91. Ushering in a Year of Growth: Mastering Real Estate and Personal Goals for 2024

You've got to have some sort of direction . You've got to make sure that you put that down on paper so that you can look back at the end of this year and say , hey , I've achieved what I set out to achieve 424 .

But in this first meeting of the year , it's going to be an open session and we're just going to talk about what we have coming up this year , some of the goals that we've set for this year and also some of the guests that we're going to be bringing on for the year .

And so I'm going to kick it first to Leibon how you doing , doing quite well , doing quite well .

I can hear you now , Okay , awesome , I was going to say I noticed you also had a kind of spread out category list of kind of the different kinds of goals and different parts of your life . Do you typically Was that something you thought about , or was that more so just a kind of happen to fall into place naturally ?

Or did you kind of sit down and say I want to focus on all aspects of my life , not just this one thing ?

Or before I had a serious girlfriend , fiance , then wife , if it wasn't a portion of it , that was actually like , hey , I want to spend this much time with my partner and I want to go on these walks , things that nature . But once you do have one , if you're not intentional about what you're doing here , you can quickly start to grow apart .

Same thing with business partners and things that nature . So , long story short , it's evolved . My goals used to be something as simple as hey , I want to save X amount this year , I want to achieve X amount from an income standpoint and I want to get to a gym X amount of days . Now I have it broken out into multiple areas .

One is spiritually , and I try to set goals around actions . So it's not hey , I want to be more spiritual , because what does that mean ? That's kind of hard to quantify .

But hey , every time I'm in Atlanta , I want to go to church , our main church that we go to , and I want to make sure that I start to serve in church and so late last year what I did was I signed up to help in the shuttle ministry and so if you're at Victory , midtown , you may see me actually driving the shuttle sometimes to kind of get people around .

I was actually doing that this past weekend . But like that type of stuff , to be intentional about it . And then when you talk about , like some of the fitness goals , yes , I want to hit X amount of pounds and be X amount of body fat , but what does that mean ? It's , hey , it's about your eating and how you work out . And so I set a couple goals .

One I don't want to eat past 8pm , right , because then you're going to sleep and then it's kind of digesting all night . It's not good for you . And then I want to do intermittent fasting , so I'm only eating during a certain time period and then it digests and you kind of you're able to get that outset . That's a piece .

But then for a workout perspective , I want to work out five days a week , because I know if I do that and then I do the eating stuff , I'm going to hit the goals . And so it kind of evolved over time , long story short , and now set in all these different categories , whether it be business , whether it be personal relationships , spiritual , financially .

I just list them all out and then I keep it a printed copy , on my desk so I can see how I'm doing throughout the year .

So if you're saying , hey , you know , I want to learn , like , for instance , me , one of the things I have hobby wise is I wanted to choose a hobby and I was like , okay , let's pick an instrument , because I feel like we can learn an instrument pretty decently if you spend a lot of time . So I chose guitar .

So I was like , okay , it's not just enough to just have it . I got to put it somewhere where I can see it . It's not just enough to see it . I got to block out time to do it . So I was like , okay , I can do it before I go to sleep or when I'm waking up , because it's right there next to my bed .

So I basically did that and the amount of progress you can make . I don't know if you ever heard of the 20 hour rule .

No , so it's essentially if you spend 20 hours on any skill , you become pretty intermediate at it , and so I was very , I guess , disciplined in just the time that I set Right , and within , like I would say , three to two hours , three hours , I was very much able to strum out something that sounded like a song .

It wasn't just jibberish , it was like oh , this is legible , we understand what he's saying here , and so that's , I think , just showing if you're consistent about it and you set aside , because I could have just easily laissez-fairelly picked it up , but I think setting the time to do it is most important . So we did that with the rest of them .

So this is the first time I've done it with everything , to where now I really planned a day on . Okay , of course there's gonna be craziness , but all throughout that , if I'm just having free time , let's be productive about it .

But a side note I haven't heard of the 20 hour rule , right , but I have heard of the 10,000 hour rule , right . I'm sure you've probably heard of it right as well , and so intermediate's cool , but we're shooting for mastery , and so 10,000 hours in anything , you become a master .

That's why when you see in karate and things that nature which I never took karate , but I get it black belts are literally the same as white belts . They've just practiced the same move 10,000 times , and so now they can hit it in their sleep , right , and so the same thing when it comes to even like your goals and in your career .

I would just say a word of advice for everybody out there just give yourself some grace , right , Set goals for this year , but then also I didn't even mention this before I also set long-term goals for five years , three years from now , so that you know where you're gonna go , right , Like , hey , I'm setting goals for this year because of where we wanna be five

years from now , right and kind of what we wanna accomplish , and give yourself grace to make mistakes and get better along the way . There's gonna be opportunities that pop up that you could not even forecast or plan out , and so you do wanna set goals and kind of have a general plan , but you've gotta give yourself grace to take amazing opportunities 100% .

So I think that so far , trusting the process really is what I say is the most important thing for me right now and that's what I gotta practice this year .

We've got some developers around the area , we've got some flippers , we've got some other investors from around the country that are gonna be joining , just so we can hear their story and understand how we can get started and continue to grow in our portfolio .

Plus , we're gonna be reaching out to some of our clients that have grown quickly to see if they can join as well and kind of share their story . And then we're gonna be trying to expand the group .

We wanna make sure that this is bringing value to everybody and that you're able to tap into even the Facebook group right , and ask questions and learn from each other in a safe space , and tap into even the different social medias that we have and be able to engage with each other so that we can all sharpen each other's iron right iron , sharpen's iron and get

better and achieve our financial freedom goals . So I'm excited for 24 . I think last year was a year of consistently putting out and having our weekly meetings , and this year is gonna be taken it to a next level to ensure that we're giving a lot of value to you and those that continue to join on a weekly basis . But I'm excited .

Oh , and one other piece you're also gonna see a lot more of Leabon right as the co-host here , and so when we're interviewing individuals , more times than not it's gonna be both of us kind of handling that piece , and Leabon's gonna be bringing on some individuals within his network as well that we can interview too . So super excited .

And , desmond , we're gonna get that to you here shortly .

Yeah , I can hear you , okay . And so the reasoning for that is that was the only time that I had available right when I wasn't working the W-2 , and I could actually sneak away and put and kind of focus on this piece .

And so during the day I'd be so busy doing the W-2 as well as doing some real estate on the side that I didn't actually have time to hop on the phone for 30 minutes or an hour , right .

And so I set aside this time and started just a weekly meeting where I'd sort of like tell people like hey , join this and we can talk as long as you want on whatever topic that you want and really give you full answers , as opposed to the quick ones I give during the week , because I just know like , hey , no , this is how it goes .

Now we can kind of elaborate . And then it evolved into something where we started to post this and turned it into a podcast so that those that are not able to join every week can still get that information , feel like they're a part of this community and kind of grow it from there . So that's kind of the origin story . It was started off as a mastermind .

That was a necessity so I could actually follow up on conversations during the week , and it turned into something that now we're bringing on other guests and kind of learning , and I'm learning along with you as well .

It reminds me a lot of kind of David Green's team and how he's built that with individuals and things that nature . But do you mind sharing just a high level of even how we met ?

And so I wanted to do something different , because that niche you don't really learn much and it's very easy to get bogged down . You don't really know how to invest in it yourself , you don't learn . It's essentially more so like a sales job than it is more so real estate . And so I decided , hey , you know , let's see what we can do .

Switch and I went on bigger pockets because I wanted to work with an investor friendly realtor , because I figured who better to teach than someone who helps investors ? So from that point on , went through a couple of people and I saw , ne , he actually owned stuff .

He was relatively , I guess I didn't see a large team because I didn't want to join just a huge , huge team . And so literally saw that he had his phone number and was like hey , reach out to me , here's my number , text me , texted it like , gave me the auto message , you know , book a time .

I booked a time and then , literally , we just met 15 minutes on Zoom . He asked me who are you ?

now . We'll just put it like that . Right , so you definitely went through some of the pains of trying to figure out how we could actually build this thing , but it's incredible what you can do in a year and I just want those that are listening in the audience to take from that .

You got to go after what you want , like , if there's an opportunity or a deal or something that you're looking for , the time is now . It's not tomorrow , right , tomorrow never comes .

It's not yesterday , because that's already gone , but it's today and so don't be afraid to reach out , to connect and to go after what you're looking for , because it can lead to amazing opportunities , and I have countless stories of doing the same right when I was a rep at Baxter , I was a new like quote unquote green rep and the Boston position opened up and

this is one that heard and heard that was revered and things that nature . And you know , at the time you may have questioned hey , would I even get considered for this role ? Right , haven't been at the company only less than three years .

But it's one where I reached out to all the individuals I know as well as that manager , and just started peppering , peppering , peppering . Hey , da , da , da , da da . What if I did this ? And here's what I've done .

Let me put everything together and , long story short , that being able to win that position and then win a couple of deals up there changed my life . Same thing from a real estate perspective right , I was actually it's funny enough so the first mentor that I had when I became a realtor down here .

I actually sought out that mentor because I was in like a training course or like auditorium in that virtual world with the EXP , and the person at the front was killing it . Like the training was amazing . I'm taking down notes . Can it take it down fast enough ? And so after the call , I'm like hold up , I need to reach out .

So I reached out , end up , getting on the line with her and said , hey , could you please like help mentor me , cause I'm struggling with , like some of these documents I don't know exactly . I got to get the general idea and how to negotiate , but the documents and things of that nature and like legally I need some help .

And so she became my mentor right , my official mentor . And so you do need to get over that fear . We'll call it and just reach out . When you have a goal that you're trying to achieve , whether that be a deal or an individual , just do it . Worst they could say is no .

Anything from true anything from those on the line , any questions , any comments , anything that's top of mind for you heading in or kicking off the new year . Please feel free to drop it in the chat and or join via the live call in . Keep in mind , if you're joining via the live call in , you've got to do it from a computer .

That will not allow you to do it from a phone . Fair enough . Happy new year , aj . Happy new year , man .

And to see it go from a team of two , right , you and me to a team of three to now a team of eight is incredible . And what I love the most is we actually just posted a picture on the Acapahome Instagram , right , and you can see the full team kind of at the at the mansion , you know , celebrating heading into 2024 .

And what I love the most is that everybody smiling in the pic that we posted . But it's genuinely fun to be around the group , but , legit , I was laughing and dying and like my ribs were hurting while we were all sitting around the table waiting for pictures to get taken and individuals and things that nature , and so I just love the chemistry .

It makes this really fun because you do go through some things , right , there's , you know , there's some real things that you got to deal with , to have egos and things that nature and all stuff Not always sunny and the motions and whatnot .

It's definitely not always sunny , but it's worth it , and it's fun when you have a group of individuals that are striving alongside you . I'm going to flip that question back on you , though . What is a major thing or what was a big surprise for 2023 for you ?

So that , I guess , was my biggest surprise , pleasant surprise . Hey , I'm not complaining , come on now .

after a year of increase , increase , increase , steadily , staying the same in order to declining a little bit , I mean we just did a closing , yesterday as well as today , on two different products .

One was the 5% down multifamily loan , which is a new thing that came into effect in November of last year , so we're able to successfully get one through there really two now through there and the other a DSCR loan with interest rate that's the lowest that I've seen in a long , long time , and so there's going to be plenty of opportunities for our clients to

get out there and make something happen . And then also , especially right in this time period before it gets to March , there's still opportunities to negotiate for deals that have been sitting kind of still on the market .

And so , for example I think Leibon , we were talking about it earlier today or you heard some of the conversations right Working through a sub-two deal I think we've talked about that before but that's one where we're actively working to get that paperwork signed .

We had to work through a couple of hiccups this week , but we're back on track to get that thing signed and lock that up , and that would not be possible if we were still in the 2020 , 2021 market , so super excited for that . Looking forward , what is something that you're excited for in 2024 ?

And then , more so work-wise , I'm really excited because this is the first time , it's really just full go , and I'm really curious just to see because I'm personally I wanna do 10 , because I hit seven this year . Right , so if I hit seven I can , maybe , probably will , hit 10 .

And so I think that's very achievable If I just , to your point , have the consistency .

Okay , I'm gonna kick it to you one last time , leobond Anything that's top of mind or a topic or things that you wanna discuss on this first call .

But as far as I know , nothing's changed from an ordinance standpoint in Fulton County and I think I talked about it before . But Cobb County is super easy , by the way . So if you ever looking at , like you know , marietta , things that nature , it's not hard at all . You've gotten a couple licenses . There's not all that talk of occupying or anything like that .

You just pay like a $55 check , fill out some documentation , send some letters and you're good to go . Aj , how you doing , man ? What's going on , fellas ?

So I just cherish that time because it's just a time for me to reset and not really think about all the busyness that goes on throughout the year and then that allows me to kind of get a clear mental for the upcoming year , which is today now , and just be able to attack it . So I think I'm ready for it . I don't think I'm ready .

I know I'm ready for it . Come on now . There you go .

There's a few different categories that we go over , but we kind of just run through a list of them , and I think that's extremely important , especially when you are in a committed relationship . I'm a husband , she's a wife , and we have that union and I look at it as like a business .

Of course we love each other and everything , but we have to act as if we're an actual business and do the proper planning together , because I feel like if you don't actually do that and you just kind of say , oh , I want to do this , or just kind of put it out there without actually planning for it , you don't really get anywhere .

So we spent some time in December , just a couple of weeks ago , actually just jotting some things down , getting our minds prepared and talking about what we want to actually go after in 2024 . So , for sure , every year we try to make it a thing and we actually try to follow up on it throughout the year too .

And you do got to systematize it , because it's very easy to just become basically roommates right to where it's like hey , I'm not focused , I don't know about you , I can get super focused on like hey I want to grow this thing and kind of go to the moon and then start to forget , like other pieces , and so that's actually a build goals in for that .

Like , hey , that walk after work , right , that's huge , because now we can talk , kind of catch up on the day and we're walking around , get some exercise . It's good , right . And then also , I have a thing on my calendar for once a month , and she has one in her calendar as well .

At least once every two weeks we're doing some sort of sort of date night activity , right . So I'm responsible for once a month . And then there's other things that will pop up . She's responsible to pick up one for once a month , and so I've got mine for January , right , I've already got one in mind for February and I have to , like , put it down .

It's not that it's not spontaneous , right , you still want to create some spontaneity with it , but I have to . I got to document some things , otherwise it's going to slip right In my mind .

So I can't even well , I can mention on here , because she's not going to see this and she's not , she can't hear me , she's , she's up .

So we'll be there for six days , hang on the beach , beautiful weather , go surfing , things , that nature , so . So that'll be the birthday gift , right ? And then next month it's going to be a lot more low key .

I'm thinking like a road trip to to Louisville to go see the storage unit , but to also spend some time and kind of hang out there as well , but to see the storage unit to make sure those are good .

But I've always been , you know , tuning in to bigger pockets and kind of those channels on YouTube , things of what not . So , um , I'm kind of just right now I'm looking to see where things are planning to shift in terms of , you know , the real estate market . I know you kind of briefly talked about the interest rates being at a hold .

The Fed , I think they met more recently and you know they kind of talked about , you know they're going to slow up a little bit on the interest rate hikes .

So right now I'm kind of just keeping my ears open , listening to a lot of different strategies , but I want to be able to attack when the time is right and , just in the meantime , gather as much information as I can so that I don't have to spend time getting ready , and when the opportunity comes , whatever presents itself , I can , you know , get out on the

playing field and play a couple of cards .

Can I knock out some of , like the cards used for different BNBs and things that nature ? Can I start to just shore up everything to where , when opportunities pop up later this year , I'm ready to rock ? So I think we're in the same boat from that standpoint .

I've been a short term rental host now for about six months around six months and I think every month is just a learning experience and it's a headache when you have to deal with it , but at the same time , I feel like I'm just building up my domain knowledge and over time , as time goes on , I feel a lot stronger and I'll be more decisive in decision making

when the problems do arise , because they're going to arise . Real estate is always different kinds of problems .

I think the best way to work on defense , especially in real estate , is just not trying to prevent issues they're going to come about but just practice risk mitigation in the best way possible so that when those problems do happen , you're not sweating it out too much .

You're just like , hey , I have a process for this , this is how you handle it and then move accordingly . That's great . If that makes sense .

But you know , I think , especially early on when you're still , I still feel like I have a lot of knowledge with real estate , but you know , I still feel like I'm have so much more to know of and grow .

And I feel like you know , anytime you get those first couple of deals , no matter how long you plan for them , there's always gonna be that kind of excitement or just like wow , like this really happened . And I think the second deal is is like really a significant one , because the first one you go through so much to Do and get .

But then now it's all about scale after that first one . So , for you know , my wife and I to be able to come together , save our funds , do everything According to process , not only once but a second time . I think that was just a testament to our dedication and commitment to a process and and that was just like really exciting for us .

So , definitely , get into the second home was a was a huge accomplishment , but I'm always looking forward to the next thing . So I'll be excited to see what we can accomplish in 2024 , but definitely last year was I was probably say getting that second deal .

I think the first house , you know it's kind of dipping your toe in hey , do we like this thing ? Right , I did the same . Everybody's gotta get that first one .

But once you get the second one and you're able to take some of those learnings from the first one , carry it over and then carry the learnings from the second one to the next one , now you're building a portfolio and you are a full-on investor , which is awesome .

I know you have a couple properties under your belt , but okay , the first one is difficult because you have to go over the fear of , you know , getting the first one and out the way the second one feel like is what , it's not too bad .

But the third one , I think , kind of gets a bit more difficult just because you're you know you're building so much more debt under your portfolio and you want to figure out a way to kind of Leverage it , maintain it or however you want to , you know , describe it .

But it gets a bit tougher because you know you may start to fall out of the room of being able to finance a home under your personal name and you may fall into different kind of challenges . So that's kind of something I'm a bit weary of .

But I want to take it on like you know , full force and figure out , you know exactly what we want to do , but always be adjustable .

So I would definitely be Interested to kind of see what you kind of think about that knee and if you've kind of faced some of the same challenges , especially early out , starting off , you know when you're buying a year , you know second , third , fourth or fifth property , Absolutely .

They're changing and adjusting that all the time because they want to make sure , like hey , push comes to shove , you can pay for this mortgage if it's not going to pay for itself .

Now , the thing that does help you that you may not calculate and I didn't calculate this early on and then the lenders kind of Inform me of this but the homes that you're not living in , well , okay , I'm gonna give you two things . I'm gonna give you the past and then I'll give you the new lending rules that recently came out , which is awesome .

So in the past , when I was buying on these properties , the home that you're living in , if you're doing a house hack , you can't count that income , right , and so that full mortgage is on your debt to income , but any homes that you bought previous that you're not living in anymore , they count the income from that against the mortgage .

And so essentially , if your mortgage is 2,000 and you're making 2,500 a month on that property , you actually have a debt to income increase of $500 per month , right ? So that's how you're able to keep qualifying for more . They're still gonna cap you out at 10 , but that's how you're able to keep qualifying for more .

And then for your personal house , a new change and don't quote me on this because I haven't been through it with a client or personally yet to verify it , because it just came about this year but from what they say , if you have an ad you or An in-law suite or another unit on your property , they will start to count that income against your debt to income ,

so it can lower like your monthly , even when you're applying for the next Property . And so that's what I'm excited about , because in the past that wasn't something that was there Like my current mortgage was fully hitting on my debt to income and kind of other ones as well , but that's one way to get around it .

There's only so many mortgages that you could take with the W-2 . But the fact that they allow you to use the income from it is awesome . And then the end-all be-all is what you report on your taxes . So for this year it's going to be fine to get that next one Things that Nature . But then you've got to be intentional about your taxes .

So some people are like , hey , I want to take every single write-off and Things that Nature . But then what it could look like is hey , I haven't made any money on this property and now it's going to count against your debt to income . Does that make sense ? It's like , hey , there's nobody getting made on this property .

It sounds great , but now does that mean that you're paying the debt to you ? Ok , so how are we going to qualify for another one if we're not making money on this one ? So it's a delicate balance . It all goes together . But if you're in a build phase , I'd highly recommend getting with an investor-friendly CPA and talking through this stuff .

For example , last year was my first year having significant income on my 1099 . And then this year's , or not last year , two years ago and so for the taxes you can write off a lot .

But I chose purposely to just pay the taxes and not write off really anything , not even a home office or mileage or stuff like that because I wanted to boost that up so that I can go and qualify for some more houses and get better lending . This year is a little bit different .

This year I want to take a lot of the write-offs and things of that nature to lower that tax bracket into something that's a little bit more attainable and go from there . So it's a delicate game . I'm still pretty new to this tax game . It's fun and it's very interesting .

I think it's going to take a couple of years maybe those 10,000 hours that we talked about to really understand it , but I'm learning bit by bit . But , guys , we are at time . It's awesome seeing you , aj , dude . I can't wait to see you in person . Oh , on a complete side note , we're going to start doing some more events with the Acaba Home Team .

I made with Ricardo for the first time because we chat all the time over the phone during that whole process , so it was really cool to be able to meet him in person and I feel like it's tough to sometimes match a person , who they are on the internet or maybe over the phone , with who they are in person .

And what I can tell you is that , like Ricardo , I felt like he was exactly what you thought , like he's a really cool guy . I like him . But yeah , stuff like that . So I'm looking forward to whatever you guys got set up this year . I want to be able to follow you guys and join along in whatever conversations , learn , maybe teach some folks .

I'm all for it .

Covid kind of stopped that and then it sort of came back and now we definitely want to be out there kind of having fun and so looking forward to seeing you there . Aj , leave on . It's always been a pleasure and I will catch you guys next week .