186. REAL DEAL: How YouTube and Sweat Equity Saved Us Thousands with Cade and Takara Memmott

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Real Estate Investing School Podcast

Episode 186: REAL DEAL: How YouTube and Sweat Equity Saved Us Thousands with Cade and Takara Memmott
Host: Brody Fossett
Guests: Cade and Takara Memmott
Date: August 22, 2024

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Episode Overview

This Real Deal episode dives into Cade and Takara Memmott’s first hands-on real estate investment, focusing on how a mix of YouTube learning, sweat equity, resourcefulness, and disciplined deal analysis allowed them to secure and rehab a promising property at a significant profit. They share their journey from analyzing deals and facing setbacks to landing a great opportunity, navigating the rehab DIY-style, and building wealth and skills as a couple.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background & Getting Started (02:23–04:45)

• Cade and Takara started house-hunting soon after getting married, initially seeking rental properties.
• Their first attempts (including multiple contracts) fell through due to inspection issues and lack of experience in running the numbers. Initial losses included losing earnest money.
• “Let’s invest in the real estate investing school, invest in ourselves and figure out how to do this.” (Takara, 02:56)
• After joining Real Estate Investing School, they better understood how to analyze properties.

2. Finding the Right Deal (04:45–07:33)

• The couple searched persistently, running numbers daily, tracking deals via Zillow and buyers' lists.
• They found a promising property in South Ogden—initially unattractive due to its appearance but filled with untapped potential such as a large basement and possible extra bedrooms.
• Strategic focus on potential rather than just current appearances became key.
• “We just noticed a lot of potential there… So, let’s throw a low-ball offer, see what we can get.” (Cade, 07:15)

3. Negotiation & Funding (07:33–08:14)

• The house was listed at $485k, dropped twice, and they eventually secured it for $435k.
• Their loan officer, Jason Griffin, played a crucial role by vouching for them to the sellers, tipping the scales in their favor against wholesaler competitors.
• Jason’s proactive support is highlighted: “He actually pleaded a case for us…” (Cade, 07:34)

4. The Power of Running the Numbers (“Maximum Allowable Offer”) (08:14–11:05)

• They used the “maximum allowable offer” formula learned from their coach, Chase, to calculate investment feasibility by evaluating comp values, repair costs, and projected equity.
• Bought at $130/sq ft in a $205/sq ft neighborhood.
• This discipline alleviated buyer’s anxiety: “I just had to trust the process. We ran the numbers. We know it’s gonna work, and it honestly helped me with the buyer’s anxiety.” (Takara, 10:28)

5. Persistence Pays Off: Diligent Deal Sourcing (13:09–14:48)

• Cade emphasizes consistent action—Zillow searches, buying lists, Facebook groups—and not letting setbacks cause discouragement.
• “It was diligence. But Cade was on Zillow every day… that’s what allowed us to see this house drop.” (Takara, 14:13)

6. Rehab Approach: Thrifty, DIY, & Community Support (15:41–16:47)

• Renovation budget: $10,000 (on track).
• Heavy reliance on sweat equity, family help (framer and handy stepdad), and resourcefulness—buying through Facebook Marketplace and jumping on great deals (e.g., 2,000 sq ft of hardwood flooring for $500).
• “We’ve done it in the most thrifty way possible.” (Takara, 16:36)
• Leveraged YouTube for learning everything from mudding to electrical work.

7. ARV & Rental Projections (17:57–20:10)

• Purchase Price: $435,000; Projected ARV: mid $600k to $700k.
• Plan: live upstairs and rent out the basement for ~$2,000/month (possibly more—up to $6,000 seasonally if renting to sales teams).
• Total out-of-pocket (down payment + rehab): ~$37,000.
• Projected total rental income (entire house, future): conservative estimate of $4,500/month.

8. The Value of Sweat Equity & Learning (22:41–24:10)

• They reflect not just on financial gains but on skills and confidence acquired.
• “Sweat equity is my favorite because we’ve learned… my least favorite part is relying on people. So I’m like, you know what, I’ll figure it out. And you just watch a YouTube video, and we learned how to do ceilings, walls, mudding and framing and electrical, and it’s just been fun… we’re working, we’re learning valuable lessons, and on top of it, we’re building so much money and opportunity for ourselves.” (Takara, 22:41 & 00:00)

9. Mindset & Advice for New Investors (25:44–27:18)

• Key advice highlights:
  • “Be diligent, find out what you want to do, work towards it, but find out exactly what your buy box is… and once you actually secure the deal…have a list of what you want to get done every day…” (Cade, 25:44)
  • “Figure out how to run the numbers. That’s the biggest thing. If the deal is solid, you’re not going to be worried about putting the offer in. There’s not going to be as much anxiety…” (Takara, 26:16)
  • “Find the number that works for you and send it to them and see… Start sending out offers. Don’t just wait for one.” (Cade, 26:47)
• Brody: “It’s always a good question to ask, you know, how many offers have you put in this last week? Because it doesn’t matter what things are asking. It just matters what works for you.” (Brody, 27:25)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Takara on Skill-Building & Relationships (00:00):

  “We also just get to spend every night hanging out together and painting or demolitioning or…we’re working, we’re learning valuable lessons, all these skills, and on top of it, we’re building so much money and opportunity for ourselves.”

• Brody on Momentum (21:39):

  “Especially early on, it’s hard to get that momentum going…Now that it’s going, it’s a lot easier because you don’t have to be as picky and you have more money to work with. It’s so cool to see you guys have done.”

• Takara on Non-traditional Paths (24:10):

  “I work with a lot of very intelligent people, and when I tell them what we’re doing, they look at us like we’re crazy…Their goal is work until they’re 60 and retire. And I’m like, I want to be done sooner.”

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Notable Timestamps

• 02:23 – Cade & Takara discuss their path to investing, early setbacks, and the decision to “invest in themselves.”
• 05:00 – Finding the deal on Zillow, analyzing price drops, and realizing the property’s potential.
• 07:33 – How their lender helped them win the deal.
• 10:28 – Overcoming buyer’s anxiety with disciplined analysis.
• 13:09 – Diligence in daily deal hunting.
• 15:41 – Rehab approach: $10k budget, sweat equity, and thrifty finds.
• 17:57 – ARV and rental projections.
• 22:41 – Favorite part: learning new skills and building equity as partners.
• 24:10 – Challenging traditional paths and inspiring others.
• 25:44 – Final advice: diligence, numbers, and action.

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Episode Takeaways

• Diligence trumps luck: Consistently sourcing, analyzing, and pursuing deals is key. Success is a product of disciplined daily effort, not random opportunity.
• Sweat equity & DIY: Leverage YouTube, resourceful shopping, and family skills to keep rehab costs low and build lasting know-how.
• Mind over emotion: Confidence in the numbers replaces fear and anxiety, enabling smart, logical decisions even in intimidating situations.
• Define your “buy box” and stick to it: Know exactly what makes a deal work for you, and don’t hesitate to put in offers that meet your criteria—even if they seem low.
• Financial freedom is a choice: Non-traditional paths (like house hacking, building equity) can speed up the journey to financial independence versus the status quo.

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Connect with Cade & Takara or the Real Estate Investing School via the episode show notes for further questions or inspiration.

Transcript

[A]

We also just get to spend every night hanging out together and painting or demolitioning or, you know, we're working, we're learning valuable lessons, all these skills, and on top of it, we're building so much money and opportunity for ourselves.

[B]

What's up, guys? Before we launch into today's episode, I want to take this time and announce that Real estate investing School 2.0 is on the horizon. We've spent so much time the last six months to a year diving into how we can make Real Estate Investing school bigger, better, more valuable than ever, and it's going to absolutely blow your mind. It's been a ton of time, a ton of money, a ton of energy, and we're excited to announce it to you all for following along, for listening to the podcast. We are also going to reward you, so more on that. In the meantime, with Back to school on the horizon, Real estate investing school 2.0 is what you have to look out for. We will see you soon and enjoy the episode. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Real Estate Investing School podcast. This is your host, Brody Fossett. And today we have a real Deal episode. So these are super fun. One deal, one real real estate deal. Short, sweet, to the point we dive in to talk about the strategy that was used, how it was found, how it was funded, and how they got creative. So today is really fun. We have some real estate med school students, Kade and Takara. Unless you're Japanese, you can say Takara, right? So do I get to say Takara since I speak Japanese?

[A]

I mean, if you want to, go for it.

[B]

Okay, that's. That's the one time a year I get to use, you know, some Japanese. So we'll take it. Hey, excited Jam with you guys. This is fun because we were talking about this deal a few months ago when I saw you guys in person at our investor workshop. And you've come a long ways on it even since then. So this is cool and exciting because just want to dive into you guys is really like your story behind this deal, which is kind of like your story behind real estate. But let's just start off with what it is. What does the deal look like? Tell us a little bit about it and then tell us maybe like your prior experience to real estate jumping into this deal.

[C]

So prior to this deal, I mean, we. So we got married. We've been married a little over a year and a half now and started looking for a house right away. I'd always had the idea that I wanted to get into Investing rental properties was all that came to my mind at that point. And so we were looking on the market. We got under contract on a duplex back in November of last year, and that ended up falling through after the inspection came through and just didn't look good. And it was shortly after that, my brother Zach invited me to one of the workshops. You did? Do you remember where was that?

[A]

I think it was out 2023 in Payson. I actually think that sparked it. That was in October. We learned about it and then we got really motivated. We're looking for duplexes. Finally found one that we thought would work. At the time, we weren't part of the school, so we didn't know how to run numbers and everything. We got under contract. It just kind of fell apart. And they were like, you know what? We ended up losing our earnest money. And we said, you know what? Let's invest in the real estate investing school, invest in ourselves and figure out how to do this. And then, you know, we analyzed that deal after being in the school, and we're like, oh, that was not a bad deal, but it wasn't a good deal.

[C]

Yeah. So that kind of drove us, you know what? We're not putting money down on a house now, so let's use the money we had saved up and join the real estate and actually learn what we're doing and do it the right way. And then it took us, we got under contract one more time, and that one had an even worse result on the inspection. It would have been about 60 grand to get it where it needed to be to actually have it as a rental property. And so that we dropped out on that one as well. This one, we ended up finding it through Zillow. We. We've been a little picky with our. Our first property because we're also looking for a primary place for us to live at least for a couple years. And so we were looking for obviously a duplex or something with an additional dwelling unit that would work out. We found this one. A few of the things that attracted us to it was one, it's in a very good area of South Ogden, just near, if you. If you're familiar with the area, it's just behind McAdy Hospital, in between that and the. The golf country club in. In South Ogden. And it. It had the potential with a separate entrance and the basement itself had four bedrooms. So I was like, okay, this, this is looking fairly good.

[A]

So.

[B]

So did you find out, like the Pause uk, did you find all that out just from looking on Zillow. Or you're like, oh, this seems like it has potential, maybe. And then you went and saw it and it was better than you expected, or about the same.

[C]

I would say it was a little better than we expected. So what happened was I actually noticed it on Zillow probably about three weeks before we actually, like, you know what? Maybe this is going to be worth a look. It was initially listed at 485,000. And for that area of South Ogden, it was still about 3,600 square feet. So it wasn't bad. And I was like, I, you know, honestly, my main turn off was like, that looks so ugly from the front. I didn't like how the house looked, but I noticed only about a week and a half after it was on the market, they dropped the price about, I think about $10,000. And I was like, that looks a little better. And I think we ran numbers on it after the first price drop, and we're like, it doesn't quite pencil out. And then about a week later, again, they dropped the price again to I think it was two. I think they're asking 260, maybe 255 at that point. And we.

[A]

Four hundred and fifty five.

[C]

Oh, sorry. Yeah, I got the number off. Sorry. Yeah, so it went from 485 to about 460. And we were running the numbers and I think it was about maximum allowable offer was about 445 on the home.

[A]

It actually. 460 did it, huh?

[C]

Oh, I. Yeah, she got better memories.

[A]

The 485, it technically would have worked. We would have almost no budget for renovations. The 460. We're like, oh, that's actually a pretty good spread. We're like, what the heck? Throw a low ball. Well, then we decided to go look at it because it was listed. It's 3,600 square feet, five bed, two bath. We're like, okay, let's go check it out. So we went and we realized upstairs, one of the bedrooms had.

[C]

They had it as a. Built as an office.

[A]

And so we're like, okay, we can pull that off. Build a closet in there. And boom, there you go. There's another room. So then it would take the upstairs to a three bed, one bath. And then the basement, they had a room. I mean, it had a window and a closet and everything, but they weren't counting it as a bedroom. So we're like, sweet, there you go. Now it's a seven bed, two bath.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

With, you know, building one closet and if we really needed to, there's another room we could knock out just a window. And then you'd have eight bed, two bath.

[C]

So, yeah, so we just noticed a lot of potential there. And we ended up putting in a. I was like, you know, let's throw a low ball offer, see what we can get from. Because I could just tell they. They needed. They wanted to get rid of the property. And I was like, they'll probably go for less. And so we offered 420. I think they had it listed at 460. And they met us at 435.

[B]

Cool.

[C]

On the property. And we just did. As far as funding the loan, just general. We got a loan through Jason Griffin from the school, and he's awesome. Anyone that hears this, he did such a great job with us. And he went to the extent of calling the. The folks trying to sell the home saying, just saying, hey, listen, these are solid buyers. It'll go through, basically. And he actually pleaded a case for us with the. The sellers as well. He was. He was awesome.

[A]

It was great. There were a lot of wholesalers trying to get this house as well, and we beat him out because they wanted. They knew we were investing and probably rent out the basement, but they wanted someone that was going to live there and remodel and take care of the house as well. So.

[B]

Cool. So this is. This is good. There's so many. I know, I know. We're not done. There's so many good things. I just want to touch on. First off, yeah, I love Jason. I tell everybody, like, Jason helped me out for free so many times that finally I just started using him because he's been such a good tool and resource so that I was like, all right, you've helped me out for this many. This many years now, so might be time to start using you. And that was, I don't know, however many years ago. And so I've used Jason ever since. He's awesome. I think it's. It's. You guys used a. You guys used a word which I want to touch on. You said maximum allowable offer. Tell everybody what that means and how you came to that, essentially. I mean, we don't need to go through, like, the math on it specifically, but, like, why is that an important thing to understand?

[C]

I mean, for me, it gives me confidence in the big investment I'm about to make. And it's the formula, obviously, we learned from you guys and Chase. Chase has been a phenomenal coach for us in learning just the real estate world. But yeah, essentially, you know, looking at the property, comparing it with the values of the properties in that general area, we looked at a lot of properties that were built in the same time frame. Square footage was a little different because not. Not many of those houses have that much square footage in that part of South Ogden. But it. It. First off, it penciled out great because almost everything up for sale or sold recently was around $205 per square foot, based on the size of the homes in that area. We ended up securing this one. Was it 130? I think so. $130 per square foot was what we ended up closing on this house. And so that was. Right away, I was like, that's awesome. But, yeah, so we looked at that, and then we looked at the expenses that we were going to look at as far as getting it in the state we wanted it to be as a. As a rental, and also the equity we wanted to build eventually when we can refinance on that property. And so that was, you know, the general formula we learned from Chase to calculate what it could be worth at the end of repairs, as well as subtracting what it was going to cost us to actually seal the deal and get the repairs done to where we wanted that house to be and to refinance it.

[A]

Yeah, I know, for me, because it is a pretty big house and size and cost, honestly, I was like. I got nervous a little bit towards the end. We had medical bills coming in at the same time, and. But because we had done that and we did the math and we knew it was there, and we knew it penciled and not even, like, slightly penciled. It really penciled. So I just had to, like, trust the process. And I was like, hey, this. This is a killer deal. Like, I have to just trust it. We run the. We ran the numbers. We know it's gonna work. And it, like. It honestly helped me with, like, the. The buyer's anxiety.

[B]

Totally. No, I think that's so good because just you pointing that out, because that's where I feel like a lot of people get lost, right. And they get overwhelmed, and they just eventually don't ever act because of the fear. And fear is unknown. Right. And so, like, the more clear you have, the more clarity you have on, hey, I've ran this and I've looked at this, and I know all my margins, and I have this maximum allowable offer that most people don't even know. I don't know. They look at the. They look at the deal when it's presented at and then decide yes or no. They don't say, hey, here's what I can offer up to this much and still have it. Pencil. They don't understand those pieces. So that's cool. You guys got that down. Chase the phenomenal teaching that and then you, you move forward with it and it makes you feel good. Like you made a logical decision without getting so many emotions involved to where you might say yes, because the house looks good on the outside, but it's not going to pencil. As opposed to, hey, I don't love the outside of this, but I can make it look good because of all the margins that are here. And at the end of the day, like, I think you guys are in such a cool just spot in this real estate journey where it's, it's fun. It's like, it's the building momentum phase of you're setting the foundation right now for, you know, your financial future. And it's, it's so awesome to like feel the fire that you guys have behind that and making those decisions because very easily you can go, you know, build a house probably like a lot of your friends are doing. And then you have this, you know, maybe three bed, two bath, brand new, brand new house that is great, but it's not an investment. It's not supplementing your mortgage. You're not doing it in an investment type way. And so yeah, props to you guys on that. Maybe dive into what's, what's kind of the rehab cost. I know you guys are doing a lot of it yourself, which is also cool, just building that sweat equity. But maybe touch on, on the rehab cost that's going into it and then the ARV or what you guys think it's going to be worth, all said and done and then even the rental numbers too.

[C]

Absolutely. One thing I was going to add is this, this deal didn't just kind of fall into our laps. We were running deals on a regular basis, looking at numbers, going through all avenues. We were on probably at least two dozen buyers list that we get emails from every day and we're running numbers on those. And I got in the habit of looking at Zillow religiously and typing in keywords constantly on certain things I wanted on a property. And, and we just finally found the one that worked out. I just think that's important because I think it's real easy to get discouraged if you're not diligent and following the process of what it takes to find the right deal.

[A]

It was, I mean we were probably two months since we'd backed out of the last deal. And every day, every night, like 30 minutes to an hour, we'd look at our email. What emails had we gotten? I'd be on Facebook on all those groups. You know what's out there. Hey, send me more information. I want more. And nothing penciled. And if we saw a sign as we drove by, we'd take a picture and call them. Or, you know, it was as many options as we could. The only thing we didn't do was knock doors. But we just got lucky that. Not lucky, but it was diligence. But Kade was on Zillow every day. If he had a break at work, he'd be on Zillow. He'd. If he. In between video games, he'd be on Zillow. You know, he was on Zillow every moment. And that's what allowed us to. That he saw this house drop because he. Anything in South Ogden, he knows it, he's looked at it. So when this dropped not once, but twice, he was like, hey, I think this is a good deal. Now let's, let's go check it out.

[B]

Cool. That's awesome. Yeah. And we'll get into like the numbers specifically, but I think that that's, you know, you break it all down, it seems like, oh, that's all this extra work that I'm not getting paid for. I have to do all this I'm not getting paid for. But at the end of the day, like, it ends up being the most valuable time you've ever spent doing anything because it's like, holy smokes, all those hours I was actually making, you know, a thousand plus dollars an hour when it all broke down because I, I was able to get this or find this and that only that number only goes up from there because you get smarter and you get, you know, better at how you look for things and how you run numbers and how like all of it's. It's so fun. So it's cool that you guys put in that work and I'm glad you glad you touched on that because you can't skip that stuff. Yeah.

[C]

But. Oh, go ahead.

[B]

Oh, no, you're good. I was just going to ask what, what the total rehab is all said and done. What are you guys looking at? You think?

[C]

Yeah. So we're, we're on track to hit the number we initially had for a goal as, as far as the cost for repair, which is $10,000. And it's, it turned out really well. Cuz it's a home that Was owned by people. They, they're probably in their 80s or older, but they took phenomenal care of the home. It was just a little bit out of date. And you know, the kind of home where you walk in and every room has a different color carpet, had the old wood panel walls, you know, those style of homes.

[A]

I would say we've been very thrifty, so it's not, you know, doing it ourselves cuts a lot of the cost. We've been lucky. His dad is a framer, so he knows a lot. And then his stepdad is also extremely handy. But I mean, we've been on Facebook Marketplace, so, you know, a hundred dollar fridge goes up, we go get it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The other day, Kade found 2,000 square feet of flooring for 500 bucks.

[B]

Sweet.

[A]

We've done it in the most thrifty way possible.

[C]

Yeah, that was a good find. That was just this weekend. And it was hardwood too, not even lvp. So we got that and that'll, that'll redo the entire basement floor for us.

[B]

That's amazing.

[C]

For under a thousand bucks, which is way better than I expected to find. But it was just once again, diligence at looking at what's. What' going up for sale.

[B]

Yeah, it's amazing. It reminds me of like my, honestly, like my first house too. Like all the, from the different color carpet to the, you know, the panel, the wood panels for the walls and ceilings. It's, it's, it's cool cuz like, same thing. Like that house was full of Facebook Marketplace and, and just random handyman that could, you know, do something for the, the best price. And then lots of work for me and my siblings and my dad. And it's great. You just, you just kind of hustle as much as you can. So I love that it might cost somebody else, you know, fifty to a hundred plus thousand dollars to go rehab it, but because you're, you're willing to hustle, you can build this sweat equity. And that was the first time someone told me what that that word meant was like sweat equity. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing, is building equity with my own sweat. And it's the best use of my time at the moment right now, you know, so. And then from there, what, what do you think it's going to be worth? All said and done?

[C]

Yeah. The initial number we were looking at, now I'll have to keep looking at the houses on the market in that area, but we got it at 435. Pretty much everything I compared it with in the area. It will be in the mid sixes by the end of the renovations. Close to seven for that area of South Ogden. And, and so we'll have a good amount of equity, hopefully refinance and turn that deal as soon as we can. As soon as those rates go down just a little bit.

[A]

Or ideally a bigger deal we've looked at even out of state. Or we could either get, get our hang of the things in state and then go out of state.

[B]

But I love it. No, so good. And, and I, and we, I know we talked a little bit about it, but you guys will, so you'll move in and then you'll rent out. What, what will the rent be in part of the house that you're renting out? I guess.

[C]

Yeah. So that'll be the basement. Right now is a four bed. Well, we, we added the extra bedroom, but four bed, one bath. We're looking at possibly adding a second bath. There's one area that might be possible once. We're gonna have a plumber come by and look at it and give us his two cents on it. But for that area, I would say a very conservative monthly amount would be two grand, but it'll likely be a little bit more. The company I work with, I'm. We're kind of going back and forth, but next summer I've talked to them about housing our sales reps in there for the summer, which potentially could net us at least for the summer, summer months, about $6,000 a month. And then we're tempted if we did that like maybe do student housing for the other half because it's fairly close to Weber State, but that or, or a shorter lease. But if we had year round, I would say the conservative estimate would be about 2,000 in rent.

[B]

Yeah. Cool. And then what's, what's your mortgage? What's your mortgage on the property right now?

[C]

32.

[B]

32. Cool. And you guys bought it as. How do you do the financing on it? Did you do as an owner occupied loan?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Cool. So cool. Yeah, I think that's awesome. So all said and done and then you'll be able to rent it out after you guys move out eventually, which, you know, few years down there, whatever year down there, who knows what do you know what the whole thing will rent for? What do you guess the upstairs will rent for?

[C]

I would bet at least the numbers I've compared with both top and bottom rented out about 4,500amonth is the kind of low ball number of what we'd bring in monthly on the, on the house.

[B]

Cool, that's awesome. And then what was your total amount down that went into the. In the down payment?

[C]

About 27.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. So that plus renovations, about 37,000.

[B]

Yeah. Cool. That's amazing. So what an awesome, what an awesome, like first deal to like dive into. You're hustling, you're house hacking it, you're doing a lot of the sweat equity yourself. And then you're going to have built all this equity in there, which without what I would. I mean, depending on, you know, where rates are and all that, I would say, like, while you're living there, usually have to wait six months from the time you purchased it, but go get a home equity line of credit and then you can dip into that. A lot of times you can get 100% of the equity you have sitting in the house. And so now it's like, cool. You have $300,000, you know, whatever give or take to, to play with that you can roll into your next deal and go leverage that. And man, it's. This is why it's like momentum, right? And real estate's momentum. And especially like early on, it's hard to get that momentum going. You put in like all the grind and the grind is obviously not over, but like, you put in a lot of time to get it. And now that it's going, it's a lot easier because you don't have to be as picky and you have more money to work with. And it's so cool to see you guys have done.

[C]

Yeah, it's, it's made us so excited to get that next deal going. As soon as we're able to, like, just, you know, it's exciting.

[A]

It's nice to see like the path because at first, you know, we have no equity. We're sitting, I don't want to say sitting in a basement, but you know, we're living with our in laws. You're like, okay, so what's our next step? Like, how do we go from buying one house to buying multiple? But it's nice to see we got this one. There's a huge amount of equity in it, especially when we can refinance. Like, we're gonna start bringing in money that'll be the. My favorite is refinancing, dropping our mortgage and actually making a profit or even having, you know, half of the house pay the whole mortgage or. But that. And then on top of it, the amount and the opportunities that we create, having this house and Putting the sweat equity into it. And honestly, I. I think sweat equity is my favorite because we've learned. And it's like, oh, I didn't. I didn't know how to mud. You know, I didn't know how to. I. I could paint, and that's about it. I know how to use a screwdriver.

[C]

And you're an electrician.

[A]

I am, I am. But it's like, you have all these skills that you have to learn. And honestly, like, my least favorite part is relying on people. So I'm like, you know what? I'll figure it out. And you just watch a YouTube video, and we learned how to do ceilings and walls and mudding and framing and electrical, and it's just been fun. I mean, we also just get to spend every night hanging out together and painting or demolitioning or, you know. Yeah, it's one of my favorites. Like, we're working. We're learning valuable lessons, all these skills, and on top of it, we're building so much money and opportunity for ourselves.

[B]

Yeah. That's so cool. I love hearing you. It's just real raw, and it's like, I just look at the path that a lot of people can take, especially, you know, a lot of, like, married couples out there, and, you know, it's. It's very easy just to just go the normal route. Right. And the reason a lot of people go the normal route is because they don't ever, like, challenge the status quo or even, you know, it's. It feels safe. You know, this feels maybe more, quote, unquote, risky or, like, it takes more energy, more effort, but, like, that's how you do it. Man, I wish everybody could, like, feel that. That energy, that fire that you guys have, because it will change your life forever. It's. It's literally like one decision that, you know, ripples into multiple decisions that change what you go and do and become and the other people you impact.

[A]

So it is crazy. I feel like I work with a lot of very intelligent people, and when I tell them what we're doing, they look at us like we're crazy. You know, they're like, wait, you wouldn't put. Why don't you just not do that and put more money in your 401k and, like, for. Why it's just gonna sit there, you know? And their. Their goal is work until they're 60 and retire. And I'm like, I. I want to be done sooner. I want to. I want. If I work, I want it to be because I enjoy it. Not Because I have to for a living.

[B]

Yeah, thousand percent.

[C]

It's funny how different our workplaces are too, because I work with a lot of summer sales guys, which I'm sure you've been involved with in the past, and they're very visionary about the future they want to build for themselves. And I've basically been a real estate coach for this one guy I work with who's asking me a million questions every day lately. He's like, where did you learn this? And so I was going to ask you, like, who do I refer him to to get him into the school? Because he's asked me about that too.

[B]

Yeah, we can find a spot for him. I'm sure that's cool. That's why it gets, gets fun. Like it. Once you're doing stuff you want to share with other people and you want to tell people what you're learning, and then, you know, it starts impacting their life as well. And. Yeah. So cool. Just like this show, a lot of people will listen to this, they'll learn a lot from it and they'll get inspired from it and want to take action, kind of wrapping things up. Is there anything that you would say if someone came to you guys and they were like, hey, like, we're, we're, you know, in the semi, the same shoes as you guys, but we want to go do our first deal. We want to go get into real estate investing. What would be your. Your kind of like, final piece of advice for them?

[C]

I mean, I would just say have a keyword for yourself. Be diligence, find out what you want to do, work towards it, but find out exactly what your buy box is. You know, know what's going to work for you, what your situation is, and once you actually secure the deal, at least as where we're at right now, having a list of what you want to get done every day when you show up to the property, if you're doing, if you're putting sweat equity into it, and if not, have a list what you want everyone else to get done on your property. So it's done as quick as possible. But yeah. Oh, go ahead.

[A]

Otherwise I'd say, like, figure out how to run the numbers. That's the biggest thing. Because if you have a deal that the numbers are going to put you back a couple years, you can't, you know, you can't get as far as fast as you want. So run the numbers, make sure, make sure the deal is solid and then everything else, you know, falls into place from there. If, if the deal is solid. You're not going to be worried about putting the, the offer in. There's not going to be as much anxiety because you trust the numbers and it's just going to work.

[C]

Yeah. That made, that made me think of one other thing. I remember when we were at the workshop in St. George, the group we were with, a lot of them were in the same kind of stage of their, their investing journey that we were. And I noticed a lot of them were a lot more discouraged than we were feeling about our situation in real estate. And the main thing I heard was there's just no good deals on the market. And, and I'm like, well, screw what these people are asking for the property. Find the number that works for you and send it to them and see what they just start sending out offers. Don't, don't just wait for one.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, their feelings might get hurt a little bit, but who cares? Eventually you'll find that fish that bites, you know?

[B]

Yep, absolutely. Y. Yeah. It's always a good question to ask, you know, how many offers have you put in this last week? Because it's like, doesn't matter what, what things are asking. It just matters what, you know, what works for you. No one's stopping you from putting an offer and putting the work in.

[C]

And people will trade a lot for convenience. If you can just close the deal for them and get it done, you'll get a good deal with someone.

[B]

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It's a win. Win. You never know someone's situation. You never know when they need to sell, they need to get rid of it when it's, you know, and so you do you put in the work enough times, eventually it's going to pay off. So I think that's great advice. So cool. Well, this has been awesome, you guys. Super fun. Just diving, diving deep into this, into this deal. We'll put your info in the, in the show notes so people can reach out if they have, you know, any specific questions for you guys. But thanks so much for tuning in and thanks, kid. And to Kara for, for joining us and we'll catch you guys on the next one.

[C]

Absolutely. Thanks, Brody. Have a good night.