Ed Mathews

So the big question is this, how are real estate investors who don't have a ton of free time don't have access to off market deals and didn't start life on third base, how do we grow a real estate business conservatively to support our families finally leave the corporate rat race and build a legacy? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Ed Mathews, and this is real estate underground.

Ed Mathews

This is the real estate underground podcast show number seventy seven. Greetings and salutations, real estate undergrounders. It's your old friend Ed Mathews again. And today is a very special show. And Dustin and I were just having a conversation about the fact that I actually read his book about five years ago, and I didn't connect the author with the human being until, gosh, about about twenty minutes ago. So with that. Dustin Heiner, thank you so much for joining us today. Obviously, you are the CEO of master passive income and the coaching programs and books and all the things that go along with that. So first off, thank you for being one of my mentors. You didn't even realize you were, but you are. And and also thank you for your time today. Welcome to the show.

Dustin Heiner

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much. And I am very blessed you're you're the one that read the book. So I really appreciate you reading the book and but no. I it's it's I'm a real estate investor. I love investing in real estate. Been doing since two thousand six, and eventually I had enough properties where I didn't have to work anymore. And so I like the term successfully unemployed, so I don't have to work for somebody else. I make money, provide for my family outside of that. And that's for me, it's real estate investing. But, you know, I get to do whatever I want all day, come on podcasts, and you great people like you. So thanks a lot. And I and I really appreciate you reading my book too.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. Thanks. It's it was actually given to me by a good friend of mine who And, you know, the fact is is that I, you know, I went full time about five almost six years ago now. So, you know, So you

Dustin Heiner

So cool.

Ed Mathews

You were at the beginning. So thank you. Awesome. Yeah. So so let's talk about your story a little bit. I mean, obviously, you know, you've been investing for quite some time. Let's talk about asset classes and, you know, the kind of properties you like to invest in.

Dustin Heiner

Absolutely love residential. So for you in some below

Ed Mathews

--

Dustin Heiner

Yep. -- absolutely love those properties because they're simple. And if anybody has ever bought a home to live in. It's like you you find a realtor, and you find a mortgage broker, you put them together, you buy a house. Very, very simple. You know, multi family, you get fifty you to apartment complex is hundreds and stuff. That gets to be a little hard. Especially if you like to do mobile home parks or, you know, there's a lot of asset classes that are really really good. But they're harder to get into. For me, getting into a single family home. In fact, all my students, I've got hundreds and if not almost thousands of students now, I just coach how to do this. I just love getting all this stuff and information out. But it's so easy. But the biggest thing is, even though it's easy, meaning like it's simple, there's samples processed straightforward. For us, yeah, we make sure we're making passive income every single month. That's how I was able to become successful and employed. Is because I focus not on appreciation. In fact, I can't eat appreciation, meaning I can't feed my family. Appreciation. What I can do though is feed my family with a passive income and become successful and unemployed, successfully unemployed by being able to place my income from my job, and I I call the just over broke job, j o b. It's a just over broke job. But I'm able to replace my income from the passive income that I make when I buy one rental property. So four units and blow, bread and butter, love those. I'll take those all day every day.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. It's where I got my start as well. The first seat first building I ever bought was a four unit. And, you know, it's funny. I so I got into flipping to to create cash. And so we would, you know, flip a couple houses and buy a small multi four and under just like you. And and then, you know, it got to the point where the portfolio supported the lifestyle and, you know, a way we went. And I get phone calls, I used to work in technology, and I was traveling hundred and fifty, two hundred nights a year. And you know, it's very hard to be impactful in your children's lives when you're sitting at a Courtyard Marriott somewhere in the world. Right? And so it's truly a blessing that we've been able to go full time. And On

Dustin Heiner

top of that, they quickly add. You you don't get a hang around your children, but you also cannot give your job to your kids. It's literally impossible. They have to hire them on. But what you can do is you can literally give them your properties. It's generational wealth. Like, if you buy a residential, you pay it off in thirty plus years. Well, I'll say this. Your tenants pay it off in thirty plus years. Literally give it to your kids. It's just so much more overall for generational wealth. It's it's it's hard to beat real estate investment.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. So let's talk about step up basis a little bit, which is what you're referring to. So You know, the fact is is that, you know, not only are you building a cash flowing business and you and I think similarly in that, yes, appreciation is wonderful and I love it, but I never base a business model on it. Right? It's it's all about, you know, expenses and cash flow in and the and the the appreciation forced or otherwise is the cherry on top. Right? So but in in terms of looking at properties and and how you approach them. You know, I'm curious, you know, when I was flipping, I regret every single property I ever sold. Right? Nature of what I had to do because I needed the capital to go buy multis. But but, you know, I still so I I tended to focus quite a bit on my local area. So I drive by the houses that I've rehabbed all every day. And it's like, oh, I missed that one. Oh, I should've kept that one. Right? And and But, you know, in terms of of your business model and what you teach, you know, your students are focused on that one to four unit, you know, single family to four unit, So let's talk about that. You know, in terms of the model and how you approach it and what you look for in a in a property.

Building a Successful Real Estate Business

Dustin Heiner

So what I look for and invest in fact, we invest everywhere. Like, literally anywhere in the country, we invest I love investing out of state. There's so many other better areas for rental income and passive income than my area. I live in Phoenix now. And when I started investing back in two thousand and six, California was where I was living and prices were so high, rents were so low, I couldn't make passive income. So I had to figure out how to actually do it in another state which had lower priced homes, higher rent. So my type of homes, what my business model is, I love finding lower priced homes, higher priced rents and being able to make sure that I account for every expense, including a property manager because I don't wanna manage these properties. I don't wanna work at all. In fact, a lot of people have heard of the book before our workweek. Yeah. Before our workweek at Premise is to work only four hours a week. Well, in my opinion, working four hours a week is for suckers. I don't wanna work four hours a week. I don't want to even work four hours a month. I may be work thirty minutes a month by picking up my property management statements, make sure everything looks good and put it away because I have system and procedures and processes in my business so that it runs. And you'll hear me say this over and over again in my business. Your property is not your business. The quote unquote gurus will tell you that your property is your business. No. No. No. Our business owns inventory. That inventory helps us to make money. Now, my business model is lower priced homes, let's say, eighty to maybe a hundred fifty thousand dollars. And we wanna make sure we're making a minimum of two hundred fifty dollars a month in passive income after every single expense. Like like I said, I alluded to this a little bit earlier, So I don't pay my taxes on any of my properties. I don't pay my mortgage. I don't pay for property management. I don't pay for fees. I don't pay for repairs. I don't pay any of that stuff. I don't have to get a job to pay that stuff. My tenants pay for all that. Now it so happens that the money goes into me and I pay out the bills I don't have to get a job to do that because I build the business. Now my business model is finding an area anywhere in the country, building up the inventory by building the business first than buying inventory and putting it into my business. Now I didn't start that way. In fact, what the way I started was in two thousand six, I was watching a late night in commercial or late night TV, but an infra commercial came on. They said, hey, we're quote unquote gurus. We're coming your town for three, two hour seminar. I'm like, terrific. I'm so excited. I didn't know what I was doing. When did that two hour seminar? All hype. All sales pitch. And then they said, it's normally a billion dollars, but now it's a thousand dollars run to the back and go give us money. I was like, great. I ran to the back and said, now a two day seminar. So I spent a thousand dollars for this two day seminar. It was horrible. Another two days of sales pitch for their eighty thousand dollar course. Their hundred thousand dollar course and and coaching It was ridiculous. I have the money, but I took what little bit they told me to do, and I'll tell you the quickly the wrong way to do it. This is the way you told me. It's the wrong way. Then I had to figure out the right way. So the wrong way, I did it and my property manager started stealing from me within six months. The right so here's the wrong way and you'll quickly forget it. This is what they tell you. Find a property anywhere in the country. Make sure that you run the numbers and you wanna make fifty dollars or twenty five dollars or fifty dollars a month in passive income, but you're gonna be investing for appreciation, which remember two thousand six, that was all the things that was that was the rage. It was great. Everything's going great until it didn't. And then it's bad.

Ed Mathews

Yeah.

Dustin Heiner

And so Which mean now? Like you said, I don't invest for appreciation. This is generational wealth. I'll give them my kids. Now I will take the equity, refinance, pull the cash out and buy more properties. But I don't sell properties once I own because it makes me money. But quickly getting back to the wrong way to do it, and you'll well, you'll forget it because I'll tell you the right way. So the wrong way is find a property in every country, run the numbers, get twenty five dollars a month in passive income, you'll get appreciation. Then they say, spend thousands of dollars to buy the property, then spend thousands dollars to fix up the property and then find a tenant and then try to find a property manager. Well, I did that and the bad thing was my property manager started stealing from me within six months. In fact, my students, people that come to me said, Dustin, I'm just doing what everybody else says. And I called up property manager and said, hey, property manager. I bought this property, will you manage it? And they would say, no, I will not manage it because I'll get shot if I go over to that area. Well, you no longer have an asset anymore. You have a liability. Now this liability now you are out all this money and time. How much better? Is it if you built a business first, you hired the experts on the ground so that they do all the work for you instead of asking I bought this property where you manage it. You call them up and say property manager. You're the expert. I've already vetted you everything. Like, you're the right person. I'm looking to buy this property. Tell me how much will it rent for? What type of client? Tell what I have? What's a vacancy factor? And will you manage it? If they say, no, I won't manage it, then you say, great. I haven't waste all that time and money. But if they do say, I will manage it. This is blah, blah, blah, you know, vacancy factor. Type of clientele and it rents for thirteen hundred bucks, this is a type of property, then you have a business that you know will make you money because what you do is you build the business first. Now that's the I I gave you the wrong way, but let me quickly give you the right way. And at your your since you're an investor, you'll completely know this. I'm gonna give everybody an analogy. So here's an analogy of what it looks like to build the business. What we do is let's say you had a convenience store, you wanna start a convenience store, you know, candy bars soda machines?

Ed Mathews

Sure. Well,

Dustin Heiner

you would not sign a lease on a location. Open the doors and set a box of candy bars in there on the ground. You wouldn't do that. You go out of business in two seconds.

Ed Mathews

Right.

Dustin Heiner

What you would do though is you would build the business first. You would get the Gone Dolls or the Sheldon units. You get the countertops, cold storage, bank accounts, cash registers, employees, and insurance. Like, everything in the business before you bought any inventory. Same thing with real estate investing. We do everything in the business before we buy any inventory and their properties. Once we buy them, that's our inventory and we put that into our business so that it makes us money in passive income every single month. Now you probably got a bunch. I just there are a lot out there, but you probably got questions, but does that all make sense?

Ed Mathews

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the

Ed Mathews

fact is is that you know, I I define a

Ed Mathews

business in in in my terms as if I take a week off, what happens? Right? So when, you know, when I was in technology world and and traveling all over the place, if if I, you know, had to focus on ten hours a day, software or consulting, nothing happened in the real estate business. And so when I left that world, you know, all my friends were hey, you know, we want to invest in your business. You know, we hear real estate's a great place to be. I said, you know what? Let me go screw stuff up Let me go fix it. Let me build systems. Right? Because at that point, it was just a side hustle. And, you know, it takes you know, it took me quite a bit of time to figure out, okay, when we onboard a building, here are the ninety seven things we do. When we take on a new resident, here are the fourteen things we do. When we have to pay a bill, here's who needs to see it, here's who needs to approve it, all of that. Right? When someone calls

Ed Mathews

for a work order or lets us know on our our platform, here are the things we have to do in terms of, you know, diagnosing the problem. Who do we send out? How do we fix it? How do we follow-up to make sure that it's fixed, you know, all of that all that process. And none of that had been built when I left corporate world. And now it is. And, you know, the fact is, is that I I was away for a week unexpectedly. I I actually had a medical issue. I had appendix out. And, yeah, not fun. I don't recommend it. And, you know, but the fact is is that I was I was gone on a Friday And I didn't come back until a week later. And you know what? Everything was fine. The team handled all the phone calls, they took care of the residents, all the bills got paid, everything happened the way it should. Right? And I finally realized, and this wasn't that long ago. I was like, wow, I have a business. I can actually not work if I choose not to. Right? And and it's a it's a huge blessing because it's, you know, I think the epitome of freedom. I haven't missed a softball game or a swim mate or a choral concert or lunch with my wife or anything in years. And it's really nice.

Dustin Heiner

That's the beautiful thing about passive income. Now, there's lots of different ways to get passive income. My favorite is real estate investing. In fact, I've got lots of streams of income, but they all flow into my river of income in real estate. I am a real estate investor. That's literally what I invest in. So everything goes back into it. But here's the great thing what I love about being successfully unemployed or having freedom. If you're successfully unemployed, what you're gonna have is more time in your life to do whatever you want. It could be being with your family. That's a huge huge amazing blessing developing relationships with them. But at the same time, building businesses. I love building businesses. In fact, I have four businesses that make me money now because I have so much extra time. So if you are able to stop working for somebody else. Instead of working for somebody else, you put that effort into your own value, like your own businesses, your own investments or whatever it might be, because your bosses if anybody's working, you definitely realize this. Like, your boss is not paying you what you are worth. And in fact, you're worth so much more than they can ever pay you because this is how you'll know. They're paying it just enough to keep you working without quitting, but not so much that takes money out of their pocket. If they paid you what you're worth, they'd go probably go broke. But instead of you putting value in somebody else's business or organization, putting it into yourself, and I actually learned this the hard way quickly you mind if I quickly share a story what got me into real estate investing?

Ed Mathews

Yeah. You

Real Estate Wealth and Financial Freedom

Dustin Heiner

bet. So I had just been doing a normal every day, nine to five job. I was working a local county local government in California doing IT just like you. The most risk averse job you could ever think of because I've been taught just like We're all taught. You go to school. Get good grades. Then you go to college and get thousands of dollars in debt. You get a piece of paper. And you hopefully go get a career, work forty plus years of your life may be longer and retire when you're sixty five or seventy five years old and hopefully live. On what you managed to say that entire time working that just overbooked job. Yeah. Well, I'm following that exact same path, doing that exactly the same thing, and then my wife and I started having kids, and I had the time bought one rental property and it was making me money. And I knew I needed to be, I I needed them to change my mindset to where I'm an investor. Yeah. But, you know, once we had started with kids, life started getting away. Right. And I put that on the back burner. But here's I'll give you a quick story what happened to me. I started having kids with my wife and by the time we had her fourth child, I went on maternity leave with my, you know, stay home with the mom, changes poopy diapers of the baby, bonds of the baby and all that good stuff. And after that two weeks of maternity leave, I went back to work. And in that week, I went to back to work on a Friday at three thirty in the afternoon. I get a call from my bosses, bosses, secretary like the top dog. And she says, Dustin, would you please come to the office? And I said, sure. And I hung up the phone, I thought, This isn't normal. I wonder why they're calling me and I've seen plenty of movies. I know Friday at three thirty in the afternoon is not a good sign to be called I thought I might get laid off. Well, I get up and I go to my boss's office and I turn the corner to see his office and his door is closed. And I see a secretary there. Super sweet, nice, old lady. And she says, Duston, would you please have a seat? And she's sheepishly grinning at me trying to console me with her eyes. Because she knows everything about what's going on. I know nothing about what's going on. Well, I go and I sit down and I think about my life. If I lose my job right now, Did I I just think did I waste my life? And then, oh my goodness, how am I gonna feed my family? Does that make me a failure as a father? Does that make me a failure as a husband as a man trying to provide for his family? Well, my the door to my boss's office opens up. Elle walks a lady with a co worker of mine with a piece of paper in her hands. She's noticeably distraught. Notice we have said, not necessarily crying, but you can tell her world's been devastated. She passes by me and my boss says, Dustin, would you please come into my office? I get up and I go into his office and I get laid off. And remember, this is the government. Nobody gets fired or laid off from the government, but I did. Well, I went back to my desk and I realized two things. And this is the reason why I tell the story. I realized two things. Number one, I need to get another job. And so praise the Lord, I was able to find another job in the same county. Different apartment didn't have the money issues. Check, but sitting at a desk, I realized the second thing, I no longer will let life in the way. I am now gonna tell everybody I am an investor. It may so happen that one hundred percent of my money cost my job. That's now my part time job. I'm a full time investor. So fast forward the story. Started buying property. After property after property. Each one making me two hundred fifty dollars a month in passive income, eventually I had thirty plus properties and I was realized even though I'm making seventy five thousand dollars a year at this job, I'm losing money because of the time. Fast forward, I was blessed to be able to quit my job, become successful unemployed because I now have businesses that make me money over and over and real estate that makes me money. And it's because of the financial freedom, the vision of having financial freedom always being able to take care of my family. That's the main reason why I wanted to invest in real estate fast forward now. I literally been retired for I don't know, quite quote unquote retired. Six or seven years now? Now we literally have three of no. Four businesses. I even created a real estate conference. Real estate wealth builders is a conference. That's the name of it. Where I bring people together. It's it's not the ones with the sales pitch, you know, run to the back. It's actually the opposite. It's all about giving. It's all about community. So I love the fact that I have forty plus hours of my life to devote to my family, to devote to, you know, serving in my church, serving the community, and building more businesses.

Ed Mathews

Awesome. Awesome. So so in terms of your vision, where are you taking this this I mean, you're a young man. Right? So you know, you you've got you've got a good thirty plus years of work ahead of you if you want it. What are you where are you taking the empire now? Next.

Dustin Heiner

Yeah. So I am gonna keep building my real estate, and I'm really looking forward to the next three to five years of investing. It's gonna be like two thousand and ten all over again, in my opinion, everything's getting really bad. Inflation, interest rates, all all that sort of stuff. Yeah. So I'm gonna keep building my real estate investing. On top of that, I love coaching. And when I quit my job, and that's why I wrote my books was because I just enjoyed teaching. And I don't wanna, like, do turnkey, like buy properties and sell. I don't wanna do that stuff. I don't wanna create a fund. I love educating. I love coaching people because I can serve them. So it's gonna continually build out some master passive income, my brand. And because once I buy one property, I've mastered it master passive income because it makes money for me all the time. Right. With that, I love showing people how to master passive income. So keep building up the coaching with that build up on top of that in my conference. The real estate, well, through this conference this year, we have forty five expert speakers coming and teaching It's a live three day in person conference this year it's in Phoenix. Next year, it'll probably be on the East Coast, but it'll be annual conference. But my goal in life The first time was to quit my job in ten years. I was blessed at thirty seven years old, check, got that. Now, my new goal is to help one million people invest in real estate and hopefully become financially independent. And everything above from the my podcast to the conference to any coaching that you, everything is all about helping more people to invest in real estate, become financially dependent because I found the more people I serve in my life. Helping them get what they want, the better my life gets and the better their lives get.

Ed Mathews

Well, you're going from service to contribution. Right? I mean, it's that that classic model where you know, you get so much more back than you than you even get. And it's, you know, it's one of the reasons that this podcast exists. For that, you know, for that exact reason. Right? You don't make money on this. You know, there's as you were saying, you know, you know, you're the one that read the book whenever it's I see somebody that says, oh, I listen to your pockets. I'm like, oh, you're the one. Okay? Because I know my mom listens. I know my my wife probably listens. And, you know, there's the guy ran into in Starbucks, and that's it. Right? So, Justin, I'm curious, you know, leaders or readers. And so, you know, when you are sharpening the saw, right, so to speak. You know, how do you consume information, audiobooks, hardcover books, podcasts, conferences, whatever? And And more and specifically, who

Ed Mathews

are you paying attention to these days?

Dustin Heiner

Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm definitely an audible learner. I listen to lots of podcasts. That's probably why I got into podcasting because I loved listening to podcasts. And so yeah. So who I So I definitely read, but not nearly as much. Like, it's like ninety percent podcast or Audible. Right. Now with that, what I'm always like, literally, I read the bible every single That's if you're asked me, but my number one book, it's a bible. I read it multiple times a day. Read it to my kids. But outside of that, like, real estate investing, I love listening to good podcasts that coach this stuff. I have a friend's podcast. Seth Williams with Ari Tipster. He's got a great podcast, but I love learning. I love growing. Conferences are absolutely game changer though. Like, if you're listening to books, they're great. You're getting somebody else that's kinda talking to you or reading them. But nothing changes your life like being around the actual people that are doing this. Like, if you come to my conference, I'll literally be walking down the hallways you grab me and say, hey, Dustin. I need some help finding people or networking. Like, yes, let's go. I'm gonna help you meet people. So with that, conferences by far, I once I realized Conferences were the way to go, my business has literally exploded because of if I help people, they're gonna help me in return and all of our lives get better.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. Absolutely. And so, Dustin, I know we're a little tight on time, so I'm curious about your personal life. So, obviously, wife, four kids. Scott, bless you. By the way, I only have two, and that was a lot imagine what,

Ed Mathews

you know, when you go from playing zone or man

Ed Mathews

to man defense to zone on the parenting level, it's gotta be, you know, at some point, the older one figures out that they have the outnumbered. Right?

Ed Mathews

So, you know, how do

Ed Mathews

you spend your time when you're not coaching or investing in real estate? You know, what do you like to do?

Dustin Heiner

Yeah. So I love serving my church. I love exercising. I go to the gym five days a week. I like Olympic lifting. It's a snatch and clean a jerk type of, you know, if you go see an Olympics. Right? But I love being with my family. Love going on long vacations with some more like a field trip where we are homeschooling family. I have the easy job in making money. My wife has a hard job at homeschooling the kids, so we do that as well. But I literally love being around my family. I would go home from work to go have lunch with my family. So I make sure I have lunch with my family every single day. But it's all about relationships and all about serving people now.

Ed Mathews

Yeah. All excellent. Well, listen, if someone wants to learn more about you or get in touch, you know, what's the best way to do that?

Dustin Heiner

Absolutely. So actually, I have a free course. I would love to give out. Do you mind if I give that out to everybody?

Ed Mathews

It would be great. Thank you.

Dustin Heiner

Absolutely. So I love giving this out because it changes people's lives. If you text the word rental, r e n t a l to three three seven seven seven seven. Rental to three three seven seven seven or you can go to master passive income dot com forward slash free course. All one word. I'll literally give it to you. It'll show you how to build a business, how to find a proper or a company or country sorry. And a city anywhere in the country to invest in, how to scale the business to quit your job. I'll give that to you. You can even check me out on master passive income podcast It's actually like number if you search real estate investing, I'm either number one or number two. So I'm really excited about that. Yeah. I've been doing it since two thousand sixteen. YouTube, master passive income as well. Oh, if you wanna come to my conference, the real estate wealth builders conference, I will literally give you ten percent off a ticket. Use a promo code podcast, and I'll know you came from ads podcast. Go to rubicon dot com, r e w b, c o n dot com, rubicon dot com, use the promo code podcast. I'll give you ten percent off. But I just absolutely love helping people seeing them change their lives. But I really appreciate you having me on the show, Ed.

Ed Mathews

Yeah, man. Dustin, it's so good to see you. Again, thank you for all that you do. And and I'm looking forward to seeing what what happens next for you. So Dustin Heiner, thank you.

Dustin Heiner

You very much, Ed. Alright.

Ed Mathews

This has been the real estate underground podcast, a Clark Street capital presentation. Thanks for joining us. If you're enjoying the show, please remember to subscribe and share it with your friends. If you'd like to learn more about Clark Tree Capital in our upcoming projects, please join our investor club at clark s t dot com slash join. Until next time, happy investor.