[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Investor agent podcast. I'm Steve Seymour, your host, where we help transform the human mindset from scarcity and lack to abundance of wealth one conversation at a time.
Hey, guys. Steve Seymour here with the Investors Agents podcast. I have Ed Rogers from honest real estate. Ed, thanks for being in today, man.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So Ed and I actually met in our real estate brokers classes for Jersey, right?
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Yeah, back in 2019 or so.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: 2019. And it's been a little while. We haven't really connected, but I just reached out to Ed, check out, see what's going on in your world. So I always like to get someone's backstory. What got you into real estate in the first place?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Both my parents were actually in real estate when I was. When I was growing up, so I always tell the story. When I was eight years old, my dad had the cord phone in the house.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Stretching from kitchen, dining room, living room, back and forth, negotiating deals. So I'm 38 years old at this point. I tell people I'm 38 years old with 30 years of real estate experience.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: So you heard it. You were probably listening in on the conversations.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: And I have conversations now, and I'm like, man, I'm eight years old again. Because it's the same issues that we all deal with as agents.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: We're going to have to dive into that in a little bit.
All right, so fast forward, what year did you get into real estate?
[00:01:24] Speaker B: It was about.
I think it was 2007.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: I know. Not eight years old, but, you know.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I graduated high school 2003. Got my license about three, four years later.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Got it. Okay. And did you start off with just selling houses? Cause I know you invest as well.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: All right.
What did your sales business look like when you got started? Cause I want a lot of agents to know that, like, it's not an overnight success story. I mean, some people are. I'm not myself. I'm like you. I started in 2006. So what was your initial sales business like?
[00:01:56] Speaker B: So, when I originally got licensed, I had the fortunate side of working with my dad. So I kind of. He would. He would give me a deal here, a deal there. Taught me the hustle, the follow up with. With clients and things like that. So it was never, like, something where I came in and did 30 deals a year, but I think my first year, I probably did 7810 deals.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: That's a lot, right? For a brand new agent.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah, 21 years old.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: That's great experience, though.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think so, too.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah. It's amazing you had your dad as that catalyst to help help get you started in the industry where a lot of people don't have that, but it's amazing that you had that support.
So fast forward, tell us a little bit about what you're doing now as broker and owner of honest real estate. And also tell us a little bit about the background, why you chose that name and what your brand stands for.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: So coming up with the name, me and my wife were driving in the car, and I was working at another brokerage at this time, and I kept saying, I can't figure out a name. I'm thinking, should it be Rogers real estate? Should it be this real estate? And my wife looks at me and says, what's your biggest practice in real estate? And I say, honesty. And she goes, there you go. And I always laugh. Cause I'm like, honest real estate? I'm like, that's, like, cliche, right? Like, it's like, who. What salesperson is actually honest?
[00:03:20] Speaker A: So, yeah, I think a lot of realtors have that. You know, the consumer perceives us as used car salesmen, or, you know, that it's that bar. It's that low.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, we. I'm like, no way. That's like, that LLC is available, right? So the next we rush home, I go online, I'm like, holy hell. Like, honest real estate, LLC, is actually available. And I can actually make this our name, not a dBA or anything like that. So we get the LLC immediately and then just start moving forward at that point. So, yeah, it's like. And people always say, like, how honest are you? And I always tell the same story. I'm like, you can ask me any question you want, and I will literally tell you the honest truth, no matter. No matter the question. So. And it always freezes people up. People get scared to ask a question, they don't want the answer.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: You can't handle the truth.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: You can't. You don't want the truth.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: So, Ed, tell us a little bit about honest real estate. Now, you have your over 100 agents. What markets are you in?
[00:04:22] Speaker B: So we are licensed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey. We have two locations in northeast Philadelphia. Our main location is in the Parkwood section, which is, like, just inside of city limits. So just inside of Bucks county. We've been there about five and a half years, and then we recently, about six months ago, we opened up another location, the Bridesburg section of Philadelphia.
And we opened that because we've seen a demand of agents coming from different parts of the city. They wanted something a little bit closer to them. We identified that the neighborhood is on the path for, like, things to happen. So we kind of. We feel like we identified it in an early stage, and we were able to notice how many brokerages were there. And we said, hey, let's. Let's find a location and open up inside that neighborhood. So it's been good. I mean, we have some agents that live in that neighborhood, and we see it. We're starting to see a lot of traffic come through and new business and things like that.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: All right, cool. So I'm going to call you out on your honesty here, right here, now. So, you know, a lot of times we love to talk about our successes, right. And what I want to dive into is, you know, in all honesty, what have been some of your biggest challenges?
[00:05:35] Speaker B: I think. I think as we. As we grow, we're dealing with a lot of growing pains. So we. When I opened, it was just me. Then two days later, we have two more agents. And then we get up to a point where we're at about 115 or 120 agents right now. We keep an open door policy in our brokerage where we say, if you want to say something, we want you to say it. And we really feel like we've grown to the point we're at because of what everybody else is saying to us. So the biggest struggle is how do you take 115, 120 different opinions, figure out what is the best path to move forward? You might choose one person's side and say, hey, I like this path, let's go that way. But that might make somebody else a little bit upset. So we're trying to balance that out right now.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: It's hard to please everyone. Right. And everyone wants different things.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: It's very difficult. So, you know, that's. That's kind of like the hardest struggle, I think, at this point. But I think it's also got us to where we're at right now and where the future is going to, is.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Going to take us on that point. I think I heard a statistic for brokers. Their agents only use about 7%, or, you know, only about 7% of their agents in general typically use everything they offer. Right. So, like website, CRM training, all the different things.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: You know, and it's. So for you agents out there, us as brokers, the challenge is this person wants this. This person wants this. Everything has a cost. Right. And it's. If everyone's not utilizing it, everyone's kind of paying for it, in a sense.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: So that's I just wanted to throw that out there because it's one thing that we've challenged. We've. We've struggled with the same challenges that you've had.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: You just mentioned there what, um. So what do you, would you say has been, um, like, over the last few years, your biggest growing pain?
Because I know you. You grew pretty quickly over the last few years, right? That was your biggest growth curve.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Yeah, probably the last about two years or so.
We've really just started to pick up. Pick up some speed, and it was.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Just really just keeping up or, you know, I know you were mentioning what. What specifically? Like, if you could pinpoint the one thing that if it was out of the way, you guys could grow even faster.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: I don't know if there is just one thing.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: I gotcha.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: I don't know if there is one thing that we could just remove and grow even faster.
We maybe could add more things to help us grow even faster. Like, we don't. We actually don't recruit at all.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: We. It's all referral. We don't.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't have a recruiting department. We don't have a recruiter. I don't recruit. It's all based on just natural, organic conversations. You know, we have recruiting systems in place if agents recruit normally, but, you know, if we added something, it would probably grow even more.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Which is kind of scary.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Well, sometimes it's. It's good to grow organically because sometimes you scale too fast and, you know, like you said, you gotta have all the systems in the background.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And you always have to have your systems and processes like you think, like, what was good for us three years ago is now flawed today. So it's always analyzing what. What is that system as you grow, and you have to critique that. And I think just make it better as time goes on.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: Where do you see yourself taking this?
[00:09:04] Speaker B: I think it's more expansion based, more states, more locations, which will naturally just create more agents and things like that. I don't think there. I don't have an end goal plan in place at this point. I mean, 38 years old.
I just think it's. I think it's based on expansion, and expansion from within. We want to bring agents up that are with us. We don't. I struggle with bringing in an outsider for new. For new things. So it's like, hey, how do we get the people with us, make them better, better leaders, better agents, better?
[00:09:35] Speaker A: There's a lot of wisdom in that.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of the focus for us.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's great to hear from a business owner, too. A lot of times it's always like, let's go out and grow from the outside. But you're saying, let's grow internally, and then it'll manifest on the outside by helping our agents expand and grow.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: I've seen that happen during my real estate journey. I worked in the casino industry, so I seen people within trying to work to get to the next promotion. And then the casino would bring in an outsider and take that position, and it would, it would kind of like, discourage everybody within because everyone's working, showing up every day, trying to get there, and then an outsider just comes in and takes over.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I could see that.
So I know one thing that when I think back on the classes and just talking to you, probably the biggest thing that I remember is that you have a genuine heart for helping people. Correct. And I just wanted you to share a little bit about the benefits and the fulfillment that you get from helping out your agents.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: I think we all started at zero in this business. We all started with zero sales, zero properties. And fortunately, I had great mentors in the real estate world that have made me be able to see into the future with sales and properties and things like that. So being able to pass that information to somebody else and seeing them not believe in himself today, but then believe in himself tomorrow is huge for me because we all come from the same, the same place. It's just, how can we all help each other to get to the next stage as well? I think is. I think it's super beneficial.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's what I'm hearing in that is you really like to help people grow.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Grow to their next level. Something that they couldn't maybe achieve without you.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: I don't. I never look at, I never look at dollars. Never. Never. One time I think if you chase, chase a dollar, you're, you're going to fail. You're not, you don't have true intentions. So if you truly want to help people in all aspects of life, then it just naturally helps them become better.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: There's a lot of alignment there in the way, I think. And no one going out to look at houses with their agent cares about their agent's commission, they care about getting a house. Right. And that's how the agent needs to look at it. They're being of service to their client to help them achieve a result. And then if they achieve the result, they'll get paid. Right.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you achieve the result that that client wants because you listen to what they want. Imagine all the additional business that comes with that referrals. They come back to you to sell, to buy more, to buy investment properties. If you're a salesman and you're just pushing for the commission, I think you've lost.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: I agree. Yep.
So let's talk a little bit about the market because I'd love to get your thoughts on it.
Let's touch on your local market and then what you're seeing there in terms of inventory challenges for the buyers, challenges for the sellers.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: I think it's. So we're based in Philadelphia.
People say, how's the Philadelphia market? And I say it's neighborhood based. Right. So you have some neighborhoods where it's truly a seller's market because there's not a lot of inventory. Then you have other neighborhoods that are oversaturated with homes for sale, and it's more of a buyers market. So where we're located, it's literally neighborhood based, zip code based, we say, and you have to know that specific neighborhood, that market, to determine how to price it. If you're on the listing side or how to make an offer, if you're on the buyer side, I think it's really hard to determine the overall market. It's just neighborhoods.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: What are the biggest challenges your agents have currently with the local market and market conditions as well?
[00:13:20] Speaker B: I think you're seeing the buyers still say interest rates, still scared of things like that. So it's holding buyers back because where we're located, you could have one zip code that is not as nice. And then you go over, we say zip codes, neighborhoods. You go over two neighborhoods, and it's where people want to live, but now they can't afford because of interest rates. So we're having buyers that want to live here, but they can only afford.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Here, setting realistic expectations.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So they're like, hey, I want to move from here and I want to move there. And some of these people we deal with, they don't move an hour away. They move five minutes away from, from their parents homes and things like that. So, you know, it's, they want to afford one thing, but the interest rate says they cannot afford it. And then the buyers just say, well, I'm not going to buy in this same area where I'm at. I'd rather just wait until rates come down and things like that.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: I got you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we can see that. I think it's a little different. We're out in the suburbs, but for the most part, the same thing applies. Every neighborhood's different and you know you're going to see a different level of inventory as a whole. Would you say there's still a shortage of inventory where you're at most of the markets that you're in?
[00:14:29] Speaker B: I would say yes. Yeah, I would definitely say for sure.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: And with we're in early May of 2024 right now. Are you guys seeing the spring market, man?
[00:14:40] Speaker B: It's May, actually.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: I know, I forgot about that. Year's flying by. Are you guys seeing it pick up a little bit?
[00:14:47] Speaker B: We noticed a pickup in beginning of April.
We started seeing multiple offers on properties for listing side over asking. We've actually been seeing waiver of appraisal offers come back in the beginning of April, which we didn't kind of see through the winter market. So it's definitely come back even from our company on a buyer side, where we deal with a lot of city of Philadelphia grants and PHFA grants and things like that. All these buyers that are coming back out are, there's new grants coming out in the spring market. So they're qualifying for those grants, which are now putting more buyers into the marketplace, too.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: So as a whole, you're seeing there's more of a still shortage of inventory buyers moving back into the market. A little pickup in early spring, in early April, and some of these multiple offer situations coming back from a little bit of not only say slowdown, but not as crazy as it was. So it's almost like we were returning back to where we were a few years ago, maybe. I don't want to say that intense, but at least, and I'm speaking from our experience as well, like, we're seeing much more activity recently and buyers getting out there, I think it may have something to do with it. People have come to terms with the fact that the rates aren't going to just drop, so they're not waiting anymore. I don't know. What's your thoughts on that?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: I actually explained to people, and I don't think people understand this. When those rates were 3% to me, they say those rates were historically low. And when you say historically low, to me that means a 3% rate will never happen again in my lifetime. And when you look at the national average of an interest rate, what is it, 6%, 7%, seven?
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So I actually tell buyers and we try to educate them and say, hey, where the rates are now are actually the average. Like, you're going to have eight, 9%, you're going to have four or 5%. So the average is six or seven. But I think we, we came out of a. We were in a market where that's all people think about.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: Right. It was such a drastic shift that it kind of put the brakes on.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: And now I think people are recognizing that this is what, this is what it is.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: And it should come back down a little bit over some time, but nothing too drastic, at least in my opinion.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you're, you're an investor, from what I know, I mean, I. I took advantage of 3% interest rates from an investor side where I was able to reach in and pull equity out of properties at 3%, three and a quarter percent to leverage into other real estate as well.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah. It was a great time to refinance.
Let's shift the topic to that, because the whole point of this podcast is it's the investors agent podcast, and to transform the human mindset from scarcity and lack to abundance and wealth. So really, the intention behind this is that we share bits of wisdom to help anyone listening really transition from that feeling of not having enough to feeling like you're really building something for generational wealth for your family and to have the life of your dreams. So, with that said, can you agree with me that the wealth is really created on the investing side?
[00:18:00] Speaker B: 100%.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: All right.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: 100%.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: He's been in this since he was eight. Right. You know, and you see, I mean, absolutely, sales are great, great way to feed your family, make a living. You can do very well with it. So I don't want to discount it in any way, shape or form, but watching investors over time compared to agents over time, what I've seen is that the investors that really double down on buying and holding, they create massive amounts of generational wealth. So I would just love to get your thoughts on investing in real estate as a whole and what you've done in the past and what you're looking to do now.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: I think the real estate, for me is you do the sales. To put that money into the real estate, you have to make money somewhere. So it's like, hey, you chase the sales and you can get rich off of sales, you can make good money, but I don't think you ever get wealthy on constantly chasing a new sale. Wealth is created by sitting on the beach and collecting earning income without actually working for it, in my opinion.
I've identified that years ago. I think for me, and it's like, hey, you don't have to, you don't have to have $100 million portfolio. You just have to determine how much income do I need when I go to retire? How much rental income, how much passive income, how much can I get? These mortgages paid off by a certain time to help with retirement, things like that. So I think people focus on getting to, you know, 100 million in real estate, but they're never going to get there, most people. So I'm like, I always tell people, if you're investing, just start with one. Start with one property today. One rental property. Once you get that, you can figure out your hurdles, go to the next property, and just constantly grow that way. And I think if you can say, like, we, we have some investors that they say, hey, I want to have 15,000 a month in rental income coming in when I go to retire. How can I get there? And it's 15,000 a month is a lot of money for a lot of people. Right. So it's like, okay, if you start here, that's how you can get there.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Yeah. I love your thought process on it because it's, you know, it's, it's much more achievable for many people than you think, getting into it. And I love going to the angle, like, what's, what's the angle for the passive income number.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: So that you can live off of that.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: And let's back into it. And how many rentals do you need and what does that look like? And how much cash flow on a monthly basis?
[00:20:26] Speaker B: And I have a lot of friends that are in the union trades, electricians, plumbers. And the conversation with them is, hey, when you retire, working in the union for 30 years, what is your pension? And they go, it's going to be this much money per month. And I say, okay, if you can add over time, another 510 15 rental properties. Now look at what your monthly income becomes when you retire as well. And it kind of opens up the eyes for a lot of people because they don't think about it that way.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Yep, absolutely.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: You know, that's kind of my focus is educating, educating them, you know? And for me as an investor, I have a number that I need if, when I go to retire.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Right. I'm sure you don't want to be putting open house signs in the yard at 72 years old, right.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: I plan to retire when I'm 40, but that's not going to happen anymore.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: You got two years, so you can make it happen.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:19] Speaker A: You can't retire. You need to help more agents out there. Right. So, so with, with investing, what, like, do you did you flip as well? Or do you mainly just buy, rent, buy and hold? What. What does it look like for you?
[00:21:32] Speaker B: A little bit of both. So, the first property.
I was getting nervous when I tell this story. So the first property I actually purchased was. Was in West Atlantic City, like Egg Harbor Township. And I bought that at the last market crash. So I started out buying a property in west atlantic city with a no doc adjustable rate loan. And literally, the day I settled, the values dropped. $100,000.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: In my mind, that's what happened. So the values dropped, the rate adjusted, went up, and it got to a point where I was 22, 23 years old in that range.
I just.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: A perfect age to take a punch, though, right?
[00:22:17] Speaker B: I get sucker punched. So we. I say we. I decided to stop making mortgage payments. Like, I should have never got the loan. It was. I was so young. You gave me a loan for 300 grand. I was literally making nothing that could afford that loan.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it was no doc. So.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah, so they way.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: To anyone.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: So I actually got punched, and I said, I learned so much from that because I started to understand. I needed to understand. That's what I got from that message.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: And what a great lesson at such a young age, man, God bless me.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: I'll still bless myself.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: I know you can feel the trauma, right? It's just like, ah.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: So, like, I. But I learned, too. Like, hey, if something really bad happens to your credit or, you know, it's not gonna kill you. So people get so scared of what. What happens if I. If I do invest and I. And I don't make it? You're not gonna go to jail, right? You're not gonna die. You're just gonna learn a lesson. You're gonna fail, and then you're gonna become better. So me taking that punch in the face so young actually was able to catapult me, I think, into the future with understanding. You know, you need to put your cards in the right places.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: So answer this honestly, all right? Are you grateful for that experience?
[00:23:30] Speaker B: I am now.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, truly.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Truly. Yeah. Yeah. So when it. So we paid. I say, wait, I think I paid 360 grand for that. When it went to foreclosure. It sold for, like, 120 at the foreclosure. So, you know, and there was. There was fears of, you know, the deficiency judgment and stuff.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Right. All that stuff. Yeah.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Luckily, I never got hit with any of that, and they kind of just washed our hands of it.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: What was the time? Where it's happening everywhere. Right. So it wasn't. It's not like you were alone, right? Many people were losing their shirt left and right during that market.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So we recoup. Me, my wife recouped, we. We fix my credit, essentially.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: I bet you it's made you a little more conservative, though, and look at things a little differently. Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: I still wear the same clothes from ten years ago, so. Purpose, because I'm scared to spend the money.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: That's all right, you know?
[00:24:20] Speaker B: But from there, I mean, we learned. And then we, we started investing in Philly, you know, we started buying multifamily, you know, we started buying single families. I was buying. Started buying flips right away, I was buying flips. And some people were like, you know, why are you buying a flip, you know, in this neighborhood? I'm like, hey, if I can put money here, cost me this renovation, and I can make x, why would I not do that? And I don't think a lot of people identified that you can do it, you know, and until. Until they started seeing it happen, so.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Yeah, and I bet you did well, because, you know, lots of different neighborhoods in Philly has gone up significantly over the last few years.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And luckily for us, I mean, I don't have this gigantic rental portfolio or anything. I mean, to some people, it's a lot, but I don't think it's anything crazy. But we bought things for so cheap ten years ago, and then when those rates were 3%, three and a quarter, I was able to take the cash out, you know, tax free, which most people don't understand that and leverage that into more multifamily properties and things. So it definitely paid off.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Yeah. That's great. Um, so why don't you dive into that a little bit? Just about the. The whole burr strategy. And I mean, maybe, maybe that's not brrrr, because I don't know if you renovated them or not, but the whole pulling money out tax free or tax deferred, however you want to call it. Yeah.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: I mean, do you? So, essentially, like, if we want to talk about burr, like, I have a couple properties in the port Richmond section of Philadelphia. Um, I paid cash for them, so I bought them. I went in there, I renovated them. Um, I rented them. So I had no mortgages on these places. I bought, renovated, rented, and then I refinanced. And when I refinanced, I was able to take out my initial purchase, my renovation cost, get all that money back into my pocket and completely tax free.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: So you only pay capital gains tax on investment properties when you sell them.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: Right. So not on debt.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So you. I took the money out at a three and a quarter interest rate. So. So now I have, like, a mortgage on that property. It's a month. I have a totally renovated property that I get $1,750 a month for cash flow. $750 a month cash flow. The tenants pay all utilities. I mean, you know, so you. You're completely in your pocket for all of your out of pocket expenses, and then your cash flowing. $750 a month. And I think the advantages that people don't understand is, as time now goes on, your tenant is paying your mortgage down. Right. With those payments. They're paying you rent, you're paying the mortgage. The mortgage balance is going down, and inflation is still happening, so the value is still increasing. So now I have more of a gap between what I owe and what it's worth. And you can essentially reach in and grab more equity out at that point if you want to. Which, to me, if I could go back in time, like, I never would have sold any properties.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: I feel you on that one.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Because I don't think I understood it at a certain age, but as time goes on, you're just creating a bigger equity gap, and then you could just reach in and take out more money, and you could pay for kids college, you could pay for second home. Like, whatever you decide to do with that money, just make sure you're smart with the money. For the record, don't mess this up.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah. You gotta. If you're gonna take the debt out, you wanna redeploy that debt into another investment. And an investment being something that brings in cash flow.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, we see people all the time. They. They sell property and then go on vacation. I'm like, what are you doing?
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Like, it doesn't make sense.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Gotta live your life, too, but, you know. Yeah, I know what you're saying.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: So, Ed, where do you see yourself taking your. Your brokerage? I know you said you don't really have any angle in mind expanding different markets, but, you know, with. With the brokerage and investing, like, what. What is your big. What's your bhag? What's your big, hairy, audacious goal for Ed Rodgers?
[00:28:16] Speaker B: There is no one actual goal.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: There's none. Okay.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: There's no. There's no end game for me at this point. You know, there's things in my mind, but there's nothing that I've officially committed to. I gotcha. You know, my. My ultimate goal is to truly help people understand that, you know, we can all do this together. So I don't, that's a, that's a.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: Fantastic one right there.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think some people, you know, you think, hey, I'm going to open a brokerage, I'm going to build it to a certain point and I'm going to sell it and become whatever. And I don't, I don't think about it that way. Like, I'm still young, I'm still looking into the future. At this point. I can't see myself doing anything else except for what I'm doing right now. It's not like I want to leave the real estate game and then go do something else. This is what I truly want to do. And I've learned that through the years of quitting real estate, getting back into it and stuff.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: So. Yeah, you know, yeah, I'm sure anyone in real estate for any number of years has thought about quitting at some point. So if you're, if you're listening and you're in real estate, just know you're not alone. If you think about quitting, don't quit. Don't quit. Stick it out. I mean, we're right around the same time. I'm coming up on 17 years in the business, too. So it's, it's, it's the long game, but it does get better over time. And yes, it's not a straight line, there's bumps in the road, but if you love it, stay in it.
[00:29:34] Speaker B: If you don't, I think it gets better as time goes on. Like you had mentioned earlier, the systems that your brokerage can offer. So if you utilize what your brokerage can give you, the CRM systems and stuff like that, and you use them correctly as time goes on, just like anything else, you're putting people in here, you're nurturing these leads. They're going to come back to you. They're going to stay in touch with them after they buy a home or sell home, they're going to come back to you again. So as time goes on, it does get easier if you use the brokerage that are in place for you.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: So leveraging people, processes and technology. Right?
[00:30:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: All right, so any, I know you said you had some mentors in the past. Anything that really sticks out from you for all the things you've learned, either through mentorship or trainings or reading or whatever it may be, that could help a listener either get into real estate or scale up in real estate, my.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Biggest thing is showing up every day. So when I did go all in, in real estate, somebody who taught me a lot in this business, I was like, if you could give me one piece of advice, what would it be? He said, show up every single day. And if you don't show up every day, how do you get better? So, and I stay true to that because you can, you can identify all these things you want to do, but if you don't show up, you're not going to do anything. And that's what I stay true to.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, any last words of wisdom before we wrap up?
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Nothing specific. No, I don't think so. I mean, I think it's just keeps.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: It honest and real.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Real simple.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: I don't want to, I don't want to b's, anybody. It's just, you just got to get up and, and just do it work and just get to it and figure it out as time goes on. If you, if you are sitting home thinking, I'm going to do this tomorrow and you haven't done anything, it's not going to work. If you say, I'm going to, I'm going to own 100 rental properties or 100 doors, it's not just going to happen overnight. It takes time. It takes time to build. It takes trials and tribulations. And the only way to do it is to just, just do it every single day. So.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate the, appreciate all the direct, honest words of wisdom here from Ed Rogers, honest real estate. Ed, what's the best way for people to reach out to you?
[00:31:53] Speaker B: I always give my cell phone number out. So my number is 267-231-7212 if you want to check out our brokerage a little bit, you can just google us honest real estate, honestrealestate.com dot, you can, should be able to easily find us.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thanks for being on. Hope you guys enjoyed the show and got some words of wisdom. Thanks.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: Thank you, man. Appreciate it.
[00:32:14] Speaker A: Thank you for tuning into the investor agent podcast today. We hope you found it valuable. Please tune in
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