How He Retired at 44 While Living in South America

The Real Estate Investing Club

Join an active community of RE investors here: https://linktr.ee/gabepetersen  BUILDING WEALTH WHILE LIVING ABROAD 🌎💰 In this incredible episode, I sit down with Brian Tibbs, the mastermind behind The Unexpected Investor who achieved financial freedom at age 44 while living in South America for 16 years! Brian's journey from a skeptical teenager to building a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio while earning less than $10 per hour overseas is absolutely mind-blowing. HOUSE HACKING SUCCESS STORY 🏠 Brian shares his brilliant house hacking strategy that started at age 19 when he bought a duplex in college. Instead of paying rent like other students, he lived in one side and rented out the other, reducing his living expenses to just $100-200 per month. This foundation allowed him to systematically add at least one unit per year, reaching 10 units by age 26. THE AIRBNB PIVOT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING 📱 Discover how a flooded house and a desperate search for temporary housing led Brian to accidentally discover Airbnb's massive profit potential. When he found only three properties available for $200 per night compared to his $30 long-term rentals, he quickly realized the opportunity and converted his entire portfolio within three months in 2016. REMOTE REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT SECRETS 🌍 Learn Brian's proven systems for managing a complex real estate portfolio from thousands of miles away. He built a 12-person team across three markets including handymen, cleaning crews, interior designers, and remote customer service staff in Mexico. His disciplined approach to delegation meant he only spent five hours per week managing the entire operation. SOBER LIVING FACILITIES GOLDMINE 🏘️ Brian reveals his newest investment strategy in sober living facilities, a unique niche that combines real estate investing with social impact. These larger homes converted to 8-9 bedrooms generate $550-700 per room while serving people in recovery programs. With minimal vacancy and strong demand from drug courts and families, this model offers both consistent cash flow and meaningful community service. DEVELOPMENT LESSONS LEARNED 🚧 Get the inside scoop on Brian's biggest mistake - a 44-acre mountain property with hot springs that turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. His candid breakdown of why sticking to what you know and avoiding complex development projects can save you years of headaches and thousands in unexpected costs. THE 2

Transcript

00:00all right we are back with another episode of the real estate investing club i hope you guys

00:11are having a great day great week wherever you are and whatever day it is for you it is a good

00:17day here on the show as i said on the last episode i i just got back from my honeymoon so i am like

00:22getting back into the swinging things we went over to spain had a blast over there it was like

00:2710 zillion degrees um so being from seattle it was it was kind of rough for us but it was still a lot

00:33of fun uh but that's something our guest today knows a lot about from arizona we got brian tibbs

00:38with us here he does short-term rentals sober living facilities and single family um so he if you guys

00:45are interested in any of those asset classes classes this is the episode to tune into so brian

00:50i'm excited to jump into this thanks for hopping on yeah thanks for the opportunity excited about

00:54it as well yep oh and i forgot to mention his brand is the unexpected investor um brian i told you

01:00before we hop on here we always like to start this show with stories uh we like to hear how people got

01:05to where they are so why don't you tell us take us back to the beginning of your story in real estate

01:11and tell us how you got here yeah well um i grew up in a family that my dad owned his own small business

01:16but wasn't a real estate investor and i remember when i was 17 he was talking to my grandfather his

01:24dad about buying a duplex and and i just kind of was eavesdropping and i i thought it was ridiculous

01:30like why why would you can't you make more money in the business why would you buy a house

01:35and then expect some stranger to actually pay their rent you know the bank's gonna make you pay them

01:42and then you got to unclog toilets in the middle of the night i mean why would anybody do that

01:46and when they realized i was listening like i spoke up actually i said why are you doing this when they

01:52said let's call the agent i'm like no stop you're you're making a mistake and they realized that this

01:57self-absorbed teenager was was paying attention and so they actually shifted their focus and tried to

02:02kind of teach me this is why we're doing it and they laid out the numbers and they said we're

02:08going to hire a manager we're not going to unclog any toilets at midnight and and yes they may skip

02:13a month's rent we may have to kick somebody out but we've accounted for that in our numbers and

02:17they they just went through the whole thing and i remember getting to the end of that thinking well

02:21if it works on one why don't we do 10 and they just cracked up laughing you know kind of a thing

02:26and so at that time 16 17 years old like i guess i maybe subconsciously decided i'm i'm gonna be a

02:32real estate investor and then when i was in college i moved out of the dorms i was 19

02:37and i was looking at my options i didn't want to pay rent i didn't want to just go buy a house there's

02:43no way i can afford the mortgage so i decided what we now call house hack i bought a duplex lived in

02:49one side rented out the other which is what we called it back then not as elegant as house hack but

02:54bought a duplex and when that worked out and i ended up paying you know maybe 100 or 200 bucks a

03:00month for all of my expenses to live i was like okay let's let's do this and i set the goal to add

03:05an at least another unit every year i mean forever in the future right and so by the time i was 26 i

03:12had 10 units and uh that was that's that's the direction that i wanted to head um took a crazy

03:19turn i actually decided to follow a calling that i felt that i had on my life i decided to move to

03:25guatemala with my new wife so we moved overseas and we were going to do it for a year or two we

03:30ended up staying for 16 years um living all over south america and um but all the while all the

03:38while kind of with like a little bit of a corner of one eye on the real estate just kind of kept

03:42taking care of it and upgrading properties and slowly building the portfolio to the point to where

03:47when we retired from that overseas work um our our portfolio was able to provide for all of our our

03:54needs and continue to grow and so now that's all i do full-time is i just manage our investments and

03:59grow the portfolio very cool very cool i have to ask why guatemala that is uh that is one country

04:06that you don't hear a lot of people yeah um being expats in so why did you choose that specific

04:11country yeah it wasn't for it wasn't for comfort um it it was that was it so we contacted our church

04:20and said hey we feel like we're supposed to serve in some way and and they said well we have an opening

04:23in guatemala so that's where we went sight unseen what would fit in our four suitcases and and showed

04:29up and we ended up staying there a year then moved to argentina from there so and then a bunch of

04:33other very cool nice nice i actually i did a study abroad um long time ago in argentina we were in

04:38cordoba and uh yeah beautiful country yeah we did some work in cordoba as well yeah nice yeah very

04:45beautiful um well cool you know i'm always jealous of people who you know got the start in real estate

04:50where you know their parents are doing it and then they started with the house hack i feel like that

04:54is the best way to do it if you're you know really young you're in college trying to figure out a way

05:00to cover your expenses um even if you can get your parents to help you out get that that mortgage or

05:04the loan and do a house hack that is it's a perfect way to get started in real estate um so it's awesome

05:10to hear you kind of got that start so you had your initial goal was one unit per year and you started

05:16adding on every single year did you guys at one point you guys moved away from long term because

05:22now you're doing silver living and you're doing short-term rental when did that transition happen

05:26for you yeah that's another fun story real quick um because we're living overseas and all of our

05:33apartments were long-term tenants we couldn't just come back and move into one of our units it felt a

05:38little bit uncomfortable telling somebody hey we need a place to stay when we had 17 places in our in

05:43the town right but they're all full so we had someone who generously let us stay in one of their

05:48houses that was vacant and we showed up at midnight super tired flying all day long walk in and the

05:54house was flooded and so we got off the main called the owner got him out of bed and then went and got a

06:00hotel so me and my my family of five were just like destroying this hotel room and i wake up in the

06:06morning i'm like we can't live here for three weeks we've got to find something else and my wife said

06:11this was 2016 and my wife said oh have you heard about that new website airbnb and i was like no

06:17what is it and so i logged on there was only three homes big enough for our family in the entire city

06:23of boise and they wanted 200 bucks a night and i was frustrated i was upset why would they charge so

06:30much money and then i was like wait a minute how am i getting eat how much am i getting each night for

06:34my units it was 30 bucks a night so i started thinking okay maybe we should consider pivoting here

06:41because there's either nobody wants these things or there's way more demand than what there is

06:45supply so we decided to test out three of our units and within three months we flipped our entire

06:51portfolio over to short-term rentals oh wow that's great because it was performing so much better than

06:56long-term rent yeah um so i you don't often hear people taking their existing portfolio and then moving

07:03it to str you know a lot of people they they they have short-term rentals as the as the strategy and

07:09they go out looking for properties to buy with that intention yeah um so tell us about that you

07:15know that specific transition you already had a portfolio of long-term rentals you were renting

07:20them out um how what did you have to do to transition them to strs and then how did it go

07:25once you actually got the ball rolling yeah well that's a great that's great insight um you know in

07:302016 pretty much you could just get anything take your iphone take a photo and it would rent out

07:36because it wasn't really a it wasn't an established industry it wasn't sophisticated um which was good

07:42and bad i mean it made it kind of hard to manage when there weren't really the tools that we have

07:46today but uh but but the the market wasn't very picky and so we just took our you know our our rental

07:52grade properties and turned them into short-term rentals now from there i began to realize okay well

07:57it's not this isn't exactly what people are looking for you know like the four plex or or the little

08:02tiny two-bedroom apartment so we began to trans or basically 1031 exchange into other properties that

08:08were better short-term rentals throughout the process but in the moment we basically just bought

08:13the furnishings and stuck them in there took the picture created the listing and and away we went so

08:19wasn't super sophisticated did you i'm sure you started out with like literally keys giving people's

08:24keys oh my gosh the keypads and that you know after three months now i'd hired a manager because we

08:29lived overseas but i got sick of hearing the drama of the keys so like three months later we went and

08:35got the you know home depot coded locks yeah which isn't very secure because everybody got the same

08:40code and and eventually we went to digital lock so we could send the codes the doors and a lot so

08:45yeah quite an evolution of the process yeah well and um you have um i'm sure a unique perspective

08:52because you were managing this entire portfolio of short-term rentals from an entirely different country

08:58yeah um which i feel like you probably in that experience got pretty good with the operations

09:04with the management um tell us about that what were the tools you were using what were some of the

09:08kind of hacks that you found that really helped you automate it and uh and make it so it's not

09:14uh something that you had to be focusing on all the time yeah you know i always i always tell people

09:20that if i was in the states i probably wouldn't have been disciplined enough to farm out everything to

09:27to not farm out but to build the team that does the work um and it's the probably the best blessing

09:34of being so far away is i had to build a team so i built a business that would pay its own bills and

09:40i you know i wasn't giving my time away for free i spent maybe five hours a week just kind of keeping

09:46an eye on things answering kind of the bigger questions approving big expenses and that kind of

09:50stuff doing the accounting um and so that was that was the best part of it and when we very first

09:55started out we you know we're managing all this like it was a in fact i i i hired my long-term

10:02property manager to do the short-term management and all of us thought oh it's going to be relatively

10:07similar not at all um and and i remember thinking i got to get like a rental agreement so i'm searching

10:13for software that would give me an automated like a a docu-sign document and that led to me paying a lot

10:20of money for like big software that does everything and you know so we just kind of built and bolted on

10:26different aspects of it one piece at a time then got pricing software all the bit all the stuff till

10:31we got where we're at today so yeah so today what is your what does your team look like how many people

10:37do you have managing the portfolio um just kind of give us a breakdown of what the structure is like

10:41and what tools you use yeah we have 12 people that we would consider to be full-time in the company

10:46um we're hiring our 13th one now um and we're in three different markets so we have a handyman in

10:52each market we have cleaning crews in each market's not included in that staff count we hire services

10:57then i have interior designer and cpa and we have our our remote team we have four people remotely that

11:05handle all customer service communications yeah so they're they're in mexico so nice yeah um yeah i've

11:14found for customer service type things it is best to hire out but it's also really difficult you have

11:19to get i feel like you have to hire them from the right country because sometimes um you know i used

11:24to hire from the philippines they're you know they speak english but the accent is too thick and it's

11:29difficult and you get some negative reviews there so and there's real issues too that that are hard to

11:34communicate and yeah i we i've had the same experience i still have a filipino on staff and she does a

11:40great job but she's not in customer service um and i my my my four people who live in mexico handle

11:46all the customer service and they do it they do a great job perfect cool so str it's a big a big part

11:53of your portfolio but you also you've mentioned sober living um it's a very unique strategy a very

11:58unique uh model to go after tell us about that how'd you get into it and then how how does it i mean

12:04you got to teach me because i've never don't know too much about it so tell me about the about owning

12:09sober little living facilities yeah so through the brand the unexpected investor i have a community

12:15of investors who um we all share knowledge and encourage and support and hold accountable and

12:21and and learn and and share contacts and one of my members does sober living and he reached out to

12:28me and said hey i'm trying to figure out how to grow my portfolio i don't have any more of my

12:32own capital and he knew that i had raised funds to create basically syndication partnerships

12:37to grow and so long story short i looked at his business model i went and visited his sober homes

12:42and was so impressed i decided to partner with him and so we've started our our first sober living fund

12:48we have two of our sober homes already purchased we're going to do three more this year and uh our

12:54first home is already completely stabilized and up and running so basically the way it is is you find a

12:59house it's 2500 square feet or bigger so a bigger home uh you try to get eight or nine bedrooms we

13:05typically convert the garages into bedrooms with two bedrooms as well and they have to have a certain

13:10number of bathrooms and and common spaces and refrigerators and all that kind of stuff and we

13:15run a sober program on top of that like an accountability small group program on top of that

13:20um where people are assigned to us from whether it's drug court or a probation officer or somebody

13:27self-checks in as like a family intervention or something like that and they come in and they

13:32enter our program specifically and the whole idea is that we're investing in the real estate from the

13:37real estate side but we're also providing a service that's just at a break even for the uh for the

13:42residents uh that come so it's really kind of two-faceted if anybody's familiar with co-living

13:48it's basically the same thing as co-living just with the sober program added on top and

13:53like policies like absolutely no alcohol in the house no drugs in the house and there's a there's

13:58you know a a peer group that leads the house that kind of stuff but other than that it's the same as

14:04co-living interesting okay is there um so i mean you've mentioned drug court and uh um you know people

14:12in rehab and that kind of thing do you who is generally paying the the rent um i mean are you going

14:19through well yeah who is paying the rent over 90 percent of our rent is collected directly from

14:25our tenants oh now we now another difference from co-living is we're going to be the cheapest

14:29housing in town um and oftentimes so the guys can choose between double occupancy so they'd have a

14:36roommate which makes it even cheaper or they can have single occupancy but our single occupancy room

14:41is still it's only 700 bucks a month that's cheaper than any co-living option out there and single

14:46is 600 is 550 yeah for us for a double room um and 90 of that money comes from the resident

14:54or their family you know it could be that their family's supporting them and then they write us the

14:58check we have a little bit that comes from different churches that have different like charity uh programs

15:03for their members and we're just starting to get into medicaid uh which takes a ton of work to get

15:10approved for it but then once we get there that'll probably bump that up to maybe 20 30 percent of the

15:14total could be coming from medicaid and there's a couple other small program like government programs

15:19that yeah that helps as well but most of it comes from our guys and uh well guys or girls not in my

15:25fund but my partner has another house that's just for women with kids um but um uh most we we do require

15:34that they have a job if to get into the house they have to have a job and that's one of the kind of the

15:38training things that we do to get them used to that rhythm yeah yeah that was actually going to be my

15:43next uh my next question what are i'm sure the requirements differ for who you allow in to be

15:48a resident i'm sure you know um criminal history isn't as big of a deal it's not an issue it's not

15:56an issue and that's why the drug court has really latched on to us and there's a couple other

16:00companies out there doing something similar um but we'll we'll let anybody in as long as they agree

16:06to the policies and they understand you know there's low tolerance for some things and no tolerance for

16:11other things and so they could lose their spot in the house and they got to be serious about sobriety

16:16and that kind of thing very cool very cool um so tell us a little bit about the program that goes

16:21on top of this you have the real estate you have the actual house um you're adding an additional

16:25service to this being the program itself the the the um no alcohol sobriety program how do you do you

16:33structure that is there a third party that does that that you hire to do it or how does that work

16:38yeah so my partner in this so i'm kind of the the real estate and the finance guy and my partner's

16:43really the sober program guy so he's got his own system set up and running it's called the phoenix

16:48house which sometimes confuses my network because i live in phoenix but those houses are in boise but

16:54it's phoenix like rising from the ashes concept right so so the phoenix house is the sober program and

17:00they have uh five or six other homes already established reputations with drug court and all that

17:05kind of stuff um and so he has a regional manager that is a graduate of the phoenix house who came

17:11through the program and does all the counseling and the accountability and then each house has a

17:17a house leader uh that's living there that's in charge of kind of the top things and then a peer

17:22group that is in charge of setting the rules and dealing with behavior issues and holding people

17:28accountable and on top of that everybody has to be a part of some kind of a recovery program whether

17:33it's aa or celebrate recovery or whatever it is uh and they have to attend a weekly house meeting

17:40as well and just have that extra layer of accountability too so that's the program very

17:44cool i love it yeah all right well hey i did uh just take a peek at the clock and it looks like we've

17:50run it down so it is time to move us into the quick question round here are you ready yeah you bet

17:55all right it starts with education it could be any form it could be a book you've read a movie you've

18:00seen a conference you've gone to anything i just need two recommendations one for general life

18:04wisdom and then one for real estate general life wisdom um i really love the book i'll give you two

18:12good to great um which is from back in the 90s early 2000s uh where it's assessing it's a famous book but

18:20it's assessing companies that went from being average or good to becoming like world-class companies

18:25and just the concepts in there i think about them all the time it applies to my business uh and the

18:3121 immutable laws of leadership from john maxwell it's also an older book um you know today we have

18:37the one thing well john wanted the 21 things right um i can't remember any of them but in life things

18:43will happen i'll remember oh that's one of the laws that john talks about of leadership that's really

18:47impacted my life real estate i mean everybody says rich dad poor dad probably um i and i think

18:55what's important about that book is is coming from an entrepreneurial family um and already having a bent

19:01towards real estate it just like cemented my my understanding of why that was so important just the

19:09concept of don't buy liabilities buy assets and what i always say is is buy assets that go up in value

19:16and pay you a paycheck right um not that i'm anti-gold or anything like that but you're not

19:22getting any dividends from that and and and real estate is just so powerful for building wealth

19:27uh that whole concept of buy assets that go up in value and pay you pay you dividends and nobody's

19:32really communicated that better than than uh than rich dad poor yeah no it's a classic and you're right

19:38there uh it has been recommended quite a few times on this show but for good reason it's a good book

19:42um it doesn't tell you specifically tactics how to do something but right it'll definitely tell you

19:47why you should be doing it so that it helps explain the mindset of why would you be willing to go through

19:52all the hassle because it's a lot of hassle you know owning real estate so yeah cool all right next

19:57question um this is for your younger self so let's go back to the brian who was uh just just buying that

20:04first duplex uh that he was gonna house hack back and whenever that was go back to him look him in

20:09the eye give him one piece of advice moving forward

20:12man i would say stick to your goal of adding a unit or more every year and i was pretty good

20:20about it when we moved away it got a little bit more complicated i wish i'd have pushed myself to

20:24just continue to add um you know and the timing that was in 1996 um nobody wanted to live in idaho

20:33uh which was the perfect time to buy a property because it was cheap and the rents were not great but

20:39if i could have built a portfolio a little bit faster i mean man where would we be that kind of

20:43drives me nuts though when i hear people today if i was if i was alive then i would have bought

20:47everything well and you know you know right there's always if there's a lot of deals to be had there's

20:52no money and if there's a lot of money there's no deals it's every market is a challenge so uh but

20:57yeah i would have told myself to stick to that one unit at least per year if not i'm gonna put that

21:03in the bucket of i wish i started sooner um you know that is something that many people come on

21:09the show and say and whenever they do say it i have to point it back to the listener you if uh if you

21:14have not completed your first deal yet this is your kick in the pants go out there get it done

21:19because so many people that come on this show they say they wish they started soon they got started

21:24sooner in real estate so it could be anything doesn't have to be anything special just go out there

21:27buy a single family get your first deal done get that ball rolling 10 years later or 10 years

21:33down the road you will be happy that you did so if i could add on top of that i would just want to

21:38say you're absolutely right and you're going to tell yourself yeah but the market conditions aren't

21:42right yet they will never be right that first duplex that i bought i would never buy today but if i

21:48hadn't bought that duplex i bought a brand new from the contractor so there's no way i'm going to

21:53create any equity i don't do that anymore but if i hadn't got started i wouldn't have learned how to

21:57be a landlord and i wouldn't have had the the power of the clock killing my debt increasing my

22:04value and teaching me how to be an investor so get started yeah i can't remember what the who said the

22:10quote but um and i don't really remember the specific quote itself but the gist of it was

22:15every deal you buy is a good deal 10 years down the road yeah so if you just if you just hold on for

22:2110 years it's going to be a good deal and the important thing is really just the momentum you need

22:25to get the momentum started so you can uh you know 10 years down the road you'll be like i wish i

22:30started sooner so yeah you don't want to be 60 and saying oh i didn't prepare you know yep exactly

22:37all right next question this is about the u.s it's a big place there is a lot of opportunity out there

22:43give me the single metro you're most excited about investing in today yeah i i'm not invested in texas

22:50um but if when i go to my next market when i go to my fourth market it's likely to be in texas unless

22:57conditions change between now and the next couple of years um i'm still building out my portfolio in

23:02phoenix i've got a specific target that i want to hit and then be done here and so texas i don't know

23:08which city um it's going to be one of the markets where there's landlord friendliness and and and good

23:14jobs a diversity of jobs and uh population growth and that kind of stuff so i haven't nailed down the

23:20city yet but that's likely where i'm going next yeah yeah i'm in uh dfw san antonio and love it

23:26um absolutely love texas it's a it's a great maybe i'll reach out when i'm ready to jump to the next

23:31next market there you go all right next question is about finding deals it all starts with the pen in

23:37that purchase agreement and getting in contact with the seller so what is your favorite way to

23:41generate leads and find new deals yeah um i've settled in i've got several wholesalers here in the

23:47phoenix area that know exactly what i'm looking for and it's very very specific and it's not

23:51necessarily what everybody else is looking for and so when when one of my wholesalers finds it they

23:57call me before they shoot it out to their whole group and if i love it i'll say i'll take it and

24:01i'm not going to argue with you on price unless it's obviously off but um and i'll just grab it so

24:07that's how that's how i've got it gone about it i've thought about creating my own marketing and i may

24:11still do that at some point um i'm extremely busy and they've done all the hard work i'm willing to

24:17pay them the 10 or 15 000 which i would have paid in marketing expenses anyway um to just get this

24:22stuff handed to me on a platter so yep yep and that is uh that's in the bucket of relationships

24:27relationships are so important it's how you get the ball moving in in a lot of the areas so uh

24:33yeah good good call out there um next question is about lessons learned not every deal that we go

24:40into goes the way we expect it in fact many times if not every time something goes wrong

24:45and that's when we get to learn a lesson so what was a deal that went a little bit sideways for you

24:49and then what was the lesson you pulled from it yeah um my brother and i went together to buy a

24:56a 44 acre parcel up in the mountains with it has a river running right through the middle of it it has

25:01natural hot springs on the property it's forested it's beautiful great location and he and i wanted to

25:07build like a family legacy property and that was in 2020 and we're still dealing with nightmare

25:15headaches roadblocks governments forest service i mean it has been a nightmare we we should have just

25:22gone and bought a house that existed and then we have our our our mountain escape so yeah yeah i mean

25:29just the whole concept is stick to what you know um and and and just stick to that make your money

25:36in the market that you understand and the asset class that you understand and then take that money

25:41and and then go play with it you don't try to mix the two things together at least that's that's the

25:46track that i'm going to take going forward yeah yeah and development is a completely different ball

25:51game um there there's so many different little aspects that you don't quite i mean if you haven't

25:56done it you wouldn't know it uh and so it's it's definitely a it's not something i'm keen to jump into

26:00and i've done a little bit of ground up but it's in my own backyard and in a city and it just

26:06everything's different in this this place so yeah big mistake yeah um but yeah sometimes these stars

26:12align and everything goes to a plan so let's uh let's see that hybrid highlight reel um take us back to

26:20one of your favorite deals and tell us how it went my favorite deal was in 2009 and for those of you

26:27who uh work actively investing at that time um you know if you were to pick up any newspaper it would

26:33be capitalism is dead real estate's never coming back okay so again for all you gen z's and gen xers

26:41that are gen y's that are saying well if i was alive out about everything in 2009 well we weren't sure

26:46i mean you know we thought maybe real estate would recover but is it going to take a decade or two decades

26:52or is it just going to stay stagnant for our lifetime we didn't know and um so anyway 2009

26:58was kind of like the height of the hysteria of the market and i was look i had some money i had sold a

27:05couple of things before the bubble popped and i had some cash and i was looking for a way to invest

27:09i found these four townhome lots that were um that were going up for auction because they couldn't sell

27:15the guy couldn't get out of them so he's fine i'm just gonna fire sell them at auction

27:19i i showed up with my my my pregnant wife and uh there was only us and two other buyers there and

27:26the seller was just you could just tell his head was about to blow up and uh we ended up getting uh

27:31four townhome lots for about 20 cents on the dollar um and the guy didn't even i mean he paid

27:37eighty thousand dollars for the lots we paid less than i think sixteen thousand dollars per lot

27:41and we bought or we built our own basically a fourplex four townhomes in a row and that building

27:48a loan has gone up in value by over a million dollars uh from what we paid for it and it's

27:53pumping out forty fifty thousand dollars in free cash flow every single year so that was from 2009

27:59so that is the stars aligned the market conditions were right and and i think the best part about that

28:06is i was terrified am i is this gonna work can i even get financing that's another thing in 2009

28:11getting a loan was very difficult even for people who were established so i ended up having to pay cash

28:17for the whole construction projects i couldn't get a construction loan and then started to refi after

28:22we had them all stabilized like a 50 loan to value so um but we it all worked out and i still have those

28:29four four homes today and i'm so glad we did that but it was scary super scary yeah i love that and

28:35you're 100 right like um hindsight's 2020 people are always like why didn't you buy more and but you

28:41just don't know like my first uh the first investment i ever bought was in 2014 you know just

28:47a little bit after college and um there's a duplex or triplex and uh and after that i i it went well

28:54surprised you know thank god it went well but after that prices kept going you know we're going up a

28:59little bit and i everybody i talked to is always like oh my god it's so high it's it's never gonna go

29:04higher and this is 2014 15 yeah and so i was scared that i was scared to pull the trigger on

29:10another property because i thought that that was it it was maxed out and we're talking like

29:15since then it's more than triple or i don't know about triple but it's gone quite quite higher here in

29:20seattle so you just never know um and it's hard to uh yeah it's hard to make that that call in the

29:26moment it's always scary but you gotta you gotta do it if the cash flow makes sense in the moment

29:30pull the trigger yep exactly all right and that leads us to the very last question this is for the

29:37listeners you've given us a lot to think about i'm sure people want to reach out get in contact with

29:41you um this is a two-parter where can they find you and then what can they expect when they reach

29:45out yeah you can go to my website the unexpected investor.com or any of the social medias at

29:50unexpected investor and like i mentioned before i i wrote a book about our process so when we were

29:56living overseas we were making very very minimal wages less than ten dollars an hour and yet we were

30:01still able to build a multi-million dollar net worth and portfolio that's covering all of our

30:06expenses i retired at 44 and and so the hacker method book is how we did that and the community is

30:12helping people you can read a book and you can you know take some lessons but then having

30:17accountability and being able to ask questions and get coaching so that's what the community is about

30:22and you can find all that on the website perfect i will put that link in the show notes so if you

30:27guys want to reach out all you got to do is click the little more in the description it's going to

30:31pull down that full description and in there you can find brian's links all right man that wraps it up

30:36thank you very much for having on the show yeah thanks a lot of fun absolutely for everybody who's

30:41with us today thank you guys for showing up you are the reason we do this so if you guys have

30:45any questions reach out to me gabe with real estate investing club.com if you guys want to support the

30:50show just leave us a review or give us a thumbs up or any of that stuff other than that i hope you guys

30:55have a great week keep rocking real estate and i look forward to seeing you on the next episode

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