Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Anne-Lyse Wealth: This is the Dreamers podcast, episode one 10. Today is February 21st, 14th, 2023.
KAYR: when I first started, and I tell people the richest are in the niches, you need to have a niche and do it extraordinarily well.
Because that is how you're gonna differentiate yourself. when I first started, I said, I'm gonna do really well at my job, and I'm gonna do really well at this one real estate thing. buying these properties. Understand the whole process from A to Z. I'm not trying to master Airbnb, I'm not trying to do new construction.
I'm not trying to flip land. I'm not trying to be a wholesaler. I have my real estate license. I have never used it. I said, I'm gonna focus on two. Do my regular job well and buy at least one property for the first 10 years on average. I just kept it real simple. If you do what's necessary, then you do what's possible.
You'll find yourself doing the impossible Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Dreamers podcast. I'm your host, anise Wolff, and today I have a special guest. KR is the co-founder of KJ Consulting. He went from being on welfare as a child and homelessness. Working on Wall Street building a multimillion dollar real estate investment company. KR has over a hundred rental units, under his, umbrella.
KR is also a transformational speaker, a business consultant, a coach, and he worked with some of the top financial institution in the world. He's been featured on Market Watch and his, life story was actually, a chapter in the new book called Black.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: White space. This is, a book published by a professor of sociology at Yale University. KR is a wealth of knowledge and I'm just really, really excited to have him on the show today. Kr, welcome to the Dreamers podcast.
KAYR: First and foremost, I am so excited to be here. I am delighted to have the opportunity to share my story.
I appreciate you. I like this platform and can't wait to share my story.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: I love it. Let's get into it then. kr, please tell the dreamers a little bit about.
KAYR: Yes. I grew up in Philadelphia, single parent household. My mother raised my sis siblings and I, on welfare. no one ever told me that you were supposed to move 18 times before you turned 18.
And I'm not talking about I'm a military kid. It was because we were broke and my mother wasn't the best manager of money, but she loved us. we moved around a lot. in Philadelphia. I lived on 50th and Walton on the uneven number side of the street and on the even number side of the street.
And then 56 and Walton. Then we went to 51st Andrus. we were all over the place. but what was amazing about that is that I was always loved growing up despite the hardship. And I realized, my stepdad told me when he came back in my life when I was in middle school, he said, don't be an F up like me.
And some of your family members do, as I say, not as I do. And so that really struck with me because that was the first time an adult cursed at me and told me about not to be like them. at that point I had some siblings that were teenagers and had children, had some family members that in and out of prison.
I actually decided to change my life, do a 180 from being a knucklehead in school now focusing and smoking and drinking in middle school. then I graduated valedictorian, went off the boat in college and worked at Goldman Sachs, where I had the opportunity to learn about mergers and hack positions, financing industry work, and all the while I was working on Wall Street. I was buying real estate, I started buying my first property in 2009. By 2018, I got to nine rental units, and then by 2019 I got to 35 rental units, and then by 2020 I got to 105 rental units. I tripled my portfolio in one year from 2019 to 2020 and now I have 120 plus rental units, property management business, we do landscaping, hired some family members.
it's been a great journey to be able to go from having a negative network to being a multimillionaire.
love the story, and I cannot wait to find out more about how you did it. Right. kr you talk about, the victim of your dreams instead of your circumstances, right?
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Yes. what does that mean?
when I was let's say 13, I remember I was a knucklehead in middle school. Skipping school, didn't take anything seriously, acting like a ghetto kid. and. I started to look around, we were living at 1704 North fifth Street, a studio apartment in North Philly.
KAYR: And we had a hot plate. We didn't have a stove, we had a bathroom sheet, we didn't have a bathroom door, we had a bathtub and we didn't have a, shower. And we had one bed. We had rats and roaches and mics and like 15 people living on top of each other. And I started to look at that and I looked at my siblings and people struggling and I.
I'm not going to let this define me. So I started to believe in myself and see I can achieve something greater, that I can change the trajectory of my life. I went off to Booton College at my senior year of high school, my brother one year younger went to prison for attempted murder and had to serve 12 years.
KAYR: Mm-hmm. , when I was in a junior in college, my sister was murdered by the father of her three children. And I had to decide to keep going to college or decide to do something different. My family was on a hit list. what I mean is that I could have just buckled and said, you know what? This life isn't for me.
I need to just give up. I'm trying too hard. I can't push through, but instead I said, I'm gonna become a victim of my dreams. So I decide to dream bigger. I decide to believe that I could become a citizen of the world, that good, things were meant to happen to me. I start to drill that into my head and I started to expose myself More things than my local community, my local experience, which was saying that for young African American men in particular, you're either going to end up dead and end up on prison or working a low paying job. And I said, no, I, can do better. I may not be the smartest, I might be the best looking, but that's another story for another day,
And I said, I'm gonna keep pushing.
what are some of the things that listeners, can do to be victims of their dreams and not their circumstances? How did you change that?
there are a couple of really practical steps is one, I had to master what I call the three Ds, which is one, you gotta have a burning desire because that burning desire is gonna make you wanna do more, make you wake up.
KAYR: Make you feel motivated. So you gotta have that burning desire. You have to desire to want more, to desire, to break out a poverty, to desire to change your circumstances. The next thing you have to do is you gotta have determination. Let me, no matter what the world throw at you, you're gonna keep coming out the corner, swing it, because you're gonna have moments of self doubt.
You're gonna have moments that you're scared, you're gonna have dark days, and you're gonna have lonely days, but you have to have that. Match that which is determination. And what's going to happen when you don't have that determination some days is that you're gonna be disciplined. you come up with routines and you stick to it because that's what's gonna distinguish you from someone else.
someone else may actually, your someone else's best day may actually match your best day in terms of effort. But over the long. You are one week, you are one month. Your one decade is gonna outmatch others because you have the desire to determination and discipline and stick to it. I tell people the first step is to master the three Ds.
KAYR: The other thing is look at your current situation. If you feel as though you're not surrounded by people who love and pour into you, you need to create your own board of directors that are going to go out of their way to make you feel. To educate you, to expose you, to pour into you, and that is what I did at a young age.
As I say, if I'm missing some stuff at home, I need to create the environment that is gonna inspire and motivate me and open doors for me by. Pouring into me. And I also need to work on building, my own desire and work on my own determination and work on my own, discipline in order to get to the next level.
it was very important to do those two things. One, the three Ds. The other one was to make sure I create my own board of directors. And the third thing I did was focus on the three. , which is intellectual capital, financial capital, and social capital. So I started to find ways to educate myself about, a subject matter, whether it's for school, whether it's real estate, finance, understand how to, make money, how to keep money.
KAYR: We live in a capitalist society. Number one thing is capital, understand capital. And then I start building those relationships. that's my advice. The three C's, the three D's, and your own board of director.
kr I, believe you were the first person in your family, to go to college.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: So before you went to college and had mentors, let's go back to when you were, living in, financial hardships. how did you go about finding those people that could even make you feel like you could get to that next level?
KAYR: Well, what I did notice is that I would have a brother or a sister go to community college or go to a college, let's say for a semester, and then fell out for various reasons, whether they didn't feel comfortable or the academics didn't work something.
I saw that happen on a regular basis. what I did is I said, I need to stack the odds in my favor and have to be really vulnerable, realize where I lack, what skills do I. And then I started to take steps to improve that. I started reaching out to teachers and mentors and say, can you help me with writing?
KAYR: Can you help me enunciate words? Can you help me decipher information? Can you help me write essays? Can you help me do all these different things? That prepare me for college. I started a really young age first for me, I went to the local church and started talking to some of the leaders there.
Went to my high school and say, Hey, look, I'm not gonna be a knucklehead like middle school in high school. I'm gonna tell these people, look, these are my dreams. I'm, yelling it out. I need help. I know that I don't have it all together. I'm going to be humble. and a closed mouth doesn't get fed. I started telling everybody from the janitor to the teachers, to the principal, how can you help me?
I need help. I have big goals. I can't do this on my own. I'm not self-made, I'm community made. I really started to rely on my community. Therefore, that is what I became.
you talk about the finance food chain. Can you tell me about what it is and how that has affected you and your overall approach when it comes to financial freedom?
for me, when I went off the boat in college, I knew that I was interested in finance as a launching pad. Because I realized that I needed some money and some stability in order to reach my overall goals in the long term. what I said is I set out and I was very systematic, even though I was only 18.
KAYR: I said, I wanna see the different parts of finance. freshman year I got an internship at American Express. I got exposure to asset management. Sophomore year, I got exposure to sales and trading at potential securities on the purchase Meadows desk in New York. Junior year, I did invest banking in the technology group at Credit Suisse.
And got exposure to investment banking. And then I accepted a full-time job at Goldman Sachs doing investment banking in New York after college. I got to see these different aspects of whether it was trading, whether it was, mergers and acquisitions, or whether it was asset management.
And I also did this Tug Bridge program, which gave me a little taste of what business school would be like. that's how I got to see these different aspects of finance, before I had settled on what I was most interested in doing at the college. .
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Got it. fast forward to today, right?
You've been able to build a real estate portfolio that brings in, six figures a month in passive income. my strategy was very, unconventional, relative to some of my peers. I said, I'm going to keep my nine to five. And I'm going to live off my nine to five job, pay for my bills, pay for vacation, all those different things.
KAYR: And what I'm gonna do over the first 10 years primarily was my goal, but I did over the first nine years was buy one house on average every year. Of course, some years I bought two. , but on average you'll beat one. 2009 I had one. By 2018 I had nine houses and my plan was I want to take advantage of all the programs and benefits of putting the houses in your personal name.
if it's a single family, you could put down as low as 15%, even if you don't live in it. Then you have all these different loans that will also package the buy the property and do the rehab. So I took advantage of those programs. I would go to a. For a new home buyer, even if you didn't live in there.
KAYR: And that will help with the closing costs. But the reason why I believe success, doesn't like speed things done well are done soon enough is because I live that. what I would do, it was so easy to focus on one computer, think about a computer screen. I'm a security guard, and I'm looking at this computer screen.
I can catch the thief because I only have one thing to focus on. But if I bought 15 different properties at the same. It would be very difficult days to get by me. I bought one property on average every year so I can focus, and I never had to use hard money lenders. No one has ever robbed me. No one has done all these crazy things because I can focus on one thing at a time and do it extraordinarily well.
I did that for the first nine years. and I was able to save the cash flows from these properties and also pay down the debt. therefore, the equity was growing in these properties. therefore, by year 10, I'm able to start putting large down payments to buy apartment buildings. that's why in 2019 I had nine houses, nine rental units, then by 2019 I had 35 rental.
KAYR: Because I had that saved that cash up and I also had the equity I could borrow against. And then 2020, I was able to buy even more larger properties because your cash flows are going up and your equity in the properties have increased, therefore your net worth also. that's how I was able to build my portfolio.
But the meantime is that first I was able to build that track record. all that time sending money to the. Learning how to do cash out. Refis always doing extraordinarily well on every single deal because I took my time that convinced the bank and other professionals to say, Hey, KR is really good at this.
He's not jumping around on doing different things. He's really focused on building out his real estate skills. the track record came and then the relationships came. I leveraged the three Rs, which is your track record, your relat. and then your reputation will precede you. by 2020 I had a lot of people reaching out to me saying, kr, can I do a deal with you?
that's how I went about building my business.
how long did it take you to build this portfolio, what I would say is that how long it took me to build the portfolio is it took me nine years just to get to nine rental units and then you start to see the portfolio really take off in year 10 and.
KAYR: because I had saved all those cash flows and I let the equity build up in a property so I can borrow against them, and I can use that to buy bigger properties because the down payments are larger. therefore I can own majority of all my buildings.
are you on year 11 now
KAYR: of your journey? So what we would do is we start in 2009 and in 2022, that would bely like 12 years or what have you.
Right. maybe year 13 now. .
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Okay, great. I'm sure in 13 years you've made some mistakes, you've made some good moves, some bad moves. Can you tell me about, the biggest mistake you made when it comes to real estate?
the biggest mistake I made in real estate, actually. Because I took my time, I avoided costly mistakes, I haven't really made that many costly mistakes.
KAYR: The biggest mistake I made probably was taking a risk on my family members, and I'm okay with that. when I bought my first apartment building, my sixth unit, I called my brother up. And I, was telling him to get his real estate license, so he finally got it and he said, I whatcha talking about get his real estate.
I said, look, you gonna be my agent on this, 300, I dunno, 360,000 deal. It was a five six unit apartment building, 2019. He said, what? I just got into real estate. I don't know how to do that. actually I wound up losing $10,000 cause he did something incorrectly. that was my biggest mistake in real.
But I still work with him. He's still deeply involved my business, but that was my biggest loss in real estate.
you've been investing in real estate for 13 years. can you tell me one of the biggest lessons you learned since starting?
KAYR: I think the biggest thing I've learned since, starting investing in real estate is to run your own race.
Do not let someone tell you you gotta go faster. You gotta go bigger. run your own race. Because people were telling me, KR you've been doing this for almost 10 years. Why you only got nine properties? Whoa, that's mad slope. And you supposed to be smart. What's going on? I don't understand. Who gonna do something for a decade?
You ain't even making that much money. And by that time I was probably making $85,000 in rental income for the whole year or 90,000. People say, why you been doing this for 10 years? You might as well stop. And now when they hear I make six figures plus every month, they like, whoa.
That's crazy. Cause you were just making only 85,000 a year when we talked to you in 2018. Now you talking about 2020, you making over six figures every month? I said because I ran my own race. I didn't let anybody pressure me to do hard money lenders. I didn't let anybody pressure me to start doing different things.
Cuz I'm gonna buy a whole guy. I never flip property. I didn't do new construction. Just run your own race. That's the best advice I can give.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: I love that. you've retired early? Yes. How old were you when you retired? 30. what does retiring early mean to you?
KAYR: Oh, it's amazing. When I used to work, I used to run home, go to the gym and try to get everything in within 45 minutes.
Then do a little quick shower, get, my clothes back on everything. Now when I go to the gym, I don't even know how people get past stretches. It take you like 45 minutes just to stretch.now I be in the gym for two hours, . I go on a walk for like two hours and I spend time thinking. I spend time with my thoughts.
So I'm trying to figure out two or three things that I can do to improve my business. Are to have a larger impact on society about my legacy. I get to be more creative and I get to not be forced and pressured to do everything so fast. that's the way I see retirement is not that you don't do anything, it's that you get to do what you wanna do when you want to do it.
That's the biggest difference. last year I went to Jamaica, I went to Dominican Republic, I went to Mexico. I try to go see my friends around the country. I can do whatever I want when I want. that is just that freedom that is so, amazing. do you
Anne-Lyse Wealth: invest outside of real estate?
KAYR: Yes, I do.
I do invest outside of real estate. I have, several hundred thousand dollars invested. I should push my names. since I'm no longer licensed stock broker, so I can push my name. Amazon, I love them. Apple. I love them. go get you some. yeah, I own several hundred thousand dollars and, some real estate name.
and stocks like Apple, Amazon, I, I think I own like 200,000 at Amazon, I own stocks as well, and also some index.
how did your views about wealth change? how has it changed since you started on your wealth building journey?
when I first started, and I tell people the richest are in the niches, you need to have a niche and do it extraordinarily well.
KAYR: Because that is how you're gonna differentiate yourself. when I first started, I said, I'm gonna do really well at my job, and I'm gonna do really well at this one real estate thing. buying these properties. Understand the whole process from A to Z. I'm not trying to master Airbnb, I'm not trying to do new construction.
I'm not trying to flip land. I'm not trying to be a wholesaler. I have my real estate license. I have never used it. I said, I'm gonna focus on two. Do my regular job well and buy at least one property for the first 10 years on average. I just kept it real simple. If you do what's necessary, then you do what's possible.
You'll find yourself doing the impossible. that was my approach. it was very simple. And then I will invest in my 401k. now when I have more money and more wealth, I can actually start acting like one of the sharks. I invested in the digital marketing. I'll put money here so I can become part owner.
I'll invest in another type of business. now I get to invest in different businesses, but I also get to do different things, whether it is starting like a land under my, property management company, start doing landscape, start doing a light rehabs, then you can start exploring different verticals.
I can also think about writing a book, I get to be more creative. in terms of how I spread my wealth, because now I can take on a little bit more risk versus in the beginning I was very narrowly
Anne-Lyse Wealth: focused. What does transformational wealth mean to you?
a lot of people when they think about creating wealth, they're thinking about generational wealth.
I love generational wealth like the next person. for me that's like a north to south concept where I buy a house today, for instance, and say, we buy a house today, we have children, and then in 30 or 40 years, those children will inherit that wealth, which is nice. They just have to wait to inherit it.
I said, I looked at my siblings and my family situation and I said, we can't afford to wait. we have to be in a rush. I came up with this idea of transformational wealth, which is like, A right to left concept where once I get myself situated in real estate, I can decide who to hire.
KAYR: It's my money, my team. I convinced my brother to get a real estate license and told him, you're gonna get all of these commissions for the deals I do because you're gonna be my exclusive broker.therefore, when I do a million dollar deal, he's able to get $30,000 as a commiss. And what that enabled him and his wife to do and his, multiple children, is he was able to buy a house in, which is one of the best school districts in the country.
they're moving to a better situation and he started creating wealth. then for, he works with me again, he's able to gift his in-laws, his wife's parents money so that they could move out of an apartment and buy a duplex and become. Today, not 50 years from now, not 40 years from now. Also, because these are my LLCs, I can give my family members equity.
KAYR: They don't even have to put any money in it. It's my llc. So I therefore can say, you get 5% ownership, you get one, you get three. therefore, when they work for me, they're not only saying, oh, I got a commission. They get to. I actually own that property. So when my brother takes his children on a tour or what have you, he can say, look, I not only helped Uncle Kr buy that.
I'm actually part owner of that building. And now his children who are young can say, wow, my dad, before he didn't even own no real estate. Now he owned A five, apartment building. Oh my goodness. Like mom, my dad, he's younger than Uncle kr. He's still in his thirties.
He's killing it. I wanna be able to transform people lives today, whether it's my stepmom, who's 75, that works for me. I gave her equity and my L L C, she's never owned a company before, I also hire my aunt to do the cleaning. My brothers father-in-law, he helps with landscaping. transformational wealth is pretty much how can we transform our lives today, not 50 years from now?
How can we use our resources, especially one or two family members can leverage what they have to open doors for all the family members and your close friends. .
Anne-Lyse Wealth: I love that. kr, what are three to five actionable steps that the Dreamers can take now if they want to become financially independent and eventually build transformational wealth?
the number one thing is you have to figure out what do you want to achieve in the next two years? matter of fact, next one. Three years, five years, 10 years, 20 years out. Write that. And then when you write that down, you wanna write down exactly why. Why do you wanna achieve this? And it could be your own reason.
KAYR: It could be because you want money, or it can be why you want to help your family members, but you gotta have your why and you gotta have some objective that is very concrete. And then the third thing I always do is say, have someone write down the person's name that's gonna hold you. . That could be your best friend, that could be your loved one, that could be your coach, that could be whomever.
But you gotta have an objective. You gotta know why you wanna do it. And three, you gotta have someone that can hold you accountable. And four, you have to figure out how you learn best. Because if you know yourself, you're gonna be able to go to the next level. Trying to keep up with other people and do things the way they do is not gonna work.
And the fifth thing is you have to spend. really sharpening your tool and what I mean that spend time growing and sharpening your tool in terms of intellectually, spiritually, physically, mentally spend time, really getting to know who you are because this is the only person you're gonna have to spend the rest of your life.
kr I always end the energy with the interview with a round of Rapid fire questions. just tell me the first thing that comes to. What's, a book that changed your perspective on life?
KAYR: A book that really opened my eyes that I really liked was, think and Grow Rich, A Black Choice.
it really opened my eyes when I was like 13 or what have Who gave you the book at 13 ?
KAYR: Oh, actually I just went to, the Pen bookstore and I start reading. I would go around and say, look, I wanna look at the self-help books. I saw this one book. It was drink and Grow Rich.
By Napoleon Hill and I read that one and then I said they should have a black one for this. then I talked to the person at the store and they said they actually have one, I think his name is Dennis, something. I said, oh, I'm gonna read the black one too. therefore, that's how I got exposed to, cause I went to the self in the business section of the bookstore.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: What's one life lesson you learned The.
one life, lesson. I learned the hard way and it was so stupid. When I was in elementary, I was really, a bad boy and I really liked this girl. And my mother told me to be in the house before the lights go off, maybe in third grade or fourth grade, and I, did not listen.
KAYR: It was four. It was dark out. I went to go see this girl cause I was trying to be. And ha do bad stuff for her that you're not supposed to do at a young age. And I was one block away and I got hit by a car and then I was in a wheelchair for three months and had amnesia and everything. So I learned my lesson.
You gotta be careful. Some things are so powerful. You have to be disciplined.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Wow. What's one thing about money you wish you could tell your younger self?
One thing about money I could tell my younger self is that just always invest early. Whether you're investing in the stock market, whether you're investing in real estate, always invest early so you could benefit from compound interest.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: What's the best investment in yourself you've made so far?
KAYR: I think the best investment I've made in myself is my educat. getting an education, whether using online services and tools and going to college and in high school and taking it seriously, graduate school, I think that was the best way.
I was able to invest myself,
Anne-Lyse Wealth: fill in the blank in three words or less. Money to me is
KAYR: money to me is a tool to affect change in other people's. That's
Anne-Lyse Wealth: more than three
KAYR: words. . Oh my. Alright, lemme try it again. Money to me is a tool. What do you want
Anne-Lyse Wealth: your legacy to be? Transformational wealth. kr thank you for coming on the show.
it's been a great conversation. For any of the dreamers who might be interested in finding out more about you, please tell him, where to.
KAYR: You can find me on Instagram at KJ Consulting, K A Y J A Y C O N S U L T I N G, KJ Consulting, and also our website, www kj consulting.net.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: All right. That was k r I hope that you are inspired.
I think today's episode should be called No Excuses. that's it for today. I hope you enjoy today's episode of the Dreamers podcast. I'll see you back here next week for another episode. Bye.