “What is going on? This internet thing

is no joke. This is what all we really could think of.” Yeah. But it just changed the way that people consume music.

Anybody who says they saw that coming is is probably full of crap. I didn’t think there was a chance in

hell people would not want to get in their car, drive to the store, look through all the bins, and read the liner

notes and smell the vinyl and the dust in the music store. That was such an experience. No way is any sort of

internet ever going to replace that. Sure enough, immediately. Yeah. So that was about 25 years ago if

I I remember my timeline of Napster correctly and you got a taste of the seven figure cash injection, a little bit of glory,

little bit of glamour and then you got you more or less humbled by external forces. So what did that kind of next

chapter look like? Well, right away the wife didn’t appreciate

it. So she where’s the paychecks? Where’s all the money? how come we have

to how come we can’t go out as to eat as often and so she didn’t like that so she took off and I got left with her debt

and then the bills were just were stacking up at the label and so I had to file bankruptcy I had no choice. It was

funny at the time I kind of experienced a little bit during co too where the economy is dealing blows to you and

everyone that that owes you money has a sob story of how the economy is terrible

and you just have to like take it and then everyone that you owe money to is f you pay me. But look

so like the economy is impacting everybody. Why does everybody think I’m immune to it? And that’s how I felt in the music business too. like people

stopped buying records. There’s no money coming in anymore. And so if I had to file bankruptcy, which wasn’t fun, and I

went out to the job world looking for a job. I wasn’t really qualified to do anything else. I hadn’t trained to do

anything else. Uh all my skills in in the Marine Corps was all DOSS related

when all the whole world had gone to to Windows by then. And so I went out and I tested the

waters and that everyone told me pretty quickly that I wasn’t qualified for anything because I didn’t have any like paper credentials.

And so I I worked as a temp as a typist. I worked I went to go try and sell cars. I tried to sell insurance. I went door

knockocking selling magazines. And I was like, “Wow, is this what life

is really going to be like now?” So trying to just settle down to gather my composure, I started bagging groceries

at the grocery store. And fortunately, they were on strike at

the time, so they were hiring at $21 an hour. And my reference point to an

hourly wage was when I was 16 years old. I’d get up at 4:00 a.m. and head to the golf course and put the golf carts out,

go to school, come back and clean all the golf carts up and plug them back in and do that over and over again. That’s But I was making $3.15 an hour then. So

when I got this job for minimum wage at $21, like that’s a whole lot more than I used to 20 years ago. Well, that’s not

that bad. I just didn’t do the math of what that would be on a 40-hour work week until you get your paycheck and you’re like, “Hey, who’s this guy FICA

taking all of my money, you know what I mean?” So, there was I started working there and I was there for about 6

months. The biggest pity party ever. I was blaming everybody and everything for my situation in life.

And uh just really missed my money. I was really I didn’t like being broke. I didn’t like being poor at all. and

working 40 50 hours a week to be broke was like wow. And the grocery store manager who was also 34 years old. I was

this happened when I was 34. So he’d been pushing carts bad and groceries there since he was 16 years old. So he

was only 2 years away from being vested in his pension to where he could retire and withdraw 70% of that for the rest of

his life. And I was like, God, this guy’s all done and and I’m just starting. Like it just seems so unfair.

And he said, “Matt, come here. Let me show you something.” And he said, ‘You know, along the way, I’ve been able to

acquire a couple of uh apartment buildings, and the passive income from these apartment buildings is going to

pay me more than what my pension is going to pay me. And then he said these

words to me, which was the life-changing words. He said, you know, real estate, it’s the final frontier where the

average person has a real shot at getting really wealthy. And I was like,

the final frontier? I he I guess I can stop looking if this is it because I mean I was so down and

out. I would have believed anything at the time. Thank god it was good advice. But he had also said for the the final

frontier for the average person. At that point in my life at 34 years old I felt far below average and my self-esteem was

like who are you to aspire to be above that? So I did what I thought the logical thing to do was to go get a real

estate license. Long story short that’s what I did. And after about a few years of that, I was like, I think if this is

where all the money’s at, I’m sitting on the wrong side of the desk. And so I then I made this shift to

become a real estate investor. So that’s how that all all came about. Amazing. Well, first of all, it’s never

easy to be humbled like that and to have to take a step back. It’s probably it probably would have been easier to get a

$21 $21 per hour job had you not made a million dollars before that in the

record business. retracing and going back and and starting over and then coming to into a new profession and

tracing through your own entrepreneurial journey. I imagine that you now have built it on very solid foundation

because of all the perspective that you gained riding that up and down earlier in your life. But yet the progression

you just described where you got your license cuz maybe you thought that was the next logical choice and then you

realize that those commissions are ephemeral. They they’re injections but they don’t lead to uh residual income,

right? And so correct you followed that into the investor side. So I guess like let

chronologically like how long did it take you to come to that conclusion that hey being an agent is great but being an

investor is better. I was in Southern California. I started in Long Beach and then went up to San

Pedro and then into Palace Veries. If you if you’re familiar with that area I was getting into more and more expensive

neighborhoods. So when you’re getting a 6% on a $500,000 house versus a $2 million house. the $2 million house was

better. And so in the beginning, and I worked really hard and I did everything I could to be the best agent I could and

just really studied and took it seriously. And I got rookie of the year my first year. And you know, when you’re

getting somewhere between a 3 and 6% commission on a $2 million house, those

are nice injections, right? Those are that’s a lot of money. But after a while, you’re right, your lifestyle

typically will tend to rise to whatever you’re making. And that became a hustle and a grind just to maintain that. And

there were these I had two clients that they were partners. They were fix and flippers. And we really connected. We

really hit it off. We became buddies. And I would find them deals. And then any time they found a deal, they’d send it over to me just to write up the

paperwork, which was the best type of business ever. And I would just get paid by them just sending me stuff. Then

there’s one day, I remember it was on a Saturday, and it was 10:30 in the morning. We had appointments scheduled.

I showed up in my suit and tie as I always did and they showed up about 20 minutes late

and they were jeans and a t-shirt and I had all their paperwork set out on the desk ready for them to sign. They signed

everything and then they took off for the weekend to go do whatever they’re going to do and I was left there to process the paperwork. I was left there

to hold their house open the whole Saturday and then Sunday I had to hold a different one of their houses open. And

I was like that’s when I had that epiphany. I was like this is not where the money’s at. I want to do what

they’re doing. And I compared commissions to profits. And so that took

me about three and a half years, four years before it really sunk in. I was just fortunate enough where I was an agent, paid really, really well. So I

didn’t really notice it right away. Yeah. I always think about this cuz I invest in a few different markets and

one of them is a West Coast coastal expensive market and another one is a

Midwest much more affordable market. the agents have to work just about the same amount and a commission on a $150,000

home sale versus a $800,000 or million dollar home. You you do wonder, right, how do people make it in in some of the

less affordable markets. But I can see how those cash injections on a million or a $2 million house that you might get

hooked on it and it’d be pretty hard to wean yourself off even if you become an investor. So my next question is did you

run those in parallel? Did you continue your agent business while building your own investment portfolio or how did that

kind of evolve? They didn’t overlap very long and it was really just me learning the investment side while I was still

being an agent. And once I got my first investment deal done, then I was like, I’m never representing anybody else in

transaction again as an agent. And they didn’t go they didn’t overlap very long at all. The work is kind of the same as

far as generating business. You’re prospecting. You’re in some many regards you’re in sales, right? So you got to go

out there and you got to generate your own leads and you get to eat what you you get to kill what you eat or eat what you kill. Eat what you kill. So that

part of it I was already used to as being an agent. So it didn’t wasn’t that difficult for me to make that transition. But they’re are not the same

thing by any means. They’re totally different animals. Today’s episode is brought to you by the Remote Real Estate

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with subject line RRA and I’ll throw in a special bonus for podcast listeners who join the academy. Now, let’s get to

the show. One of the big parallels is you have to generate leads and conversations and interest. You have to nurture those leads, especially if

you’re going to directly to a seller. You have to have some negotiation and sales skills. If you just want to buy

one rental property, you don’t necessarily need that much skill. You just need enough for a down payment and an agent that can get you across the

finish line. But if you get into some of the stuff that I know you’re into, like the creative finance and some of the offmarket, uh there are some crossover

skills, but like you said, it’s still totally different games being a full-time agent versus trying to build something on your own. So, how did the

kind of first several years trace us through like what was your buildup as an investor? Where did you start and where

are you now? Yeah, I the first deal I I got as an investor

was driving for dollars is in Long Beach, California, Newport Avenue. I remember it. I don’t remember the street

number, but I remember exactly where it was. And I found that deal and long story short, I was able to get under

contract and flip it to some fix and flippers. And uh I made $26,000 on that one, which was about that was par for

the course with what my commissions were at the time. But then it took me about seven or eight months before I got my next deal.

And somewhere along those lines, I was introduced to this little book. I doubt if you’ve ever heard of it. You might

want to write this down. Rich Dad Poor Dad. And uh

I got to work on my delivery on that cuz the lapse I anticipated would get. But I found that got that book and

it introduced me to two things that were never anywhere in my ethos, in my

sphere. whatsoever. One, this concept of passive income, right? I speak English.

I can take the word passive. I can take the word income. I can put them together and kind of figure out what it means.

But as an intention, that was like a foreign concept cuz I just came out of the music business. Being rich and

wealthy was, you know, you need to make as much money as you can and stack your paper and get your bank account really big and fat. That’s what I thought rich

was. And that brings me to the second thing that I learned from the book was this new definition of wealth. is not

having a lot of money. It’s just having more money come in each month than what it costs you to live where that money is

not directly tied to your direct involvement. And that rat race escape for me. Let’s

get your passive income to exceed your monthly expenses. So those two things like really clicked and I was like,

“Okay, so now every time I saw a deal, it wasn’t how can I how much money can I

make off of this, it’s how big of a stream can I generate from it?” And that kind of opened my eyes to a lot

of opportunities I’d probably been passing up while I was looking for these big flips. Now I could pay in some cases

I could pay retail or above retail and still arrange a deal that would cash flow for me. And that was like the the

big transition. And I I met a guy at a Los Angeles RIIA club, real estate investor association club, and he had I

don’t know 35 properties in Danville, Illinois. And I was like, I’ve never heard of

Dandville, Illinois. I don’t think I’ve ever been there. But I was able to arrange a deal where I got him to carry

back the financing on all 35 of those. And then I went I wholesaliled half of them. So I put cash in my pocket. And

from that cash, I was able to buy down the loans a little bit more and got those to cash flow. And after that deal

and just a couple more after that, I had escaped the rat race. This took me like three and a half years to where my passive income was now over my monthly

expenses. And I wasn’t rich by any means, right? But I didn’t have to work. And now

having lived both lives, both definitions of wealth, having a lot of money in the bank, but having to go to

work every day because I had to keep it up, right? And then not having a lot of money in the bank, but not having to

work. I preferred the second one better. I preferred that one more. I liked it. I liked it without the pressure.

So, a couple things I heard there, right? One is you learned how to do wholesaling and flipping and some of

this other stuff that is essentially active income. It’s still cash injections. is still onetime income. So

that there’s no residuals or in music industry terms, we we learned about residuals with royalties and all this

backend revenue that you don’t have to directly input. So flips and what’s funny is you start those words

residual and royalties and it didn’t even register until you pointed out that they were music. I was like yeah that’s what we call it.

Go ahead. It was a little while ago. So it was but it didn’t even register. I was like are you talking about real estate anymore? I was like I know never

mind. Go ahead. But but I like that kind of what you’ve done and and the way you explained your story is that you combined all of them.

So if you need a quick cash injection, you knew you built the skill of how to wholesale. You built the skill of how to

buy things on a portfolio. And even when you bought a portfolio, 35 properties, you figured out like what’s the best mix

of things to do with this? I can wholesale some of them off. I can keep some of them and build that base of

passive income. And like you said, it’s a totally different equation when you stop thinking about it as how much

individual money injections do I need in order to survive versus how much

consistent recurring revenue can I build up through rental income. It’s just a totally different way to think about it.

Like you said, that the big purple book uh Rich Dad Poor Dad kind of seeds that idea in most investors. I think it’s

you’re pretty hardressed to find an investor that can’t at some point reference that book and just the mindset shift that it that it unlocks in a lot

of people’s. So, I want to double click though on that one deal you mentioned. So, you met this guy at a RIA event and

you convinced him to sell you 35 properties. Tell us more about that. How did that conversation go? Sure. Well, one of the things I didn’t

really like the idea my my wife laughs when I say this, but I don’t really like PE, right? I I don’t like the whole idea

of networking and having to go force myself to introduce myself to to meet people and conjure up the small talk and

make sure I don’t sound stupid or boring. And that was just so much pressure to me. But hey, this is how you

do it. It’s a people business, right? And one guy said, “Every house you buy or sell is going to be from or to another person, so you better get used

to it.” And I just it would make me cringe having to go to these types of events because I wasn’t really privy to

marketing, right? I wasn’t the internet wasn’t what nearly what it is today. It TV and radio were so far out of reach.

It was so expensive at the time and and postcards I was like did people really

read the postcards? Do they really respond? So I was it was 100% organic lead generating prospector operation for

me. So I’d go to these RIA meetings and I was like okay this is what I’m going to do is I’m going to stand in front of

the room cuz they always have this halves and wants section. So, in the beginning of the meeting, they’ll you can form a little line up at the front

of the room and you get to talk about here’s what I got or here’s what I want. You got the microphone in hand. You get to address the whole room all at once. I

was like, that sounds way better than me going introduce myself individually to all 150 people in the room. So, it was

kind of like out of laziness is how I came up with this is so I would go to the day before or the day of the event,

I’d go to Craigslist and I’d find somebody that had a house for sale. I call them up and I say, “Hey, I’m gonna

meet with a bunch of investors tonight and there’s probably a good chance I’ll come across somebody who might have some interest in this. If I’m able to secure

a buyer for you, would there be room for a referral fee on it for me?” And how

many times do you think somebody said no to me? Never. I never got a no. No one ever got a call like, “Hey, can I go

find you a buyer?” And so I would do that and said, “Great. So, I’m just going to use the pictures here off of Craigslist. I’m going to make up my own

little flyer. I’ll put my own little contact information and I’ll go share it and if something pops I’ll let you know tomorrow. So every meeting my whole

intention was to show up with a property with a deal. So when it’s time for hs and once I’d stand up in front of the

room I had a little three-step formula had one thing was called my audio business card and it would be like hi my

name is Matt and I show busy professionals how to build a real estate portfolio in their spare time so they can retire early. So there here’s what I

do here’s who I serve. Here’s how I help them. So I did that and that was done inside what eight seven seconds. Then I

would talk about the property but I’d only focus on this is what made me different than everybody else. I’d only focus on what was in it for the actual

investor. I like this property is available right now. It’s 17% below

market value. Cash flows at a 9% cash on cash return. There’s already property management in place and I’ve been able

to arrange creative or seller financing. So no banks are required. So everyone’s hearing that like, oh, returns and easy

and convenience opportunity. So I’d get everyone’s attention just like that. And then so part three of that would to be

give them a call to action. Yeah, great. So if you’d like some more information on this deal and others just like it, like just pretending I had a bunch of

others. Meet me in the back of the room. I’d be happy to give you a flyer. And that was it. In 45 seconds, I was done

and had everybody salivating. I would just go back there in the room and I just wait for people to come back to me. So I had about 100, maybe seven,

eight people would come up to me every night. And I flipped a lot of properties that way, just doing that.

And so this one guy, he’s like, “I’ve been watching you for a while. You come in here and you always got the deal. You’re always hustling. Maybe you can do

that from all these 35 properties I have.” So that’s how I attracted the guy and that’s how he came up to me and

asked me to do that for him. So long story, but that’s how it happened. No, that is amazing. Some real tactical

gold there. and just being able to articulate like what is the value that you’re bringing and how are you bridging

like different you’re seeing value in a deal you’re connecting people to that deal like you said you you mastered the

delivery of that in such a way that even though you don’t necessarily I don’t think anybody really likes going to

those networking events and having this kind of transactional communication but you found a good way to fight back

against the the worst parts of that and articulate your own value and I think that yeah that was really good tactical

advice for people especially if they’re going to go to events like that if you don’t want to feel awkward or like you’re not getting anything.

And another really good tactic for those things that I discovered is do a little research on whoever’s going to be speaking that night. Come up with two,

three maybe really heartfelt questions. That doesn’t sound like an idiot qu type

question, but if you got two or three well planned questions and then sit in the front row and then when Q&A happens,

raise your hand and stand up and and get then you ask your question loud in front of everybody. Oh my god, that attracts

everybody to you at the afterwards. So that was always another way to to get

noticed at those things so I didn’t have to actually work the room. So those two things worked really well. Absolutely. One of my favorite quotes,

and I’ve heard it from a few different people, but is it’s much better to be the most interested person in the room

than try and be the most interesting person. Usually, that attracts a much better type of attention than the person

who’s just trying to get noticed. It doesn’t always go over your way. I say that all the time in my training. I say, if you want to be interesting, be

interested. Yeah. Right. Same thing. Let’s start speaking of Yeah. your program and the stuff that you do now.

Tell us a bit about that. What you got? You got your YouTube channel. You got your mentorship and coaching program. Tell us what you’re all about.

Oh, yeah. We’re here. We’re still full-time. My wife, when I say we, my wife and I, we’re still full-time real

estate investors. We probably flip 10 to 15 turnkey properties a month where

still to this day, that busy professional is our ideal customer that wants real estate but just doesn’t want

to get their hands dirty or doesn’t want to do all that heavy lifting or doesn’t even want to learn how or doesn’t have the time. That’s what she does on our

business. And then we have another kind of sector of them that do want to get their hands dirty, do want to go out there and wheel and deal and stuff like

that and then they come to me and so I show them how to do that and she just does it for them. We’ve been doing that

for for a while now and yeah, we’ve got the YouTube channel. We have the longest

running real estate podcast. We started that in 2009 when nobody even knew what a podcast was.

It was funny. Yeah, we have a podcast. What? This is how it’s just common knowledge

today. But uh between those, yeah, we’re here in Vegas. I love it here. We moved

out of Southern California. I was tired of the taxes and the traffic. So, here we are and got a 13-year-old son and

life is good. Awesome. Yeah. So, the turnkey side of your business, you guys run in-house property management, too.

Well, we’ve come up with a system where we manage property managers. So, we had a pretty good system there. So we’re all

through the Midwest and the South cuz that’s where you all the cash flow is. So we’re in nine maybe 10 markets right

now. So we’re able to just reach out to our teams in each one of those markets and get exclusives on these properties

and we get them first because we have been represented so much business to all of them in the past. And so whoever is

in our queue gets to look at the properties first and they pick one and we arrange the property management. We

handle the transaction, we arrange the financing and then hand them head over to them on a silver platter and they can

maintain the property manager we use or they can go find their own. It’s their property. They call the shots. They can do whatever they want to do. But most

people decide just to to stay put. And they experience a a lot of favor with

property managers because now we represent so much business to each property manager. So they get strength

and volume I guess. What do they call it? A captive vendor, right? When you represent a big chunk of

their business, they don’t want to let you down. They don’t want to let your investors down. So they Yeah. It’s funny how expenses fall in

and performance increases. Yeah. So that’s interesting. I didn’t realize that your business was spread

across so many different markets. Do you also operate in Vegas? just started within the last six or

seven months. I’ve never been like fortunate enough to live in a market that had the potential to cash flow. And

so now I’m like I’m really enjoying it. We’re actually selling a lot of our stuff out of state, consolidating and

bringing some of our so we can have some more investments here. But yeah, my own personal Mercedes and our own personal

uh acquisitions are done here in Vegas almost exclusively now. Very cool. Yeah. So out of state

investing is where my sweet spot is now. I started I lived in Las Vegas from 2015 to 2020 and so I saw that kind of

meteoric rise. Vegas bottomed out one of the hardest markets in the country and during the great recession and it also

rebounded about as it took off during COVID time. So from the the bottom to

the top it’s quite a roller coaster. We’re lucky to have bought some properties towards the end of the 2010s.

People that bought in 2012 are even luckier, right? But it definitely is not an easy market to find cash flow in

these days. And yeah, I have a similar mindset where I have some out ofstate properties that are less expensive and

maybe packaging some of those and selling them off and then bringing it into a market with a little more potential like Vegas. Sounds like a

compelling idea. What do you recommend for people? So, I know you talk a lot on your channel about current trends. We’re

recording this in December 2024. The elections already played out. It’s a pretty clear picture of kind of what the

at least some of the ideas behind the upcoming regulatory changes, tax changes. Where do you see where do you you know

tell your audience to focus their time and uh attention these days if they’re

especially if they’re just starting out? Well, I definitely think houses are ever

going to be more affordable than they are right now. I think the supply and demand is so imbalanced

that it would take record building by new home builders for a decade for us to

level out and create some equilibrium in the market. Now there’s lots of

variables at play and that could be totally wrong and you know couple years from now I’d be happy to come and say

hey I was totally wrong but I don’t foresee what is actually going to impact that. Everyone says, gosh, if you read

all the trolls in my YouTube channel, they all think I’m an idiot and that the market’s going to crash any second now.

But they’ve been saying that now since 2015, here we are nine years later and the market was just about to crash,

right? But the reason the market crashed in 2008 is cuz we had too many houses

and particularly here in Vegas, it is completely overbuilt, but the population

caught up to it. But after that time of 2008, 2009, 2010, there were so many

builders that were wiped out and and wounded that they’re really cautious to

come back into the market and start building again. They didn’t want to experience that again. That those memories are fresh. And still for some

of them today, it’s why they’ve kind of slowed down like they don’t want to overbuild now because they don’t want to get in that same situation again. It’s

really hard for a real estate market to crash if you don’t have a lot of houses on the market. there’s nothing on the

market. We’re like, you hear it all the time, but we’re kind of at historic lows when it comes to inventory and turnover.

And then when you have, so you have that’s just your natural supply and demand, just people to houses. But then

if you look at the demographics of the people, so you have your millennials, which is

the biggest generation in our population, and their peak age, I might be off a year or so, I’ve been saying

this statistic for a couple years, their peak age, I believe, is right around 34 years old. And so there’s more 34 year

olds walking the earth than any other age is what that means. And but the average age of the first-time home buyer

is 36. So we’re going to see over the next 24 months at least I think long after that.

But we’re going to see more demand for housing than any other time in history. It’s just you got more people to that

are home buying age. So you have that one. The second thing is depending on which numbers you read, but we had 10 to

15 million new people come over the southern border over the last four years. They need a place to live. They need

roofs, right? Then you have the corporate demand. So you got the red

rocks and the state streets. And so now you have their demand coming in. And so we have like the demand for housing is

like just ginormous. There’s just not enough houses. So I think we will become

a nation of renters. I think those who are who own real estate, even if it’s just one house, you’re going to be a

part I mean an elite part of society in my opinion. people will be like looking at you like,

“Wow, Aaron, you own a house? Wait, wait, you own two of them?” I think it’ll be like remarkable to people. And

so, I just I think that’s where we’re headed. I mean, either they just build more houses and the only way they’re

going to do that is that the government makes makes it so easy and profitable and and risk and risk-free for builders

to do. But that’s asking a whole lot. The second place would be the government

itself just builds houses, builds shelter. And I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in government housing. That’s not

probably a good idea, right? Or three, people are just going to have to change the way they live. And we’re already

starting to see that like how we see in Europe where you have multiple generations underneath one roof. So you

got the the grandparents and the parents and the and the grandkids, right? So you’re seeing more and more of that.

Or you’re going to see a huge tiny house explosion. Elon Musk’s whole $10,000

smart house. Those are things are tiny, but that’s what I mean by changing the way people live, the way that we can

just build these things. They got the the pop-up houses now that you can buy on Amazon. So, those are what you’re

going to see. But even if those come in and they’ll start putting shelter, look how much more amazing your single family

house is going to look next to those. So, I think it’s only going to drive the value up and up and up. And like I said,

we’ll hit a speed bump here or there, but I think in the long run, put it this way. I was telling somebody that never

in history, ever in history has it been bad advice for me to tell you to buy a

house. Only been bad advice to sell, right? It’s never been bad advice and I

think that trend will continue. No, I really like that. So, a couple things also. The cost of labor and

materials is so much more. You’re right. Yes. So even if the government makes it easier from a permitting and licensing

and incentive standpoint, there’s still that kind of natural supply and demand of the actual materials that it takes to

build a house, the replacement costs of houses is often times exceeds the market

value of the house in some markets. So there’s a lot of headwinds here. And so I completely buy into your thesis that

it is a a great thing to own a single family home, uh especially one that can provide some sort of cash flow and and

make economic sense as a rental. But the question still becomes, how do you afford one even as an investor? So, I

know you’re very into creative finance, but how does somebody who wants to start today who does not currently own real

estate, how do they get in the game? And also, how is it different than when you started?

Mhm. All right. So there there’s two ways that are like distinct and there’s lots of variables and variations of what

I’m about to say. But the first way just if you going to maintain your job and you’re not going to go out and be a

hustler and a real estate investor, if you’re not going to go do that, you can get an FHA loan, right? Up to four units

and that’s a 3 and a half% down in almost every market in the country. You

can get that’s 10 grand, right? And if you can’t save 10 grand, then you’re not ready to buy a house anyway. So that

that’s a bigger problem that you got than owning a house. So you could do that. And then there’s I don’t know

there’s probably 20 different down payment assistant programs out there that you can get. So you can get

in for zero if you really want to. I put a whole book together on that. Zeroownkit.com. It’s just a free little

PDF if you want to get that. But that like just someone that okay, I just need to get my first house. Let me just get in the game as you were saying. And it

doesn’t have to be your forever house. This is just a stepping stone. But it will get you in the game. and that house is going to appreciate with inflation to

make it easier for you to get your next one. So that’s your stepping stone in the other way is to look for distressed

properties. So properties are distressed or the owner is distressed, one or the other. You tend to get a much better

deal when the owner themselves is are in distress and that represents about 7% of all transactions. 93% of all

transactions will go through real estate agents be sold for for market value. We’re not talking about those. We’re

talking about the 7% that happen offmarket where people sell fast for cash at a big discount because they have

to because they have bigger fish to fry somewhere else. And so when you can

negotiate directly with a seller that way, then now not just price, you can also negotiate terms, which is the big

superpower that um doesn’t have me too worried about a window closing for me

right away. But those are the two ways. So, you can go the traditional route with some government assistance programs

or you can go out and learn the skill and and do it uh directly with the seller. So, I’m putting on my skeptical new

investor hat and saying none of that sounds passive. Yeah. No, it’s not passive. That’s not

what you asked me. You asked me how to get in the game, right? So, passive takes a lot of work

to build. Okay. So, you work hard a lot in the beginning so you don’t have to

later. So, it’s definitely a lot of work. I’m not saying it’s easy by any means, but

you’re never going to get there unless you get the first one. And you could do

this very easily on the side. You could be a full-time something else. Very easy. Do this on the side. Okay, I’m

just going to go out. I’m going to buy a little duplex or forplex and I’m going to live in one and rent out the other

three. The FHA guidelines say you only have to live there for two years. That’s

what the guidelines say. I don’t know how often they come around and check, right? I would probably say never, but

I’m going to keep everything nice and legal above board. Okay? So, you got to live there for a minute. But then once

you’re in there, now you’ve gained some equity that you could probably withdraw or draw upon to get your next house.

Now, don’t sell the forplex or the duplex or even if it’s just a single family, don’t sell that one. That’s going to be a rental for you and you’re

going to move up to the next one. And you’re going to constantly do that every 2 or 3 years. And if you did that for

just for 20 years, you would be light years ahead of the person that didn’t.

And the Department of Health and Human Services has a statistic that 95% of all

65 year olds today cannot retire on their own investments and devices.

95%. All the people that are going to work for 40 years, they’re maxing out their 401k. They’re trying to pay off their

house as fast as they possibly can. They’re work, save, sacrifice, following the rules, waiting for compound interest

to work its magic trick and by the time you get there,

then only 5% have actually made it following this traditional advice. So that’s insanity to me.

Yeah, that is a horrific statistic. Forget retire early. How about retire at all? Right. Exactly. Exactly. The fact is most

people just don’t make enough to save enough for the compound interest thing to work and and most people don’t start

early enough for it to work either. There was just an article this weekend by Susie Orman. I think it was on Yahoo

Finance and it was her whole article counseling parents to get their teenagers to start saving for retirement

right now because that here’s exact words because that’s what our system requires. That’s the advice of the

financial planner. The the TV guru is saying, “You have to start talking to your kids at 14 cuz they need to start

putting away 15% for the rest of their life.” Cuz her exact words because that’s what the system requires.

But you forget all that traditional hogwash. Go ahead and just do a house

every two or three years and you’re done in half the time. You’re done in 20 years instead of 40 years by just barely

getting out of first gear. Yep. But the prevailing theme I’m hearing is that you got to start.

Got to start. Exactly. And that’s the big thing that stops people because they’ll buy they’ll look at a a rental

like the houses that we sell here in our turnkey operation. They might only cash flow 150 200 bucks with traditional

financing on it. And people look at that like why would I go all that trouble for

just $200 a month? That’s not even going to move the needle for people.

But you have to take you have to get the first one in order for that to be worth $10,000 a month someday.

Yeah. Fast forward 10 years, the loan amortization picks up, the loan payown accelerates, the appreciation, the rent

growth, the tax benefits, all that stuff. Over time, it gets more powerful. It’s not only about year one, the $2,400

a month in uh net cash flow you make that first year. It’s the big picture over a long

period of time. Holy. And then what people don’t understand, I didn’t understand this till felt just I don’t know the last five or six years that I really get a

grasp on it is when you borrow a depreciating asset money to purchase an

appreciating asset real estate that actually puts you on the right side of inflation. So while inflation is eating

everybody else up, it’s actually making you wealthier. That that famous saying, don’t fight the

Fed. So don’t fight the system is what they’re really saying cuz the system always wins. But when you borrow a

depreciating asset to buy an appreciating asset, you are going with the system. So now you’re on the winning

side. So yes, the rents are going to increase and the buy down is going to get bigger and the houses are going to

appreciate, but the the inflation, your house is keeping up with inflation, even outpacing it a little bit. You can’t

find a better job. You you’re not getting an annual increase from your job that’s keeping up with inflation. that

little cost of living raise that everybody gets, inflation goes up 6% and they got a cost of living raise of 3%.

You’re still behind 3%. But your house keeps up. That’s a powerful argument and I I hope people heed that advice. Obviously, you

and I are big believers in real estate. It’s done a lot for both of us. Hopefully, there’s a long runway left to go. Really appreciate the kind of

economic argument and just some of the way that you phrase that. I think that’s that’s a a powerful take that hopefully

people internalize and take to heart that there is no there’s not going to be a better time necessarily to get in.

It’s not going to get more affordable. If anything, it’ll be a more compelling asset to own over a long time horizon.

So, I appreciate that perspective. Amen to that. And it’ll never be worth zero.

True. True. Even if it burns down, if you got insurance, it’s never worth zero, right? It’ll never be worth zero.

Yeah. But ask all the Lehman Brothers investors. Yeah. Well, Matt, it’s been great

talking to you. Uh, I would love for you to just share where can my audience get in touch with you? I saw that people can

uh even maybe apply to play 18 holes of golf with you. Uh, but where can people find you?

Oh, that’d be great. Golf with Matt. Epic Real Estate. So, that’s the website

name. It’s the YouTube channel. It’s the podcast. However you’re consuming this right now, you can find us there as

well. Epic Epic Real Estate. And yeah, that’s how you do it. I love it. I will link to everything in

the show notes. Um, so check that out. Go reach out to Matt. Uh, it’s been a pleasure having you on. I learned a lot

as well and and I hope to stay in touch and maybe have you on again in the future. Awesome. Thanks, Aaron. Appreciate it.

Thanks, man. Thank you for making it to the end of today’s episode. As you may know, podcasts are very difficult to grow organically. If you’re getting

value from today’s episode, I’d deeply appreciate if you can take 30 seconds to leave my show a fivestar rating and

review. This will go a long way to helping me reach more listeners just like you. Thank you so much in advance.