← Rich Dad Radio Show: In-Your-Face Advice on Investing, Personal Finance, & Starting a Business
Rich Dad Radio Show: In-Your-Face Advice on Investing, Personal Finance, & Starting a Business
"This Real Estate Hack Made Me $17K/Month – FAST!"
00:33:06
👉 Get Your Free Copy of "How to Buy Your First Investment Property" - https://bit.ly/3NJLquO From tragedy to triumph—Chris Singleton’s journey is nothing short of inspiring. In this episode of The Rich Dad Real Estate Show, we dive deep into how...
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Jaron Suster
Welcome to the rich dad real estate show where we talk about the good news and bad news of real estate, hosted by yours truly, Jaron Suster. I want you guys to go down to the Show Notes before we start today and download my free ebook, how to buy your first investment property. It's written by myself and Robert Kiyosaki and we want to take you guys step by step through what you need to do to be able to get started in real estate. Or maybe you're starting. You've got a few properties but you need help scaling. This is going to give you the blueprint that you need to get it done. So go down to the Show Notes, click on the link, download the free ebook today. I am super excited to introduce you guys to the guest, Chris Singleton, who's with me today. Chris has a powerful story, one of the most powerful stories I have ever heard. And he's also a fantastic real estate investor. And then most importantly, he is a Charleston Southern Buccaneer graduate and so am I. So we both played in the same baseball program for the same coach at different times. I think Chris came in the year I graduated. But it's not often that you get to see two Charleston Southern bucks on a big platform like this getting to share our story with the world. So, Chris, I want to thank you for taking time to be on today.
- [01:34]
Chris Singleton
Absolutely, man. I'm so grateful to be hooking up with you and seeing all that you're doing. So I'm proud of you, man.
- [01:40]
Jaron Suster
Yeah, same to you, man. You have turned one of the most horrific stories in our nation of all time into one of the most life changing, inspirational, powerful messages of all time. And so we're going to get into real estate because you have done well for yourself. And then you were smart enough to say, hey, I've worked hard. I've been able to help a lot of people. I've got compensated for it. Now I'm going to go stored in the greatest asset known to man. And so we're going to break down the strategies for that. But I would be remiss to not ask you to share your story first because again, I believe it's going to have more of an impact on folks than the real estate knowledge, which we'll share as we get to the latter part of this episode.
- [02:25]
Chris Singleton
Yeah, man. Well, if people don't know about the event that he's talking about. There was a massacre that happened at my church in Charleston, South Carolina, 2015. So at Mother Emanuel Amy church, my home church that I grew up in, there was a self proclaimed white supremacist came into our church. He fired over 70 bullets into our church. Over 50 of those bullets entered bodies in our church.
- [02:51]
Robert Kiyosaki
And.
- [02:51]
Chris Singleton
And this guy took nine lives. And his mission was he wanted to start a racial war in this country. And my hero, my biggest fan, Jaren, my mom was killed in that shooting. And you know, although I speak about it a lot, man, you know, just thinking about that was my, my everything and she was taken away. And I'm so grateful that I had 18 years with my mom. But the, on the second hand, it's like, man, I have three kids now. They don't have my mom to be grandma to them. And so after my mom was killed, I actually forgave my mother's killer. And I'm a believer, man. I feel like God placed it on my heart and I forgave my mother's killer. And not that everything is sunshine and rainbows when I think about him, but now I've been able to move forward in my life and try to be the opposite of this guy. So following her death, you know, I started to just share about how we can be united in our, in our country, in our world, and, and start to write children's books about love and unity. And I'm grateful that God has blessed that thus far. But that's my story, man. I lost my hero in a very tragic way. And I said, you know what? I'm going to make my mom proud by being the opposite of this killer. That's what I've done with my life. And I'm grateful that I've been able to do it thus far, man.
- [04:06]
Jaron Suster
Yeah. One of the most horrific things we were talking before the show, I, you know, you're from Charleston. I lived in Charleston for years, going to school there. And it's a day I'll never forget. You know, I wasn't at the university any longer, but I was still very connected with the university. We had the same coach and it was just one of Those you sit. I believe I was living in Florida. I think I was either West Palm or Jacksonville at the time. And I just remember sitting there like, dear God, what in the world is. Because Charleston, man, you know, they call Philadelphia the city of brotherly love, but Charleston is just a melting pot of people from all ethnicities all over the world, and they all get along for. For the most part. It's. It's a fantastic. And there's, you know, there. There's still plenty of problems, you know, in the south and all across the world, no doubt. We. We can't dismiss that. But Charleston's a fantastic city. And so for that to happen, you see it happen in other places, and you're like, you know, that. That. That's awful. I don't think it could ever happen where I live, because we all. We all love each other, and then it happens, and you're just blown away. And I, you know, one of the things I remember and. And it was probably a whirlwind, I would imagine, for you was. And I'd like to know what this was like. You know, maybe other people who. They're. They're facing hard things in life or they're going to. If you hadn't faced something hard in life, you're going to. Now, is it going to be to the extent that Chris did? I pray to God not. But we are going to face things. And one thing I remember is the community coming together. And. And again, you were probably just in a whirlwind. Like, what is going on? This doesn't even seem real. I just remember, you know, Coach Slate being there for you, Coach Kenny being there for you, your team, the Charles Southern community. And then there's people, you know, you grew up there, who I would imagine were just there and took you into their arms to help you get through this, along with the grace of the good Lord.
- [05:54]
Chris Singleton
Yeah, man. I feel like a lot of times athletes, you know, we have teammates, but, you know, for me, I had, like, brothers. I had people that I'd gone through so much with, you know, from being £150 and stuff in my face and working out with every day and, you know, being good in high school and you get to college, like, man, am I even good anymore? Like, I had just a group of people that were around me who I thought were family. So when crap hit the fan, like, I had brothers to go to. And this is one reason why. Why I will make my kids play some type of sport, because I feel like it teaches discipline, it teaches hard Work, but you also have a group of people, like, I have teammates from when I was 6, 7 years old that I am still friends with today. And when the worst of the worst happened to me, I had people that I could go to, and so that's that. The community of Charleston was definitely there for me. That's one reason why I won't move. I'll always have a house here, I should say, because I'm going to be moving around a little bit. I'll tell you about that a little bit more. But I'll always have a house here because the city wrapped his arms around me. And like you mentioned, man, sometimes people come from other places to spread hate in your city. And that's what happened in Charleston. Right. This guy wasn't from Charleston, but he. He knew the. How historic our church was in the black community. And his mission was he wanted to divide us. And sometimes our country still feels divided, unfortunately. But I feel like a person like me and you and others that are just trying to make us united, we may not always think and believe the same, but we can still love one another. And what I believe is the greatest country on earth.
- [07:32]
Jaron Suster
100. How have you gone? You know, I know the story, but it's pretty cool to see what you've done, talking about that unity and being able to take the terrible thing that happened and turned it into good. So you graduate college, what does life look like from there? And how did it evolve to where you are today, to where you're able to share a message of hope and, you know, bring unity? Because it's like you said, we're never going to be a united country, united world. I hate to say never. That's a unhopeful message. Barring the grace of God. It's very hard to get everybody on the same page. But how do we make progress? It's people, individual folks like yourself, going around and spreading the message of unity across the world. And so how did that evolve to where you are today, to where you're getting to impact thousands of people all across the United States and maybe even the globe?
- [08:16]
Chris Singleton
Yeah. So, you know, right after college, I got drafted by the Chicago Cubs, man. So I got drafted, play professional baseball, chased my dream. You know, I got $100,000 signing bonus, which I thought was so much money. Realized real quick Uncle Sam was going to take about 35% of that. So I got my signing bonus. I had my family at home. I chased my dream, and I played a couple years. The whole time I was playing, man, I knew that my mission was to spread this message of love across our country and the world. And so I was. I didn't know it was like a real career, honestly. I just knew people would ask me to speak at their youth group or their, you know, kids soccer league. And, you know, it evolved from stuff like that to doing companies. And now every year, I do about 40 to 50 companies, and then I do about 80 schools a year where I'm speaking. So it. It just evolved just from people knowing that I'm genuine with the message. And I didn't really have, like, a. A business mind behind it at first. I just was like, hey, man, I want to share this message and make my mom proud and bring people together. Now I've done it in 41 of the 50 states and a couple different countries around the world, and I'm. I'm grateful. And. And the message is simple, man. We. Like you said, we won't always be on the same page. Agree to disagree respectfully. I think that's a beautiful thing when you can say, hey, man, I see it as three plus one, you see it as two plus two. And we met. We both may be right to a certain extent, but I see it this way, you see it that way, and it's okay for us to disagree as long as it's respectful, right? I played baseball. I never liked country music, right? But I can still love somebody that loves country music even if I say, man, I wouldn't listen to that on my deathbed. You know what I'm saying? So, like, I think we can agree to disagree, do it in a respectful manner. And that's the mission that I share all across the world.
- [10:03]
Jaron Suster
It's interesting to me. If you put. Let's say you put 10 people in a room who didn't agree on certain topics, there's a very strong chance that they'd be able to get along pretty darn good. But you put people on a phone, on a social media app who then can voice their disagreement on opinions, and it gets unbelievably nasty. My wife and I were having this conversation, and it's sad. It's our world. So it's like you can sit here and complain about it, or you can try to deal with it. It's sad that that happens. But if we. That's why I think it's so important to be engaged. We were talking about community earlier, and the people around you. I think it's so important to be engaged in real life to people in your community who may think like you do and who may don't. Because what we. What I've learned is there are tons of people that I disagree with wholeheartedly on a ton of different subjects. But guess what? Every week or every day, we're hanging out with each other and working out in the gym, or we're playing pickup basketball, we're playing pickleball, and we get along and we coexist and there's no issues. But then if we were to hop on the social media thing, man, we would be able to, you know, eat each other alive, and it turns nasty quick. And it's sad that we get that way, but I think we have to stay grounded in knowing that, look, we're all made in God's image. We're all God's children living here on planet Earth. And it's our duty to love our neighbor and love God. And if we do those two things, we're going to be pretty darn okay in life. But the problem is there's just a lot of evil, and it's. It's sad. It's really, really sad.
- [11:28]
Chris Singleton
Yeah, I agree, man. This is. This song from. I think his name is Danny Gonke or something like that. And he said it all comes down to this. Love God and love people. So I'm loving people, even if they think, you know, dress or listen to different music or, you know, vote a different way. You know, I might not always agree with them, but I can still love them. Sometimes you love them at a distance, right? Because I wouldn't. I wouldn't teach my kids that, right? Or I wouldn't do this personally. That's not what I believe or things that I would do. But I can still love them and respect them and say, hey, man, that's how you think? That's how you believe. Hey, more power to you, brother. But listen, that's probably not what I'm going to do in my household or teach my kids, but I will let them know, hey, people in this world do think differently. And it doesn't mean that, you know, you're always better or worse than they are or they're, you know, whatever it may be. But listen, that's just not the way that we do things, and that's okay. And I think teaching my kids that and teaching people that lets us, for lack of better words, coexist in a time where it feels like, man, it's got to be what I think or what you think, and that's it.
- [12:29]
Jaron Suster
Hey, in regards to your loving at a distance, I was reading the Bible this morning, I think it was in Proverbs, it said, be wise as a serpent, gentle as a dove. Sometimes that wisdom says, I love you, but stay away. We'll be right back with Chris Singleton where we're going to talk about real estate strategy and how he used the income he had to build wealth to the greatest asset on planet Earth.
- [12:49]
Robert Kiyosaki
Donald Trump returned to office and Republicans take control of the House and Senate. It's huge news, but the challenges we face as a nation are still here. In four years of chaos, the dollar has lost value, inflation run rapid, interest rates through the roof, and wars rage across the globe. Trump has inherited an economy that, that's a total mess and the burden to rebuild is huge. This isn't going to get fixed overnight. Especially with the ongoing assaults of the dollar from BRICS nations and our growing national debt. Your savings are still vulnerable. Gambling with your wealth is not an option. If we've learned anything is that we need to take action and protect what we've worked so hard to earn. That's why we partnered with Allegiance Gold, a company we trust to help you protect your financial future. Gold and silver are time tested ways to hedge against economic chaos. They're not just investments, they're peace of mind for your wealth. When you start your investment with Allegiance Gold today, you'll get free silver as part of their exclusive offer. Just mentioned. Robert sent you and they'll take care of you. Don't sit on the sidelines. Act today. Secure your wealth. Go to protectwithrobert.com or call 8443-ROBERT that's 844-376-2378. Let them help you get started. For techwithrobert.com Donald Trump returned to office and Republicans take control of the House and Senate. It's huge news, but the challenges we face as a nation are still here. In four years of chaos, the dollar has lost value, inflation run rampant, interest rates through the roof, and wars rage across the globe. Trump has inherited an economy that's a total mess and the burden to rebuild is huge. This isn't going to get fixed overnight. Especially with the ongoing assaults of the dollar from BRICS nations and our growing national debt. Your savings are still vulnerable. Gambling with your wealth is not an option. If we've learned anything is that we need to take action and protect what we've worked so hard to earn. That's why we partnered with Allegiance Gold, a company we trust to help you protect your financial future. Gold and silver are time tested ways to hedge against economic chaos. They're not just investments, they're peace of mind for your wealth. When you start your investment with Allegiance Gold today, you'll get free silver as part of their exclusive offer. Just mention Robert sent you and they'll take care of you. Don't sit on the sidelines. Act today. Secure your wealth. Go to protectwithrobert.com or call 8443-robert. That's 844-376-2378. Let them help you get started. For techwithrobert.com are you worried about your financial security in these unprecedented times? If you are, the next minute could profoundly impact your financial security. Imagine waking up to find the economy has plunged and your portfolio has plummeted 30 to 45% while banks are in turmoil, holding your money hostage while waiting for FDIC intervention. Where would you turn? For many, this may sound like fiction, but it's a stark reality for those that have money on the line. Recently, America's awoke to both the NASDAQ and the dow, plummeting over 1,100 points each and triggering a frenzy of sell offs. History shows us how a single event can crash the market, like the dot com bubble of 1999, the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008, and the pandemic of 2020. But today we're facing multiple bubbles. Commercial real estate, stock, bonds and banks combined with the relentless inflation, the threat of global recession, the spectres of war, and you have the perfect storm. The consequences could be catastrophic, plunging us into unprecedented crisis. America is siding in the age of discord. With trust in institutions collapsing and the democratic norms unraveling, the quality of life for Americans has declined. Wealth is concentrated among the rich while the median American family income stagnates, creating a dangerously topheavy social pyramid. Moreover, hostile countries like Russia, China and Iran are working to destroy the US Dollar. Gold is a no matter what store of wealth that you need. That's why Robert has been such an advocate of gold, and he trusts Allegiance Gold. Allegiance Gold is ready to help you incorporate physical gold as part of your portfolio and protect it against economic uncertainty. Visit protectwithrobert.com today to learn how you can qualify for up to $5,000 in free silver with a qualifying investment. Or give them a call. 8443 Robert. Remember the mention Robert and Kim sent you when you contact Allegiance gold. Secure your IRA or 401k today with Allegiance Gold. Visit protectwithrobert.com or call 844-3-ROBERT welcome back.
- [17:50]
Jaron Suster
To the Rich Dad Real Estate show where we're talking about the Good news and bad news of real estate with Chris Singleton. So, Chris, you had this horrific thing happen in life, and you're able to turn it into a positive. You know, you started speaking at youth groups and then some church, maybe started calling in schools, and then now companies. And so what happened is just a story that you needed to tell to unite people and give hope, turned into your lifelong mission and your calling. And so now you do it full time. You travel, you know, maybe a third of the year going around speaking and. And doing this thing. And so it's. It's turned into a business. Maybe you didn't know it was going to, but it is today. And that's what you do for a living. And so you've done very well for yourself, being able to, you know, do this good thing, offer a lot of hope to people, but also provide for your family. And so there came a time where you're like, okay, I've kind of got my finances in order. Now we have a little bit more money coming in than we're spending, which takes the people a lot of time to get there. But when you get there, I'll never forget the day I did when it's like, holy crap, I got money left over. You know, a lot of people end up going and buying, you know, a boat or this or that, and they waste it. You said, I'm going to look at some people in my life who I've seen had success, and what they did is they bought real estate. I'm going to go give that a shot. So how'd that unfold for you, you know, and what got you into real estate?
- [19:05]
Chris Singleton
Yeah, I think the first time, my first Property was in 2018. So after my mom was taken away, I took my. My signing bonus, I took my mom's life insurance. I was able to buy a duplex, right? I bought it for, like, 175 grand. And the reason why I did that is because I had a coach, and, you know, the coach, Kenny Wilkinson, who had some properties. And I said, man, I. You know, he's always coaching. He's never working. I want to. I want to do something like that, you know. And so I started, you know, I went to YouTube University. I read just about every book you could think of, starting with Rich Dad, Poor dad, right? So read everything you could. You could. You could. You could find when you Google books on real estate. And then I just. I jumped. I made the leap, and I bought that first duplex, put about 25 grand into it, and I made that 1% rule, man. I was so happy, I said, you know, thousand dollars on this side, thousand dollars on that side. Man, I'm doing this thing. And I got so lucky because the first one, it worked out and 2019, that's when I got released from playing baseball. But I was already speaking and doing pretty well for myself and, you know, making a couple hundred grand. And that went up from, you know, a couple hundred grand to about half a million bucks in a year. And then it started escalating to over a million a year. And so I got to a point where I started saying, man, I've got, I want to buy something every year. That was my goal. So I started buying another duplex here, another single family there, and it just scaled in and we're at 20, 20 units now. And the biggest thing that we bought was like a, you know, a small eight unit apartment that we bought. And I, I bought that one cash. So that, that was probably the biggest thing that we, we bought thus far. And yeah, things have been good, man. I've been super blessed. And you know, we manage our own stuff. We don't have a property manager and my wife enjoys it. I, I, I enjoy it. It hasn't been too stressful for me because we, we set people up the right way and, you know, we're blessed, man. We're blessed.
- [21:08]
Jaron Suster
I love that. All right, so I want to break a couple things down. 1% rule. So if somebody's listening to this, like, what in the world is he talking about? What is the 1% rule? What were you looking for? Because I, I live by that too. And you know, sometimes I'd love to get better than the 1% rule if at all possible. But it's a great kind of baseline metric for investors. You mind breaking down what that means?
- [21:30]
Chris Singleton
Yeah, and it's, it's really hard to, to do nowadays in certain areas, right? So it, some people listening might be like, man, you can't find those anymore, right? And believe it or not, you can still find them. You just gotta be very creative and maybe find something off market. But essentially what I was trying to do is let's say I buy something for $100,000, right? I want that monthly rent to be 1% of what that a hundred thousand dollars is, which is, you know, a thousand bucks, right? So in my example, I bought that duplex for 175,000. I put 25,000 into it in renovations, and I rented each side of the duplex out for a thousand each. So I bought it for all in 200,000. And each side rented at a thousand. So my monthly rents were 2,000. So I made that 1% rule. And I've still, even today, I'm able to do this. I bought a. Bought another dup in that same area. Actually didn't buy it for 175 anymore. I bought it for like 260 or 265, but I put 60,000 into it. And I was able to rent out each side for 1650 now. Right. So the rents were a thousand. Now they're 1650. And so, you know, from 2018 to 2024, 2025, it's grown. So, yeah, you're still able to do it. It's just a little bit tougher to find those deals, but it still works.
- [22:53]
Jaron Suster
Yeah, no, it definitely. I mean, I would say before the whole boom of whatever, 2020, 21, 2022, it was easier to find those 1% rules. And then it went absolutely nuts. I mean, you look at the price of housing and if you were somebody like us who had been in the game. I had, I don't know, 25 units before then, and I was able to ride that wave up. Now, one thing caveat I want to, I want to say, because people love to say, well, it must have been nice you got in at the right time. I always come back with, you can't get lucky if you don't play the game. How many people sit on the sidelines because it's not the perfect investing environment? I'm sure you're the same way as me when I started buying in 2018. It's a bad time to buy real estate. 2019, you don't need to buy real estate. 2020, it's a pandemic. Don't buy all every single year. Dude, I got five flips going on right now. I bought, I don't know, another four or five properties last year. I have bought every single year. And it's been a good time to buy real estate for me. But everybody else has said it's been a bad time to buy real estate. Are deals harder to find it, sometimes 100% in 2021, 2021 and 22. Was it hard to make rentals work doing the 1% rule or a burr? Absolutely. But does that mean real estate was bad? No. You could get creative and find rental properties that still met the 1% rule, still cash flowed. Or you look and say, okay, what is the market doing? So there's a saying in sports. Give what the game or take what the game's giving you, right? Don't try and force it. And so I would say in those times when real estate was going, hey, what was the game giving us? It was giving us flips from somebody who's really into. Into real estate investing. So if you were like, man, I can't find rentals that make work. Well, go flip, because the market's going up, you're able to buy a property here, you even had to do hardly any work to it, could hold it for a month or two, and then you could sell it and make, you know, 20 profit or something insane. And so I, I struggle with the, you know, it must be nice. Real estate's impossible now. I just don't believe that because I literally buy deals all the time. And then we look at pricing. Pricing has gone up. So you mentioned, you know, you bought it for 175 in 2018, and then same neighborhood a few years later was like 265. Yes, pricing has 100% going up, but what else is going up? Rents. And so you just made the point where you started getting a thousand bucks on each side when you started. Now each side is giving you 1600. So now you're at 32. Well, now you can still hit those same metrics. And I think what happens to people, especially investors, people who maybe have, have bought before, but they, they get stuck on what prices were. This is what the market was. So in your mind, you think that's what it should be. That's not what it is anymore. It is what it is. And so we have to zoom out and say, okay, I'm either not going to play because it's too hard, or you can say, if I don't play this game, I'm robbing from my future self. Because here's one thing I can tell you based on data, real estate is going to go like this over time. So today you may buy something that isn't a grand slam. Oh, well, buy a single, right? In baseball terms, buy something that's okay because you know what's going to happen over time. It's going to go like this. Tenants are going to pay down your debt or pay you back in cash flow over time. And then rents are going to get higher every year and your returns are only going to get better. So that's my diatribe for the day. It just frustrates me when I know what people say, man, it must be nice to buy. I'm buying. I got five deals going right now, and I've got three meetings on Thursdays to go look at other properties. There's deals to be done. Stop making excuses and go do them. And I mean that with love.
- [26:26]
Chris Singleton
I agree, I agree. You got to be in the game, like you mentioned. And you know you're gonna look back in five years if you don't, you know, five years from now, you're gonna look back and say, man, I should at least bought something back then, you know, so stay in the game. I'm always hunting, you know, you're always hunting.
- [26:41]
Jaron Suster
So I love it non stop. So you guys, you primarily. I want to talk, I want to have this conversation because our brand, the rich dad brand, is huge on debt, okay? For real estate, if unless anything has changed, that wasn't the way you went about it. And so I'd love to have a conversation on how you went about building your portfolio and if to this day it's still mainly cash, why you went that route, what you like about it, and then what maybe you would do different.
- [27:14]
Chris Singleton
Yeah. So one of the reasons why I bought and have bought in the ca in cash is because I was able to do so. Most people can't do that. So that's, you know, that's a big reason. Most people don't do it because they can't, right. I was very lucky and blessed that I could do that. And also I had this number in my mind, right? So even today, right, I, you know, I spend about 25 grand, spend slash give about 25 grand a month. And so like that's my number. And my real estate, my net is only about 17. So I'm still at not, I'm still not at the number that I want to be at because we spend more money than I thought we would. You know how that goes when you got kids and they got school and all this stuff, right? And you got vacations and you know how it goes, right? So I've always thought, okay, I want to get to a certain number and if I'm making a lot of cash and I'm my cash flow can. If I buy this and it gives me more cash flow because I buy it cash, I was going to do that. More recently I've been buying cash because, you know, I make the numbers work a little better when I buy cash, right? And so the interest rates are six and a half percent, but I can buy this and you know, I can do this and I make my cash flow way more by just buying it cash. I'm going to do that if I can. Now, I won't say that it's always been the best thing for growth because, you know, you look back on some things that I bought, and I could have got 4% interest rates, and I'm like, man, you know, I. I spent 250,000 or 500,000 on. On properties in those couple years, and I'm like, man, that could have. I could have stretched that out way more. And so when you. When you talk about growth, I, I. Debt is definitely very important now. I've. I started doing real estate because I lost my. My first house after mom was killed that got foreclosed on, right? And there was an investor that came in and, you know, he bought it, and he was nice enough to give us our. Our washing machine out of that house because he just saw the name Singleton, and he realized, you know, whose house that was. And so there was some. There was some. Some trauma and some scarcity mindset stuff going on that I wanted to know, hey, we own this, right? You know, nobody can take this from us because we're going to pay our taxes every year, we're going to have insurance on it, but we don't have a mortgage on this thing. And I always thought ten grand a month net was like, oh, man, I could do whatever I wanted until I started realizing, you know, the lifestyle that I was living was way more than ten grand a month that I wanted to live. And so that was another part of the reason why I wanted to get to a set number. And even now, I wanted to get to a set number because I've realized in my life from just working and that there's no difference in me personally, in my quality of life from making, you know, half a million bucks to making over, like, 1.2 million bucks. There's no quality of life change for me. I don't live in, you know, Seattle. I don't live in Miami. I don't live in these different places. I live in Charleston, which is a very nice city, But I don't have to, you know, spend 50 grand a month to live the way that I want to. So that's kind of why I have that number. But I'm not opposed to debt, man. I'm not opposed to debt at all. I will still buy stuff with debt when the numbers work, and I plan on doing that.
- [30:27]
Jaron Suster
I think there's more than one way to skin a cat, and I got to be careful because I. I don't want to be a hypocrite because I may I buy with debt, and so I love it, but it was like the conversation we were having earlier. It's like you can disagree with people on things and still get along. And I'm not even saying I disagree that buying in cash is right. When you go. People go through different things in life and they have these and they have different experiences. And so that shapes who we are. And I didn't have the experience of losing my home. I can't even imagine. And so if I had been through something like that and then I get in a position to where I have good income coming in and I can go and not owe anybody a dime and then increase my cash flow significantly. Look, you can't fault somebody for doing that. And so the fact that you went straight with a cash flow mindset, you're trying to hit that number and you're able to do it, you know, I. I say kudos to you. I've done it the totally different way. And most people have to. Guys, it's not. If you can, if you have very high income and you want to do it like Chris, go for it. But a lot of us, we have to go to where we use debt. And then what happens. It's interesting, Chris, that you started this way is what happens to a lot of investors is they buy properties using debt they accumulate as they should. You build up that portfolio, and then there comes a time to where they start optimizing that portfolio for higher cash flow. Because with debt, you're going to get hit on the cash flow side, right? It's just going to happen. And so there comes a point where you're going to eliminate some of that debt to increase your cash flow over time. You just did it right away. And hey, I'm never going to say anybody who's got $17,000 a month in cash flow coming in for properties, they didn't do anything wrong. He just did it different. And that is an absolute amazing way to do it. Hey, I would say you did miss out on some 3% interest rates back there in 2020.
- [32:23]
Chris Singleton
I got some, but I missed out on a lot, too.
- [32:26]
Jaron Suster
Yeah, I got. My personal house is like 2.9. And I went back and I was looking at my rent roll the other day and I was like, hey, some of these commercial loans, I was sitting at like 4.2, 3.9 and I got them. I was smart enough. I don't know why. I. I'm not always wise, but I was this time. There was a lot of. I work with a lot of lenders, but there was a lender at the time, they were doing 20 year fixed, so no balloon. And so obviously a 30 year would have been a little better for cash flow. But I was like, bro, I could get on like a 4.2 on a 20 year fixed and this paid off. And a lot of my portfolio is on that. I said, hey, that, that's a w. Hey, one question I do want to ask and then we'll wrap this up and you can, you can rapid fire these off. From a self managing standpoint, I don't self manage anymore. A property manager's handled my stuff for a really long time. Give us your top three to five tips on if somebody's gonna buy real estate and manage it themselves. How do you guys do that and do it efficiently?
- [33:26]
Chris Singleton
Number one, we have different softwares in place, so it's pretty much automated. And I'm sure you guys recommend certain things, so I won't mention what everything that I have. But so that's, that's the first thing. The second is the lines of communication with your tenants. We let them know up front, hey, this is something that we do that will pay for our kids college that we'll hand down to our kids. So as long as you respect our properties, we will always respect you. There won't be a month that you don't have AC or you don't have heat. There won't be a leak that's there for a week. Right? We will fix things immediately because we respect you. Now just make sure you respect our property as well. And we have very low turnover because of that relationship we built with our tenants. Right? We shake hands, we talk to them. You know, I've been learning Portuguese and I speak a little Spanish. So it doesn't matter who's in there, right? I try to talk to them and they know that, hey, yes, I own the building, but if they have a problem, they can talk to me or my wife. It's been good. It's been good. Now I've only had to do one kind of eviction. And even in that situation, right, they were still like, hey, I'm sorry, you know, we haven't been the best tenants. They knew it. And it's like, hey, I can't let you stay here for nothing. So just be upfront with your tenants from the get go and let them know that it's an investment and you're not as wealthy as they may think. But even if you were like, they have to respect your property because you're going to respect them. So that's been huge. The systems have been huge. And having a plan. You know, we have a plan for every single one of our units and that's helped us out as well with our, with our time management and what we're going to do with those properties.
- [35:06]
Jaron Suster
Love it. Chris, thank you for being on the show today, man. I always love seeing you, chatting with you, hearing your story, and then you're absolutely crushing on real estate. 20 plus properties, you know, most of them in cash. Bunch of cash flow coming in, man. You guys are absolutely doing it. You got a bunch of beautiful kids. You're living half the year in Brazil. We talked. You're gonna be able to live in Brazil some. It's like, who gets to go live in Brazil? You live in Charleston, the other greatest city. I mean, man, how do, how can you clone yourself and give that other soul to me? I just want to hop in and live part of your life with you. But thanks so much, man. Your story's powerful. Appreciate you being on and if anybody has any questions they want to follow you, get to know you more. Where can they find you at?
- [35:46]
Chris Singleton
Yeah, my social media is C. Singleton_2. So just type in Chris Singleton, verified on most of the socials. And if you want to bring me in and share my heart about love and unity, you can find me there as well or chrissingleton.com Chris, thanks, man.
- [36:01]
Jaron Suster
I appreciate you sharing your story and I'll talk to you soon.
- [36:04]
Chris Singleton
God bless.
- [36:05]
Jaron Suster
Thank you for tuning in to the Rich Dad Real Estate show today. Again, go down to the show notes, grab that free ebook so you can learn how to escape the rat race through financial freedom, and I'll see you next week.
- [36:15]
Chris Singleton
This podcast is a presentation of Rich Dad Media Network.