C (3:16)

I mean, how often do you. And I hear, should I buy or should I rent? So how do you think about an intelligent answer to that question?

A (3:29)

I believe it's always better to buy than it is to rent. And in a multifamily situation, or renters. Renters are paying the owner's mortgage. And, and when you're, when you own your own home, you're in essence paying your own mortgage. You're building equity. A renter is building equity for the landowner, whereas when you own your own home, you're building equity for yourself. So that's number one, is equity building. Number two, over time we know that real estate appreciates. And guess what else? Rents go up. So if you're. I'm not necessarily recommending a 30 year fixed. I can tell you I have a 30 year fixed on my home. And in some senses I think that's, that's not the smartest thing because when you look around, nobody generally stays anywhere for 30 years. So you can get a slightly less expensive mortgage if it's amortized over 30 years, but you're using a 15 year fixed instead of 30. Now, I knew rates were low. I grabbed the 30 year. I'm not sorry at all that I did that. But as real estate appreciates, rents go up, but my fixed rate mortgage does not go up. So I'm essentially locked in at a lower, at a lower cost. My rent in my own home is not going up. And we all know that inflation happens and appreciation happens and rents go up and my rent doesn't.

C (5:02)

So I know several people that actually are significant real estate investors and in many cases they've chosen to rent.

C (5:16)

I'm going to assume that there's sort of an opportunity cost of their capital that they choose to buy properties, that they quite frankly would be great investment properties, but they don't want to live in them, perhaps. So, like, how do you reconcile that? Are there ever times, I guess, where it makes sense to rent as opposed to buy?

A (5:37)

I actually owned probably about 20 units before I owned my own house. And there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that the real estate I invested in was in Pittsburgh, which is where I'm originally from. It's a market I knew. I feel strongly and believe in.

A (5:58)

Buying where you know, and then I moved around quite a bit, but I was living in Washington, D.C. which was much more expensive than Pittsburgh. So I owned 20 rental units, 20 or so rental units. And I was renting in Washington, D.C. and there was really two reasons for that. And one was that I viewed at the time housing was so expensive in Washington, D.C. that I felt like I couldn't afford it, really. And also.

A (6:27)

I felt like I was transient. So I do think that home ownership is.

A (6:36)

It's never a risk in the long term, but it can be a risk in the short term. So if, you know, I have a client that has. That has plenty of money and they're renting, and one of the. And I sort of advise them in a way.

A (6:51)

You know, maybe keep renting. Because the client asked me, you know, if I buy this house, you know, where's it going to be in three years from now? Because I think I might want to live somewhere else in three years from now. And I don't have a good answer for that because the market was very hot at the time. I'm like, three years from now, you know, you're going to come back to me to sell it. We might be in a losing position. The person didn't want to do that, so they're renting. So my answer really, from a practical standpoint was I felt like I couldn't afford it, number one. And number two, I was transient. By the way, the only good reason is number two, not number one, because when I eventually bought, I was there, then I was renting for like six years. I'm like, okay, this is ridiculous. And I bought a house. Buying a house is the best real estate investment. Buying a house for you to live in is the best real estate investment because you can. It's tax deductible. So your rent is not tax deductible. Now you have to. You earn money. If you're a W2, like I was at the time, they take the taxes out of your paycheck, and then I have to pay after tax dollars for that rent. There's no tax advantage, whereas there's a tremendous tax advantage, depreciation. And you can write off interest. And I don't want to give tax advice, so talk to your cpa. But there are tremendous tax advantages in owning real estate that you don't have. And also.

A (8:28)

Interestingly, is that within one year of me buying the house, I then decided to finally leave Washington, D.C. so I was very transient, and I really couldn't afford to live there on what I was earning. So what I did instead was I did what they now call house hacking. They didn't call it house hacking at the time. And that was I could afford the down payment. Why? Because down payment on a, on a house that you're living in, on an owner occupy is so much less. You can, right now, even with mortgage regulations tightening, you can still, you can still buy a house with 5% down. Whereas a, an investment property, you got to be 25% down or maybe even more. So you can get into the game and a lot less money. Then you can use the. Oh, it costs more to own than it does to rent. That's true. But there are tax write offs that make up for it. And I could not, I could afford the down payment, but I couldn't afford the payments.

C (9:28)

Yep.

A (9:29)

And so I put roommates in and that's what they now call house hacking. So I do think that owning versus renting is always better. Interestingly, I've had ultra, ultra wealthy clients that, because for most of us, it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, your home is still a very large part of your net worth. Because as people get wealthier, they want to live in a nicer house. And before you know it, you know, somebody's very wealthy, they're living in a 20 million dollar house. It's still a very significant part. But when you get to the ultra, ultra, ultra wealthy, like a billionaire, you know, renting or leasing is almost a throwaway luxury. And the only weird example that I can give for that is because it's on so much lower scale, is that I became a very avid skier and never owned my own skis. I spent a lot of money to have my own boots because you don't want to rent boots. But especially in California, the weather conditions are so varying. Oh, the snow is heavy today. You need a different type of ski. If I, I could go into the pro shop and say, what is the perfect ski for today? And they would give it to me and then maybe the conditions would change a little bit. And you know, I would go into the ski shop the next day and be like, switch them out for, you know, oh. Now suddenly, overnight we had 10 inches of powder. Give me the powder skis instead. I didn't. And I also didn't have to carry skis with me when I traveled. So it's like the ultimate luxury really was not owning the skis. And that's what for a billionaire, you know, like, oh, well, I'm just gonna rent. And even then, billionaires would generally Own a bunch of houses. That's a lot of answer for a pretty basic question, but I do think it covers a lot of the bases.

C (11:18)

So again, we often get asked, is now a good time to buy?

A (11:23)

Yeah.

C (11:24)

What are your thoughts around answering that question?

B (11:27)

Take the next 30 seconds to invest in yourself with Vanguard. Breathe in. Center your mind. Recognize the power you have to direct your financial future. Feel the freedom that comes with reaching your goals and building a life you love. Vanguard brings you this meditation because we invest where it matters most in you. Visit vanguard.com investinginyou to learn more. All investing is subject to risk. Hey, what's up, y'? All? Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. My favorite thing about the holidays, Decking out my whole house. It's not a competition, but if it was, well, I'd win the season with Wayfair outdoor inflatable Santa. Got it on Wayfair. Trees, lights and ornaments. Wayfair hosting must haves like dining sets, beds, sheets and towels. Wayfair for everything in your style, delivered with fast and free shipping. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app to win the season. But again, it's not a competition. Wayfair Every style, every home.

A (12:27)

I mean, we have been asked that so many times. And, you know, we just. We just did. I even just mentioned it recently in, you know, our Realtor podcast podcast. And that is, you know, I bumped into somebody in the locker room of the yoga studio. The guy knows that I, you know, I do real estate investing. And he said, you know.

A (12:51)

I found this piece of property. I was getting ready to invest in it. My CPA told me not to buy it. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. You know, why? Why is that? He said, now's not a good time. And I asked him, did your CPA look at the deal? And he said, no, my CPA did not look at the deal. I said, you know what?

C (13:11)

Is that good advice?

A (13:13)

I said, you know what? I don't have to look at the deal. And I can tell you it's terrible advice. Now, I'm not saying you should buy the property, because I truly do not know that I can tell you I don't know. And the reason is because.

A (13:29)

There'S not a best time to buy real estate. We cannot. I mean, if you have a crystal ball, if you have 2020 hindsight, of course, that would be great. But without 2020 hindsight, there's never a good time to buy. There's never not a good time to buy. There is the particular deal and so the reason why I knew that, that CPA had given bad advice is because the answer to the question of did you look at the deal? Was no. So we all know people that have made terrible buys when the market is good, and people that have made great buys when the market is bad. So the worst time to buy, for example, would be one instant before the market crashed. And I made one of my great purchases one minute before the market crashed. And I took quite the immediate beating on that purchase. It was the house that I had in Santa Monica. I bought it in 2000. I bought it one minute before the market crashed. I paid 2.1for a dump of a house. I put a bunch of money down because I was being conservative. And six months later, it was worth 1.6 million. And if you think that, oh, well, he lost 25% or whatever, I didn't because I put $500,000 down. I was exactly $500,000 upside down. Six months later, I lost everything. I had a $1.6 million mortgage. The house is now worth 1.6 million. But instead I had the money to fix it up. And it was scary, by the way.

A (15:08)

And I admit that as seasoned of a real estate investor as I was, Even back in 2008, I ran around, I asked my investor and realtor friends, should I really I have the money set aside to renovate. But isn't that like throwing bad money on top of, sorry, good money on top of bad? And they all asked me the same question, and that was, is this. It's the question I would have asked them. Is this a flip or are you gonna live there? No, I'm like, oh, you're gonna be fine. You know, fast forward to three years ago. You know, I was at a buy at 2:1. I put maybe seven, $800,000 in carrying costs all and, you know, maybe $3 million in. And I sold it three years ago for $6.2 million.

C (15:55)

Every deal is idiosyncratic.

A (15:56)

You know, I bought the right house, which had a lot of value add. I added the value the right way. I enjoyed the house all that time. I wrote out the storm and, you know, and ended it. Now, weirdly enough, I did not know that I was buying at the worst possible moment. But when I sold, I knew that I was selling at a great time to sell because I knew the market was very hot. I didn't realize that I was also selling right before the market corrected again. So I sort of bought at the worst possible time without knowing it. I sold at the Best possible time without knowing it. Now, why don't people sell after lots of appreciation, their own home? And the answer is they all say the same thing. And that is, well, sure, there's all this appreciation in my home, but where am I going to live? Where am I going to go? And the reason why I sold is because I had that answer. And that answer was another house that was certainly a lot more expensive than the price of the previous one, but it still was a value add. So it had a phenomenal view again. And it was a poorly flipped house and there's a lot of upside in it.

A (17:13)

And after the market, sort of, I sold at the height of the market, but I also bought at the height of the market and after the market corrected, there was still enough juice in that deal to keep me above water.

C (17:25)

Yep. And I always come back to, and you've heard me say this multiple times, there's never been a point in time in the last 50 plus years in Los Angeles where prices have not appreciated within a two year period. So if you're in it for more than two years, it's an awfully safe bet that your home is going to appreciate. So that in and of itself, you know, is, is really powerful. And you can look at each market and look at those kind of trends and that will tell you a lot about, you know, the viability of that particular, you know, purchase or sale.

A (18:00)

I'm just checking ChatGPT, which I use all the time and it says the longest real estate downturn in Los Angeles in terms of duration impact.

A (18:11)

Is six to seven years. Who told me in the 90s. And then, and then.

A (18:18)

And then the thing that I was talking about, 2008 really says the Great Recession and that's really, that really started in 2007 and it lasted 10, about five to six years from peak to bottom. But I'll bet you there's another way to ask that, which is, you know, year over year of. Because if you take a big hit.

C (18:40)

Right.

A (18:41)

They're now talking about how much, how long it takes to recover back that hit. Right?

C (18:45)

Yeah.

A (18:45)

So you could still be right, right?

C (18:47)

Yep.

A (18:47)

How many years has the successive losses been in a row would be a better way to ask that question. Yeah. But I will add to the answer. And is that because we cannot figure out, I do sometimes know, like, you know, this is really, we're really closer to the top than we are the bottom. And that you can always say. And that's when I get more conservative in my investing and a very smart friend of mine told me, you know, maybe 10 years ago, but I probably should have known it sooner is that, you know, because we can't predict the market. We know we're close to the top. So I agree with you. We know we're close to the top. But if you buy now and it doesn't crash the day after you buy, it's still going to go up, up, up, up, up until it crashes. And you know, a crash might be 15% and maybe you get, you're still at the 6% a year, year over year, and it's compounding. And so maybe you only go a year and a half. You could still have 10, 11, 12% compounded, you know, and then, and then it drops 15. So you really only lost 3%. Yep. So it takes away the fear. Nobody likes to buy at the top of the market. But again, I bought that house. That turned out to be a phenomenal investment at the top of the market.

C (20:08)

Yep.

A (20:08)

But that's, that's the, that's the answer to, you know, two questions that are, that are basic.

C (20:13)

Yep.

A (20:14)

Continuing on with, with Ask Me Anything, having lost my, my co host, which I understand on a Friday afternoon, one of the other questions that I get is, you know, there's really two that I'm seeing that, that are, that are repeats. One of them is asking me about the rule that I refer to, which is the 1% rule. And that is rental income being 1% of the total cost of, of the purchase. And so to do easy math, you know, a $300,000 home or apartment or, you know, condo should bring $3,000 a month. That's 1%. And in hot markets like Los Angeles, you, you really cannot get 1%. There are some markets you can get it in. Los Angeles is not one of them. But I still use the 1% rule because things in Los Angeles will tend to rent at about a half a percent. Half a percent is harder math to do. So if you're looking at a, you know, at a $2 million house in Los Angeles, you know, a 1% rule would be 20,000. And you're just not going to get 20,000 rent a month on a, on a $2 million house. But you could get 10,000. So that's, that, that's the half a percent. So I still use the 1% rule as a guide. And when you get close to 1% is when you're really, really going to make significant return on investment. Now the follow up question I got from that is, should I run out and look for Places where I can get closer to 1%. My personal answer to that is no. You know, for example, my fiance has a house in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You know, that house might be worth close to $300,000 and she could rent it maybe for more than $3,000 a month. So you have your greater than 1%. So, you know, why not run out to Kalamazoo and invest there? And I have two reasons why I don't do that. Number one is I really believe in investing where, you know, and I could learn Kalamazoo if it were, you know, that great of that great of a return, which it is. But I find over time, places like Los Angeles tend to appreciate a lot more. So then when you, you might get your 1% in rent, but over time, that real estate in Kalamazoo over the last 10, 15, 20 years, the appreciation that you would have gotten in Los Angeles buying at a half a percent or 0.6, a little higher, 0.7. Once you get up in those numbers, it starts to get to be a good investment and it can carry itself so that you're not in the red. And then if you compare those two investments with one that you're really getting 1% on, the appreciation added onto that puts you way ahead of the game. And a lot of the investing that I did, I did it in Pittsburgh. So you can get a lot closer to 1% in Pittsburgh than you can in Los Angeles. I still believe if I had started investing In Los Angeles 25 years ago, we could do the math. You'd be a lot better off at your 0.6, 0.7.

A (23:18)

Less than 1%, because appreciation would have way made up for it. So that's my answer to the 1% rule. Another question that I get multiple, multiple, multiple times is, you know, I only have a small amount of money, so that might be $20,000. So $20,000. How am I going to. I want to invest, I want to invest in real estate. How am I going to do that with $20,000? And I think you shouldn't look at that amount of money that you have as an impediment. When I first started investing in real estate, the first property that I bought, I bought it with a friend. So number one, I had to come up with only half the money. But it was so inexpensive, we bought it at auction. It was really an all cash deal. So we used basically his life savings plus my life savings, which wasn't a lot, to buy a total ramshackle house in a really decent neighborhood at an Auction. And we did quite well with that. Very soon after that, we found a great opportunity. And at that point in time, we literally had no money. So now you're talking about $0. Because we had tapped out on that first investment, and we found the investment to be so good that we were able to get friends and family to invest in it and create really, what's called a syndication. And that's using other people's money, and you pay them a preferred rate of return. I mean, I could go on and on about explaining a syndication, but you can pull together with people who do have money. If you find a great deal, you find a partner who has money, or maybe you have credit, they have money, you use your credit, their money. Maybe you don't have money or credit, but you find a really great deal. You can get somebody that will put up the money and finance the deal, and you run the whole deal and you get some equity in that deal for bringing it to them. So.

A (25:11)

That'S the way I did it. And certainly other people can do it as well. There's a thing I talked about previously, which is the. Which is house hacking. And that is when you buy your first home, you can get into it with very little money down. And even if you cannot then afford to sustain the payments, you can do that by bringing renters in. So you can get into a real estate investment with very little money by buying your own home.

A (25:40)

So those are the. Those are the ways that I would consider. There are other vehicles, like something that's called a reit, which stands for. It's an acronym for Real Estate Investment Trust. And those are sold on the stock exchanges. And they really. It's an investment into. It's a small little investment into a very large portfolio of real estate. People do fairly well with them. You're getting really getting the benefit of really professional investors that are buying on scale. But generally.

A (26:15)

Those profits are tamped down quite a bit by the cost.

A (26:21)

Of running that big machine that you don't have when you invest in your own thing. And somebody I was just sitting with recently was also sort of advising against a very successful investor saying, nobody looks after your own money the same way that you look after your own money. And so, you know, invest in your own small piece of real estate rather than a reit. And I believe that's true also. If you look around and you start practicing, you don't have to buy the first thing that you consider. Think about it, and then follow that deal as if you bought it. If you have the discipline to do that. You can really learn to invest while not even doing it for really essentially from the sidelines. And, and, and also get in the practice of looking at many, many deals. I would say find a Realtor who specializes in, in investment grade property and has a really good track record of putting people into great investments and you'll, you'll know who they are because you can, you can go and, and go to a real estate firm and say who's somebody that represents real estate investors? And if they have a career of representing real estate investors, they really know how to pick great deals. Otherwise they wouldn't have that career. The developers and the investors would not keep going back to them if they weren't putting them into great deals. So you know, in essence, I don't think you really do need to have any money to invest in real estate. One last thing I'll say about it is there's a new change in fha. And FHA are certain guidelines where you get a conforming loan and it de risks the loan so that the government is backing the loan. And FHA also does investment properties, four units or less. And when you do your own owner occupied single family residence, you can get in for as little as 5% down. But even an FHA backed loan in 2, 3, 4 units, it used to be you still had to put 25% down but they relaxed that rule. So now you can, if you're owner occupy of one of the units, you can get into it into an FHA backed loan for up to four units. And that's a great opportunity. That's where I would be telling young people to invest is go for, go for a four unit or three unit building where you're going to own or occupy one of the units that's going to qualify you for an FHA loan. And that's a great way to get into investment, investment real estate. Okay, here's another question. Should I manage the property myself or should I hire a professional manager? Or when, when, when do I know it's a good time to hire a professional manager? Personally, I'm not good at property management. It's a total hassle. But I do think that you know, while you're first starting out, if it's something that you're okay with, then.

A (29:24)

You can do that. One of the things that I did was I created two separate pools of money and this is part of my investment strategy. And the two separate pools of money were, and it was after I was investing a little bit already and starting to make money on the real estate investments is that I knew never spent a dime of the money that I made investing in real estate. I always reinvested it and that creates a great flywheel to keep going. But I was also working a full time job. So as I was working a full time job, I didn't really have time to, to manage the properties myself. So I built in. I built in professional property managers and finding somebody who's really great, you know.

A (30:08)

Definitely, definitely check references, make sure that other investors are happy with the management company. And I would go with a professional manager. And the next question I get.

A (30:22)

Very frequently, I can't say I've got the answer, but it's buy and hold or buy and flip. And that's really a personal preference. I recently had lunch with a great investor and it kind of shocked me because he was all buy and flip, period. So much so that he even told me, you know, that he has properties that he's holding on to and he doesn't put a tenant into them because he doesn't want to deal with the hassle of tenants. So he'd prefer to like eat the mortgage or you know, just not get that income because he's so focused on buying and flipping.

B (31:01)

So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text but which you do you listen to is it, we could buy a house in Tulum.

B (31:12)

Get optioning those options.

B (31:16)

We could lose everything.

B (31:19)

Or let's do a little research, get your head in the trade and make the investment decision that's right for you. Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart.

B (31:32)

Ford BlueCruise hands free highway driving takes the work out of being behind the wheel, allowing you to relax and reconnect while also staying in control. Enjoy the drive in Bluecruise enabled vehicles like the F150 Explorer and Mustang Mach E. Available feature on equipped vehicles terms apply. Does not replace safe driving. See Ford.com BlueCruise for more details.

A (32:01)

And that to me was a bit of a shock because he's got several properties that are vacant and he's waiting till the timing is a little different and he knows that it's going to be worth quite a bit more in the near future and he continues to improve them a little bit but just does not want to have tenants at all. Whereas for me, buy and hold is something that I really cling to because.

A (32:25)

I can put all this time and energy and effort into.

A (32:30)

Property acquisition. And I do believe you make the money on the deal when you go into the deal. And what I mean by that is when I look at a deal, I've got to see what's in that deal that's going to make money for me, irrespective of the market. So my advice to investors or potential investors is don't ever let somebody sell you on a pro forma. So in other words, over the years we've experienced a 4% annual appreciation. And so then let me show you what this property is going to look like 10 years, years from now. I never buy on the future. It's got to make sense right here and right now, as if the market will never change. And when I do that, that's one of the reasons why I've never lost money in a real estate deal, is that I'm not building appreciation into it. If you build appreciation into it, then you're, you're, you're setting yourself up for a potential failure unless you're going to hold the real estate for a very, very long time. Because I'm not dependent on the market. I'm buying things that are value add, which means, means that there's really a little market inside of that property. And what I mean by that is whether the market goes, if you're totally done done, then the market goes up, your property goes up, market goes down, your property goes down. You're really like, you know, a cork floating in the water, you know, high tide, low tide. When I buy a value add, if the market stays the same, I'm going to increase because I'm going to add value to that property. I know what I'm looking to improve and where I'm going to be when I get out of that property. And that's, that's my, that's my value add market stays the same, I'm going to increase with it. On the other hand, if the market increases, then I'm getting an asymmetric return on, on my investment. Conversely, if I, if I'm buying it, quote the wrong time, but it's a great value add property. I'm adding value to that property. And, and as the market depreciates, it goes down.

A (34:34)

I'm still staying afloat because I've added value to this property. It might, it might have gone down 10%, but I've added 10%. So I'm back to even, even though the market has gone down. And then when that market swings back up, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to get a lot of value out of it. And in fact, when I look at My personal financial statement. Over time my wealth has increased greatly by owning real estate. But it is not.

A (35:05)

A natural flat curve. It goes like this. It's always going up, but there are ebbs and flows and peaks and valleys. So it's really holding real estate over time that increases my wealth. That's why I don't mind putting the time and energy getting into a deal because I know I'm going to hang on to that. So I'm still going to have the benefit of that great deal in the future. Whereas if I were looking sourcing deals to buy and flip, even if I made a bunch of money at the end of it, I'd be like, yes, but now I have nothing. And then also you're going to be, if you do it quickly. So in other words, you buy something that has a lot of potential. You know, what do you want to do if you're a buy and flip? It's its velocity of money. You want to be in and out as quickly as you possibly can. And when you're in and out quickly, you're going to have short term gains, which is a lot more expensive in terms of tax, way less tax efficient than a long term hold, which is a long term capital gain as opposed to a short term normal gain which they tax just like regular income. So big tax benefit in buy and hold as well as, you know, watching your, watching your wealth grow over time. But like I said, I sat with an investor who does tremendously well and he is all about buying it and flipping it. And one last thing about buy and hold is that when the market goes bad, which it does, so the markets go up, markets go down over time, it's over time, it's a flat line. But if you're, if you get in the market and it's appreciate, appreciate, you're in, you're in, you're in. And then you've got this crash and now you've got three or four projects that are unfinished. This is when I see people lose big money in real estate, is they're the people that are buying and developing. They may, they may buy a great, a terrible house on a great piece of land. They tear the house down and now they're in the middle of this great big.

A (37:15)

Development and then the market tanks and then it flushes all of the profit they would have had. Maybe they're underwater. And this is where you see people, oh, we had 10 projects going at the same time. We made all this money on the other ones. We keep getting bigger and bigger projects. Then the market tanks. And this is where these, where these people will really face, you know, a bankruptcy situation. Whereas, you know, as I'm doing buy and hold, when the market, you know, 2008, we had this great, great recession and the market went down. And people know I'm in real estate, they're like, oh, are you okay? And I'm like, I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, there's no short answer to that. But the, but, but the longer answer to that is that, you know, all the real estate that I held in Pittsburgh, people weren't opening the newspaper and saying, you know, the stock market has crashed. I'm not going to pay my rent today most of the time in the type of real estate that I invest in, which are, you know, really nice, but entry level into a really, into a good or really good neighborhood. So the lower end of a good neighborhood is where I'm investing. And that's just, people are not, people are not saying, you know, I'm not going to pay my rent. They're, they're saying, better make sure we pay our rent. In fact, they're paying their rent first. And then there, there are other things like extravagances or whatever, you know, or what people cut back on. So, you know, the buy and hold really, really protects you from the, from the real risks of, of market ups and downs. Another question I got, it's not, it's not as frequent, but, but somebody asked me about my personal investments and am I invested in the stock market because we've had some recent high turbulence in the stock market. And the answer is, I am entirely, at this point, entirely out of the stock market. And the further question on that was, well, okay, what about retirement? I think investing in retirement account is very important. Important because it's very tax efficient. So you can do an IRA or 401k depending on what level of income you're at. And I really would, even if you have very little extra money, I would take a small amount of money per week and open an ira. And those are generally invested in index funds and in the stock market. And I was invested in those. But once I got to a certain level of invest, investment and the market was hot at the time, and I got to tell you, you know, the Dow Jones was, was, is double now. So I definitely missed out on a, on a great stock run, there's no question about that. But when I, you know, was in a, in a heated moment of the stock market and I watched my stock portfolio cross an important number for me I'm like, you know what, I'm out. And I sold everything and I put it in what's called a, a self directed ira. And a self directed ira, you can do things like invest in real estate. You can loan money, you just can't loan money to yourself and you can't buy a home for yourself out of a self directed ira. It's got to be investment, investment property or it's got to be a loan to someone else. But you know, that's my answer to, you know, are you. I know the question was are you? You know, I know you're bullish in real estate, but are you in the stock market at all? And my answer for that right now is actually not in the stock market at all. And I'm not sorry about that. I definitely missed a great run for sure. I know I did just as well with my real estate investments in my self directed ira. I use it for.

A (40:58)

Really special opportunities so that there's money sitting there. So if a really great buy comes along, I can buy it with that money and then you can sell back out of it and the principal and the profits go back into your, into your self directed ira. Again, I'm not a tax expert for sure, so definitely get tax advice before you do anything like that. But self directed IRA is something you can and should explore with your, with your CPA if you, if you have enough money in your, your 401k or your, or your individual retirement account. Thanks again for joining me at Radical Wealth Plan. I started today with my co host Josh Spitzen and I stuck with you even though he had to go because I had some great questions for really our first Ask Me Anything episode of Radical Wealth Plan and Grow Ahead and drop some comments if you have more questions or if you like this format or if you don't like this format, let me know. Happy to do more of it if it's something that everyone's interested in. So thanks for tuning in.