How Fareed Abedini Lost $1.7M at 20 — Then Rebuilt Through Airbnb

Summary

---

The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex

Episode: How Fareed Abedini Lost $1.7M at 20 — Then Rebuilt Through Airbnb

Host: Paul Alex Espinoza
Guest: Fareed "Reid" Abedini
Date: November 21, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Paul Alex sits down with Fareed (aka Reid) Abedini, who shares his extraordinary story of explosive financial success and devastating loss as a young trader—followed by his gritty comeback, rebuilding wealth through real estate and Airbnb. The conversation is packed with actionable advice on mindset, networking, mentorship, and real estate strategies, all delivered in a candid, inspiring manner.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Fareed’s Meteoric Rise as a Young Trader

• Background & Motivation

  • Fareed, son of Middle Eastern immigrants, was pressured to pursue a traditional profession (doctor, dentist, lawyer), yet pursued entrepreneurship ([05:12]).
  • Initially searched “how to make money online,” leading to day trading in 2020 while still a college junior at University of Maryland ([02:41], [05:46]).

• Trading Journey

  • Started with $25,000 at age 20 and, capitalizing on COVID market volatility, turned it into $1.7 million in under six months ([02:41]–[04:49]).
  • Led a trading community with almost 200 traders following his moves ([03:36]).
  • Quote: “In less than six months, I managed to grow my portfolio from $25,000 to $1.7 million.” — Fareed ([00:52])

• Crash & Consequences

  • Failed to lock in gains, kept aiming higher, described trading as gambling in retrospect ([12:50]–[13:56]).
  • Lost the entire fortune rapidly and racked up $150,000 in credit card debt, yet kept his loss secret from his family at first ([09:44]–[11:29]).
  • “I will never invest in an intangible asset ever again.” — Fareed ([13:56])

• Emotional Fallout

  • Deep depression, emotional numbness, and family concerns over his well-being ([14:47]–[15:22]).
  • Ultimately decided not to abandon entrepreneurship, using the pain as fuel to pivot.

---

Pivot to Real Estate and Learning the Business

• Initial Moves & Mindset Shift

  • Always wanted to get into real estate with trading profits, but after losing everything, started from scratch ([18:19]).
  • Began with wholesaling as the fastest way to re-enter entrepreneurship ([20:18]).
  • Emphasized relentless self-education and networking via online communities (Facebook, Instagram) ([21:48]).

• The Power of Mentorship

  • Tracked down a wholesaling mentor in Philadelphia, offered to add value for free in exchange for learning ([21:48]–[22:23]).
  • Lived on his mentor's couch for six months, learning property analysis, sales, and people skills.

• Sales and Personal Development

  • First six months in wholesaling were tough; didn’t close a single deal but honed sales ability ([26:11]–[27:11]).
  • Learned the “three Cs” for sales success: Care, Confidence, and Credibility ([28:07]–[30:22]).
  • Quote: “You have to let people know you care about them… then confidence… and credibility.” — Fareed ([28:07])

---

Building Wealth Through Airbnb: Strategies and Scaling

• Why Airbnb?

  • Wholesaling and flipping were “too transactional” and stress-prone ([30:37]–[31:41]).
  • Airbnb allowed higher and more consistent cash flow, even without owning properties upfront ([33:00]–[34:59]).

• Getting Started with Zero Ownership

  • Identified furnished rentals on Zillow, secured management agreements with landlords ([35:21]).
  • Pitched landlords with the promise of guaranteed rent, professional maintenance, and regular inspections ([39:24], [40:54]).
  • Managed properties for a percentage of revenue, then graduated to “rental arbitrage” (signing leases, subletting on Airbnb) ([38:02], [41:45]).

• Scaling the Business

  • Used management and arbitrage profits to buy first house in 2023, renovated and ran as Airbnb ([41:58]–[43:15]).
  • Flipped stabilized, cash-flowing assets to investors as a packaged business ([43:27]).
  • Quote: “The short-term rental is just an exit play. There’s so many ways to skin a cat in this industry.” — Fareed ([45:52])
  • Grew portfolio to ~35 arbitrage units by 2025, began new construction projects for future Airbnbs ([44:55]–[45:38]).

• Tactical Advice for Beginners

  • You don’t need to own property—start as a property manager or via rental arbitrage ([34:59]–[35:21]).
  • Look for already furnished rentals to minimize startup costs ([36:33]).
  • With $20,000, can secure 2–3 arbitrage units and break even in 3–4 months if picked wisely ([48:17]–[50:36]).

• Debunking “Passive Income” Myths

  • Fareed stresses nothing is truly passive until hands-on systems and people are in place ([48:17]).
  • “Be ready to learn more than you earn on your first deal, in your first year of being an entrepreneur.” — Fareed ([58:49])

---

The Role of Coaching, Community, and Mindset

• Importance of Paying for Proximity

  • Fareed credits mentors (some pro bono, some $50k+) for accelerated learning ([22:45]).
  • “You can either provide insane value… or you pay them for their time. Sometimes it’s both.” — Fareed ([22:45])

• Building His Coaching Business

  • Began teaching after reaching business maturity; prioritizes hands-on, not sell-quick schemes ([44:00]–[44:56]).
  • Only hires staff from within his student community ([53:22]).
  • Shared a touching story of Travis, a student who used his last dollar, moved across the country, and became Fareed’s Chief Acquisitions Officer ([52:56]–[56:19]).
  • Quote: “He invested every single last dollar he had into our program. Now he’s my head acquisition officer… and he’s crushing it.” — Fareed ([52:56], [56:55])

• Leveling Up: Mindset Shifts

  • Don’t quit your 9-5 recklessly; use it to fund your side hustle ([59:01]).
  • Focus on stacking streams of income—one isn’t enough for true security ([60:17]).
  • "If you're not doing anything from five to nine... you’re going to be trading your time for money for the rest of your life." — Fareed ([59:02])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Risk and Euphoria in Trading:

  • “At what point does it start becoming gambling? It was gambling… let me hit a million and I’ll sell. Then I hit 1.3. Then 1.7.” — Fareed ([13:06–13:56])

• On the Education System:

  • “There's no way I'm gonna sit at a desk to a professor who's teaching me about business, who hasn't created a singlepreneur himself.” — Fareed ([07:00])

• On Learning from Mentors:

  • “There’s no point of learning from people who haven’t done anything for themselves… I value my time a lot.” ([23:39])

• On Scaling with Airbnb:

  • “Buy rental properties or get into the Airbnb short-term rental business. It makes significantly more than your traditional long-term rental.” ([33:01])
  • “There is no other business that will give you tax benefits, cashflow, equity, and allow you to leverage that asset.” ([34:12])

• On Recession-Proofing:

  • “[Airbnb] is like Uber and taxis—there will always be demand for furnished, short-term rentals, no matter the app.” ([46:25])

• On Starting Out:

  • “Find someone who’s already crushing it. Learn from them, get coaching… don’t just buy a course, get in the trenches.” ([24:40])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Fareed’s Trading Journey: [02:41]–[14:16]
• Rock Bottom & Mindset Shift: [14:16]–[18:19]
• Learning Wholesaling & Mentorship: [20:18]–[26:11]
• Sales Skills & the Three Cs: [28:07]–[30:22]
• Transition to Airbnb: [33:00]–[34:59]
• How to Get Started with Airbnb—Step by Step: [35:21]–[39:24]
• Establishing Credibility and Scaling: [39:24]–[41:58]
• Purchasing, Flipping, and Advanced Strategies: [41:58]–[46:21]
• Advice for Beginners with $20k: [48:17]–[51:02]
• Impact of Coaching & Travis’s Story: [52:52]–[56:55]
• Final Mindset & Level Up Advice: [58:49]–[62:24]

---

How to Connect With Fareed

• Instagram/YouTube/TikTok: @reidaberdeeni
• Fareed’s Advice: “Shoot me a DM if you want to chop it up, talk about anything, you need some advice.” ([62:40])

---

Actionable Takeaways

• Don’t be paralyzed by catastrophic losses—pivot, seek mentors, and double down on learning and action.
• Real estate (especially Airbnb) offers multiple entry points, even for those with little capital.
• Seek out mentors and provide value, or be willing to invest financially; proximity accelerates results.
• Leverage active income (your 9-5) to build assets and side hustles, then transition.
• Nothing is really passive at first—deep involvement breeds eventual freedom and security.

---

Final Word:
Fareed’s story is a masterclass in resilience, adaptability, and leveraging community and mentorship for true wealth building. As Paul Alex underscores, “It’s all up to you—your environment, mindset, and who you learn from. That’s how you level up.”

---

Transcript

[Paul Alex]

Did you know your credit card points and miles can lose value to inflation.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

While they collect dust. Credit card companies often reduce the redemption.

[Paul Alex]

Value of your points and miles. Imagine a credit card with rewards that can grow in value. With the Gemini credit card, you can earn Bitcoin or one of over 50 other cryptos instantly with no annual fee.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Every swipe at the store or gas pump earns you instant rewards deposited straight to your account. Plus sign up now for a $200 Bitcoin bonus. To kickstart your rewards, visit gemini.com card today. Again, if you're looking to invest in Bitcoin but don't know where to start.

[Paul Alex]

The Gemini credit card makes it easy. Issued by web bank. To Qualify for the $200 crypto intro bonus, you must spend $3,000 in your first 90 days. Some exclusions to instant rewards apply. This is not investment advice and trading.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Crypto involves risk.

[Paul Alex]

Check Gemini's website for more details on rates and fees.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I walked in one day into my mother's bedroom. I was like, mom, I'm dropping out of Colle. Wow. She's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, mom, I. I'm like a multi millionaire. I started off with literally all the money I had in my bank account at $25,000. In less than six months, I managed to grow my portfolio from $25,000 to $1.7 million. And then late September, it all just crashed down. I lost it all. That is all I needed to fuel me into a different direction of entrepreneurship. And that's when I found real estate. I did everything Fix and Flip. Section 8 wholesaling. Airbnb development. It's the best business to be in. There is no other business that will give tax benefits, give you the cash flow, give you the equity of the appreciation, and allow you to leverage that asset to collateralize and get more loans.

[Paul Alex]

Welcome back to Level of Podcast. This is Paul Alex. Guys, we have another phenomenal interview in store for you guys. Now let me go ahead and paint the vision for you. Imagine it is 2020 in the middle of COVID You are doing trading. How many of you guys do trading? Okay. All of a sudden you're up millions and then you lose it all. Oh, my God. What do you do? Right? Well, for the guest for today, that's exactly what happened to him. But he was able to bounce back and do it again. That's right, become a multimillionaire, but not through trading, but instead real estate and Airbnb. So we are going to interview this guest he's going to tell you exactly how he was able to go from A to Z and how you can.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Do something very similar as well.

[Paul Alex]

Brother, welcome to the show.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Thanks for having me, bro.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah. So for the people that don't know you, who are you?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

My name is Fareed, I go by Reid. As Paul said, I used to do a lot of trading back in 2020. Start off as a day trader. This kind of stemmed from me just being heavily involved and interested in finance because I worked at an investment bank and for a very long time I was so intrigued on like how money works. I remember like literally just going on Google when I was 19, 20 years old and literally typing into Google like how to make money online. Yeah. And that's where I started. And then there's a lot of opportunities in the market. You know, Covid hit pharmaceutical companies were at all time highs. Everything was, the market was like fluctuating a lot. So you know, did what any other capitalists would do, figure out a way to take advantage of that. Got heavy into day trading, options trading, high levers trading. And yeah, I started off with literally all the money I had in my bank account at the time was just shy of 20, $25,000. Half of that was split into my individual brokerage account and then I had the other half in the Roth IRA that I wasn't trying to touch. But yeah, after that I went all in. In less than six months, you know, I was doing like $100,000 days. In less than six months I managed to grow my portfolio from 25, 000 just trading pharmaceutical companies and oil contracts and tech companies to $1.7 million. And this was all on like TD Ameritrade. This was all logged, screenshotted, recorded. I started a day trading community. I had people like following my trades every single morning. Market opened at 9:30, like the Bell would go off and we would just, just rip scalp trades on the, on the market. Sometimes I would trade throughout the day. Some days I would just rip a few trades in the first like AM sessions within the first 15, 30 minutes of the market. And then it was, it was, it was crazy. I felt like I was at an all time high in life, you know, until it all shortly came crashing down. But you know. Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

So Reid, at that time you were 20 years old.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

All right, so you're 20 years old, you became a multimillionaire. You're on top of the world.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

Now let's go ahead and talk about lifestyle.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

What do your parents think about this. What does your family think about this? Did you have a girl at the time?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I did not, no. No. But I was. I was talking to a girl. I mean, my. My. My family. The biggest thing was I. My family is Middle Eastern, so my parents are first generation. They immigrated to this country very, very, you know, a while ago, like around 36 years ago. So I tried to keep all the entrepreneur stuff away from them because in their eyes, there's only two ways to make money. Three ways. They said I could have became a dentist, doctor, or a lawyer.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Because both my other older brothers are Dennis. So I was. I knew they would not be supportive of me becoming an entrepreneur. And I realized at a young age, you know, the educational system, the academic system, it's all programmed and it's all a scam, and it's made to, you know, make you think as a worker. So I always tried to figure out ways to not go to dental school. So when I was graduating, I was in my undergrad at University of Maryland. I was a junior at the time. I was 20 years old. I was a junior in college. I told myself, I have two years to figure this out, because I am not going to become a dentist. I'm not.

[Paul Alex]

So why were you so against being a dentist, man? I mean, for a lot of people listening, they're like, dude, that's a great profession.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just don't like working in the hospital, number one. Or I don't like working in a dental practice. There's a lot of years of schooling, you know, and I just hated that. I always. I can't. It's not. It might be because I have adhd, but, like, I can't sit at a desk for too long and learn from someone who's not credible enough to teach me anything that he has done in his life.

[Paul Alex]

I love that.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I just love that. I hate being lied to.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

There's no way I'm gonna listen and sit at desk to a professor who's teaching me about business, who hasn't created a singlepreneur him myself.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

There's no way I'm gonna learn about science from. From a science teacher who's not a scientist, or my English teacher is teaching me about English who hasn't written any bestsellers himself.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Like, just being lied to constantly over and over and over again. At some point, I was so fed up where I don't want to do it.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

You know, and. And apart from, like, the time freedom, the location freedom, the financial freedom, like these Are all things that a normal individual who's working a job would never get. Even my brothers make tons of money, don't get me wrong. But, you know, they're. They're limited on travel. They're limited on. On vacation. They're very limited on what they can and cannot do. So I just never. I just hated being put in a box. So I always had to keep it low key, like, super, super under the radar, to answer your question, with my family. And they had no idea I was trading, like, literally my life savings away at the time until I walked in one day into my mother's bedroom, and I was like, mom, I'm dropping out of college. Wow. She's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, mom, I'm like a multimillionaire. She's like, what? And I showed her my bank account balance at the time at TD Ameritrade, $1.7 million. Set it all there. Those screenshot. I showed it to her, and she was like, is this real? And I was like, yeah, it's real. Like, why would it not be real, right? And she's like, yeah, this doesn't make any sense. She didn't understand it. And then it was crazy because every single day onwards, she was asking me about, like. Like, what I was doing, how the trading was going, and she, like, would not stop harassing me about it over and over again every single day from that day onwards.

[Paul Alex]

Well, you piqued her interest.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I piqued her interest?

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah. And so would your brother say? My brothers were trading with me.

[Paul Alex]

Oh, really? So they knew all along.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

They knew all along. They knew along. And I was like. I was like, can you please, like, try to convince mom to let me drop out? And they're like, no, I'd never do that. I was like, okay, well.

[Paul Alex]

Well, they're good brothers, man. I mean, you know, they're. They're big on family. They don't want to hurt your mom. And, you know, I'm a big guy with my mom, dude. You know, the reason why I even got into entrepreneurship was to retire my mom. You know, that was the first. My first why. Right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Nice.

[Paul Alex]

So I completely understand that, man. So you go ahead and you show your mom this, and then how long until you start going big?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah. So at the time, I was. I didn't. My personality is like, I would never, like, show something that I don't. I can't, like, prove results for. So, like, I was showing her everything I was doing after it already happened. Yeah, right. And so she kept asking me about it. She kept like, I piqued her interest, obviously. And then day after day, like, you know, I was making more and more money. And then I think around September, late September, it all just crashed down. Right. I lost it all. And it wasn't like losing $10,000 a day. 20,000. No, it was like I was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per day.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Because I was investing into options contracts. And when the theta starts to decay in your options contract, your contract of your stock that you purchase starts to become worthless. So I was losing hundreds of thousand dollars per day. I was like, you know, I was still high on life. I was spending money on my credit cards like I was a millionaire. I was still living my life.

[Paul Alex]

I was spending the money on going out.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I was going out. I was.

[Paul Alex]

Give us an example.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I was partying. I would go to like a club and I would buy a section for like 7, $8,000. And I would invite all my friends, girls, and actually, that's a funny story because that's how I met one of my other mentors was at a club. But I was going out, traveling. I was spending money on stupid stuff. And then I racked up a bunch of credit card debt. I was probably like a good150,000 in credit card debt. And then, yeah, just all crashed and burned one day. I literally had nothing to show for it. My parents were still like on my ass about the whole trading thing.

[Paul Alex]

Did they know that you had lost the money yet?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

No.

[Paul Alex]

Okay. So on top. On top of the pressure. Yeah, on top of you losing it. Dude, that's a lot. That's heavy, bro. Yeah, that's heavy.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, it was a lot.

[Paul Alex]

So, like, were you in a dark hole where you couldn't tell anyone?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, I mean, I felt. And the thing was this, like, it wasn't just me who lost money. It was a lot of other people as well. So.

[Paul Alex]

So it was your community?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

It was my community. No, my community. Actually, a lot of people in my community made money and they kept it. And they were smart. It's funny, my community members, there was probably like close to 200 other traders who are like copying my trades and stuff. They made. Some kids actually made a lot more money than I did. But a lot of them who made their money were smart. They either dollar cost averaged into like, other positions or sold their positions before the market crashed. Wow. I was the only one that, you know, I just. I just felt like I was ahead of the market. I knew what I was doing. I was the only one who didn't sell. Wow. And, like, there was this point where, like, my account was growing so fast, I went from 25,000 to, like, $100,000 in one day. And then I told myself, okay, let's. Let's hit a quarter mil, and then I'll sell some of it, and then we'll. We'll like, you know, go into, like, more safe blue chip, you know, stocks.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I went from 100,000 to, like, 350,000.

[Paul Alex]

Oh, my God.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So I shot past my quarter million dollar goal.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So then I was like, okay, all right. I'm like, only 150,000 away from half a mil. Let me hit half a million dollars, and then I'll. I'll sell.

[Paul Alex]

At what point does it start becoming gambling?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

It's. It was. It was. It was like. It was gambling because I kept telling myself that I was going to sell at this time, at this time. And then I was like, let me hit a million and I'll sell a million. And then I hit, like, 1.3. And then I was like, all right, screw it. Let me hit 1.5 and I'll sell. And then I hit 1.7. So I was never hitting. And my ass was like, you know what? At least I have my Roth, and I'll keep that in there, but I'll start, like, messing around with my. With my individual account. Yeah, my individual account starts losing money. Then I start to recompensate by taking the money out of my Roth and, like, investing into my individual. And then everything just crashed and burned. I mean, it's. It's. It's really, really easy to think you're the. When you are making so much money, of course. Fast.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And then it's like when everything comes crashing down, then that's when you start to learn the lessons and you're like, okay, I should have done this better. I should have done that better. And so, yeah, that was it for me. That was like, I. I will never invest in. Into an intangible asset ever again.

[Paul Alex]

And this was still 2020 going into 2021.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

Okay, so you're in this hole now. Parents still don't know. I mean, it's. That it's deep. And I'm pretty sure everybody that's listening to this and watching this, they're probably like, oh, my God. They wouldn't even know what to do. So what was the next step that you took, man? Was it. Did you get into deep depression? Did you go ahead and just have to, like, stay low for a few months. Like, what was your next move after that?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, I mean, my next move was like, I eventually told my parents. They, they were like, for them, it was. They were more worried about my mental health.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Like, they weren't like, hey, it's okay, you know, don't worry. They were more worried about my, my mental health because I was in a state where, like, I had no more emotion. And I feel like that stage in my life really killed all the emotion that I still am lacking still to this day. And they were just glad that I was, like, safe at home.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

You know, I mean, just the small things like that. And they were under the assumption. They were also very, like, relieved because they were under the assumption that I would finally start taking school seriously and I would go back. I mean, they're like, okay, well, Fareed lost all this money, but the good thing is, like, he knows that entrepreneurship is not going to work out for him, so hopefully he'll go back to school.

[Paul Alex]

Got it.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

That was not it at all. That could have been further from the truth. I think that even though I was so mentally drained and exhausted and even depressed, as you can, you know, tell, but at the time, like, that is all I needed to fuel me into a different direction of entrepreneurship, where I was like, okay, this didn't work. I have two options. I can either go back to school, which I did. I graduated. I took all my classes online and ended up graduating two years later.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

With an undergrad in economics. So I could have done that route and go full on into dental school or gotten my MBA or whatever, or I could pivot and go into another business.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

I've spoken to hundreds of entrepreneurs, and one thing I consistently see them struggle with is their sales process. It's a total mess. A bunch of scattered information spread across tools and systems with no clear view of what's moving. That's where today. Today's sponsor, pipedrive comes in. The number one CRM tool for small to medium businesses, pipedrive brings your entire sales process in one simple, centralized space, giving you guys a crystal clear, complete view of the sales process and customer information so you stay in control and close more deals faster, guys. Teams are using pipedrive to close an average of three times more deals per month. Every team does things a little differently. And I love that you can fully customize pipedrive to fit my team's unique sales process and strategy. And we can all work from one platform. It all centers around the visual sales pipeline, where you can see every single Deal, what stage they're in and what needs to happen next. Since everything is in one platform, pipedrive makes it easy to unite your team, keep track of sales tasks and stay on top of your leads. It's so powerful. It's a simple CRM built by salespeople for salespeople. So join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipedrive right now. When you use my link, you'll get a 30 day free trial. No credit card or payment needed. Guys, just head over to pipedrive.com to get started. That's pipedrive.com LevelUp and you can be up and running within minutes.

[Rumchata Advertiser]

Toast the holidays in a new way and raise a glass of Rumchata, a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum. Enjoy it over ice or in your coffee. Rumchata. Your holiday cocktails just got sweeter. Tap or click the banner for more. Drink responsibly. Caribbean rum with real dairy cream, natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75% by volume, 27.5 proof. Copyright 2025 Agave Lot Brands, Pojoaque, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And that's when I found real estate. I always knew I wanted to get into real estate, I just never knew how. And the entire purpose of me making all that money was to eventually sell it and allocate it towards buying my first house or getting rent, some rental properties.

[Paul Alex]

Makes sense.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So, yeah. And you know, my. The next thing I started googling was how to make money online with real estate.

[Paul Alex]

And how long was that transition from the time that, you know, the first business went down? Yeah. And then going ahead and picking yourself up again. Because that, that is the, the key takeaway here, guys. If you guys are listening to this story, for a lot of people, they'll go through very bad, critical incidents in their life where they'll never recover from it. Right. Or they end up doing some crazy like drugs or party or alcohol. Right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I was close, brother.

[Paul Alex]

It happens to everybody, dude. It even happened to me. Right? So at the end of the day, man, the good thing is you were able to pick yourself up and use a negative event that happened in your life and use it for positive, which you went ahead and use that pain into fuel. So how long was the transition until you started going ahead and started doing your due diligence and your research again?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, it was, it was while the ship was sinking. So I saw holes in the ship. You know, people were jumping ship. The more there was, it was a bloodbath in the market. Right. You know that at the time The NASDAQ was at an all time low, and there was a bunch of stuff going on, so I knew I had to pivot fast. I didn't think I would lose that much amount of money fast, but I knew I started had to pivot. Like, once I lost a few hundred thousand dollars, I was like, okay, let me start looking for an exit strategy. I was planning to invest a lot of it into, like, buying houses, but then I started losing money a lot faster than I could pivot. And then I. When I hit rock bottom, I was like, okay, like, I need a. I need against real estate. And then that's when I found. Even before Airbnb, that's when I found real estate. Wholesaling. So I got into wholesaling.

[Paul Alex]

Okay.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I was like, there's got to be a way I can, you know, make some money and make some cash, wholesale a couple deals and start buying some rental properties. Because all the rich people I know own rentals.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And the nine out of ten millionaires are in real estate. So I am trying to become that statistic.

[Paul Alex]

So wholesaling, you end up doing research. Do you end up investing into, like, a program? You get a mentor. Where did you really start doing your market research with wholesaling?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So at the time, I met a couple mentors, right. But for wholesaling, I found a mentor, and he was. He was very cheap, actually. Didn't have to pay him anything. I just literally moved to Philadelphia where he lived, and I slept on his couch.

[Paul Alex]

That's awesome.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah. So at that point, again, like, I was doing all my schooling online. I created, like, a letter, I sent it to my dean, getting an exception on doing my classes online for, like, Covid and stuff. I just wrote them a letter saying, hey, I can't attend in person classes. So while I was taking all my classes and graduating, I was also under a lot of pressure, obviously from my family, and I couldn't live at home. So I was like, you know what? Screw this. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna move out. So I moved out, and I lived with my mentor in Philadelphia, and I slept on his couch for, like, six months. And yeah, yeah, that's. That's how I got into wholesaling.

[Paul Alex]

So how'd you find your mentor online? Online?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, literally, I was just like, I. I was doing Facebook groups.

[Paul Alex]

Community.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, it was literally through Instagram. I met him through a mutual friend on Instagram. And then I d. And that's, you know, that's how I found my first mentor. And, yeah, I literally just like, flew out and I was like, dude, I'll literally clean your dishes, I'll fucking wash your laundry. I'll do whatever it takes for a lip. Just let me, like, learn from you, because I want to get into the space of real estate and I'll do whatever it takes. And he's like, okay, well, come live with me. And I was like his little, like, intern.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, no, I love that because you went ahead and you didn't expect a free handout, man. You were like, hey, you know, wash your dishes. What do you need me to do? Right? Put yourself at service. And I think for a lot of people, when they go out and they reach out to a lot of these business consultants online, they expect something for free. Yeah, right?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

But you did the opposite, man. You went ahead and provide value. Yeah, that's what's up, man.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, I always realize, like, there's. There's two ways for someone to take you seriously, right? You either can provide an insane amount of value and bring something to the table, or you pay them in exchange for their time. Sometimes it's both. Yeah, there's many mentors where I had to pay. You know, the last mentor I just paid, I literally, he's like a pretty well known developer here in Florida and in Texas. Paid him $50,000, like literally just to learn how to build houses. Yeah, there's mentors that I, again, I met for free. I slept on their couches, the mentors. I met one of my other mentors at a club. He owns a mortgage lending business. And you know how those like, bottle girls come out with the signs and stuff? Stuff. He had like this, his company logo on his sign and it. And it said like, we lend money. Just something simple like that. And then I walked up to him and I met him. But yeah, there's many ways to connect to people.

[Paul Alex]

I love that.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And mentors changed my life. Significantly changed my life because, you know, there's no point of learning through the educational system, through people who haven't, you know, done anything for themselves. For me, it's. It's a lot easier to collapse my time because I value my time a lot. To learn from people who have done what I want to accomplish.

[Paul Alex]

Right. So you rather go ahead and connect yourself with those people that have already done what you're trying to do so you can mimic their process and you can learn from them.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Exactly.

[Paul Alex]

That makes a lot of sense, man. And, you know, I think for a lot of people, they just don't see it that way. They think that, hey, you know, I'm gonna go to college and you know, it's the American dream to go ahead and get the four year and then go ahead and do a career. Right. But I think now with everything that's going out, dude, AI, all the resources that we have in the online space, dude, it's actually very doable to go ahead and connect with people. Right? Yeah, I love that because I get the question all the time, how can I go ahead and network?

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Right?

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, online, dude.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, online. It's the best university. A lot of it's for free. And I would seriously encourage anyone who's listening or watching this right now to like find someone who's already crushing it in their space. Like find whatever it is a high income skill that you want to, you know, do. Right. And if, if you're young and you're watching this, I would suggest sales.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

As a good skill to learn. It is find someone who's crushing in this space. Learn from them, get coaching from them. And don't just buy like a course or anything. Right. Like if you're. And a lot of people are different. Some people like to learn from courses, some people like to. And that's, that's, you know, whatever, Whatever works for you. Me personally, I've always learned hands on. Yeah, right. Like one on one, being in the trenches, learning, I'm a visual learner and I realized most people are like that as well. So for me, like what worked was coaches, mentors, someone I can call, like a, literally a contact in my phone or if I don't know something, I can call them. Right. Right now, AI is great, charge, beauty is great and everything's out there. But I can't give you real life examples and experiences of what to do in a particular situation, you know, so that's why having a mentor is really helpful.

[Paul Alex]

There's still an operator feeding AI the information. So either way it goes, I mean, AI is not going to replace the experience.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

And that's ultimately what you're buying into or you're providing value to, to get that is that experience. Right. So that's good, man. I like your point of view, brother. So you went into wholesale. How long until you went ahead and landed your first deal?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

It's funny, I, I didn't do a single deal at all. That during the six months that I lived with my mentor, I didn't do a single deal.

[Paul Alex]

And this was in 2021.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

2021 now. Yeah. And I didn't. It was, it was really, really Hard, because I was trying my hardest, and I just wasn't good. I wasn't good at cold calling. I wasn't good at sales, and I didn't know how to talk to people over the phone to get them to trust me to, you know, give me their houses to buy. And because I was literally behind a trading desk my entire life, I was just buying a desk, and that's all I was doing. And before that, I had small other businesses and actually had an ATM business, which was funny, but. Yeah. So that was like, the hardest six months of my life, because I was not only learning how to underwrite properties, run comps on houses, learn about real estate, but real estate's its own language as well. But then, like, amongst that as well is learning sales. Learning how to get people to trust you.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

You know, through just rigorous, rigorous amounts of cold calling.

[Paul Alex]

Persuasion, man.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Persuasion. Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

You know, gotta go ahead and have those phone skills. Gotta have that gift of gab and everything. Right. And I like the way you describe. You're like, I was a traitor, you know, aka Meaning that you didn't have to talk to no one.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah. Just clicking buttons on the screen and just printing money out of thin air. I thought that was the life.

[Paul Alex]

And you know what, to be honest, you know, people ask me all the time.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

They're like, paul, if you were to.

[Paul Alex]

Do it differently, would you? I was just like, yeah, if I was smart enough to go ahead and do something like you did. Right. Go ahead and. And print money by, you know, going ahead and picking different options. But, you know, with me, I had to learn the hard way, man. I had to look through experiences and all that jazz.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

But.

[Paul Alex]

No, that's good, man. So you went ahead and you went through a rough six months, so you went through a shaky season.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

And then after those six months, what happens?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So I. I did a lot of deals on my own after that. Right. I learned a lot from my mentor. He taught me everything I needed to know about just real estate and just sales. Like, my mentor, Adam, he has, like, the gift of Gap. Like, I don't know how to explain it, but, like, he's not like a closer. Like, if you go on the phone with them, you're gonna get close. But, like, he. The way he talks to you and the way he, like, controls and runs his verbal mannerisms or whatever. Even in person, people just gravitate towards them, and people just trust them. And in sales, like, trust is everything. Nobody's gonna sell you a house or do business with you if they don't trust you. So that's the number one. Like, and, and he always taught me, like, the three Cs of getting someone to trust you is care, confidence, and credibility. I love that you have to let people know you care about them because if you don't, you're not gonna provide value to them. And then people are not gonna do business with you because they think you're a selfish person. The second one is confidence. You have to be confident that whatever you're promising the other person, you can actually come through on and be confident in your abilities. And then the third is credibility. And credibility is one thing I never had because I just got, had gotten started in real estate. So I didn't have a portfolio. I didn't have, you know, money rentals, and I didn't have a credible business and, and whatnot. So that's why I found a mentor. That mentor helped me close more wholesale deals later down the road because he allowed me to leverage his portfolio that he had of rental properties. And now I had the three Cs, right. And I was able to leverage and use his experience and expertise in his rental portfolio to close my own wholesale deals. So after that, like, six month internship period, I did wholesaling for an entire year. Mm. The entire year of 2021. At that same time, I was using all the money I was making from wholesaling into investing into, like, Airbnbs. So I started learning about the Airbnb game. And yeah, I just took off. Like, I just went full into real estate. I tried Airbnb use some of that money. I try to flip. I had some houses that I had bought that I had rented on Section 8 as well. So I did everything.

[Paul Alex]

So you did a mixture of everything, brother.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

That's. That's amazing. You know, in which path would you say you were? You were like, this is my favorite. This is the one that's gonna take me up to that next level.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

It was, it was Airbnb. And the reason was because a lot of stuff was too transactional in the wholesale business, and a lot of it was out of your control. Right. So in a wholesale business, you have to get a really good deal on a distressed house, and then you have to find a buyer to buy that distressed house. So if I get a property for like $100,000, I need to find a buyer to buy it for over a hundred thousand dollars, maybe for like 120 or whatever. And that buyer will come in, fix that property up, and resell it. So there's but there was a lot of moving parts. Right. You have to, number one, convince the seller to sell their house to you. Right. Someone they have never met. Yep. Then you have to convince a buyer to buy that house from you. So when they've never met. Right?

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And then hopefully the house gets cleaned on the title. Hopefully it doesn't come back with any backdated taxes or any liens or anything. Right. That always sucks. If title comes back and says, hey, the homeowner owns $50,000 in water bills, like, you can't sell that house.

[Rumchata Advertiser]

So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text. But which u do you listen to? Is it we could buy a house in Tulum, get optioning those options. We could lose everything. Or let's do a little research, get your head in the trade and make the investment decision that's right for you. Learn [e-mail] TradeSmart.

[State Farm Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move. Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So there was a lot of moving parts and I was like, all right, there's got to be an easier way for me to just, you know, set up a business, have it run for me and have it be passive. So that's why I got into Airbnb because I always knew that with my money that I was going to make from wholesaling, I was going to buy rental properties.

[Paul Alex]

Yes.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Why not just buy rental properties or get into the Airbnb short term rental business. That makes significantly more than your traditional long term rental. So that's why I figured it clicked for me and I was like, okay, I need to get into short term rentals. Yeah, that's my next business. So. And I, and, and again, I've done fix and flips, I've done section eight. It all works. I love it all. That's the thing is like a lot of real estate gurus and people online nowadays, they like on each other, right? The, the section eight guys will, on the Airbnb guys and then vice versa. And then developers come in, they're like, oh no, development's the best. And like, my thing is as long as, like you're in real estate or you're investing into some aspect of real estate, you're ahead. Because for me, just any, any form of investing in real estate, whether it's fix and Flip, Section 8 wholesaling, Airbnb development, whatever it is, it's the best business to be in. Nate, like, correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no other business that will give you the tax benefits, give you the cash flow, give you the equity of the appreciation, and allow you to leverage that asset to collateralize and get more loans. Yeah, there's no other business. It's the best.

[Paul Alex]

No, you're absolutely right. You know, unless you build a multi million dollar business within your first couple years where, you know, it's evaluated at multimillion and you know, then the bank is able to go ahead and give you loans. But the chances of that happening to like, let's say a beginner. Right. Especially come from like a 9 to 5 and you're just like, oh yeah, multi million dollar. Does it happen?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Dude, I forgot the statistic. But it's like 90% of the businesses fail within the first year of being launched and then out of the remaining variants, the rest fail within the first five years. And like they're not able to like sustain their overhead.

[Paul Alex]

Yep.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

But like debut about a short term rental is you don't even have to buy houses to do Airbnb. That's when I like, I was like, holy crap, this game is insane.

[Paul Alex]

Okay, that's interesting. So, so, so talk about that, man. Like, okay, let's talk about that. Because I think that's one thing that would hold a lot of people back is the fact that they would have to go ahead and have the money to invest into some property in order to do the Airbnb. But you're saying right now that, you know, you could go ahead and start the Airbnb business with. Without owning the property. So what would be, I guess, a step by step for a beginner right now? Listening?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Right? Yeah, I mean it's, it's very simple. Keep in mind, I went from a $25,000 stock portfolio to millions of dollars, then losing it all. So I was forced to start from nothing. So I literally just found like, I went on Zillow, which is a rental website where you can find other listings that are being put up for rent or sale or whatever. Yeah, I went on Zillow. Like literally in the location that I was living at the time was In Maryland, near D.C. area, I found like super luxury, single family, nice Houses around three to four bedrooms, listed for rent. Yeah. I found the houses, I contacted the homeowners and I literally told them like, I offered my services to manage their property.

[Paul Alex]

Okay.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I was like, hey, like, I know you're listing your property for rent on, you know, 123 Main street for 3,000amonth. You know, have you ever been opposed to listing this property as a short term rental instead? And they're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, okay, well, I own a hospitality management company. I'd be willing to sign a management agreement with you to take your house that you have listed. We can do it as a short term rental. I can get it photographed. Because these houses were already furnished too.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I would target furnished properties.

[Paul Alex]

Smart. That way you don't have to buy.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I don't have to set up furniture, I don't have to buy couches, I don't have to buy beds. Like the biggest overhead in a short term rental business is the furniture set up and all that stuff. Right. So I would target properties that were already furnished on Zillow within three to five bedrooms. I would sign like six months to one year management agreements with those homeowners and I would list the property as a short term rental on Airbnb, VRBO and a few other websites. And I would take 25% of all the cash that we would collect in revenue each and every single month. As a property manager.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Like via commission. Yeah. And so these houses that I was listing were not only making double what the homeowner had it listed for. Right. I remember my first rental property I ever did was in Virginia. My, the homeowner's mortgage was like $3,000. I listed as a short term rental. And within the first month we generated sixty five hundred dollars in revenue.

[Paul Alex]

Wow.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And we had like out of, out of a 30 day calendar, we had maybe like 20 days booked. So it was at like just around under 70% occupancy. Wow. And we made sixty five hundred dollars and I collected 20% of that. So I made my like first twelve, thirteen hundred dollar check and I was like that, that hit my account and I was like, holy crap. Like, this is a legitimate business.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So then I got a few other properties under management. I started managing other people's houses, started to build my credibility. Right. The three C's going back to that. Then I had the care, I had the confidence, and now I had the credibility because I had like five or six of these rental properties. Then I started to get my own airbnb the next level after that, after managing, was signing my own leases. Right. So then I went back to those same houses that were listed on Zillow for rent. Instead of pitching them property management to take 20, 25 commission, I would offer to take over the entire lease. I would pay them 100 of their rent, and I would in turn take that property, with their legal permission, of course, and relist it on Airbnb. And I would make double what they had it listed for rent in revenue. So I'd make like 6 to $7,000 of revenue on these houses. And instead of collecting 20% as a manager, I would collect 100% of it.

[Paul Alex]

Wow. So, like, when you go ahead and you negotiate those type of deals, when you try to take over the lease and you're paying them the full amount, I mean, obviously they're happy, right?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

Because they're like, oh, man, you're cashing out.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Right.

[Paul Alex]

And that's a home run for homeowners. But the second thing is the, I guess the objection.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

And I'm pretty sure you dealt with it before where homeowners are like, what are you trying to do?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

How do you get over that?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah. So, I mean, it all comes back to the psychology of, like, putting yourself in other people's shoes. Like, you have to understand, like, why are all these middle aged people renting their properties out on Zillow? Well, it's probably because their CPA 20 years ago told them that buying real estate was good to reduce their taxes and X, Y and Z. And that's why the average homeowner is like 35 or 40 years old with their property on Zillow and they want to rent that out. And so you as an investor can come in and provide value. Right. Because finding a good tenant nowadays that will actually pay your rent on time, take care of your house and not damage it is pretty rare.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Right. But if you as a company come in and provide all three of those things, like we do. Right. And we even have short term rental insurance for all of our properties that we, we sign leases for, we will not only guarantee your rent every single month on time via ECH on the 1st of every month, but we will take good care of it because my team and my property managers do inspections weekly on our houses and our cleaners come out after every single checkout and check in just like hotels. And we clean and we take care of houses, but also like, we treat their house like it's ours.

[Paul Alex]

Wow.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Because we're running a business out of It. Yeah. And so we need it to be upkept. And so you provide all these things to a homeowner, they're getting their guaranteed rent per month. In what world would anyone be opposed to that?

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Do you, like, if I paid you guaranteed rent every single month on your house with whatever you were asking for, would you care what I did with the house?

[Paul Alex]

No, no. I mean, as long as you have like, like you said, the social proof that, you know, you could take care of it, I'd be okay with it.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And every single month I allow my homeowners to come into the house, they inspect it to make sure it's upkeep, to make sure it's. You know what I mean? I'm not, I'm not, I'm not living in there myself.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So everything's like pretty much up to code, up to standard at all times. And we literally guarantee our homeowners that we're going to give them the house back into the same condition that we take it all. Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

That's amazing, man. So from going ahead and learning this concept and running with it and getting a few. Now where are you at at scale?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So at scale, 2023, I used all the money I, I made from my property management business and arbitrage because I would start arbitraging and signing my own leases. Right. 2023, I bought my first house.

[Paul Alex]

Wow.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Okay. That was, it was a, it was a house I actually bought from my mentor who wholesaled it to me.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So it was in North Philly. It was in Germantown, Philadelphia. I bought a house for a hundred thousand cash. My mentor got it under contract for 80,000. So he made, he made 20,000 off of me. A wholesale fee.

[Paul Alex]

Nice.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I took the hundred thousand, I bought it. It was a fixer upper. I put 30k into it. I was all in like 130 with interest on the loan and stuff. I would say like 1, 140, and then got reappraised for 210.

[Paul Alex]

Nice.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So I had a lot of equity in the house, my Airbnb debt for a few months. My mortgage was like, my monthly payments were like 900 bucks.

[Paul Alex]

Oh, wow.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And I was, I was doing like close to 3k in revenue. Yeah, like 30, 32, 3. $300 in revenue every single month as a short term rental. Oh, yeah. And so I actually ended up selling that as a business. So I came in, fixed it up, got it appraised for a higher value, had a lot of built in equity into the asset, then I flipped it to an investor, not only cashed out on all my equity, but I sold it to them as a stabilized cash flowing rental as well.

[Paul Alex]

Wow.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So I added like a small little multiplier on top. I think it was reappraised for, got appraised for like around 210,000. I think I sold it to him for like 230.

[Paul Alex]

That's amazing.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, I got, I got another 20k out of that just via, you know, handing him an asset. So.

[Paul Alex]

And, and that in itself is another business.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

Which is amazing.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Buying properties, stabilizing them, and then flipping them as a business.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, it's almost like a done with you, done for you concept, man. Because a lot of people don't want to go through the those steps.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

To do it because it takes time and effort and expertise. Exactly.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah. Some people just take my money and give me something that's already cash flow.

[Paul Alex]

So is that, is that what you ended up doing? You ended up going ahead and building that business concept?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I, I, I did it for a while, but then I was like, okay, well I'm just gonna grow my own portfolio. I don't really care about. You know, at that time I wasn't really coaching or teaching anyone how to do anything. I was like, I'm a big firm believer in understanding how to build my own business. But before helping others, like, I want my cup to be overflowing before I'm able to, like, because I don't want to. A lot of these people nowadays, they'll get like one rental property or, or do like, you know, one real estate transaction. All of a sudden they're selling a course online, teaching other people to do the same. Yeah, I didn't want to be that guy. So I did it for a while. After I bought my first house in 2023, I bought my second in 2024 and I bought a third that same year. I have a, I have a few houses that I own right now that are rentals for short term rental. A lot of them are arbitrage though. So I have around like I used to have a lot more, but now I'm sitting around like around 35. Arbitrages.

[Paul Alex]

Nice.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah. So a lot of my properties that I have are just long term leases with homeowners that I'm subleasing.

[Paul Alex]

Right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

But I'm thinking about just like, because I had around like 50 to 60 of them and I sold a few to kind of like spend more, invest more money into buying houses. Because for me, buying was then Goal, like, I like there's always level to the game. Right. I started as a property manager, then I started doing arbitrage and then I started buying houses and putting them on Airbnb. And then now my next goal is development.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So I literally closed on my first lot in Texas six months ago and we're doing a ground up construction on a like $2 million house.

[Paul Alex]

I love that.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

That one will probably not be an Airbnb. I'll probably end up like flipping that. But I want to start getting into like building and developing affordable like four or five $600,000 houses and turning those into Airbnbs.

[Paul Alex]

Wow.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Because short term rental is just like. The short term rental is just, is just an exit play. It's just an avenue to cash flow and make money from. Right. But like up to that point, you can decide on how you want to do it. You can either buy a short term rental, build one, sublease one, manage one. There's the reason why I love real estate is because you can be so creative. You can. There's so many ways to skin a cat, per se, like in this industry. There's so many ways to do a deal, to get a deal done.

[Paul Alex]

And where do you see the future with Airbnb?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I mean, a lot of people say Airbnb is not going to last, it's not going to be there for a long term. Whatever. Whatever ends up happening with the platform itself. Right. Because a lot of people are going and doing business through private booking websites now and other websites. The way I see it is like Uber and taxis. Right? It's like rideshare. Rideshare. There's always demand for rideshare, whether it's going to be Uber, whether it's going to be Lyft, whether it's going to be a taxi, whether it's going to be another app in five years. There's. The demand for rideshare will never go away. So same thing with like housing. There's, you know, people need food, shelter and you know, water.

[Paul Alex]

That's essential.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

It's essential. Right? To us, to life. So the concept of people needing furnished places to stay on a short term basis while they travel for vacation, work, etcetera, Will never go away.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And when I figured that out, I was like, okay, well, I'm in a business that has high demand. Americans spend trillions of dollars traveling every single year just within the country. So whether it's another app, whether it stays on Airbnb, whatever it is, I'm always going to be ahead of the short term rental game. Because for me I'd rather run a short term rental business and make double to triple the revenue on what these old folks are making on their long term rentals. No. Hate to anyone who has long term rental because you know, those are truly passive. And but like I would rather make double or triple the revenue on a short term rental than owning something and renting out long term.

[Paul Alex]

So break it down, let's say to one of our listeners, let's say here's the scenario. They work in 9 to 5, let's say they have about 20k in savings. Okay. They want to invest it into our cash flowing business. But obviously like everyone else, they wanted to do a passive. Right, Right. So Airbnb, what would be the first couple steps that you would advise this beginner?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, I mean first, first thing is like mentally understanding that nothing's passive in life.

[Paul Alex]

I love that.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

If so many people will sell you the dream and say, yeah, real estate's passive. Like, all right dude, if you're trying to half ass something, sure. But like if you're trying to become really successful at something, no matter what it is a business, nothing's going to be passive for you. Yeah. So be ready to be hands on. Now if you want it to be 110% hands off, you can obviously hire property managers, whatever. For me I wanted to be hands on because this is my main income. Yeah. So what I would do with the $20,000 is I would invest it into a small short term rental arbitrage. I would find an Airbnb or a short term rental, whatever. On Zillow I would find a nice luxury property. You know, I would say like 10, 15 minutes from a major city that has good attraction, near a hospital, near, you know, office buildings, whatever. And I would make sure it's already furnished because, you know, furnishing a property takes a while. Then you don't want to, you know, spend money doing that. So I'd find a furnished property as well and I would go to the homeowner and I would make him a proposal. I would go to them, sign a two year lease with the homeowner, make them a proposal, tell them that you're going to guarantee their rent every single month and take that house, get the legal permission to resublease it as an Airbnb. And setting those properties up is, is really like very easy. You're paying first month's rent, which is around 35 or 35,500 to 4,000 for a size of property. Like that. And then first month security deposit, which is another 3,500 to 4,000. So you're all in like $8,000. Property's already furnished, it's turnkey, it's done. Sign one of those leases and you're like, my good rule of thumb is that I want to be profiting whatever the rent is. So if the rent of a property is 3,500 bucks.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I want to make sure after all expenses, cleaning costs, turnovers and everything, I'm making around $3,500 in profit. Right. Per deal.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So one of those will literally help you break even on your investment within like three months, four months. And you have those properties for two years straight.

[Paul Alex]

Wow.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Right? Wow. So if you think about it, the average business, as we were going back to before, like 90% of businesses go bankrupt and fail within their first year being in business, this business literally helps you break even within three months. If you find a good short term rental, a good property, and now you have a cash flowing asset that's going to cash flow for the remaining two years of your lease.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

With 20K, you could get like three of those.

[Paul Alex]

That's amazing, man. What you don't know is what you don't know, right?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, exactly.

[Paul Alex]

So how long have you been going ahead and now consulting actually helping people do this, man. Because it's amazing stuff. I never knew this. So. So how long have you been helping now people learn this?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, I've always been like big on the coaching space before, like coaching became like a big thing on social media. But truth is, I would not have been able to do any of this without my coaches and my mentors. So, you know, I post a lot on social media. My Instagram is Reid Aberdeen, so I post a lot on social media and I'm super passionate about it because I like helping other people out.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I'm a, I'm a man of faith. So I truly believe that like God put me on this planet to become a vessel to help as many others as possible. And I'm teaching other people through, like, through mentorship, through coaching and consulting. So I've been doing it for a couple of years now. I find a great sense of fulfillment in it.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Love it.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Like there's, there's, I generally hope at least one person who's listening to this can experience this in their lives, but there's no better feeling than someone random walking to you, like literally walking up to you at a conference you're speaking at. Right. And saying, bro, I've been Following you for so long and I'm inside of your coaching program and you changed my life.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And now I started with zero properties and now I'm at six houses and I'm doing a consistent amount of like 18 to 19 thousand dollars a month in cash flow. Like the. It happens. It happens all the time. Some people stop me in the streets, some people, you know, they come to conferences. I spoke at a conference in Chicago a while ago, and it's the best feeling ever. So that's like a high in itself, you know?

[Paul Alex]

That's amazing, man.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

What would you say is one of your most memorable client success stories?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

There's a lot. There's. There's a lot.

[Paul Alex]

One that touches the heart, man.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

One that touches the heart. Yeah. I had this, I had this student name, Travis. He's actually, he's actually one of my chief acquisition officers at my company at mm. Now he runs my acquisition side. But he started off as a student, so that's the best, man. I. I only hire from my, like, program, from my student program.

[Paul Alex]

Because you're. You vetted them?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

I vetted them. They did the work, they're willing to invest up front. They did the work, they're willing to take risks that like, these are all things that we want to see.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Of course.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Right. So, yeah, whenever I hire, I always hire from my internal programs and my communities. So now. But this one, this one really touched my heart because he literally spent every last dollar to his name to invest into, like me. He invested his time and money into me. Yeah. And so when he did that, he was living in a small town in Mississippi. He invested every single last dollar he had into. Into our program. And we flew them out. We flew them out for. We run quarterly events, so we flew them out for. I think it was our Q4 event at the time of. Of 2024. And Doug, here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat helping people.

[Paul Alex]

Customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu.

[Paul Alex]

Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Liberty Savings vary underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. And he came in person, we met up with him. We brought him to the office in Texas and he loved it so much. He loved the energy, he loved the team, he loved like literally everything. He put, I think a one month, a 30 day notice at his job and his lease yeah. In Mississippi. And he moved everything over to Texas. Like, he moved to Dallas. I was like, I didn't even know. I didn't even know until he showed up one day. He flew in like a month later after our Q4 event. Now it was like around like January, February. He was like, hey, bro. Like, I moved here. I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, I sold everything at, you know, back at home and I live here now. And I'm like, holy shit. Like, what are you going to do, bro? Because, like, we were in the process of still helping him get his credit and his funding for his business, setting up his LLC before he helped him get properties. Like, there's a process, right? And he was like, yeah, I just got a server job like down the street. I'm, I'm going to be hustling here and I want to come into the office every single day and I want this, I want to make this work. Love that sounds like, holy crap. And long story short, we gave him, you know, in the process of helping them acquire some rental properties for his portfolio. We gave him a job at the company.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

You know, as a small little like first tier, like sales position. He crushed it in his first month and we leveled him up to like, like a sales leader, sales manager. And then after that, I was like, dude, you're, you're, you're crushing it. You're like, it's always the people that, like, take everything that they learn and apply it as fast as possible. Like, he's a very fast paced guy.

[Paul Alex]

Right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

That just do so well.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

And at that time, like, you know, four months in, he. He started to get a bunch of rental properties as well. We structured up his business, we got him funding. He had like four to five Airbnbs. So he was making money passively on that as an end as well. Then he was making active income from the business. At that point, he quit his server job and now he's my head acquisition officer at Mmm. And he's dominating. He's crushing it. And he bought his dream car, you know, he got his dream apartment, and he's crushing it.

[Paul Alex]

That's fire, dude. That's fire. And. And that's a true definition of burning the boats.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

Right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

There's no other alternative. Just burn them all.

[Paul Alex]

How did he. How did you feel, man? That's like an aha moment for you.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

And the reason why I see that is because when you go back to when you went and you were couch surfing on your mentors.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

You know Couch, dude. And you moved.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

From your parents. Right. It's like almost an aha moment for someone else to do that for you.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, there's. There's been a. I've had a couple interns over the last few years. I've had a couple interns. I was always big on, like, recording the journey and recording the process. So, like, throughout me wholesaling, throughout me doing Airbnb, like, I always had other interns on social media who would swipe up on my stories and say, hey, like, can I come shadow you? Or, hey, can I come live with you? Whatever.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

So I always had, like, people, like, coming in out of my house, like, sleeping on my couch, recording me. In exchange, I would teach them how to do, like, you know, Airbnb and get their first rental. Because back then I wasn't charging anything.

[Paul Alex]

Right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

But, like, you know, this was, you know, this was like, one of the times where it really, like, paid off. And I think it's because he literally put every single last dollar into his bank account and invested into himself. Yeah. And then I knew, like, this. This guy has what it takes.

[Paul Alex]

No, for sure. I mean, you have so much belief, man, that you're. That's the definition of having skin in the game.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah, Right.

[Paul Alex]

Going ahead and putting your last dollar into it. It has to work or it has to work.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, Right, Right.

[Paul Alex]

So I love that, man. So what would you say it takes as far as having the proper mindset, man? Let's say somebody wants to go ahead and do this business. What type of proper mindset do you believe someone needs to have in order to get into this business and be successful?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Right.

[Paul Alex]

Because at the end of the day, if it was easy, everybody would do it.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Of course.

[Paul Alex]

So what type of advice would you give to the listeners right now?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Just be ready to learn more than you earn on your first deal in your first year of being an entrepreneur. Like, you can. You have two options. You can either pay to collapse time and to learn from someone who's already done it.

[Paul Alex]

Right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Or you can figure it out yourself, depending on what type of learning style you like. A lot of people like to learn by fire. They like to figure it out themselves. I've done that many times. I'm at a stage now where I would rather invest into a mentor because I have too much to lose now in terms of, like, managing my time and etc. So it's just investing everything you can and realizing that at the end of the day, so many people like shit on people who do nine to Fives or work a nine to five job. But if you're really smart, figure out a way to use the active income you're making right now into investing into something that's more residual and passive smart. Have both. Right. Don't burn the ships too early. Obviously I gave you an extreme example of one of my students who now being became part of the team. But you don't need to burn the ships early. You can use the active income you're making right now. Use your job, use your 9 to 5 to fuel that 5 to 9 to fuel that business. But if you're not doing anything from five to nine and if you, if you don't have a separate business or rental properties or whatever it is, you're going to be trading your time for money for the rest of your life. And to me like that is the peak definition of just wasting your talent.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah. So because the minute that you stop working, man, that's it. The income stops.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

God forbid. Like most Americans, I read this statistic. Most Americans are one car crash away from like financial poverty.

[Paul Alex]

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It matches that saying that I love one of my really good friends, he goes by Nehemiah Davis. He always says this. I'll never forget it. He said this four years ago at an event. He goes, if you only got one source of income, you're only one step away from poverty. Yeah, right.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah.

[Paul Alex]

And it happens to everybody, dude. It happens to everyday people, man. That's why it's important. So if you want to give some words of advice for people to level up in 2025, man, what would it be?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Find a mentor. Find a mentor. I feel like so many people nowadays are trying to invent things or come up with the new things, but there's just, there's so much value in just doing what already works. Yeah, right. And the most important thing is a lot of people don't. So you just putting in an unreasonable amount of work ethic to the point where it's absurd for you not to get results. Just work harder than everyone else does. Find a mentor, put your time to use wisely. Because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again every single day and getting the same results and not doing anything different. Yeah. So you don't want to be that, you don't want to be insane. Right. But make progress, work towards your goal. Figure out what your vision is, what your five year plan is. Ten year plan is find someone who's already living that life and just pay him for his time. Whether it's a coffee, you know, for lunch or dinner, or whether it's for one year program or whether it's a conference, like, just get into those rooms however way you can.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, I love that, man. That's some great information. I'm a big believer in that. And you learn that at a young age, man.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, a lot of people say that. They're like, oh, you're, you're so young, but it's like, you know, I've. I've ate enough. I've ate enough shit to 100%.

[Paul Alex]

You got a lot of experience, my friend.

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Learned the hard way. I got lucky at a young age. To make mistakes. Yeah. I mean, to learn more.

[Paul Alex]

Well, that's what we always say, you know, you want to make the mistakes at that age. You know, around your 20s, better than. Than in the 30s and the 40s when you have a family and kids and all that jazz. Right now you're just like, oh my God, what do I do? Right? Yeah, so it's good, man. And where can my audience find you, brother?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, read Aberdeeni.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

Okay.

[Paul Alex]

And. And then do you have anything like, as far as, like a free community? Any resources that you could go ahead and provide to my audience?

[Fareed (Reid Aberdeen)]

Yeah, my. My YouTube's pretty big. I'm going, I'm gonna be going big on YouTube. I'm just started it, but I'm gonna be posting a lot of value, a lot of education on there. I'm really big on value, so I do, I give a lot of away for free. I speak on conferences for free. I have to fly to D.C. next week to speak at a. At a real estate meetup as well. But yeah, just shoot me a dm. I do pretty well at responding to a lot of my DMs on Instagram, so shoot me a DM. You know, if you want to chop it up, talk about anything, you need some advice and.

[Paul Alex]

Yeah, and there you guys have it. Read was able to go ahead and transition from trading, losing millions, and then going ahead and building himself up to the greater version of himself once again. Guys. And before the age of 25. Look at that, guys. Amazing, right? See, guys, it all is up to you, okay? It's about your environment, your mindset, what you listen to, who you are around and just follow Reid's advice. Go ahead and learn from those mentors, from those people that already accomplish what you want to do in life. Guys, we are top three in business because of you guys. The millions of listeners that have been listening to this for the past year. Guys, thank you once again. Leave a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and on YouTube. We actually have a brand new YouTube channel. Emilio, what is the handle? That's right. The level of podcast, guys. We moved it from official Paul Alex to the level of podcast. Brand new YouTube channel. Guys, this episode is going to be on there. Make sure to check it out. Once again. Guys, this is Paul Alex. This is the level up. Catch you on the next one. Peace it.