if you don’t know what you’re aiming for

then it’s pretty dang hard to make

informed decisions it really is all

about just relieving pressure and giving

ourselves optionality for our future

selves really when people talk about

investing the first thing they usually

think about is money but I like to think

in terms of outcomes the journey to get

there I think the way that you and I

have both constructed our rental

portfolios is almost a symbol of that

right i’ve always felt tethered to my

desk or or my job the perspective of

having been tied down like that taught

me that I want a job or a career or

income streams that are not tied down to

a location like that i think in real

estate investing is you got to

understand that you’re doing it for 30

years out not 30 days

welcome back to our special podcast

series The 20-minute investor where we

bring you actionable nuggets and

insights from our real estate investing

journeys in bite-sized 20-minute

episodes i’m Aaron Amin my wife and I

built a portfolio of eight cash flowing

rentals across three states while

working full-time and raising a young

family and I’m Nathan i’m a husband a

father a tech executive who built a

portfolio of cash flowing rentals across

two states from over 2,000 miles away

together we co-founded the Remote Real

Estate Academy where we coach investors

on how to build their own portfolio of

cash flowing rentals from anywhere in

the world so today we’re going to talk

about one of the most important

questions investors can and in our minds

should ask themselves before they make

any big decisions on how they’re going

to invest and that is what is your

endgame because if you don’t know what

you’re aiming for then it’s pretty dang

hard to make informed decisions so on

that very light-hearted note Nathan what

is your endgame

putting me right on the spot I see um

it’s a big question we really only have

20 minutes to talk about this no I think

joking aside

there’s the way I look at I think

there’s different levels to what my or

our when I I should say our between my

wife and I what our endg games are i

think the first one maybe the top level

the biggest of them all for us the way

we look at it is we just want

optionality in our future keeping it as

simple as that because that’s really

what we’re looking for we don’t

necessarily have a and peel the onion

and we can get into it or not yes we do

have like monetary or financial goals

and things that we’re tracking towards

to see progress and do stuff but putting

that aside our end goal is not a certain

dollar figure coming into the bank

account every month for example like I

know it is for a lot of people it really

is more about building optionality for

ourselves in the future and building a

better future for ourselves and our kids

right and optionality in this context

really means if we get to a place where

all is working well in terms of like the

real estate portfolio is do we want to

keep working or we don’t does one of us

want to quit our jobs to do something

else do we just want to have uh a more

comfortable more safe better retirement

do you know do we want to use some of

what we have for big expenses things

like you know college and things like

that so it really is all about just

relieving pressure and giving ourselves

optionality for our future selves really

and that’s the big picture goal for us

before any like financial metric

financial number of doors uh you know

size of portfolio or anything like that

how about you yeah no it is a loaded

question and you said I more or less

verbatim have the same philosophy couple

key words that I heard you say though

pressure

options flexibility right so pressure I

kind of think of it as you know at first

every family every person every unit uh

has some type of financial obligations

right and so when people talk about

investing the first thing they usually

think about is money uh but I like to

think in terms of outcomes so in your

case what you’re saying right is that

you want the ability to not feel so much

pressure financially so that you’re

forced to do things in order to relieve

that pressure that don’t align with your

long-term vision for what you want your

life to look like and that’s the kind of

level that’s the purpose of this episode

is to say we spend a lot of time and

like in our coaching program the first

step before we get into the tactical

nitty-gritty stuff is the goal setting

it’s the strategy it’s the visualizing

you know what do I want my life to look

like what is the endgame that I’m trying

to enable for myself because if it is

you know sipping margaritas on the beach

and doing nothing then um first of all I

got a little reality check for you

that’s probably not realistic uh in a

shortterm time frame under most

circumstances but second the things that

you would have to do to get to that

level of passivity and flexibility are

very different than raising a family

with four children in a high cost of

living area and working maybe a job that

is in line with your passions but maybe

doesn’t pay as much right so the

circumstances matter and what you want

to do matter and I also think in terms

of like the Maslo’s hierarchy of needs

survival is the first level but then at

the very top is this self-actualization

where you’re really leaning into things

that are meaningful to you beyond just

am I making more money than I spend and

so the journey to get there I mean I

think the way that you and I have both

constructed our rental portfolios is

almost a symbol of that right it’s like

at the beginning you kind of just get in

the game because you know that the

snowball has to start rolling at some

point and you have the outcome in mind

that yeah I want this relief of pressure

i want this ultimate you know

optionality and flexibility in my life

later but if you try and like jump to

that outcome right out of the gate with

the first deal the first thing you ever

do it’s going to be really hard so

that’s where like having that endgame

defined even if it might be a moving

target or it might change it at least

gives you some direction how you’re

going after real estate so for us to you

know we have three kids age three and

under our big kind of endgame in mind

over the next two decades I would say is

to be able to have the flexibility to

enjoy that very very brief fleeting

window of time where our kids actually

are in the home and even more than being

in the home they actually want to have

something to do with us because I

remember being 13 14 years old and um I

love my parents i’ve always had a great

relationship with them but I certainly

had other interests at some point and

other friends and I just I recognize how

short that window is so for me

everything I do in the next three to

four years is about making sure that we

can take advantage of that window while

it’s open yeah I think we talked about

this in this podcast in the past maybe

and I can’t remember what the exact

statistic is or where I heard it but

it’s something like 80% of the time that

you’re going to spend with your kids is

between their ages of zero and 12 or

something like that and that remaining

20% is from you know 12 to whenever you

move on right to another life so it’s

pretty insane and our oldest is seven so

12 is right around the corner so yeah

same here enjoying every second while I

can yeah and I mean I know you and your

wife moved internationally right and so

you’re in California and the family that

you have is very far away my family’s

not as far away but no matter what my

parents split up when I was young they

both remarried and I’m very close with

all four of my parents they live 3,000

miles away from each other so even

though at different points in my life

I’ve lived next to one or now I live

next to another set of parents I’m

always far away from someone that I care

about and so that’s another element to

our vision is becoming location

independent i already work fully

remotely which is an absolute blessing

especially because the first chapter of

my career I was in the office four or

five days a week and at shows four or

five nights a week i was the furthest

thing from remote i had no flexibility i

felt the word I always used was tethered

i’ve always felt tethered to my desk or

or my job the perspective of having been

tied down like that taught me that I

want a job or a career or income streams

that are not tied down to a location

like that and especially there’s this

window of time with my kids but there’s

also a window of time with my parents

over the next two to three decades that

I want to be able to spend quality time

with them and not just see them for a

weekend here and there so with those

outcomes in mind right that means I have

to have a job that supports that

flexibility that I can do from multiple

places i have to be able to contribute

the value to that employer that would

allow that flexibility and whatever real

estate investments we make part of why

you and I do remote is because we’re not

tied down to that location all of those

things informed the strategy that we

used to build our portfolio and I think

I would imagine that’s part of the

allure of remote for you too right no

100% yeah it’s again it’s the

flexibility and the optionality we don’t

have to be here if we don’t want to uh

we can travel we can move we can live

elsewhere and being able to continue to

build and maintain and you know benefit

from a rental portfolio is paramount to

us i’m curious talking about end goals

do you remember what yours was when

before you bought the first and how

that’s changed now maybe most people

think I’m full of crap when I say that I

can operate and grow my portfolio in an

average of 20 minutes per day so instead

of asking you to take my word for it I

sat down with my business partner Nathan

and we ran through our entire 20-minute

investor strategy in free workshop we go

through all the different workflows

software and tools we use to stay in

control of our portfolios so we can

focus on what matters most to us you can

watch the entire workshop and download

our workflows for free at

20minutinvestor.com again that’s

20inutinvestor.com now back to the

show yeah i think I’ve described this a

few different times and the more times I

tell this story the more clear it

becomes you know when I worked in

entertainment I was working literally 80

hours a week you know I was normal

office hours and then I would be out at

shows either working shows or when I

wasn’t working shows I would be at our

competitor shows trying to study up on

how their showed how many people were

there i poured so much of my time and

energy and heart and soul into that job

notoriously underpaid overworked

industry and at the end of it all you

know I pretty much ran myself through

the ringer i’ve been very open about the

personal challenges that I faced during

that window i developed some nasty

habits that turned into ultimately a

spiral that ended me up in rehab right

and all of that effort and energy and

turmoil that I put not only myself

through but the people around me through

what did I have to gain for it right i

wasn’t making $300,000 a year i didn’t

have some hefty bonus package where all

that marginal effort and energy had an

incentive tied to it the incentive was

that maybe one day I could get lucky and

move up the ladder but the next notch up

the ladder was those people held those

jobs for 20 years those are coveted

positions extremely competitive and to

get one of those is like winning the

lottery it felt like and so I share that

because you know when you put that much

time and energy into something and

there’s not really any upside you’re not

in control of you know creating your own

value once I did burn out and go into

rehab and I asked myself all those tough

questions finally give myself the space

to be introspective and say what do I

really want out of my life you know I

was 29 at that point newly married

didn’t have kids yet but knew we wanted

to giving myself that space taught me

that like I need somewhere where I can

have at least some influence in my

upside right and so I always circle back

to that phrase own your upside because

entrepreneurship investing these are

situations in which you can be

compensated directly directly for the

value that you create whether it’s

equity in a property or a business

whatever it is like that’s taking you

know kind of life into your own hands

and so even though the first property we

ever bought the cash flow now I know the

way I under right now it would have been

negative on paper but it was a few

hundred bucks a month positive in gross

cash flow so it’s not like doing that

all of a sudden set me free financially

immediately but it was the beginning of

a small snowball that we started rolling

down the hill and you and I have talked

how we believe in just letting that play

out over time one house turned into

three then the cash flow from that plus

our income snowballed and turned it into

four five six we peaked at eight rental

properties but it turned into like you

and I both talk about how we created

$5,000 in net cash flow from these

rentals that we bought using fundamental

you know principles good operations good

systems and um so at the very beginning

it was just about like the symbol of

owning my upside but then I fell in love

with that and I I um I don’t know it

kind of it rolled from there

yeah i love it what about you yeah I

know I asked you that question i’m not

ready to answer it I guess personally

but no trying thinking about it came in

with a plan i feel like you had a little

more clear for me i was like coming out

of a very emotional moment of pain and

so I don’t think I had a really

long-term endgame in mind other than

just getting out of the situation I was

in yeah and it’s interesting that you

say that because I I’m trying to

remember you know eight years nine years

ago whatever it was when we got started

but um I don’t know that at that time we

had like the 30-year end goal in mind or

at least I don’t think I did i think it

was started for me was more a thing of

knowing for whatever reason that I

wanted to diversify and get into real

estate and real estate investing for all

the reasons that everybody hears about

you read about you know YouTube podcast

all that stuff and I just like maybe you

know my first kind of quote air quote

here end goal was buy that first rental

property because I needed to experience

it learn make mistakes understand the

process realize iz that it’s doable even

though I’ve never been to the market

where I bought that first rental that I

didn’t die in the process that

everything is still okay and all of that

and I think from that point on that’s

when like let’s call them shorter or

medium-term kind of goals starting to

emerge organically was like yeah this

this works this is good now I’d like to

get to a point where um I don’t have to

come out of pocket for the next purchase

for the next rental property that we

want to purchase so I just did basic

math on how we’re analyzing deals and

the returns we’re getting and the cash

flow that we’re getting and I say “Okay

I need to get to 10 because I know that

when I get to 10 those 10 every year

will fund the down payment for the next

purchase right?” So that was kind of

like the next goal and you know time

horizon on that was a few years right it

wasn’t anything like I had to do it

overnight or anything like that i think

it’s after we got to a place where we

could see that the effects of that

snowball that we’ve been talking about

that I could step back and look bigger

picture is saying the ultimate goal of

all of this is really just future

optionality and better lives for

ourselves and our kids and that’s what I

guess drives me now and maybe how I’ve

changed you know thinking about this

over time and I think it’s at least for

me I guess it was a relatively normal

process it’s hard I think to start when

you’re at square one or zero and you’re

like “Oh here’s my end goal i want

optionality for my kids my future

everything i have to work i don’t have

to work.” You know 13 15 30 years from

now whatever it is it’s just hard

because it’s really big picture stuff in

long-term stuff which is one of the

hardest things I think in real estate

investing is you got to understand that

you’re doing it for 30 years out not 30

days

yeah and the end goal the question about

what’s the endgame i think it’s

important to spend time understanding

the outcome but then don’t get so

fixated on it that you’re going to get

discouraged when the first three or four

years of owning rental properties is

pretty boring not particularly

profitable in most cases even if you buy

a good deal that’s got whatever your 10

or 12% cash on cash that you’re aiming

for that 10 or 12% cash on cash could

still be like 300 bucks a month it’s not

going to be something that lets you exit

your job right away in most cases but is

it playing a piece in the long-term game

that will get you to that end game

that’s that’s where the understanding

the end goal is important because if you

don’t have that to tie back to and

anchor back to it’s pretty easy to lose

steam especially the first time you’re

faced with because it’s not a matter of

um if it’s going to happen it’s when are

you going to hit your first eviction or

your first giant capex thing that you

didn’t quite expect those things are

really hard to endure if you don’t keep

your eye on what this property is going

to do for you 10 15 20 years in the

future and then also the nature of

amortization tables i know I’m getting

nerdy here but like the first five seven

10 years when you’re paying your monthly

mortgage payment which if you’re using

30-year fixed mortgage at least the

payment amount stays the same but the

majority goes to interest and um so

you’re not really seeing your loan pay

down for the first you know seven to 10

years too so uh I don’t know i think

it’s it’s a vehicle to almost force you

to be patient is what that long-term

goal setting and thinking does for me at

least 100% so you know one of the

things speaking of kind of like Yeah

setting the long-term marker and then

reeling it back in like a fishing pole

one of the first modules in our course

is the quarterly goal setting so you

can’t really set quarterly goals if you

don’t know what your long-term goal is

but what we then do is we get super

granular and tactical and we say “Okay

in a lot of the cases people join our

program their goal is to buy a rental

property in the next quarter.” That

one’s a little easier because we have

more or less a step-by-step formula for

how to make that happen if you want to

but once you even get out of that right

and let’s say you get your first rental

property okay well then for me I still

set quarterly goals of what am I going

to do am I going to install systems am I

going to set up my you know accounting

and automations like what am I going to

do am I going to buy another house in

two quarters from now if I’m going to do

that two quarters from now what do I

need to be doing now so it’s kind of

just always having these little

calibrations in our case we do the

20-minute investor system so we’ve

protected and set aside that 20 minutes

per day just because you’re not actively

buying something doesn’t mean you can’t

find things to continually improve or

whether it’s networking or ongoing

education putting out content right so

I’m just curious like do you still think

of things that granularly even when

you’re not like in the middle of a big

sprint

yeah I mean the short answer is yeah I

think always i mean but I do that also

for everything for every aspect of my

life whether it’s you know family kids

W2 health food fitness real estate so I

I tend to do that for all the things but

I think you know the one of the things

for example is like right now trying to

think how to say this it’s like we’re

not as actively pursuing the next

purchase that’s just the season that my

wife and I are in right now for reasons

that are personal to our own related to

you know W2s and things like that so

we’re being a bit more conservative but

that doesn’t mean that I’m not analyzing

deals every single day not looking at

the market every single day not setting

goals around you know how many

outreaches do I want to do to people in

these local markets other investors that

I just want to network and connect with

uh how many deals I want to analyze

still run our monthly numbers to

understand like market dynamics and

things like that there’s always a

breakdown of stuff regardless of you

know stuff that you could do regardless

of what quote season you’re in in terms

of you know whether you’re maintaining

buying selling or anything like that

yeah absolutely so it’s important to

recognize when those moments come and

also allow yourself to be patient but

not necessarily stagnant i think that’s

um that’s where it’s a marathon not not

a sprint all the time so we’re right at

the 20-minute mark but it was pretty

difficult to fit such a loaded topic

into a short amount of time if you want

I think we’ll make an exclusive offer

here if you are not part of our

community but you would like access to

the quarterly goal setting portion of

our course drop us a comment or shoot us

an email at hello@

remoteerealestateacademy.com and we will

send that over at no charge it’s a

module that has made a big impact for us

and a lot of our students so we’re happy

to share it we’ll catch you next time

take care thank you for making it to the

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