Download - DNRE86 - Rachel Richards: Retire Early with Passive Income

DreamNation Real Estate Podcast with Casanova Brooks

Business:Careers

DNRE86 - Rachel Richards: Retire Early with Passive Income

2021-07-21

Download

Here’s a snapshot of a few things we talked about…

Who is the Lois Lane, When It Comes to Rachel? [00:01:55]
Who Did She Talk About the Books That She was Reading? [00:03:43]
Did She Get into Real Estate Directly Out of College? [00:04:48]
Did She Do Something on the Side while Working as a Financial Advisor? [00:05:58]
Her Role After She Started Working with a Real Estate Investor? [00:06:50]
How to Provide Value if You Don’t Have Money for Marketing? [00:07:57]
Why She Didn’t Partner with the Real Estate Investor She Worked with? [00:09:18]
Her First Deal in 2017. [00:10:46]
How Did She Find Her First Deal? [00:12:00]
How Does She Define Passive Income? [00:14:56]
Why Having Property Managers is a Good Idea [00:16:34]
Clearing Debt First or Investing to Pay Debt Later? [00:18:46]
Where Does She See Everything Going Over the Next 24 To 36 Months? [00:20:02]
One Thing She Wishes She Had Implemented Sooner to Accelerate Her Journey? [00:23:00]
Her Mantra When She Gets into Adversity? [00:24:54]

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

In this episode, Casanova and Rachel talk about passive income, and how it can help you retire early.

Rachel grew up in an affluent county, and comparing herself to her peers, she felt like they were poor, and money was always a stressor in her family. She felt like she did not fit in at a young age. Rachel realized that she didn’t want to struggle with money when she grew up.

That realization lit a fire, and she became passionate about reading. After reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, she realized that this was how going to escape the rat race and achieve financial independence.

Early on, she learned about real estate investing through books and podcasts, and after she started working, she had mentors and learned from people as well. Rachel majored in Financial Economics, and she started working as a financial advisor.

She ended up leaving that job, and started working with a real estate investor, where she started learning about real estate investing. She learned a lot from him about how to find off market deals.

She says that people looking to invest in real estate, if all they're doing is looking at the MLS and they'll never find a good deal. She adds that sometimes both time and money are needed to get started investing in real estate, but there are ways to generate off-market deals that don't require money.

Rachel adds that when you're networking with brokers, lenders, attorneys or real estate agents to get pre-foreclosure leads and short sale leads, oftentimes you can contact the owner directly but doing a small mail campaign, isn't that expensive.

Talking about her next job, that she left after nine months, Rachel says that she still learned some valuable skills from there. She says that now she can connect the dots and see how all of these experiences added up, have enabled her to become a successful real estate investor.

Rachel talks about the first deal that she did in 2017, when she was 24 years old. It was an off-market deal because it was not an active listing on the MLS. She found it while looking through the expired and canceled MLS listings.

She adds that some people feel like following up is aggressive and annoying to do, but if you just do that from a very friendly perspective, saying, hey, I'm still interested, I can't wait to potentially make an offer, the agent and the owner will be very appreciative of that.

Rachel says that then they started working on the rent by the room business model. With that unique model, they were making a ton of money. After they reassessed their goals, they decided that they want to have more passive income, so they started moving away from this model.

She says that they have decided to reinvest their money into real estate syndications, where it's truly hands-off passive income. She defines passive income as the money that is earned with little to no ongoing effort.

Rachel adds that with rental income, she always tells people that they have to have a property manager if they truly want it to be passive. She adds that if you continue to be cheap and frugal, you're going to have a hard time growing and scaling because you're going to try to do everything on your own rather than delegating it.

Talking about people with debt, who are looking to invest in real estate, Rachel says that anyone with high interest consumer debt, like credit cards, your money will almost always be better off being put towards the credit card balances and paying the credit card debt down first.

If you have lower interest student loans or a mortgage on your primary residence, then there's nothing wrong with starting to invest in real estate. She adds that an easier way to look at it, to get a clearer answer is to compare the interest rates.

Rachel says that it's hard to be an investor right now to find good deals because the market is so crazy. So, it's so important to be willing to look for off-market deals and go the extra mile to find those deals. I think it's hard as an investor or an entrepreneur to know when enough is enough.

She says that once they reached their goal of monthly passive income, they stopped expanding their empire. She says that they just wanted freedom, and to be able to travel and to work when and where and if they want.

Rachel adds that it's important to know, what is the end goal, and what you will do when you get there. She adds that something that would have accelerated her journey was taking action sooner. She says that getting caught up in limiting beliefs really held her back.

She says that she wishes she had learned the different investing strategies if you don’t have investment, and then not been afraid to take action on them. She adds that her mantra, when she gets into adverse situation is to ask two questions; what is good about this and what does this make possible?

Key Quotes:

“I remember thinking to myself at some point that, I did not want to end up like everyone else struggling with money…”
“The first book I read about real estate investing was Rich Dad, Poor Dad…”
“I paid my way through schools, selling Cutco Cutlery. …”
“I graduated debt-free, and I just figured that the sales background with my passion for helping people with money would make me a perfect financial advisor…”
“It's astonishing how many ways you can find deals besides the MLS. And I think that's one mistake investors make…”
“You have to be willing to learn how to be creative and do some of these off-market strategies to find the real hidden gems…|
“I had to hustle, and I had to find ways to save money, ‘cause I didn't have any money really of my own to spend back then…”
“Sometimes you need to have the retrospect of looking back and realizing, oh, that was actually very valuable…”
“You can never connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards…”
“The way I define passive income is that it is money that is earned with little to no ongoing effort…”
“Don't be cheap because being cheap can cost you so much more money in the long run…”
“I think it's hard as an investor or an entrepreneur to know when enough is enough…”
“Having that goal, having that pinpoint and knowing when you get there that you have peace, you have fulfillment with it…” – Casanova Brooks.
“You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”