My thoughts on Passive Income and Real Estate Investing

That's the thing that I'd like to explain to everybody is that it doesn't have to start out like. I feel like a lot of people see a big number and they get intimidated by it. Like they see like almost sixty-five hundred a month and they're just like, "How good? Like that seems so incomprehensible to me."

But I'm telling everybody, like, it starts with really small numbers. Like five hundred dollars a month is how much to start. And from reading the comments—if you've read the comments on that video—some people are starting with ten dollars a month, more someone it's like a hundred and fifty dollars a month in passive income. That's where it starts. It starts from that, and it grows exponentially from there.

That's one of the things I, again, I think with passive income is, like I said, it takes time to scale. It's never something that within a year you can expect. I mean, maybe in certain situations, maybe it's possible, but I would say in most situations, it's like I see this as a ten-year plan. I don't see this as something more like five years from now you're gonna be balling hard and like, you know, making it rain. It's a ten-year plan.

Like, I really feel like you put a decade of work in now, and that's gonna pay your entire life in the future. Clearly, if you think ten years of work that you put in now will pay for your entire future, if you really think about it. I mean, that's what it's been for me. No joke, I started when I was like 18 years old. I'm not even 28 yet, and this is some—like something that will pay for my entire future for the rest of my life with ten years of work that you put in at the beginning.

So I think that's one of the biggest things that I want to hammer in people is that it's not this, like, you know, next month you're gonna be making a crap ton of money, making all your friends jealous and pull up to high school in Lambos. It's not that. It’s ten years from now.

Your market is different than mine. I could not replicate what I'm doing in my market. In your market, you might make more money in appreciation than I do in rents. I mean, the appreciation that I've gained over the last year is probably three times the amount of money that I've received in gross rent—three times just in appreciation. I couldn't do that in your market. Just as, you know, in your market you couldn't do the appreciation.

So I feel like it's so location-specific all the time. Some people ask me, like, "What do you recommend in my little town of Kansas?" In terms of, and it's like, you have to know that market better than anybody else. I wouldn't know that little market like I know Los Angeles really, really, really well.

Do you know London, Ontario? Yeah, really well! You have to be that expert of your area. And there is no set amount of rent. Like sometimes I'm totally cool in LA, like even breaking even on my rent. I would be happy to break even on my rent if it means I make a hundred grand in appreciation that year. Like I would love that!

Just as if in Louisiana you need to make, you know, 20 grand a year profit net in your pocket for that to make sense. So I think every area is different.

But I agree with you, I think credit—I think building your credit is one of the most important things. And that's one I like, I respond to everybody in the comments. I'm like, "What's your advice for me?" Build your credit! If you're really any age over 16, I don't think there should be any excuse not to build your credit score.

But beyond that, I think it's also showing some income and you need to make some money. It's like you can't just be this, you know, this bum living at Mom's house with an 800 credit score and expect investors to realize. I think credit score alone isn't gonna get you there. It's a credit score plus some sort of income.

It's really just some things up: it's credit, you need some sort of income, you need to be an expert on your market. For me, I mean, you may be partners—help if partners are great if you want to gain a portion of ownership of a property, kind of spread yourself among a few properties. I don't think you need a hundred percent partner.

And if you pick your partner, I think you've got to be pretty in line with your partner. You want to make sure that your partner isn't one that's gonna want to sell after a year when you want to keep it, or your partner's not gonna be the one that wants to keep it when you really want to sell.

I think it's really important to set expectations with a partner and make sure that you guys are on the same page. And I think finding a partner like that is really, really difficult, to be honest with you. You have a financial binding, like legal title deed to a property with somebody. Splitting money with somebody, I mean, that's a business that you're starting with somebody else.

Well, that's a big investment. It's easy to also see someone like you and just be like, "Oh, overnight success! This happened with, like, you know, he's got all this right now." But it's really just like they don't see all the grinding that comes behind the scenes. They don't see all the work that goes behind the scenes all the time.

I mean, I've been in almost a decade now, for real. That's ten years of doing this every single day. And you know, now you could look back and be like, "It was worth it." But you know, it's definitely not something that happens overnight. It takes time, and I think patience—patience goes a long way.