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Real Life Investing With Jason & Rachel Wagner
“Real Life Investing” with Jason and Rachel Wagner is a multifaceted podcast that blends insights from real estate, entrepreneurship, family life, and political discussions. Known for their candid and engaging style, the Wagner’s explore how their conservative values shape their approach to both business and life. They often discuss their personal journeys in real estate, offering practical tips on topics like how to buy a house or investment property while navigating a challenging housing market.
In addition to real estate, the show frequently delves into entrepreneurial lessons, highlighting the importance of mindset, perseverance, and staying focused on long-term goals. They are open about the challenges they’ve faced and provide valuable advice for anyone looking to head into entrepreneurship or seek the best version of themselves.
Dinner table conversations are central to the podcast. The Wagner’s discuss their experiences balancing various topics that families face, while often featuring guests who share similar journeys. Political conversations are explored from a conservative perspective, particularly when they touch on how these beliefs influence their business decisions and personal growth.
With a blend of relatable stories and expert advice, “Real Life Investing” is a show that appeals to a wide audience, from aspiring entrepreneurs and real estate investors, to those seeking inspiration in their personal lives.
Real Life Investing With Jason & Rachel Wagner
70. Unlocking VA Loan Secrets with Dubois Toy
When veteran Dubois Toy received a check for $2,600 at his closing table after buying a $369,000 property, he knew he'd stumbled onto something extraordinary. With just $400 out-of-pocket, he'd unlocked the hidden potential of the VA loan that most veterans never discover.
As a former ethical hacker, Toy brought his methodical approach to finding loopholes to the world of real estate investing. "I read 2,000 pages of the VA lenders handbook," he reveals, explaining how this deep dive uncovered game-changing strategies most loan officers don't even know about. The most shocking revelation? Only 35% of veterans ever use their VA loan benefits, leaving billions in potential wealth-building opportunities untapped.
The conversation explodes with practical insights about maximizing veteran benefits—from getting property tax exemptions through disability ratings to the little-known technique of partnering multiple veterans together to purchase buildings far beyond the standard 4-unit limit. Toy breaks down how creative financing allowed him to acquire multiple properties with zero down payment and explains how veterans can stack tax advantages through strategic house hacking.
Beyond real estate strategies, Toy shares powerful resources for veterans struggling with housing, offers book recommendations that transformed his mindset, and discusses the stark differences in benefits between various states. His passion for helping fellow veterans navigate what can be an overwhelming system shines throughout the episode.
Whether you're a veteran looking to maximize your benefits or simply someone interested in creative real estate strategies, this conversation reveals how reading the fine print and questioning conventional wisdom can unlock extraordinary opportunities. What military benefit could you be missing out on right now?
Resources:
🏠 VA LOAN & HOUSE HACKING
VA Loan Program Overview (0% down, eligibility, benefits):
🔗 https://www.benefits.va.gov/homeloans/
VA Buyer’s Guide (PDF) – Understand the VA home loan process:
🔗 https://www.benefits.va.gov/homeloans/documents/docs/VA_Buyers_Guide.pdf
House Hacking with a VA Loan (renting by room/unit strategy):
🔗 https://veteran.com/house-hacking-va-loan/
VA Jumbo Loan Explanation (limits above conforming loan):
🔗 https://www.veteransunited.com/valoans/va-jumbo-loans/
VA Energy Efficient Mortgage (EEM) – Upgrade your property:
🔗 https://www.veteransunited.com/valoans/va-energy-efficient-mortgage/
VA Renovation Loan (similar to FHA 203k):
🔗 https://www.veteransunited.com/valoans/va-rehab-loans/
🧾 PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTIONS (CHICAGO / COOK COUNTY)
Cook County Veterans Property Tax Exemption (70%+ disabled = full exemption):
🔗 https://www.cookcountyassessor.com/veterans-disabilities-exemption
Returning Veterans Exemption (recently returned from active duty):
🔗 https://www.cookcountyassessor.com/returning-veterans-exemption
Disabled Veterans Homestead Exemption Details (State of IL):
🔗 https://www2.illinois.gov/veterans/services/Pages/property-tax-relief.aspx
Shoot Dubois a message on FB if you want to ask questions or get in contact!
https://www.facebook.com/share/16CfS5xbFf/?mibextid=qi2Omg
For additional resources, click here.
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Life Investing Podcast with Jason and Rachel Wagner. Today we're going back into real estate when we actually have a former client of mine Dubois Toy is here. All right here. You got to talk into the mic a little bit.
Speaker 2:Okay, my bad, hey, how's it going.
Speaker 1:Everybody, good man Good. Hey, dubois, we have to start off with this, because I think that you're going to bring so much knowledge about the. You're a veteran. Thank you for your service, by the way, thank you for your support. Appreciate it. But you did something that is just absolutely incredible. I'm looking at a closing statement right here. You bought a property that was purchase price $369,000. Yes, you put down a deposit, an earnest money deposit, of $3,000.
Speaker 1:Yes, I did, and then you got a check back at closing for $2,600. $3,000 minus $2,600 is $400. You bought a property for $400, dude yes absolutely, it was great, it was great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's insane. Thank you.
Speaker 1:What is that and just how did you even come up with this? I mean, you and I were part of the deal together. Obviously I represented you on it. But like, what is this? And and tell us about the va loan, the benefits that come from it and and everything there okay, of course, of course.
Speaker 2:yeah, the earnest money was $3,000 and got back at about $2,500, $2,700 at closing and it was wonderful because I was like I got paid to be here and do this today.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful.
Speaker 2:Not everyone gets the 0% down but certain, like veterans, at a certain rate of disability, get to put the 0% down. I do have a certain rating because I have ailments that was affected during my service time. But the thing that a lot of people don't know is that the military, like medical system is different from like the civilian. So like, if you really learn how, learn how to navigate, um, that you could like in the military we're taught like, okay, like you know, be tough, like don't, like you know, don't really go to you know medical and see yourself and everything. But you get out and then you realize you're not working as well or like certain parts of you isn't working as well as before, and you're like wait a minute. So with that, you know, I was able to get zero percent down VA loan I think it's that you have to be 20 or 30 percent and with that I was able to purchase real estate zero percent down. This isn't the first time I did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've actually done two VA loans, yes, in which you've kind of busted the myth where people, a lot of people, think you only can use one VA loan. A lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually, and also I also learned that only 35% like less than 35% of veterans even use their VA loan, so it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 3:I actually do want to clarify that. So any veteran is eligible for a VA loan.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And then just the amount you put down can vary based on what your like disability status is.
Speaker 2:Your percentage, yes, Okay, so of course you have to have honorable or generable discharge. Like if you have a dishonorable like you're you're not eligible. But with those two statuses you will be eligible for a VA loan and, like you said, with a certain rating you'll be able to do the 0% down. There is people that you can reach out to, like the VA or having a caseworker that can help you with that. I wish I would have learned or knew about those resources when I got out, but I didn't.
Speaker 2:But I could drop those resources for everybody who's watching, or I can send you a link for like, with a package of those resources, of course, or I can send you a link for like with a package of those resources, of course, for sure, but yeah, I purchased these buildings 0% down every time and when I get the check back, it's amazing Kind of use that check, of course, to go towards, like you know, anything that the building might need, or even like stash away a little bit of an emergency fund with that. But it's a great feeling. Every veteran should use it and you know thinking about it.
Speaker 1:Why do you think veteran, like you said you gave the stat 35% of veterans are the ones using the VA. Like what are the other 65% doing? Are they just like not aware of their benefits?
Speaker 2:A lot, of veterans aren't aware, like if you talk to a lot of vets, unfortunately, like they just don't. Like the military wasn't. The military today wasn't the same military. Yes, like you know, five years from now, and the one five years and now was definitely not the same military five years from that. So, man, dude, I've heard some crazy stories.
Speaker 2:Even I was talking to, like an army guy the other day and like they like since he didn't re-enlist, like back in 2003, they literally just let him go in a DMZ, which is a demilitarized zone, which is like if you have this militant over here, this militant over here, you're in Korea, like this is just a whatever zone and they just they were supposed to ship him back home but since he didn't re-sign up, they just like let him out in the streets over there and everything like didn't really give him any help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it's a lot of horror stories with like how poor, like the army and the like the military in general has not educated veteran or just military folks. Like when they're getting out like even even when I was getting out, like the things I know now like versus the things they told me, like that was like like literally only a slither of like the things they told me, like a lot of it is me doing my own, reading my own research, having mentors who you know could help me, and everything. I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for my mentors. So like it's just crazy because in order to be a successful veteran, like you really have to like have that type of tenacity to be willing to learn and navigate the veteran system and everything when it comes to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just so interesting because it just seems like there's a. I know a lot of people that are like dude, you don't know this about. Most people don't know this about the veterans and, like they, they don't know what their resources are. Maybe there's so many resources that there's never like, is there a class? Or there, is there ever? What are the? What are they teaching you when you're in there about like, hey, here is, here's the help you can get when you get out. Do they have like a discharge or do they have like some type of a you know, transition, transition course that you take?
Speaker 2:it's called tap, okay, but like it's kind of like the free trial of something, like it's not really the good version of like how powerful you really are as a veteran once you get out, like I said, tap. Tap definitely did a decent job. But like a lot of people getting out, I'm like especially going to specific like areas like even like in chicago, like tap can't really like. I was out in north dakota so they can't really tell me specific things out like in chicago to do. And there's youtubers, oh my god like civ div combat cra.
Speaker 2:And there's YouTubers oh my God, Like Civ Div Combat Craig. There's YouTubers out there who are like just teaching a bunch of stuff and helping millions of veterans out there. Those are great places to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, like I think I've seen a number of just videos on, you know, loan officers creating like, hey, this is the VA loan, this is how you can do it. And like talking about the entitlement like for, for your example, I actually had to look up. On loan officers creating like, hey, this is the VA loan, this is how you can do it. And talking about the entitlement For your example, I actually had to look up. I'm like dude, how did this guy get two VA loans? Because even in my mind I was like I don't think that's possible, but no, it is. And here I want to go into a little bit of the technicality here because I wanted to look it up on.
Speaker 1:Grok. All you got here because I wanted to look it up on grok, okay, so you gotta do, all you gotta do is just plug in a few things in ai. You can get a lot of great answers, right, all right, and so, and I took up your, like your specific situation, right, and so you had. You bought your first property in like 2022, right, for like 385. I looked that up. And then you bought this last one for 389 about what? Two years, two or three years later, all right, so here's how it goes. So in Cook County, you can buy multifamily properties because, all right, so it says in 2025, the VA loan limit for a two-unit multifamily property in Cook County is $982,000. Okay, so that takes the VA guarantees 25% of the loan. So you have this entitlement of 25% of that loan. So you have, like this entitlement of 25% of that that value. So it's like all right, it gives you a number here two 45. All right, so your first property, which was three, 85, uses 96,000 of the entitlement. So, like how this is? It gets kind of confusing because it seems like the entitlement works as 25% of the value of the property, and so if we know that in Cook County. You have a total entitlement of 245,. You just used for the first property. You've got 96,000 of the entitlement, which is 25% of your purchase price of the 385. Okay, your remaining entitlement is about 150 grand. Okay, so that allows you to if you go and you so you still have a remaining entitlement.
Speaker 1:People think that like, oh, when you use your entitlement like you've, you've used it all and you actually can't use it again. But actually, no, there's like a limit here, right, so you still have after your first property purchase, you still have $150,000 that's technically available for your entitlement. So how do we get to that second property? You bought it for $389,000. 25% of $389,000 is $97,000.
Speaker 1:Okay, you still have this one, about $150,000 that's available, minus the $97,000. You still have entitlement. Dude, you actually have some entitlement available for a third VA loan. No, I know, no, it can't be as high of a purchase price. I actually had to ask this a little bit later and your purchase price would have to be in the 200s, which is certainly a little bit harder to do in Chicago. But literally there's a calculation behind it and one you can talk to a loan officer that specifically is in the va world and does va loans and can do those calculations for you. But you can also go to grok or any ai and they can also give you the situation and run through it there.
Speaker 2:So I was gonna say I I think it's different, so I'm and this is my impression. I might be wrong, so you're in tight. You get that full entitlement first off. The reason I made that face is because the 900 000 a year, a year ago, that was like $800,000.
Speaker 1:So it just went up yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:I was like I got $100,000. So you get the full entitlement. That 25% is the percentage of the loan that the government backs. So they're saying if he default like, we'll back 25, if he defaults we'll back 25%. So I used up my full 380, my full $380,000 worth of entitlement with that first and then with the second one I used another 360 with that and then that should leave me with like about 200, like two yeah, around two to $300,000 worth of entitlement. But you know, like I said to you guys before, I used to be an ethical hacker and a cybersecurity analyst and I read documentation all day and I do API calls and programming. So I know how to look at some documentation and find some loopholes. So are you saying that there's?
Speaker 1:another loophole here that I'm not aware of.
Speaker 2:And then and then, jason, you told me this, the first, like one of the first, like meetings you had. You were like yo, you gotta, you gotta partner up with people and like take small pieces of the pies. So I was like oh well, like maybe I can do a joint VA loan with another veteran and that would be interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and actually you asked me about that at one point, but I can't recall exactly what the answer was. So, yeah, you could totally do that. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah so yeah that's definitely the plan. Like just team up with other private veterans that I know and just continue using like low down payment strategies yeah, low down payment strategy, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:Can I ask some questions? About this so we've talked about entitlement before, when we had somebody else who was on the podcast, who is a veteran, and I guess I envisioned entitlement as like a whole one thing. But you're saying it's a pot of like 900,000, basically.
Speaker 1:And it can.
Speaker 3:There's 25% of that, okay, so you could buy one $900,000 property, or you could buy multiple properties that accumulate up to that, yes, okay. So if you were to hypothetically partner, then with another veteran, how would that work with the partnership? How you split your partnership 50, 50, then take the entitlement 50, 50 of each person or 25, 75.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, yeah, I think they would would take. If there's remaining entitlement that's available for a toy here, then.
Speaker 2:But they could also I don't know, you could do it, you could. You could do it any percentage. You could do it like 10, 90 like okay, and then do both.
Speaker 3:99 partners have to be veterans in order for you to do that one partner is partner, is a civilian, you will still have to put a down payment down.
Speaker 2:Okay, because you're Get the VA that's backing 25% of my loan. So they're like oh, and then I have the rating that allows me to put 0% down. Okay, so if I have other veteran friends who are just like me. Then I'm like yo. Instead of you know, instead of us trying to put money in crypto and everything, let's get this free money to purchase this asset that's worth $400,000.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like no one's going to give us $400,000 to invest in crypto.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly it's an amazing hack you also talked about, like the disability right from my understanding, is that the disability is actually it's. It's. It's kind of easier to get a disability percentage, Like I or I I know of a lot of veterans, and you might ask them like, oh yeah, they actually have a disability, right there's. But you know, and then there's, there's certain percentages that help you on the property taxes, right? So once you get over a certain threshold of a percent disability, you're able to like freeze or reduce your property taxes. I don't think it's a freeze, it's a reduce, it's a reduction of the property taxes. Dude, some some.
Speaker 2:So I was talking to this very well-educated lawyer.
Speaker 2:He does like I think's a lawyer, like he does financial literacy and he does like will and trust and showing all that. And he broke down how the EVA works, like so it's like it's, it's a I don't, I can't do it for you guys, but it's weird, like to the point where I thought it was $250,000, like off of your property. But now it's like calculated a certain way to where I you could have like a $2 million property, like. And when he broke it down to me like this, I was like so you telling me I could have a $2 million property in Oak park and not pay no property taxes on it because, like it, it it divides your property like by a certain thing and then it reducts that $250,000 off the percentage of like it's some weird math, but it's crazy because you look at it for face value and then you'd be like, oh, I'm going to get $250,000. But then when you run the calculation you're like oh wait, this is done differently. Okay, I get way more than $250,000 off.
Speaker 1:Then and what is all right? So there's eligibility. Okay, so I'm I'm grokking this right now. You're uh right, okay. 100 disability rating often qualifies for full property tax exemptions in many states. And then there's partial disability. Some states have caps. All right, let's go to Illinois.
Speaker 3:Can I ask another entitlement question while you're researching this. So as you pay down your loan and your equity goes up, does that free up some of your? Yes?
Speaker 2:Okay, so over time yeah some of your entitlement. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's what I like about it. I was like if I could just get you know 380 000 dollars somehow pay it off, and then yeah, okay unfortunately, the only way I could do that now is by dying, and you know so do you have to refinance every time to unlock that entitlement? Yeah, you would have to, you would Okay, so it's not like it happens monthly.
Speaker 3:It's yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like, If you do that, you got to make sure that you have I think what is it? At least 20% of equity in a property. So you don't have to pay PMI Because with the VA loan, you don't have to pay PMI.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, all right, all right.
Speaker 1:So I think I found this. Yeah, it's right here. Yeah, my bad, all right. So if you've got a disability between 30% and 49%, you can get $2,500 off your equalized assessed value.
Speaker 2:That equalized assessed value is a calculation. It's not your whole value of your property, it's a portion of the value of your property.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep. And then if you have a disability between 50% to 69%, you have $5,000 off your equalized assessed value. But if your disability is between 70% and 100%, that is full exemption of property taxes. Pretty much, it's like it's.
Speaker 2:Like it's because the eva, like you, could have a like two, three, four million dollar property. And when I, when I learned that, my pride a little bit was like get a, get a four million dollar property, yeah, and have full exemption right, it's equalized assessed value.
Speaker 1:Who determines that?
Speaker 3:yeah, so the equalized assessed value. Who determines that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the equalized assessed value. So actually in Cook County, how it is, I'm pretty sure. So you've got your. So all property taxes are judged based off of the market value of what the county assumes it at.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, and typically in Cook County the equalized assessed value, I'm pretty sure, is 10% of that. So you always just got of move the the decimal point over. Actually, we can hear it like, for example, if I were.
Speaker 3:So if you have a hundred thousand dollar property, based on the comps that they pull, they're going to say your equalized assess values 10 grand yeah, yeah, all right, so hold on if I go to the cook county that made me smell so hard.
Speaker 2:When I learned that, yeah, I was like oh, yeah, okay, I Okay, I'm going to just here.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to type in ours real quick because we're in Cook County and you can also stack tax exemptions as well.
Speaker 2:So there's a veteran homestead exemption. So I don't just think you can do like one and not take the other. I always stack my exemptions every year. Okay, tax calculator, if you live with a senior citizen, you better take that senior citizen exemption for real yeah because it's really good too okay, the assessment information.
Speaker 1:So, like here, here it is. This is the assessed, the assessed value. So first, for some reason, they're saying our property is worth 490. That's okay.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's fine, right typically, that's what it is right, it's.
Speaker 1:The county thinks that your property is worth a lot less than what the actual market value is yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1:And then the assessed value. How they come up with that is it's just 10%, right. And then they do the calculation of all of how your taxes are calculated based off of that assessed value. So I'm pretty sure the equalized assessed you would be. So they start with that 10% number and then they bring it down and then they have the deduction. So if he would have gotten like $5,000 off, so it says $49,000 is our assessed value, so minus the $5,000, it would be at $44,000. Right.
Speaker 1:So that's how they would do the taxes there.
Speaker 3:Okay, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyways. So yeah, yeah, all good, okay, wow, yeah, anyways. So yeah, yeah, all good, all good stuff. So definitely. So I'm just curious are you willing to share what your disability status?
Speaker 2:is or not.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's cool, that's yeah I don't know if that's a sensitive question, and yeah, it is a little bit okay yeah, cool veterans don't like answering that question and it's protected by the law. Oh, in a sense there you go. Yeah, all right, well, forgive me no, you're all good, it's okay man like this is a podcast.
Speaker 2:I know you're gonna ask questions. This is all good, but yeah, like I said, like veterans just need to realize like this is this is about getting a top tier investment, because no other investment tool and like, of course I'm living here, this is my home, but I mean, if my home could be an investment, then then why not? You know, this is America, we're allowed to do that. So I mean we're able to get three to four I mean one to four unit of buildings. So we do that, and you could do it with no PMI. You could reuse it and you can even pair it with, like a jumbo VA loan. I know you guys don't probably know this either, but now you're all good. I'm going to tell you this little gem as well Each county has their VA limit, right.
Speaker 2:So, you just said how Chicago has, I think you said $900,000. So most counties it's about like and this was like last year I was doing this research at least Most counties the limit is $800,000 for your VA entitlement. However, you have those not counties, yeah, counties, states, whatever. You have those states and counties who are a bit you know, okay, we know this is expensive. So if you go to places like new york, california, hawaii, I think, in alaska, like places like that, your va entitlement actually goes up to, I think, one to two or 1.4 mil yeah, right, yeah, so it varies by state, it varies by county, yep, for sure so even if I did run out of my va entitlement here, I could just go to hawaii and like ah see, you are the loophole man I just go to hawaii, wow wow, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, very interesting, very interesting. I actually didn't think about it from that perspective, but yeah, no, that's, that's, that's a cool thing, right, so you're bringing a lot of knowledge of, like, all right, here's how you can utilize the benefit. And, boy, if rachel I don't know if you heard this, but if you max out your benefit here in Illinois, there might be a higher benefit that you could go to, like Alaska or Hawaii.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so then you can like take the rest of that piece of pie from. Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's, it's a great thought, that's a great thought. All right, let's see what else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's, it's a great thought that's a great thought, all right, let's see what else. So I guess we've kind of covered this, but a little more directly. The VA loan is not commercial, only residential. But you can buy multifamily, so one to four units, with the VA loan right, okay, you can do.
Speaker 1:You can do condos, you could do townhomes, you could do like single family homes Right residential any residential, any residential status okay you can't do commercial you can what?
Speaker 3:okay, yeah, so I want to know about that, this too I'm gonna that.
Speaker 2:That's gonna be extra. I'm gonna leave that in the notes, but yeah, you, you definitely I found a way you could definitely okay, no, we know about that yeah, you could do mixed use. You could do up up, like you could do 15, 20. You just got to get super creative with it, though, and like I read the guidelines.
Speaker 1:So you're saying you can buy a 20 unit apartment building with a VA loan? Yep.
Speaker 3:What.
Speaker 1:Okay, no way.
Speaker 2:I don't believe it. Brock isn't going to help you here In any state. Yeah, isn't going to help you here in any state.
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, okay, it's just how creative you are when you do it like, and if you like?
Speaker 2:do you just like split your loans? Yeah, okay, it's something. Not, you could use a whole va loan okay I think jason's like hold on. I'm digging I'm digging into it, man it's a loophole all right.
Speaker 1:The instant reply is no. You cannot use a va loan to purchase a 20 unit apartment building. Va loans are designed for residential properties, specifically one-to-four-unit homes.
Speaker 2:I'm smarter than Gronk, you guys.
Speaker 1:Isn't that so awesome? Because he's the hacker, he's the ethical hacker.
Speaker 3:The ethical hacker? Yeah, I didn't know what that was. You had to explain that to me.
Speaker 2:All right into that, all right. So what do you, what do you think, or, or how, how do you work around that? So the and this is, and this is the, this is. You feel me okay, like this is extra, you guys, I'm dropping gems right here, for real can't be found with ai, so it can only be found with toy, only be found with me in this podcast right now yeah so, basically, how you do it is if two veterans and this you have to like bro, I've read 2 000 pages of the va lenders handbook.
Speaker 2:Okay, like I, I like when it comes to when it, okay, let me. Let me reel it back. My mentor had got on me like real bad. He was like, why are you trusting a realtor or a loan officer to like help navigate you through this? You should read the documentation so you you know and like you know the rules and go through it. Cause he was like, so like there's realtors and there's a lot of like people out there who just know how to sell the product but they don't actually like know the nitty gritty of the product for sure, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Kind of like you know how McDonald's cooks know how to make a burger but, like outside of a McDonald's burger, they don't really know how to like. You know, they don't really know the essence of a burger type thing. So yeah, through reading it I learned a lot of things, with a lot of loans, that people say you can't do, that you actually can do. And I read the VA handbook and it actually says that if two veterans, if two veterans, buy a building, then it could be up to an extra unit for each veteran. So if you buy a four unit with two veterans, you'd have two extra units for two veterans, which you can buy a six unit, which me and my friend are about to do.
Speaker 3:Interesting.
Speaker 1:Wait, I didn't follow it.
Speaker 3:So each veteran has, you can get an extra unit, which means the total property can have up to six units, right? So individually you can buy one to four, but if you have two people coming together you can buy a six unit up to a six unit.
Speaker 1:Oh, because you get the X, because you can get the extra unit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because you have an extra veteran in there, like they have a special clause where it's like each veteran can have their own unit. That's like a special clause in a in a thing.
Speaker 2:So if each veteran can have their own unit, they said you could do that infinitely. Even if it's seven veterans, that'd be an additional unit. I mean not seven. If it's three veterans that's going in to get an apartment building, now you have a seven unit because that extra veteran that came in needs his unit. So theoretically, if 21 veterans came together, then yeah, we could buy a 21 unit apartment building. Yeah, Wow, I was wondering that.
Speaker 1:I was like how big of like a syndicate you could put together here to buy like a massive apartment building and it doesn't matter crossing the threshold of residential into commercial.
Speaker 2:So that's how I'm about to buy a commercial building with a 0% down and you're about to watch me collect another check.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:We're going to watch you do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah that's insane.
Speaker 1:We're going to have you come back on as soon as you pull it off. Wow, dude, that's awesome. Okay, wow, all right. There you go.
Speaker 3:I guess, because they must be looking at it as, like, each veteran is going to occupy one as their own, and then the remainder is allowed for your investment purposes yes, okay, okay, all right, wow, hold on.
Speaker 1:What if I just say what if for veterans? Come on, grok, you got to be able to give me some answers grok's listening right now though I know and re-spin it out yeah depending on the city you guys go to veterans.
Speaker 2:Veterans like you can have like a lot of vehicle perks. So when it comes to license plates and like parking, I get vehicle perks here in Chicago. Because of that, please check like for your local programs to help Like if you're facing homelessness. I have a couple friends who, whoa, you got it, bro.
Speaker 1:I know I do I have a couple friends who, whoa, you got it, bro. I know it says, yes, it may be possible for four veterans to use a va loan to purchase a seven unit building, but there are specific conditions that must be met, all right, and so it goes into it. But, like bro, wow, let's go.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man see, this is why people need me on their team, bro because, I'd be. I'd be in it.
Speaker 1:I'd be in the nitty-gritty of things that is the nitty-gritty, that, wow, I did not realize that, holy shit I'm glad, oh, I'm glad, I was able to bring that type of value in a podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I made jason say holy shit yeah, that's a mind-blown scenario there, right, because what's, what's funny is that when you ask the question one way, you get a no response, but then when you rephrase it, but wait a second. But what if I do this? Oh well, yeah, no we can make it happen right so it's all about asking how right and I think you've you've been able to figure that out. It's like how can I do this?
Speaker 2:it was really it. So it wasn't even that man. Like I said, it was my mentor. Like you know, read this so you can fully have all the power. And I just read everything and when I was reading I was like, oh snap, this is why he said to do that. And it was really just through reading and, like I said, searching for loopholes.
Speaker 2:I, as, even when I was a kid, like my mom and dad, could tell you I love bending the rules, Like I love figuring out ways. Well, you said this, so I did this instead, but I didn't break the rules, like type thing, and like now, like I like it just grew into this, like where I'm like, okay, you know I want to do this. My mentor gave me like the light and everything, like how I know I could do all these cool type of creative financing. That's what I really feel like creative financing is like bending the rules, because a lot of normal consumers don't don't do or use creative financing and, yeah, not like using it with the VA loan. It's just very like fulfilling. I'm like it's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's, that's amazing, yeah, man. No, I love it. Well, because so I've just been on the other side of that, where you know, I've been able to partner with people that were doing the FHA loans and, like you know, a lot of people think you can only have one FHA loan. But like, if you do which is kind of the case but I own buildings that have multiple FHA loans because of this partnership deal where you find somebody else, oh Right, so they live in the property, they get the loan, but I am on title because I'm helping them split the deal right, giving them the mentorship and making sure that it's successful. So that's kind of one of the cool perks, and I think that's what you were alluding to a little bit.
Speaker 1:It was like, yeah, jason is able to kind of like partner with first-time house hackers. They utilize their fha benefit to buy a property with lower down payments. I'm there to help split the monetary involvement in that and then we own the building. You know we split the building that way. So that's how we can technically kind of have two fa. You know, multiple fha loans. But it's not really. The debt's not in my name and the debt is in the partner's name. Now, that's genius it, you know. And if I don't know why a lot of people like don't do that.
Speaker 2:Right, I didn't even think of that. I was pretty smart.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, yeah so but it's along the same lines, right. It's like if you were going to come together again. It's all about we know that, because of we, you know how I met you was a real estate meetup. Yeah, right, and when you go to real estate meetups, you meet people that are like-minded yeah, absolutely, you just start talking and like.
Speaker 1:Over time you build relationships with people and, like you know, maybe you get crazy enough. You're like dude, take a look at this deal like, what do you think? And you want to do it together, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, for sure I, man. I appreciated your help and, like Jason has even, like, looked over a couple of my deals or one of my deals and like, help run the numbers and everything and make me more confident in the deal. So I appreciate that. And yeah, man, like you said, networking events, your network is your net worth. Like dude, if you're a real estate investor and you're not going to at least two meetups a month, you're doing something wrong, bro, you have to be connecting with other real estate investors. You have to be in that line of intelligence, of intel from different real estate investors about what's going on in the market. What are they doing, me and Jason having this high-level conversation right now. These things wouldn't happen if, like jason said, we weren't around like-minded people. So, yeah, the real estate meetups are like legit, like 100 and most of them are free man it's like exactly that's the cool part, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:And people actually like, want to reach out their hand and say like oh hey, who are you?
Speaker 3:yeah, you know all you gotta do is walk in the door aren't there any veteran meetups, veteran real estate?
Speaker 1:meetups in chicago. Actually, that's, that's how we met.
Speaker 3:So andrew gerazio oh, okay he runs one specific for veterans yeah, one specific for veterans.
Speaker 1:Okay, and that's how? Because andrew asked me to be a speaker at his okay and so I presented, and that's how I met toy yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, so there is.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we'll have to. We'll have to drop Andrew Dorazio's veteran meetup and yeah, no, I'm pretty sure that there's, they're still doing it. You probably went to a recent one.
Speaker 2:I haven't been in a little bit, but I went to a recent one. There I started a Veterans Real Estate Guild for Chicago group on Facebook. I was definitely going to try to invite you to the page so you could you know a landlord or even if they have programs or things they want to do outside of that. I also wanted to touch on that because I didn't know this. I didn't know this before but when I first got my building there's a bunch of like state training programs that the state gives you um well, veterans, to help like learn different things, like. Of course, we all know you have the GI Bill, but here in Illinois we have the IVG grant as well and you can use that at any trade school or college on this list to like learn different skills for free. Home Depot also has like a bunch of different contractors or carpentry classes that veterans can like use. But it literally took me like searching, like it's not like a lot of people. There are veteran fairs that goes on, don't don't get me wrong but usually they're in the middle of the day where like people are working. You know, not a lot of people can go to those type of events. So it's taken me taking off work researching this stuff to actually build these resources. Like I see other veterans who are either homeless or like trying to get a home, like to move out in their own space, or like trying to be a landlord and everything and, like I said, like the information is not really an essentialized space you have to kind of go out and really hunt for it. But I want to bring all that information to a centralized space for veterans and just normal people as well. So definitely look out for those types of programs, even when it comes to you know you owning your own home. Like those type of programs to fix things around the house can be instrumental.
Speaker 2:Because my neighbor actually helped me. Like I have good neighbors and then I have neighbors from hell. But like my good neighbor taught me how to replace a water tank. Like taught me how to do like a lot of stuff. Like walk me around my apartment building, show me like certain things. When I first moved there I was just introducing myself to like the neighbors and everything. Like each of my neighbors no-transcript know little chihuahua gets out and goes around trying to run after people pooping in people's yards and like dude their kid even totaled my car. Like ran into the back of it and everything. Yeah, it was. It was crazy like Like, thank God, like you know, my girlfriend has a car now and like we can use her car but and I can buy my own car. I just don't want to right now. But it helped me identify the good ones that can help and then the ones who might be a little bit of trouble and I also want to give out resources to help people. I'm going to try to send you over a link and other people like 3-1-1, calling the police or animal patrol when people, dogs, get out, like building a building, a trail of things. You know, taking pictures. I have the security cameras will help your case.
Speaker 2:When dealing with those neighbors from hell to like calm them down because, yeah, if you don't do anything, then of course they run wild. But I had to like look for resources and go through a bunch of things like yo, what can I do to help keep them accountable, because they're causing problems for everybody. I mean it's just not acceptable. I even had to stand up for a couple of neighbors.
Speaker 2:I had this one neighbor just throwing trash and I live next to a senior citizen who's also blind and this woman would just throw trash in his yard, like and I'm just like bro, like who raised you? Like that's absolutely insane. This guy is you rent here first off. This guy lives here and you're throwing trash and it's going on. So I had a confrontation with her a couple times and being like yo, like you can't do that. I stand up for the neighborhood because I live there and I pay property taxes. Like not anymore, but still, when I was paying property taxes I'm like I looked at that bill and I was like yeah, I'm paying for the school and I don't even have kids like what yeah right it's not really fair, is it?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah do you have like on your block? You know, sometimes when you go down the streets of chicago you see like welcome to the, you know, 77 block or something and like you know, on in, like they might have a sign that says we protect each other, like here's the rules or whatnot. Does your, does your block kind of have like a little associate? It's like almost like a little homeowners association on the block, right, I see what you're saying. Yeah, do you have anything like that?
Speaker 2:so we have we just have good neighbors, that kind of look out for each other. We have signs where it's like you know, pick up after your dog here and there. But like the block has definitely gotten a lot better over the years and I've called like 311 to and stop, like stop signs on like some of the streets and everything, because we didn't even have stop signs like where they were supposed to be and people would be flying through that they got speed bumps and everything so people can slow down and the neighborhood dude austin, like oh, bro, when I first bought my property, it like when I first bought that first property, I'm over there in austin. And then I went to your meetup and you're like, yeah, austin was the number one appreciating neighborhood in chicago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're like oh baby. Yes, sometimes we get lucky.
Speaker 2:I was like yo, I guess that's awesome, so lucky. So yeah, dude, austin has like changed a lot over the past couple years, like completely different, and that's probably because it's next to oak park and there was a lot of incentives from the city of chicago to invest in austin too, because it was like a really bad like village or city before then. But it's really coming around, so I'm glad I invested there.
Speaker 1:For sure man.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm just looking at this. I'm just looking at, like, here I am right, I'm a, I'm the data guy, right and so, because all agents have so much access to information, right, so so take a look at this, take a look at this Actually, it's actually a better look from here. So, 10 years ago in Austin, you could buy a two to four unit property for under $100,000. So January 2025, the median sale price in Austin was $80,000. The median sale price today, 10 years later, is $354,000. So, yeah, there's been some hell of appreciation.
Speaker 3:So when you first said that it was 2015,. Right, I mean or 2020.
Speaker 1:So 2020? All right, hold on, let me go back.
Speaker 3:Well, no, I think you might've misspoke Cause you said in 2025, you could buy it for. Oh, okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not sure about that 2015.
Speaker 1:Sorry, all right, okay, go on. So let me ago. You could buy a property for eighty thousand dollars what, oh wow 10 years ago and now the median sale price in the same neighborhood is 354 I was gonna say man, that is it in just 10 years when so, when we look on a five-year basis, five years ago, so in 2020, 235 was the median sale price.
Speaker 1:So when did you buy your property? 2022, 2022, all right, median sale price in 2022 was about 300 and now it's at. It's at 354. Just again, like when we're looking at, like when we're trying to find neighborhoods of where to invest I mean, I, I love looking I think we were talking about this off air is if you can get specific stats about your neighborhood and where the historical trends have been, it just helps you make better real estate decisions. A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Right, a hundred percent. Yeah, dude, that's like having the sauce. But I want to argue that or not argue, necessarily. But I want to say, dude, 350, you're not going to get a four unit for 350 in austin. Oh, this.
Speaker 1:So this is a two to four unit so okay, so right, so it's, it's a multi it's the multi-family right. Yeah, not a four unit specifically, but the it's the two to four unit space and so it's. So it could be a two unit, could be a four unit. It's really kind of what the what is the median sale price of that property type? I see, I see, so that's what that's looking at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was cause. I was going to say, like in Austin, when you in 2022, you could buy a four unit for like three, 20 to mine was a little on the high end, but I think that was because of the proximity to oak park, like you know. Three like 80.
Speaker 2:Now you're not finding anything like under 440 like under 450 over there for a four unit like maybe half a mil, but like probably half a mil, and it's just like me looking at it, I'd be getting scared for like new investors I'd be like bro. Prices were not this high when I started. Prices were not this high, and I'm Prices were not this high and I'm like yo.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why you don't want to wait, right, because a lot of people are waiting for, like you know, rates to come down. The reality is is that we're just under this supply crunch. We don't have the inventory that's available because it all stems back to, you know, this COVID phase, when everybody locked in these low rates. And you know, because they locked in low rates, they're not incentivized to sell and so it keeps the supply of listings coming to the market pretty low and overall, we went through a big demand boom during COVID where people wanted housing and so they all got snatched up, and now people aren't letting them go and so when you have a lack of supply, you're going to have an upper pressure price and that's what you're seeing.
Speaker 1:You're seeing upper pressure prices and Chicago has been one of the leaders right now, actually this past year of the whole country because of our lack of supply, because we have not we're nowhere near where we were pre-pandemic levels. We're still down like 40% where we were like pre-pandemic, like a few years prior to the pandemic. Our inventory levels are down still 40% from where they were previously. So that is a massive reduction in the amount of supply that's in the marketplace and why Chicago is accelerating while, like some of these other cities, florida or or states are not right. You're actually seeing like a correction in Florida. You're seeing a correction in Texas right now because there was a glut.
Speaker 1:There was a glut of inventory that's coming to the market because COVID caused people to go to those States. Right, they, there was a big migration towards Florida. Florida was the free and open state. Right, they didn't have as many policies that were going into when we had, when we had covet, right, and so there was a lot of people that moved down to florida for those specific reasons. Well, and then they got airbnbs do I couldn't tell you how many people actually it was. You know, a family member was like, hey, we should get an airbnb down in florida. Seemed like a good idea, but everybody was doing it, and now the airbnb market is kind of like it's suffering there. Yeah, right, right, because I mean.
Speaker 2:I ain't got no Airbnbs down there but I know I know the market down in Florida is not doing too hot right now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we actually took a vacation down to Florida and I couldn't believe it Just driving just driving down the highway I was like dude for sale. Sign for sale, sign for sale, sign for sale, sign it Like. It is a drastically different market in Florida than it is here in Chicago. Chicago is very safe right now. Very safe, especially when you look at the metrics.
Speaker 3:So can I ask a question again on the VA loan? With regards to rates, are they relatively the same market rates or is there any variance? Do you get savings or a higher rate because you're not putting enough? It's much down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I do get a little bit of a higher rate sometimes, since I'm not putting much down okay, but that never really hurts me, I always run the numbers and you know, like cash flow is the most important thing for me and like a lot of people, be like don't use the va loan because you know you're going to be upside down on your mortgage. But we're in chicago, we're seeing that appreciation here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are so like.
Speaker 2:That doesn't even apply to me. Like I could still put in 0% down and like still see mass appreciation because, of like the market I'm in and still cash flow while house hacking and to go deeper in that. Well, did I answer your question?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:To go deeper in that. Also do the renting by room thing to help.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, let's talk about that. Hold on. Hold on Before we get into that, because as part of the VA loan there is a VA funding fee and the VA funding fee can be kind of expensive. But as I look at your settlement statement, you don't have a VA funding fee on here, so what happened? Do you know why yours got waived Because of my disability rating?
Speaker 2:Because of my disability rating, because of the disability rating, yeah, so that's.
Speaker 1:another benefit to that is that if you have a disability rating, you can get that VA funding fee waived.
Speaker 3:So let me ask do typical loan officers or even agents know those things?
Speaker 2:Are those things you had to know and had to ask for to get those things waived? Some of them do, but the ones who don't?
Speaker 3:deal with veterans, don't Okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because the VA funding fee can be pretty hefty. Yes, it can. I'm just wondering like? Are those like questions?
Speaker 3:they're asking you as you're putting in your application, or are those things you need to bring to the table and be like hey look, I am eligible for all of these things, so make sure you put it on a designation in terms of like disability, or what Do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it depends on who you go with and how thorough they are. Okay. Yeah, you could possibly go with somebody who's you know, not that thorough.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And not turn out well because they're like oh, you're a veteran.
Speaker 3:Right, you're just leaving money on the table.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Jason on grok again. Yeah, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, so so if you did so, the va funding fee, if you're less than five percent down over, it's two percent, it's 2.15 of the loan amount.
Speaker 3:It ranges from like 1.25 to 2.15, so it's significant, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:so the fact that you were able to get that waived is again. It's another benefit that, if you don't necessarily know that, like the power of being a veteran, and if you have a disability, you can save on down payment amount, you can save on the VA funding fee, you can save on property taxes.
Speaker 2:There's VA down payment assistance programs too, just in case.
Speaker 3:Oh, there you go.
Speaker 2:If you're not eligible, then okay, there's VA down assistance of payment programs that you can use. There's VA programs to help if you're behind on your mortgage. I'm going to, like I said, I'm going to try to send over all those resources to you so we could have it like maybe in the show notes, but all types of things.
Speaker 2:Where is it? Oh yeah, programs to help with mortgage. There's a partial claims program where, like, if you miss a mortgage payment, they allow you to like pay that on a back end, I think like of your mortgage payment. To help with like veterans with their mortgage, there's loss mitigations options. There's VA loan technicians, where the VA will pair you with a loan technician that will look at your loan, like and who's your loan servicer, and help you navigate what you can and can't do, how to make things easier for you and everything. There's a veterans housing alliance homes buyer grant program and that's just another like little program or grant veterans can use to help them with down payment assistance and a bunch of more like programs veterans can use.
Speaker 2:One thing I do want to highlight and a lot of veterans face this because you might be coming home from service and might not be getting along with your peeps.
Speaker 2:This wasn't the case for me.
Speaker 2:I'm blessed to have peeps that allowed me to stay at their place when I was, when I came back from service, cause I didn't just have an apartment where I was like, yeah, I'm gonna hop back in there and like, got to find a job and everything.
Speaker 2:But unless you have a job, getting out of service, if you are, you know, facing homeless issues or if you're couch surfing, living at you know you know a homie's place, or you know your parents not going to let you stay there forever. Please look into the HUD VASH program. It's basically section eight for veterans and if you are going through any of that, they'll pair you with a caseworker to help you with your VA stuff, like appointments, like maybe getting a disability rating, like you know, you know health things wise and they'll put you, they'll place you in a home or a place that accepts section eight, but it's just for veterans and it's like a really streamlined process and there's a lot of veterans that qualify for it and, yeah, like the government has like money set aside for veterans who are struggling with housing and it takes about two months. It's way quicker than section eight for normal, like normal civilians yeah, yeah, wow, that's another powerful program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I don't think we asked you what branch did you serve? Serve in Air Force. You're in the Air Force, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, man, that's cool.
Speaker 2:I almost joined the Marines, but my grandmother talked me into joining the Air Force. That was like the best thing ever, bro, like the Air Force is treated the best out of all the other branches. Yeah, I was talking to some Army guy a couple days ago. I just met him on like, uh, the river chicago river, yeah, river north or whatever, or the river walk, that's what I was thinking of. He was telling me like the first time he went to the defect. He was like wow, you guys are eating like this, like because the army sleeps in tents, like we kind of sleep in like hotels, and it's it's crazy, it's crazy bad. Like the air force is treated way better than other branches, even like our our.
Speaker 1:Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2:Man because of toxic Air Force. I mean toxic military culture.
Speaker 3:Like.
Speaker 2:I mean, I get you need to make Army folks like you know tough and go through things, but you don't have to treat them that whole way through their like enlistment, like you feel me, they definitely can deserve better and still go out and perform the mission and do the duties that we need to do. You know what I'm saying? So honestly, in my opinion, it's just old military mentality and there are still a lot of old military mentality things that's not really fair that's happening in certain areas of the military that small reform is happening, small change is happening. So people going into the military to make a difference, people going into politics to make a difference, like all of that really matters because it's like sacred cowbells type things. Like they're like oh, we've been doing this forever or you know this, this, and that they had a rule where, like that, they had a couple of rules that were like racially insensitive to like a certain demographics. That's being a couple rules that were like racially insensitive to like a certain demographics. That's being in review and being revised, like to today, because they like it's just like yo, this is a different time now. This is different air force. We don't want to be like that.
Speaker 2:So I mean, like, like I said, 10 years ago they were beating on people like, like they would like it's called wall-to-wall counseling. Yeah, they will beat on you to like correct you and everything, and even like I mean some veterans will call it like fake wars or like what the hell are we doing out here where wars have been over, like in Afghanistan or other deployed areas, and they just have soldiers just there? I guess I don't know, maybe if anything kicks off or anything, but they're not even really fighting a war, like they're just there in terrible conditions, like waiting to be like called back and everything. And I've had like friends like be frustrated.
Speaker 2:Like why the F are we out here? Like we're not, we can be somewhere else doing something. Like why are we out here? It's hot as hell, like it's a little bit of a hostile environment, so the civilians don't really want us here, like you know this type type thing yeah, that that exit to afghanistan was crazy. Like I mean not too too crazy, but they finally left afghanistan, left a bunch of like I mean they couldn't take everything with them, but left weapons behind. Like yeah, it was crazy, the military could be a crazy.
Speaker 2:You know people that were that were over there when all that exit was happening yeah, my homie was well, not the exit, but my homie was in afghanistan and everything. And it's funny because I mean like even when I was, because I was deployed in kuwait, which wasn't necessarily a combat zone, but I did see certain things pop off off base, like here and there and like here, but like we never had like mortar attacks on our base, basically, and my homie he had like mortar attacks on his base, but he'd never take it like he's, like it's not too serious. They attack one side of the base and like the alarm goes off at 3 am in the morning and, dude, I'd never forget when is it okay to cuss on the podcast, dude, one time he said that shit went off at 4 am in the morning. It was like fuck it, if I die, I die because he just got so tired.
Speaker 2:You get like desensitized to it so like like you, you learn how to make funny, like funnies, out of the best situations or like just bad situations. Even when I was deployed, like still have fun times, like out there and everything, and like very memorable times and everything. So I'm still grateful for the whole experience. To be honest, would you do it again? Oh oof, like if I get the VA loan and everything, absolutely no questions, no questions, all your service or your deployment was worth it for the va loan how long were you in the service for?
Speaker 2:I was in the service for four years four years, yeah, okay I only did a four-year uh service, pretty much how long were you deployed? I was deployed for about like eight months okay, wow yeah, I was a vehicle.
Speaker 2:I was a vehicle maintainer or mechanic when I was in the air Force. Okay, yeah, it was okay. I mean I wanted to go in for, like, it and computers. I tested for it but they was like, no, we're going to make you a mechanic because we need mechanics. And I'm like, well, I guess I'm going to be a mechanic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so then how did you learn all your IT stuff? Where'd that come from?
Speaker 2:Dude, dude. I just had a passion for it and I started, like when I, when I was getting out of the military, I was like yo, I want to get an IT, that's what I want to do. So I did have the opportunity to go into the reserves and do like IT in the reserves and everything, but it was reserves, like you know, once a month and, dude, like that type of IT was nothing compared to like, because the Air Force and the military has their proprietary systems that they use that no one else use. So you're not like. I mean you're using some things like Outlook and everything.
Speaker 2:But once you go into the private sector, like now that I'm working like in a private sector, I get paid a lot more money, I have a lot more freedom and like there's so much more tools and like my knowledge has grown. So like APIs, programming. If I was still like doing that stuff in the Air Force, I wouldn't even be nowhere near the level I am at today. So like it really took getting into the private sector and like getting into a company that allowed me to just attack different things that need to be attacked, to where I was really able to grow with, like my IT knowledge and everything and it's really been a blessing, even in my real estate journey. Sorry if I'm too far from the mic.
Speaker 1:No, you're all good, you're all good. I have to ask you because, being an ethical hacker, what is it, what's the outfit you wear when you're an ethical hacker? Because everything is always like hood up, sunglasses on or mask on.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Do you just when you were doing that, ethical hacking, would you any? Would you do any of that stuff, dude, like I mean?
Speaker 2:so my girlfriend makes fun of me sometimes, but I'd like rose, it's normal. Like you see, like it's it's gotten way more popular than it was. Yeah, when I was doing it back in 2020, but when I was working with people, it was really like older, like kind of a little bit of older age guys and they're 35. And like they're like, yeah, an age range of 35, maybe 30, 30 to 35. Or like you do, is you do meet quirky people in IT. I'm not going to lie, but you meet them in IT because they have special abilities that help them in it. Like that no one really else has.
Speaker 2:Like I have a friend who is a veteran and like, dude, this guy is like a god at math.
Speaker 2:Like really, yeah, like he like oh, calculus too, like is nothing to him, like he finds solace and like he like it calms him down and everything. And even with me, like I said, I have an affinity to find loopholes and end up trying to do things my way. So, like that helped me when it came to and curiosity and I liked it, it helped me when it came to ethical hacking and everything I just thought it was, I was like, wow, these guys will pay us to do this, like, like. This is awesome, like, and there's different types too. You know there's like hacking, you know technology and everything or a network infrastructure, and then there's also physical penetration, testing, and I did that for like, I didn't do it, I get paid for it. But I was a practitioner. I would like train and like, do little stuff around the house and like at my, at my workplace, of course, letting my boss know like hey, this door can be broken into because this lock is installed wrong. Or there's this like tool like that you could use for hotel door rooms or in server rooms, where you're like you stick it underneath the door and then, like it flips up and it grabs the handle and you can kind of like pull it to open the door from the other side dude wow yeah there's a lot of doors like if you go to a cons, like there's some doors that have uh sensors at the top because when employees are walking out, it wants the door sensor to trigger and then like it
Speaker 2:unlocks the door to walk out. And I learned from a black hills conference and black hills training they're like this ethical hacking training that goes on in south dakota that you know you could take a vape pen and you can blow it in the sensor and like it'll mess with the temperature gauge in it and it'll unlock the door. So like you just go in the crevice of the crack, like rip from the pen and then like blow it and then like you could like yank the door open what in the world?
Speaker 3:but like you just gave people a lot of tips yeah, dude, you're dropping.
Speaker 2:You're dropping knowledge bombs everywhere here and this is awesome dude, but like company and like hotel rooms, even hotel key card rooms, and like hotel rooms you might I don't know if you heard for it, heard about it a lot but it's easy to break into some hotel room doors and everything from certain things and but like those hotels need to pay people like us. So we could show them, like yo, this is how you could protect against that, like this is how you could do things so you don't have to I don't know rely on these systems or have antiquated like locks and everything on your doors and everything, not Not to say you have them, but I'm just giving the example.
Speaker 3:We always have the deadbolt at the hotel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why you got to have, that's why you need to flip that. No, can't come in.
Speaker 2:Even when it comes to connecting to that wifi you better, you better make sure you're actually connecting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you didn't give Toy our wifi password. No.
Speaker 3:I didn't. No, I didn't.
Speaker 1:It's okay, I don't need it Probably not.
Speaker 3:Shit, oh my gosh All right, dude.
Speaker 1:Well, this has been awesome. We're going to wrap this up here. So how we wrap up these shows is just we talk about our biggest takeaway of the conversation and so, Rachel, I'm going to flip it over to you Biggest takeaway from this conversation today.
Speaker 3:I think the entitlement piece being able to be split across different properties or across different loans, I had definitely always thought you could hold one VA loan the same way you can hold one FHA loan, and really it's a pot. You can't go over this cumulative pot, but you can split it among multiple properties or multiple loans and that is a really really valuable thing to know, right, really valuable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think just to kind of piggyback off of this is that there's really a lot of veterans just don't know what they have, and I think you kind of brought the light to that is that there is like you've got to do your own research and I think we're just in an age right now where you've got to do your own research, and I think we're just in a in an age right now where you got to do your own research about everything. You know you can't, you can't rely on you know your neighbor, your mom, your dad, you're like you. You literally have to go do the work yourself. You read 2000 pages of the VA handbook like wild.
Speaker 3:And I want to piggyback off that too, because it's it's so specific to each veteran I think that was something that you mentioned too is it's like well, I'm eligible for this because I have this, or you know some people somebody mentioned to you don't do the VA loan because you're going to be underwater, well, maybe in your market, but that's not true in the market that you're in in Chicago.
Speaker 3:So it's like it really is so specific to each veteran, where they're at, where they're trying to buy, what their status is. It is not a one size fits all, so you really do need to do your own research and understand your capability and eligibility. I guess is a better way to put it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, If you're a veteran, definitely go back to a state where you have most benefit, where you have a lot of benefits, like here in Illinois and in Texas. They treat veterans like Kings.
Speaker 3:So that's good to know those two states.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you're getting out in the military, go to a state that will treat you really right like a king, because there are states that will do that.
Speaker 3:Are there states to avoid that you know of?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean states that don't have any benefits for veterans. I'm like, why go there? Why go there at all?
Speaker 1:I haven't even thought about that. Is your state that you live in a veteran-friendly state? Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 3:I guess it makes sense, because there's like retirement-friendly states, right? Like there are states that are more beneficial to retire in than not, so that makes sense, yeah.
Speaker 1:And just you know, and Cook County would be one of them because it's a high market, expensive market, right. So you do get that upper limit of you.
Speaker 2:Know the eligibility of the va yeah and like on the back end of that. When it comes to investing, if you want to do that, make sure you invest, like I've invested places where the infrastructure was already there, like I'm. I bought a place next to oak park or I bought a place next to a college that has that type of infrastructure, has that type of activity going on, even if you're in the next neighborhood. Over, like that stuff carries over.
Speaker 2:So, that definitely plays a huge part in everything, and I just want to also go back over or mention business resources for veterans as well. There's like VetBiz, the SBVA and there's even maybe some business colleges in your area that gives free college courses to veterans to do some powerful stuff. I know out here in, out here in illinois, they have the joseph college, the joseph business college, and they're dude. Joseph business college is a like they're global and I really underestimated how powerful they is. But they have any classes on you know, federal contracting, how to do this, how to do that, like really important, great stuff that you know is just free for veterans. So a couple more things are mentors are important, having you know spreadsheets for your contractors and everything as a landlord having your vendors and everything, just those people you can go to that has the deals on everything.
Speaker 2:I have the hookup when it comes to kitchen cabinets. Bro, like bro, I can get kitsch. I can do like kitchen remodels for like five grand because, like I granted, countertop cook up, I got it. Like cabinet hookup, I got it.
Speaker 2:So that's awesome but in those relationships are important too okay last but not least, knowing when operations have gotten too big for you. So don't be afraid to hire a virtual assistant I'm not saying someone who lives in the United States, because people in the United States you need to pay, like health care, and you got to pay them minimum wage. Virtual assistants, people in the Philippines or people in other countries who are more than willing to go above and beyond for what you're like, for like $7 an hour, $8, because that's a lot where they're from and you don't have to worry about like the taxes or anything, because Upwork just does it for you. You don't have to worry about medical care and everything. Like it's great. And did we go over renting by room?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah no yeah, give us a, give us a quick breakdown on that renting by room can definitely 10 extra cash flow ever.
Speaker 2:Unit rents for 1500. If you rent per room you could probably do it like, depending on the area, seven, like anywhere from six to a thousand dollars per room and that has exponentially grown my cash flow for my properties, as well as using the tax deductions and my unit two thirds. If you have one roommate, then everything in the unit that you buy in your unit, if you stay in the unit, basically if I stay in the unit and I have a roommate and I buy a flat screen TV unit, like and I basically if I stay in a unit and I have a roommate and I buy a flat screen TV, well that's for the roommate and that's for me.
Speaker 2:So half of that is tax deductible because it's used for the rental property as well as the fridge, as well as the dishwasher, as well as anything you upgrade in a unit. So a lot of people would be like, oh, I don't want to live with a roommate, this is this and that, bro, I get to choose my roommates. So if I want to live with the it roommate who works out and like, we're both like living, we're both operating at a high level and everything helping each other and everything they paid me to live here and I get tax deductible right off, so I'm like half the stuff I buy my.
Speaker 1:it's just a sweet deal yeah, so is that how you're doing it? You're kind of finding people you know to help live with you, or is it you're posting it on Airbnb?
Speaker 2:Yeah, stuff like that, just posting it on like certain vetted websites so I can vet out my roommates before they come in, because I don't just accept anybody Like. I'm really picky when it comes to my roommates.
Speaker 1:So what do you use? So I use Roomies, spare Room, facebook Marketplace sometimes oh okay, so not Airbnb, so I use Roomies, spare Room, facebook Marketplace sometimes.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, so not Airbnb. I would be down for Airbnb. I haven't done it yet. I honestly want to do Airbnb for expats. I want to be that I want to get in that niche market.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 2:The traveling the world thing. I've been in expat homes and they welcomed me. When I've been to paris, like you know, she welcomed me. She told me about the whole thing. When I've been to like different places throughout germany or barcelona, they're just so welcoming and I'm like yo, they would like. When I tell them about chicago, they get hyped. They're like oh, this isn't that. So I'm like yo, I would love to open my like space open to different people from around the world vettedetted people, of course, who would just like to experience Chicago.
Speaker 1:Dude, I love it. Man, that's awesome. Thanks, killer, are you, are you willing?
Speaker 3:are you willing to be a resource then for other veterans? You're dropping so many like valuable resources, like can people reach out to you and ask? You specific questions. Okay, you're willing to be that mentor now to help the next person?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, absolutely no problem at all. I actually built a ai bot to help veterans too, so I could like drop the link to that yeah, for sure, sweet hell, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, how? How could they reach out to you?
Speaker 2:oh, you can reach out. I'm gonna like get I don't know. I guess I should give you like I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's a good question, like I guess you can give them a phone number, you give them your email, you can give them your facebook, my email. Whatever you want to do email on facebook.
Speaker 2:All right, yeah, for sure. I have a question for you guys yeah do it book recommendations. Top two books, one on business and one on personal growth. Rich dad, poor dad, nice yeah yeah did you read it?
Speaker 1:I did it took me.
Speaker 3:It took me, like, I think, three or four years into our real estate journey to read it, even though that was like the first one you read, but yeah, that one for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that one's great. And then what I really like is, honestly, like, traction is a great book because it's like how to establish a business, like as you you know, because I own my own brokerage and like, as you start to, you know, you kind of get past the first couple of years of like startup phase and then you're trying to like really establish, like what your identity is and what your, what your business goals are. That was a really tremendous book. But then I also like, from the the investment side, brandon Turner man, he, he put together this.
Speaker 1:You know I can't remember what it is, but it's. It's a two part series. It's on multifamily investing, but it was like there's a part one and there's a part two. And honestly, like as you, as everybody starts in real estate investing with like these one to two, you know one to two unit properties, three, four, you know, like in the residential space, but like there is a process to transition, transition into the five plus Right and so that that, that second part book that he has, the book, I'm pretty sure it's called like the book on real estate investing or something. I got that book but yeah, yeah it's, it's, it's really good, it's really, really good, and so they give you the models, they give you how to you know, analyze the deals and it's, it's a really great elementary and advanced book to read.
Speaker 2:So Nice, okay, yeah, how really great elementary and advanced book to read. So nice, okay, yeah. How about yourself? So have you read the four cash?
Speaker 3:quadrants from rich dad for dad. No, that's. Is that the second or the third one? We own it. That's gonna be.
Speaker 2:I haven't read it yet yeah yeah, you're gonna love like four crash quadrants is what really nailed it down to me. Like really nailed it down and like helped me, like for the rest of my life, learning the difference between an employee, investor, business owner and self-employed, like I'm telling you you're going to love it For me growing as a man for so I did mental, physical, emotional, you know, business-wise and everything.
Speaker 2:I like to cover those pillars, so I'm going to just run through them real quick For mental me, growing as a man and being more mature. Marcus Aurelius the meditations of Marcus Aurelius he's a Stoic philosopher, awesome guy. A lot of what he says aligns with the Bible. I also like to read the Bible for that as well. He was the emperor of Rome. He had complete control over everything. He still chose to live a Stoic life and was better than a lot of like. He didn't go crazy like Julius and just stab random people on the streets because he could. He was a very noble man. He was like, very like, had a wonderful mindset, awesome guy for strategy, discipline and all that.
Speaker 2:The book of five rings by Musashi Mazumoto famous samurai in the time of the feudal period where everyone it was custom to fight with one sword. He challenged it and he was the first guy to fight with two swords, had over 50 duels to the death, won them all. Very famous samurai, had statues of him and everything. A lot of samurai nowadays are actually modeled after him. Love his book. Like good stuff in it. The 10X Rule, crank Cardone Awesome book For Our Work Week by.
Speaker 2:Tim Ferriss and for real estate. I want to tell the audiences I've read a lot of Brandon Turner's and Bigger Pockets podcast books on real estate, but the most comprehensive book on real estate that I've come across so far is Real Estate for Dummies. Real Estate for Dummies is super comprehensive. I've read that book and I was like it's stuff in here that even like the bigger pockets podcast didn't even cover sometimes. So real estate for dummies is a very long and powerful book. It has a lot, it has everything in there.
Speaker 1:that's funny. Like, yeah, that, yeah, there's so many dummy books.
Speaker 2:I love the dummy series. I love the dummy series. Hey, that's awesome yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, Well, toy. Well, it was a pleasure man.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you for coming on and dropping all this, all this great stuff and, I guess, to everyone else. If you found any value in the show, which I know you did, please share it and get this message out there. There's so many veterans that could really use some help and really break into real estate and toy really just kind of broke it down here for us. So this is super, super valuable. So please share the show and we will catch you on the next episode.
Speaker 2:Peace veteran special.