 Hi, I'm Keena Nisley, and this is The Life of the Land is in Its Real Estate. Happy Veterans Day! And to celebrate Veterans Day, I have David, military to millionaire, with us today, to share with us about how do you do? Can you do military to millionaire? So, David, can you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself? Yeah, so I really appreciate you having me on the show, Keena. And, well, I got started in real estate in 2015, right? So I'm a marine, I'm still active duty for a little bit longer, and I've been in the military now for like 12 years. And in 2015, someone introduced me to the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, and it kind of opened my eyes to how I was wasting money on rent. And so I bought a duplex, and I lived in one side, and I rented the other side. And so I went from, effectively went from paying like $5.50 a month to live in an apartment. This is in Missouri, and pay like $5.50 a month to live in an apartment. And then I dropped to, I was only paying $100 bucks because my tenants were covering all the rest to own the duplex. And they just opened my eyes, and I kind of went from there. So at this point, I'm a partner on 146 unit syndication. I have 15 units myself with five that we should close next week. And then so that'll bring me up to 20. And I've bought and sold a bunch of other stuff here and there, including some stuff I partnered with on a flip in Hawaii. I've got a flip in Missouri. Yeah, so it's a little bit about me. And then at this point, I'm building a community to help service members and vets learn how to use their their VA loan and build wealth while in the military. So yes, and it is quite a community. So you're you're reaching, you know, 20,000 followers on Instagram. So there is, and I like I've told you before, you're quite the celebrity. So we met why David was in Hawaii. So yes, it's your famous so and by you should be, which is awesome. So what motivated you to start military to millionaire. Honestly, it wasn't really like a thought process it wasn't so I was just trying to learn how to get better at writing. And so I was trying to think of an idea for a blog. And a friend of mine was like why don't just document what you're doing in real estate like you're doing it anyway if you just wrote about what you're learning maybe someone else would benefit from it. So I can't even take credit for the idea and I started writing about it. In fact, I didn't even come up with the name for the website another friend of mine came up with that because all my ideas were terrible. And yeah, so it just kind of started as me just talking about what I was doing. And at first like all things that take time you know it was just me talking to myself to the internet. And then it slowly started to pick up that people said you should start a podcast and then it just kind of has exploded over the last really probably over the last year we've gone. I won't say exponential but we're I think we're at that bell curve things are things are really picking up in the communities growing probably got 4050,000 followers across all platforms now and yeah it's been incredible to see and more importantly, the amount of people we've been able to help with learning about the a loans or building I mean, you know, there's been several several people that we've helped buy houses or just get out of situations that shouldn't have been in and really just help people avoid all the financial mistakes I made when I was young in the service. So it's been cool. Yes, yes, so I have been lucky enough to be on the side of helping your clients to, to, you know, grow their wealth and I appreciate that and I love the kids that you send me. And the mindset that you give them that starting at 26 and starting their investment journey. I wish we had started at 26. So, so who, who's your audience that you're mostly servicing across across these platforms. I try to target 18 to 40 year old. But my my demographic that I reach currently is 25 to 35 and it's 75 80% male. So you're typical, you know, beat chest marine or soldier or whatever. Kind of what you would expect from a military demographic right there are spouses but the vast majority of people who are in the community or are males because it's a primarily male dominated employment. And because I just did not feminine enough apparently to relate to the other side because no matter how much I try that is that number does not change. So generally, yeah, you know, military age men and some women. So, what parts of the world are you reaching are you simply, you know, United States, when you're in Hawaii, were you only touching Hawaii. What what part of the world's are you are you touching. All of it. Yeah, I've got I've got people so I mean, primarily the US. California, pretty good following pretty good following in Hawaii I think a part of that is just because I was there when I started everything and I hosted a meet up so there's like I have a personal network there. Then a big big network in California and all the typical you can kind of see where the military hubs are, but definitely have I mean, if I was like you look at my podcast demographics and I have listeners in Japan where there's a base in Italy where there's a base in Germany where there's a base in England. And we actually have a mastermind group that we help service members and vets. And it's interesting because we had a call on Saturday, and the guy who was on the call was everyone who asked a question like Oh, where are you from and we had like one from England on the call one from Germany one in Hawaii. Yeah, so definitely all across the world and people are investing locally people are investing long distance I mean there's some pretty cool stuff going on in the military in the real estate community. So, yeah, so that does that leads into you know, can people invest internationally. Is that possible. So, yes, and yes, depending on how you mean the question so I have, there's a girl named Morgan in the group, and she is currently in Germany and she owns real estate in Germany. So it is definitely possible to invest internationally in that sense but there's also a lot of people in the group or just in the community in general, who are buying real estate in the US while not in the US, which is really no different than you know I was buying real estate in Missouri from why it's basically the same concept. Only difference is how long it takes to get the mail, you know the notary documents sent to you. I've got a buddy in England, who's bought several properties in Kansas, I've got a buddy in Japan who's under contract on some stuff in Huntsville, Alabama right now. Just interviewed a guy on my podcast a little bit ago he's in Germany and he's bought like 10 or 11 units in Texas. So yeah, it's definitely possible on on both fronts. And you either need to have a really good team, or you're going to have to go and either, either partner with somebody or look into like turnkey or syndication because you don't have a good team in that area or you're not intimately familiar with that market is going to be really rough to try to try to force that. So you talk about team for our for our viewers. What kind of team are you looking for. Well, for me personally property manager, because I just do not have the personality to deal with that at all. But I would recommend that for anyone who's overseas or long distance for sure I have a couple friends who manage all their own properties long distance and good on them I don't recommend that for anybody it takes a special person. So property manager real estate agent who who knows what they're doing that I can tell you that real estate agents are not created equal. I was going to say this actually before we got on the call but I mean I guess it doesn't hurt to record so part of the community is I help connect people with service or with agents all across the country right and up until this month there were only, and I've sent I've probably introduced 80 to 100 people this year. There were only three agents prior to this month who closed a property. Right. And if three, three, two or three or you fiver another buddy of mine and then the other person I want so it's like, you can introduce a million people to a million people but if it's not a good real estate agent, it's just you're going to you're going to you're fighting an uphill battle so a good real estate agent, a good property manager of the two biggest ones, and then you want to lender. If you have a VA loan you need a lender who knows what they're doing, because not all lenders are created equal and that's what that gives VA loans a bad rap. And then those are the biggest ones contractors the next piece to that puzzle but if you have a good property manager they should be able to handle a lot of the maintenance in house. Okay, so what, what are the advantages of being a of the investor. So the, I mean the biggest one is, if you hold any audience of beginners in the real estate world and say, what's the thing holding you back money is the number one answer, always. And people say oh service members don't make that much money well. I disagree we actually get paid fairly well, but if you don't have money saved, especially somewhere like Hawaii right like let's talk, let's talk million dollar home. You know how long it takes somebody who makes $70,000 a year to save 200 grand for a down payment right so even if they only pay the F they do an FHA where they only pay 3 and a half percent down that's still $35,000 that's not easy to come up with. Most, there's a lot of people who will never see that amount of money saved if they're not good with their money so the VA loan allows you to get into a property with nothing out of pocket you can even walk away with cash in your pocket I see I've seen. I think the try to think, I want to say one of my buddies, I think you can pull up to 4% as that closing cost so like theoretically you could get paid 40 grand at closing on a million dollar purchase but I've seen someone walk away from $12,000 after purchasing a million dollar property. That's pretty cool. Right, so the VA loan has all sorts of cool opportunities like that. But I think that's the biggest thing I mean there's a lot of benefits to it. No, no private mortgage insurance, no, you get pretty good rates, it's very solid it's reliable they even have some programs to if you get into trouble they have some ways to help you through that so you may not get closed on and like the downside is mitigated. But the fact that you can get in with nothing out of pocket. That's huge. And I love helping VA buyers and you're right it does take a special lender and a special agent that kind of understands those ins and outs and it takes an agent on on the other side, understanding the VA loan. I'm very fortunate here in Hawaii because we see a lot of them, but I know mainland, they don't see quite as many VA loans. And so I see a lot of questions on Facebook about what do I do with this. So you do want agents that understand the ins and outs of those or can at least teach another agent, how those are a lot of misinformation and yeah a good agent will be able to talk the sellers the listing agent into accepting a VA loan there's definitely some people who have a bad taste in their mouth who think that the VA loan that the rumor is that the VA loan is this like impossible thing to close unless it's a brand new bill. They say oh if the paint's chipped you can't. Okay, it does have some stringent inspection requirements but they're very easy things to fix and get around. And it's really not that so it just takes an agent or a lender who can communicate what we are going to close this loan this is there's nothing wrong this will be fine. Which is exactly why we try to connect people with those because there are agents out there. We talked about this before the recording I didn't use the VA loan on my first purchase because the lender told me that I should, I only got to use it once which is wrong. And so I didn't use it and it's cost me like $12 or $13,000 over the last few years and PMI alone. Yes, you can use it multiple times. So, um, so I did peruse your your Instagram and your Facebook. And one thing caught my eyes that a VA buyer can live rent free. They can live payment free how how is that. And so this is what I'm doing which is the greatest strategy. I think for anybody getting started in real estate. It's such a powerful so that's what I did when I started and I'm now doing it again although I didn't actually buy this house I'm renting it my landlord lets me. Not this house. This is a cabin up in the mountains that I'm staying. But but the house that I'm staying in right now is a brand new build in a brand new neighborhood but my landlord lets me Airbnb bedrooms and so I'm, I'm paying $3,000 a month and pulling in $2,400 a month through Airbnb. But what you can do with the house hack. Okay, I'll use my buddy Brian, as an example he bought up four plex in San Diego for 1.23 million. And he, I think he walked away with like 800 bucks at closing so he didn't, you know he didn't pay anything down he got a little bit back, nothing crazy. But the, it's, I think it's two three bed two bath and two three bed one bath units. And he lives in one of the units he rents out the other three units. And then he also rents out two of the bedrooms in his three because he's a single guy. So he rents out all three units he rents out two of the bedrooms in his unit. And he's making, I want to say it's $900 a month right now on top of his mortgage payment and all of his expenses to live in this $1.2 million home and that's so he's getting to save his entire housing allowance which is like $2,600 tax free. He's getting paid like 800 or 900 bucks. I can't remember. He got an extra roommate so I don't remember what the math changed to but like 800 or 900 bucks on top of his mortgage and expenses. And then every month on a loan that size he's paying down $2 or $3,000 in principle. So his net worth will go up $60,000 every year that he owns that house. I mean, even if the market took a nosedive, if he holds that home for 20 years, you know, all he has to do is not sell it. If he just doesn't sell it, even if it never goes up in value, he's a millionaire when he's when he turned in 30 years. So when he turns 50 he'll be a millionaire. If he does nothing else ever. But yeah, he lives in this property for free. And he pays down his mortgage and he keeps his housing allowance so he's saving an extra, you know, $2,600 a month with his housing allowance which he is reinvesting. It's an example because it's a big expensive scary property, but it absolutely works at $100,000 property or $200,000 property so what it does it lets you learn how to be a landlord it gets you past the fear of buying an investment property because you're just buying a house, which is not as scary. And it lets you save more money so you can invest it elsewhere I love the house back I think that's the greatest thing anybody could do getting started in real estate. Yes, and lenders now are requiring to give you a loan for an investment property, requiring you to have landlord experience. So he's getting his landlord experience. So then later on, he can obtain a loan on you know, a standalone investment property so that that is awesome. What else is really cool about that. What. So, he hired a property manager. So because he hired a property manager, the, their landlord experience counts towards the lender. So, he was able to use the income from the asset 75% of the gross rent to qualify for the mortgage so he realistically could have bought like a $1.8 million house on a less than $100,000 year salary. So, yeah, pretty crazy. That is awesome. So, why do you recommend investing in real estate versus other investments like stocks, gold, silver, all these other things we hear why would you recommend real estate over those investment. I don't necessarily. I wouldn't necessarily say there's anything wrong with those right like I have a 401k I invested my thrift savings plan I'm going to max it out this year. I haven't done that for a long time. I like real estate for a couple of reasons. Number one, if Elon Musk smokes a blunt on a podcast, my house value doesn't drop 9% the next day, but Tesla stock did. So, outside factors can control real estate but most of the time, you are in control, you can decide to raise the rent, lower the rent how you handle a situation, you're in the driver seat and control that asset. Wow, with stocks or gold or you know any of these other market things. You just might not be right and there's also like there's different exit strategies you can be much more strategic with real estate than you can with any of those other investments so I like all of that. So you get a bunch of tax advantages right if you if you make $100,000 if you're selling stocks that's great but you're going to pay short term cap short term capital gains tax on all of it. So you really didn't make $100,000 whereas with real estate there's still capital gains tax there's still taxes here and there, but you get a bunch of tax advantages while you own the property. And the other thing is you can leverage other people's money. So, no bank is going to give you $80,000 to go buy stock. You can give you $80,000 to buy a house all day if you put 20 down. So, you know, I mean there's just a lot of really cool benefits. In real estate just. I mean everything's cyclical everything has its booms and busts and it cycles and everything but for me real estate is more stable, more controllable and more dependent or dependable. And that's the other stuff right I mean we saw the what's happened to the Tesla price of stock over the last year and it's been great. But like the price to earnings ratio doesn't even remotely allow that kind of value so it's, it's only a matter of time before I think that comes maybe it comes back down maybe it doesn't but like, with a house you know hey this is what it's worth this is what it rents for with stocks like if people think it's worth the money, even if it's nothing shows that it is it'll go up and it's it's just yeah I don't know anyway, maybe on the rant but it's logic, it's more logical than it is emotional and I like that. So yeah. Okay, so what advice would you give military person who wants to start investing. The first thing I would say is just make sure your personal finances are in check right save money get rid of your crazy expenses don't buy brand new car. Be smart with the money right like the guy who bought that $1.2 million fourplex he saved 50 grand in his first enlistment so he was set so if something comes up he's got $50,000 that he can turn around and you know, utilize to help get that property along. Be savvy with your personal finances get them in order be smart with them. The next thing I would say is read some books, there's some great books online about real estate I mean bigger pockets has some rich that poor dad will kind of get you in the right mentality. And then just get around people who are doing the same thing or want to do the same thing. So if you're in Hawaii there's a couple good meetups that you could attend if you're anywhere else they have good meetups you can attend. If you're in the military you should jump at our Facebook group. And, or even if you're not in the military you should jump our Facebook group but then just then you get around people who are doing it, then a you'll see it's not a scary because other people are doing it but be you'll be able to ask those questions so when you get hung up on something you can say hey Dave. What do I do about this. Oh, I've got the answer or I don't have the answer but this guy does. I mean that's huge just being around a group of people who has similar goals. So yeah, the like minded people definitely help and I mean I enjoy your page I like looking at the questions and going oh you know and learning the answer if I don't know it. I highly recommend your page to you. So what are because it's not all roses and cotton candy when you're investing as we all know what mistakes have you seen people make what are the common mistakes. Oh man. I'll tell you the one that I've made rather than seeing people. I trust people too much that I don't hate using this phrase military says it all the time trust but verify. I give people too long of a leash. So like if it's so for example I lost $30,000 on a house flip because I was trusting the contractor when I was making the payouts instead of sending my property manager over there to actually walk the property every time I sent the next check. He was sending me some pictures you know there was no reason to distrust him, but I had to get over the fact that anybody who's professional or in a profession will understand checks and balance they're not going to be offended by you having someone double check that and so my biggest mistake was being a little too trusting with people, which is not that's a good problem to have I think trusting people but just having those checks and balance in place. The other thing I think that a lot of people do is that they either they don't have their finances in check where they talk they psyched themselves out so they get, you know, what if this what if that they try to time the market or they try to time that like, if you buy a decent Just hold it forever, like, you're gonna be fine. You know if you don't sell the property it doesn't matter if it goes down in value at some point right just make sure you can make the payments, especially if you're doing a house hack where you're not paying to live there. Yeah. Okay, so you've talked about the VA loan a lot of them. They're using the house hack they have to live in the house to use the VA loan they have to remain in the house, at least up to a year and then they can they can Yes, I have to say that, but they can refinance it and and get their certificate of eligibility back again to buy their next one. But what other ways are you seeing the, you know, investors get funding. What's another other ways you've seen them funding. And there's other ways to use the VA loan again right like if you get moved from one location to another you can use the VA loan again although there is a cap the second time you can also if you move more than 50 miles away or if you need to upgrade your your house like if your family is growing there's some some gray area there some loopholes on the VA loan but I mean other ways it really kind of just depends on what they're buying right I've seen I've seen them use the FHA loan. But I also see creative I like I like to see like seller financing I think that's huge. You're in a market and you can talk to sellers directly and then you know you can work out a deal where you're paying them for the property. That's not super common but it's really cool. And then the cool thing though is like if you do a house hack, and you save all that money. Then you can turn around and put 20% down on the house because you'll be able to save the money while you're doing it, while you're learning about real estate investing so I would never have been able to put put $20 down on the house when I first started but I did it a few months ago and I'm doing it again in a couple days as you as you get better at this and your finances improve you'll you'll have more money coming in it's like a snowball so you buy that next house you have $500 a month that you can add to your savings then you buy another house I have $1,000 a month you can add to your savings so. Alright so what what advice would you give somebody if somebody walked up to you today and said hey I want to do this. What's the one thing you would let them, you know, what do you want to tell them. I would just say make sure that the agent and lender you're connected with understand the VA loan and the ins and outs how to use it don't. Don't go with the friend family. Don't do that to yourself that I yeah I can't can't stand the like oh yeah my friends are real estate agents so I'm going to use them. How many houses is your friend so none okay so your friend doesn't know how to negotiate and they don't actually use their license at all and you're going to go with them because they're a friend over the person who like you is sell 50 homes this year and actually knows how to how to negotiate or how the market works. So don't go with a friend and family unless your friend and family is a solid real estate agent. Get your finances in order get around people who are doing what you want to do and and this is huge. Don't take advice from people who haven't been where you want to go. Right like people who don't own a house will tell you buying a house is a bad idea. People who aren't married will tell you getting married is a bad idea. People who you know that they're not it. Don't listen to them just just any one year out the other year you know what you want to do. Spend time reading about what you want to do listening to podcasts getting around other people and then don't take advice from people who haven't done what you want to do or aren't actively doing it. I think that's huge if you can just avoid that pitfall I think you'll be very very well off. So yes just just surround yourself with those people and there are opportunities I know here on on a Wahoo there's a lot of opportunities to get with investors and I know you create opportunities for people where you are. So with that how would they get a hold of you how do you want people if they have questions how where can they find you you're everywhere but where can they find you. So even if you go to Google and type in military millionaire I'll pop right up. But from military to millionaire dot com or Instagram from military to millionaire probably the two best spots I will always respond to messages on Instagram. Within 24 hours I bet. If I get too much bigger I may not be able to do that all the time but for now I'll always respond to everything on Instagram so at from military to millionaire. Or really yeah YouTube podcast. Facebook it's all the same military millionaire from military to millionaire. Look for the mustache. Yes. All right well thank you so much for spending part of your veterans day with us I know you are in the mountains at a cabin on vacation but you did take the time out to meet with us and I really appreciate that. Oh is that snow. So all right thank you so much and thank you so much for joining us on the life of the land isn't it's real estate. I will see you all in two weeks and we will have a CPA to come talk to us about the tax advantages of owning a home and yes he will answer that question. Can I write off space in my home since we're all working from home now because that is a huge question right now. So thank you to think tech Hawaii and again this is the life of the land is an Israel estate and I'm kidding nicely and I will see you all in a couple of weeks. Thank you so much.