We’re going to continue our discussion today on the getting-started concept. We got a lot of phone calls yesterday. I hope we get a lot of phone calls today answering your questions about what to do. And it was interesting yesterday was a lot of phone calls about people who already had real estate what to do with it.
And I think maybe I don’t stress enough that that’s also a line of questioning that we really enjoy and can handle here, because when we have new members join Lifestyles Unlimited, many of them already own real estate and just don’t know exactly what to do with it.
A listener came in and had a 60-unit apartment complex. They had 20 vacancies — 20 vacancies in a 60-unit. That is really, really ineffective management. In Houston 92, 93, 94, 95 percent occupancy is pretty standard especially for us at Lifestyles. And you know what happened? They joined up.
It turned out that their apartment, their 60-unit was right next to a 60-unit that one of our members owned—right next to it, just across the street. It was 95 percent occupied. We were able to take that person and take their property, get it from whatever it was—I think it was 60 percent occupied—and get it up to 95 percent occupied.
So we can answer those questions for you as well. Real good questions yesterday too about people with a lot of equity sitting in either rent houses or sitting in their personal residence doing nothing for them, how to use that to start building wealth. It’s also Tuesday so Natalie Pilkinton is here with me — my usual Tuesday co-host.
STEVE: Natalie, welcome to the show.
NATALIE: Thanks for having me.
STEVE: Natalie, I’ve told everybody we didn’t get through the getting-started workshop yesterday—what to do first as they’re learning to be real estate investors. I want to revisit that and finish that today. But I think that you’re listening to some CD’s from Robert Kiyosaki that explains why this is so important for them to do this. Because what I’m talking about is personal education in becoming financial independent, and then you’re listening to CD’s that are really explaining why everybody’s dependent.
NATALIE: Right. Basically we’re on the plantation and we’re all inspecting our paychecks from the plantation owners, which are our employers. So there are caveats, you know, pros and cons with that. It’s okay to have a job as long as you’re financially educating yourself to get off of that plantation or working towards getting off that plantation or having that choice to get off that plantation.
STEVE: Right.
NATALIE: And the reason why I say that is because Robert Kiyosaki’s family started on the plantation doing the sugar farms—I think it was sugar farms—in Hawaii. So with them doing that, they had to work to get off the plantation. The plantation had all the family—they rented the houses to the workers.
STEVE: Yeah.
NATALIE: They also had the grocery store that the workers had to go and buy from. So what the workers were left with was very small, and they had to save those pennies to get off of the plantation so that they can move away from the big island.
And I think there’s a lot that goes to be said for that because today we are all in that. We are not taught by our educational system to be financially free and secure. We’re taught to go and be obedient and good servants and go off into the workforce and work for the rich people.
And there’s nothing wrong with working for rich people as long as you’re educating yourself and you’re beginning with the end in mind and you know where you’re going.
You know, the middle class investment stocks—your stocks, your mutual funds—all that is to pay for the rich to go out and do business. And who takes the risk?
STEVE: That is funny when you really think about it from that point of view. Here you are working for a big corporation, and the moment you’re done working with it, any money you have left over after you have paid your bills you give it to another big corporation to make themselves rich.
NATALIE: Right. And who takes the risk? The CEOs dictate how much each other get paid. And so if you run a company into the ground, you’re okay, you’ll get hired to run another company. It’s not a big deal. And then what happens you have all these shareholders, stockholders that keep pumping money back into this system.
They’ll sell; they’ll buy. The broker makes the money on the commission on the front end. They’re not penalized if the company fails or if your portfolio fails; they don’t get deductions from their paychecks.
STEVE: Yeah.
NATALIE: And then you have the big corporations that have already received the money from the stock shares that they’ve sold, so they’re already set on the initial offering. That’s the difference what we teach. It’s investing in the actual businesses before they get to the initial offerings. It’s investing in businesses where you’re in control of things. And that’s the complete difference of everything we’re taught through the educational system.
STEVE: And that’s the difference between what we’re teaching and really all the real estate investor clubs across the United States—
NATALIE: Not true.
STEVE: Say that again.
NATALIE: Not true.
STEVE: What do you mean?
NATALIE: All the investment clubs don’t teach buy and hold, they teach flipping. You’ve got to be careful with the investment clubs you get in.
STEVE: Yeah. Let me be careful how I say this, and let me finish the whole statement. Whether you’re teaching people to—I see what you’re saying. Some of them never get to investing. They’re all flipping. I get what you’re saying.
NATALIE: Right.
STEVE: Yes, that is a valid point. There’s a lot of real estate investor clubs out there that all they do is teach you how to flip—buy, fix up, and sell; buy, fix up, and sell—as if that’s investing. What I’m referring to are true real estate investor clubs. An investor holds the real estate. They hold the real estate.
So when you get around clubs, you learn—and you’ve got to find them because you might only initially find the flippers, but eventually you’re going to find some people that actually own and hold it.
You can have a job too. There’s one other thing you didn’t mention but I know you agree with: What if your passion is your job? Keep your job. We’re not telling people not to work.
