Revealing My Entire $6 Million Investment Portfolio | 29 Years Old

What's up you guys, it's Graham here. So, a few months ago, I made a video breaking down in graphic detail each of my seven income sources: how I built them up, what's involved in running them, and then most importantly, the question everyone wants to know: how much money each of them makes every single month.

I really tried my best to make that video as educational and transparent as possible without giving people the wrong impression of me just based off the title alone. Thankfully though, it seemed like a lot of people really appreciated that type of openness in discussing how much money I make, where it comes from, and how I was able to build that up, which then leads us to a video like this in terms of where all that money actually goes and how it's invested.

So, I'm going to be going over in detail every single one of my investments, how I was able to make it happen, how I paid for it in the first place, and how I was able to build that up to a six million dollar amount by twenty-nine years old. My intention is to try to make this video the same as the other and make it as educational and transparent as possible, because I know at least for myself, I really enjoy seeing how other people manage their money and where they invest it, and plus, I'm just curious where all of their money goes.

So, given this, I'm really hoping this video is gonna open up the dialog for other people to share their investment portfolios as well and go over how they were able to do it. So anyway, as usual, with that said, if you would not mind just giving this video a quick like, it would really mean a lot to me. That's it; it really makes such a huge difference to the YouTube algorithm, to my channel, and to the video. So if you wouldn't mind doing that, it just takes a split second to do it—you would have been done already had you done it. Okay, you did it? Great! Thank you so much, and let's get into the video.

So first, we're gonna be going back to the very beginning, where it all started. I was 21 years old, and I bought my first single-family rental property in San Bernardino, California for fifty-nine thousand five hundred dollars. Now just for some context here is how that happened. When I was 18 years old, I decided not to go to college and instead, I pursued my real estate license so I could work as a real estate agent. At the time, it was 2008, and the real estate market had just literally peaked, and it started my career right at the height of everything just as real estate prices started to collapse into the ground.

But for me, I didn't mind. I honestly didn't know any better, and I had no reference point as to what a good real estate market even looked like. So seeing foreclosures and bank-owned properties and short sales on every single block just seemed normal to me. That's all I was accustomed to, and that didn't discourage me from going out there and meeting clients and trying to build up my business.

But that meant there was a little bit of a problem because not a lot of people were out there buying property because property values were just dropping so fast, and not many of those properties were even selling because of how much inventory there was in the market for buyers to choose from. But I very quickly discovered that there were an abundance of people trying to rent homes because everyone just needs a place to live, and that's where I ended up finding my niche as a real estate agent.

I must have worked six to seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours every single day just trying to find homes and apartments for people to rent, and slowly but surely that business picked up because those renters would refer me to other renters, who would then refer me to other renters, and pretty quickly I was able to build up a somewhat consistent income of a few thousand dollars a month.

Then, almost after an entire year of helping renters find homes, I finally sold my first property from a client I met while hosting an open house for another agent. That home sold for 3.6 million dollars, which meant that my take from that was about $45,000 after broker's fees and expenses. As a brand new agent, I think I did what any 19-year-old would do when you hand them a $45,000 check—I went and spent pretty much all of it on my dream car at the time, which was a 2006 chrome orange Lotus Elise.

Honestly, selling that first home was a total game changer for me. Prior to then, I was really self-conscious about being so young in the real estate business because absolutely everyone else was so much older than me, and I just felt inferior because of it. But being able to sell a house like that made me realize, like, wait a second, I actually have what it takes to sell a home, and I could do this. That type of confidence boost just absolutely took my entire career to the next level.

Because only two months after selling that first home, I sold another home for 1.2 million dollars from some renters who I was showing around, who decided just to buy a house instead. From there, my business kept getting better and better because the more renters I would work with, the more referrals I got, and the more people I met, the higher the likelihood is that one of them would buy a home, which meant the more money I would make.

My entire philosophy was really just this: there is almost no competition for agents to work with renters. So for me, who to do this, it was nothing but blue skies and opportunity. I knew that most of those renters I was working with would one day turn into buyers, so I did everything I could to exceed all of their expectations with the expectation, of course, that I would then get the opportunity to represent them anytime they wanted to buy something in the future. And most of the time, they did, and that's where I ended up making most of my money.

I continued on that trajectory, saving almost every single penny I possibly could, living like I was completely broke, trying to save money every which way. And really, after about three and a half to four years, I had about $200,000 saved up. And I wasn't saving up this money for anything in particular; I just felt like because my real estate agent income was so inconsistent, I had no idea when my next deal would be or how much it would be for. I just felt safer knowing that if anything were to happen, at the very least I have this as a safety net.

But by now, it was 2011, and as many people know, the real estate market at that time was completely trashed. Properties were selling for less than half the price they were a few years prior, and it was at that time that I started to see a lot of very smart, wealthy investors scooping up and buying properties left and right. So I saw all of this starting happening firsthand, and that made me think to myself, wait a second, if all of these smart wealthy people are doing this, then maybe I should look into this too.

And really, once I started looking into it as an investment, I was hooked. There was just an abundance of really great properties out there. They cash flowed from day one, and since I was a real estate agent and knew the process of buying and selling homes, I thought that this would be the perfect investment for me to get into and also would provide some consistent income every single month. That way, I wouldn't have to just rely on commissions every month to make money, and at least I would have something a little bit more stable.

So finally, after months of searching and writing offers, I bought this home for fifty-nine thousand five hundred dollars as a bank-owned short sale, and I paid for it with cash. I then spent an additional twelve thousand dollars doing some minor upgrades and renovations to the house, and now it's being rented for almost $1400 a month. The values in those areas have also gone up considerably since I bought it, and now I would estimate it's worth anywhere between two hundred and fifty thousand and two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. I still own it; I have no intention of ever selling it, and this was the deal that got me into real estate to begin with, and I have no intention of ever letting that one go.

Next, let's talk about my second rental property. This was another single-family residence that I bought just after the first one for seventy-two thousand dollars, and it was located in the exact same neighborhood. Now, here's how this all worked: when I first started looking at properties to buy, I only focused on a few small neighborhoods at a time that I felt were undervalued, I could easily manage myself and had good cash flow potential.

But there was a bit of a problem, if you even wanted to call it a problem to begin with, but every single property I was looking at was known as what's called a short sale. This is what commonly happened when the owner of a property has a mortgage on it that's higher than what the home is actually worth. So, for instance, the owner might owe 250 thousand dollars on a mortgage on a house that's only worth a hundred thousand dollars. In most of those cases, the owner can no longer afford to make the payment anymore, so they go to the bank and ask them for what's called short sale approval, meaning a bank will agree to sell it for someone else at a much lower price.

That way, the bank is going to be getting something back for that deal, whereas otherwise they would have to spend months or years foreclosing on the owner and then be stuck with the property that they would then have to resell at that time for only a fraction of the price. So a short sale really just forgave the seller of the debt and the bank was able to get the property off their books and get something for it, whereas otherwise they would just be stuck with it holding on to it.

However, getting a short sale approval like this usually takes at minimum months to over a year to get processed within the bank system. So the way it works is that a seller would list the property on the market, accept an offer, send that to the bank, and then wait months for the bank to get back to them as to whether or not they approve the price. In most cases, you would submit the offer and hear absolutely nothing for anywhere from 6 to 12 months, at which point the bank would usually get back to you and ask for a slightly higher price.

Then it's up to the buyer at that point whether or not they decide to move forward with it. If not, the buyer can choose to back out of the deal with no risk whatsoever, and now the bank has what's called short sale approval, which means the seller can go and sell that property at that price to someone else. So, I basically took this as an open invite to write as many low offers as possible, try to get as many accepted by the seller to then send to the bank, and then I would just wait for the bank to get back to me.

And then at that time, if it was a good enough deal for me to buy or not, the second property here was just one of those offers. In fact, I would pretty much make an offer on every single property that came on the market in this specific area, and then I would just wait to see which ones actually worked out, and thankfully this one did. It sold for seventy-two thousand dollars, I paid for it in cash, and it didn't need a lot of work, so I spent another eight thousand dollars fixing it up with new floors, paint, tile, and some landscape work.

And then after all was said and done, it rented out for eleven hundred and fifty dollars a month. Now, to this day, I still have the exact same tenant living there who’s been absolutely amazing—the best person to work with, has treated it as though it's their own, and I have never once raised the rent because of it. And now I would probably estimate the home is worth anywhere from two hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred and eighty thousand dollars, and again, I have no intention of ever selling it. I buy this real estate with the intention of keeping it forever.

Next, my third rental property is a three-unit triplex that I bought around the same time as the previous two, except this one was a lot more challenging. Now, like I said, it's a triplex, which means there are three units in that building. Each unit has two bedrooms, one bathroom, and each unit also has its own private garage. It was located really close by to the neighborhood of the first two and was originally listed for one hundred and five thousand dollars as a bank-owned short sale in March of 2012.

So, when I saw something like that come on the market, I just jumped on it. I offered the full price to the seller: one hundred five thousand dollars in cash, got the seller to sign off on it, and then I patiently waited for the bank to reply back and see whether or not they would actually approve this as a short sale. Now, months went by, and I ended up buying the first two by the time this one finally came back with short sale approval, except the bank didn't approve the price that I offered of one hundred five thousand dollars, and instead, the bank wanted one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

That price was over my budget; it was more than I thought the property was actually worth, and it needed renovation on top of it, so it was a financial stretch for me in every single way. I was also really strapped for cash because I had just purchased the first two properties and dumped most of my money in that, and I didn't have enough money left over to buy this one as well.

But this was also such a good opportunity; I didn't want to pass up, so I thought I could renegotiate the price with the bank and then find a way to come up with the extra money. But the thing was if the bank actually comes back and agrees to my price, I would only have about a week and a half to maybe two weeks to come up with the extra money to close the deal of money that I did not have.

So, in preparation of maybe being able to close this deal, I just chose to sell my car—the 2006 Lotus Elise—just so I could use that towards getting the triplex. To me, it was almost as though I sold my child with no guarantee the bank would even agree to sell me the property at the price I wanted, and if the deal didn't go through, that just meant I sold my car for no reason at all.

So as I was selling my car, I went back to the bank and offered a price of one hundred and ten thousand dollars and waited a few days, and then they countered back and said, nope, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars is how much we want. Then I came back with the price of one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars and sent them an inspection report showing just how much work the units needed, and one of the units was in complete disrepair.

The bank then came back with a very quick no: one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars is best and final; take it or leave it. And I remember thinking to myself at the time, this triplex is not worth any more than one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. I'm overpaying for this deal; I am stretching myself financially just to make it happen, and I need to pray that all my other tenants pay their rent on time; otherwise, I'm gonna have no money left over in my account, and I'm probably not gonna be able to pay any of my bills.

At the time, I seriously considered just cancelling the deal and walking away, overpaying ten thousand dollars more than I had originally wanted to. On the other hand, though, I didn't want to have sold my car for absolutely no reason, so I decided to suck it up and pay them an extra ten thousand dollars. Then, after closing on the property, it was another fifteen thousand dollars to bring up the units and remodel them, and then shortly after that, I got all three units rented, and it was bringing in, at the time, just over twenty-one hundred dollars a month.

Looking back, I am so thankful that deal ended up going through. I ended up getting it because since 2012, all three units have just been rented consistently, and now it's worth anywhere between three hundred and eighty thousand dollars and maybe four hundred thousand dollars.

Next, my fourth property was bought a few years later in 2016 for $780,000 here in West Los Angeles. Prior to this, my career as a real estate agent was doing really, really well, and for the most part, I was saving almost all of my income. A lot of those past tenants I was working with began buying real estate as the market turned around and values started going up, so at the time, I saw a huge boost in my commissions, and I figured now is the time I should just double down on everything.

Then by 2016, I noticed the demand for Los Angeles real estate began shifting further inland as more tech companies started moving to what's known as Silicon Beach. I wanted to find a way to capitalize on that, and here's kind of what I was seeing. In 2012, tech companies began moving to Venice Beach, California, and began driving up the prices for homes in Venice and surrounding areas of Santa Monica and Marina del Rey.

That caused all the nearby markets to see their prices increase as well as more and more businesses poured their money into it, and more and more people started moving in. I totally understand why because people began getting outpriced of areas like Venice, so they had to move a little bit outwards if they wanted to be close by. I saw this as an opportunity to buy in the path of that appreciation by strategically buying just one step outside the current interest, knowing that as things continued, my area was going to be the next to go up in value.

So, I ended up buying a home for seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars and then spending another sixty thousand dollars fixing it up. That includes a new roof, new flooring, new paint, new landscape, and a few other minor upgrades. I later ended up renting it out for about four thousand dollars a month, and then I just waited for the market to catch up to that area and for it to see some appreciation.

Sure enough, two years later, it did. Property values in the area began to climb as every other area west of it started getting more and more expensive, and that development started expanding further inland. Not to mention that Facebook and Google moved their headquarters within a mile away; Amazon just started their new production studios close by, and the entire area is seeing such a resurgence of value. Now, that property is worth just a little bit over 1.2 million dollars.

Then, on top of all of that, the other bonus with this house is that I was able to get a fixed-rate thirty-year mortgage on it at the low interest rate of—wait for it—three point three seven five percent. That was literally the very, very bottom of interest rates, and it was out of pure luck I was able to lock it in when I did. This means that after inflation and tax write-offs, it's essentially like they've just given me a thirty-year free loan.

Next, my fifth property that's part of my investment portfolio is the one I'm living in right now. It's a duplex I bought in 2017 for five hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars. From all my real estate investments, this one is easily the best because it's also known as the zero dollar home because I have zero dollars of my own money now invested in it. It cash flows, and I'm able to live here for pretty much completely free.

Now, at the time in 2017, I was looking for an income property around the mid-city area of Los Angeles for an investment. I really liked this area because it was close to nearby transit, there were several large new developments coming up, and it was only a 15-minute drive away from the beach. Plus, most importantly, it was one of the few areas left in Los Angeles where you could buy a property with a yard for under a million dollars, which sounds crazy to say, I get it, but that's just Los Angeles pricing; it is ridiculous.

But now, I'm not the only one with that same idea because properties like this are highly competitive, and usually, they're sold with multiple offers way over asking, and it's really difficult to find something—that was, of course, until this place came up. The property was priced under market value; it was being sold by an out-of-area investor who had no idea what he had, and the agent he used didn't really do a lot of research in terms of what the selling price should be.

So I swooped in and got my offer accepted before anyone else had a chance to see it. I estimate it was probably worth about six hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars by the time I bought it, and I ended up getting it for five hundred eighty-five thousand dollars. Now, the property definitely needed a lot of work, so I spent an additional eighty thousand dollars redoing the roof, some plumbing, some electrical, floors, walls, kitchen, bathroom—you name it.

And then, by the time I was done, I realized that wait a second, I can live in one of the units, and then the rent from the other unit would subsidize most of my cost of living here. Plus, I could use the garage as a tax write-off to film my videos in. Not to mention at the same time, I'm also building up equity in the property by paying down the mortgage. It didn't take too much convincing, and I moved in.

Then, one year later, I went back to the bank to reappraise the property because I wanted to do what's called the cash-out refinance. This meant the property was worth significantly more than what I had paid for it, which allows me to take out a larger loan and pull equity from the property, so I have more cash to go and reinvest elsewhere.

Long story short, the property was reappraised for nine hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, and that allowed me to pull out two hundred and thirty thousand dollars in cash absolutely tax-free, which was all the money I had spent investing in this place. And it was able to get a thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage at a low interest rate of 3.75 percent. Again, when you account for inflation and being able to write off that portion of the mortgage interest off the income of the other units, it's essentially as though I'm just getting a thirty-year loan for free money.

So, this was a property I was able to buy for five hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, spend eighty thousand dollars fixing it up, and now about two years later, it's worth nine hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, and it's in an area that's still going up and producing cash flow. I would probably say if I were to move out and have both of the units rented, it should bring in about forty-six hundred dollars a month, and that's its current market value.

My sixth property was purchased a little bit over a year ago, and it's yet another duplex. You guys know I love duplexes, and I paid eight hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars for it, and it's located in about the same area of mid-city Los Angeles. This is really one of those deals that I had no intention of buying. I wasn't really even in the market to buy a property, but I saw it online; it looked really interesting, and then I went to see it in person.

Once I saw it in person, I fell in love with it, and I just knew there was so much opportunity with this place, and I just had to have it. It was in a really good location close to the new Inglewood Stadium, close to the brand new Crenshaw Line which brings people to LAX, and close to several new developments going up in the area. Plus, the listing only advertised it as a 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom per unit when in actuality you could basically just call the den a second bedroom, and it had a second bathroom, which meant I could easily get an extra few hundred dollars a month in rent than what they were anticipating.

It meant it was worth more than they thought it was, so I went ahead and wrote an offer as to what I thought it was worth, which was their asking price of eight hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. But other people were also really quick, which meant that pretty soon, there were multiple offers on the property, and I was competing with several other buyers to try to get my offer accepted. I estimated that probably for the right person, they would pay close to nine hundred thousand to buy it because it's super charming; there's nothing else like it in the air, and it's the only legally zoned duplex on the entire street of single-family homes.

But with that, I stuck with my guns and I offered them eight hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars with the 100% guarantee that I would close the deal if they accept it. But unfortunately, they ended up getting a higher offer close to nine hundred thousand dollars. As I somewhat anticipated they would, they turned down my offer because of it.

But a few weeks went by after that, and that buyer ended up cancelling escrow, so then the seller went to the second highest offer, which was about eight hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, and that buyer also cancelled the escrow. So then a month after coming on the market, they came back to me—the seller came back and asked me to pay eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the units, and I said no, I'm just gonna stick with what I offered at eight hundred thirty-five thousand dollars; take it or leave it.

They ended up sitting on my offer for a few days; they came back at eight hundred and forty thousand dollars. I again said no, 835—this is the price. And then a few days later, they finally took it. In addition to that, I was able to get a really good mortgage on the property, which was a 30-year fixed-rate loan for three point six to five percent, which, like my other deals, is pretty much just like getting free money.

The property also went up in value a little bit over the last year, and now I would estimate it's probably worth about nine hundred thousand dollars, maybe give or take ten thousand dollars or so. So now in total, between all six, it's currently worth a little bit over four million dollars and produces just over fifteen thousand dollars a month in gross rental income, with me living in one of the units. Not to mention, I have not raised rents on several of those units all the way back since 2013, so I'm definitely not getting their full value's worth.

But I have great tenants who care for the property as if it's their own, who always pay on time, and I would much rather have them stay as long as they would like instead of going and trying to raise rent every month and try to squeeze out every last dollar. But I'm sure now you might be asking yourself, well where is the other two million dollars? Well, right now, an additional 1 million eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars is spread throughout several very safe, liquid investments and accounts that produce an average of a two percent return annually, which works out to be about $3,100 a month.

Yes, I know it seems like this absurd amount of money to keep on the sidelines, and you probably also want to know how I got the money in the first place and why it's there. Well, the truth is I robbed a bank—just kidding. This money is a combination of a recent cash chartres financed from the duplex that I mentioned earlier and also a year's worth of savings from all the money I made off of YouTube and also from my real estate sales commissions.

Like remember how I always talk about how I save all of my money and I try not to spend any of it? Well, yeah, there you go. And since I don't know just how long this type of income is going to last for, I figured I would just give myself one year to save up all of it, and then at the end of the year, I would make a safe, calculated decision with what I was going to do with it. So now it's been about a year later, and here I am.

And don't worry, I promise I'm gonna be doing another YouTube income breakdown towards the end of the year. I want to wait for December so I have this entire year's worth of numbers. That way, I could give you something that's really accurate and detailed for the entire year. But needless to say, this entire year has just been a dream come true, and I have surpassed everything I ever thought was possible or imaginable, and I'm just at a loss for words.

And my voice is starting to crack up right now, and I wanted to really treat this type of income very carefully because I'm not accustomed to earning this amount of money every month, and I wanted to be extra careful that I was gonna be safe with it and not blow it on anything stupid. I'm currently looking for a property here in Los Angeles that I feel is going to be a really good value and really good investment over the next 10 to 20 years. Now when that will happen and when they will find the right property, who knows? But I will keep you posted if and when that happens.

And lastly, would not be an investment portfolio without the infamous Roth IRA and 401k, and right now between the two accounts I have roughly a hundred thousand dollars in there. To me, this has really been a bit of an afterthought. I still do my best to contribute to Vanguard index funds in a total stock market index and an S&P 500 index, which by the way has done really, really well over the last few years with this recent stock market rally.

I've been contributing since 2012; I kept consistent with it, but it's no surprise that real estate has just taken my main focus. I like the extra control I get from managing the investment myself; I like the extra cash flow I could get, and I also like the tax benefits of owning real estate because, geez, I could really use all the tax benefits I can right now!

But regardless, I still do my best to keep index fund investing consistent. It's always a good idea to have a well-rounded portfolio, and I realize I should probably give this one just a little bit more attention, although I have a feeling you'll still be keeping real estate as my main focus and then just doing this secondary, and just doing it more so for some extra diversification.

So anyway, between all of those accounts and investments I just mentioned, it comes to a total of about six million dollars. I also have some other smaller taxable accounts as well that I hold individual stocks in, like with Tesla stock, for instance, but I felt it wasn't really going to be worth mentioning when it's so much smaller compared to everything else. And right now, I would say my main focus would be trying to make safer, less risky investments that I feel like are really gonna hold their value long-term.

I feel like it's somewhat hit the point where I don't need to take as much risk, and I would rather sacrifice some of the growth in exchange for getting a more predictable, stable return on my money. I have a feeling after this next property purchase, I'm probably just going to continue to save everything I make and just patiently wait for the next deal or opportunity to come up.

I've really taken a lot of inspiration from the Warren Buffett method of only buying when you find something of value and not any sooner. So there you have it—there is my entire investment portfolio for you to see, and I really hope it was helpful to see exactly how I invest my money, exactly what I look for, and where it all goes because, like I said, I find these videos for myself just incredibly valuable.

It's my intention to continue being as open as possible and show you that you don't need to start off with a whole bunch of money to build up a pretty sizable portfolio in your 20s. It all starts from something small—just finding work you really enjoy that pays well, living below your means, investing consistently, waiting to find value, having patience, and delayed gratification. And need I say it? Smashing the like button for the YouTube algorithm!

So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it, as always. If you guys enjoy videos like this, make sure to destroy the subscribe button and notification bells! YouTube notifies you anytime I post a video. Also, feel free to add me on Instagram; I post here pretty much daily, so if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to be a part of it there. And also, you should go and add me on my second channel that is called the Graham Stefan Show. I post there every single day I'm not posting here, so if you want to see a brand new video from me every single day, make sure to add yourself to that.

And lastly, if you guys want two free stocks, Webull is holding a promotion where if you deposit $100 at them, they're going to give you two free stocks, and one of those stocks is going to be valued up to $1,000. So if you guys are interested in that, the link is down below in the description. You may as well just deposit on your box, scoop up those free stocks, and what you decide to do after that is entirely up to you. So anyway, with that said, thank you so much for watching, and until next time!