Carlos Quiros: A Teacher’s First Steps Into Real Estate Investing, and Why You Can Too

Subscribe to my YouTube channel: https://alexnahleonvideo.com
Check out our next Real Estate event here - https://shorturl.at/jEO46
Grab your FREE SOP for analyzing deals here: https://gqr.sh/QKAY

Curious how an everyday educator built wealth through real estate? In this episode of The BRRRR Investor Podcast, Alex Nahle and guest Carlos Quiros break down the practical steps Carlos took to kickstart his real estate journey while working full-time as a PE teacher.

Here's what you'll learn:

• How Carlos went from zero real estate experience to buying multiple investment properties
• The power of "YouTube University" and strategic networking in fast-tracking your knowledge
• Why starting out-of-state made financial sense and how to leverage local connections
• Real-life BRRRR method case study: numbers, obstacles, and wins
• Tips on using IRAs for real estate investing and where to find reliable support

Subscribe now for practical, actionable real estate advice that anyone can use.

🎥 WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE 👉 https://alexnahleonvideo.com

Don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment with your questions or topics you'd like us to cover next!

Thank you SO much for stopping by! I appreciate you!
👉Subscribe to my YouTube channel: https://alexnahleonvideo.com
🏡Check out our next Real Estate event here - https://shorturl.at/jEO46
📩Grab your FREE SOP for analyzing deals here: https://gqr.sh/QKAY

Transcript

Alex Nahle [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the BRRRR Investor Podcast, where our mission is to empower aspiring real estate investors in their journey towards building generational wealth. Carlos, how's it going?

Carlos Quiros [00:00:11]:
It's going, man. It's another day in paradise.

Alex Nahle [00:00:14]:
Another day in paradise. I'm. I'm just really excited about, you know, our conversation today. Excited about what you're going to share with with our listeners, you know, hearing it straight, hearing, you know, from someone, from someone like yourself. And, you know, I'm truly excited about it. So let's get to it. So I have Carlos Quiros here, who I can proudly call a good friend. Now, he's a real estate investor as well. You know, Carlos and I met maybe a little under two years ago.

Carlos Quiros [00:00:43]:
I think, like 18 months, something like that.

Alex Nahle [00:00:46]:
18 months, yeah. So it's almost two years, you know, at the. At one of our events in Studio City and, you know, things, we just connected from there. So again, I'm excited to, you know, have you on here to share your story. Carlos is an educator. He's a school, He's a PE teacher. But I'll leave it to you if you can share a little bit about yourself, your background, and what got you started in real estate investing.

Carlos Quiros [00:01:12]:
Yeah. So like Alex mentioned, I'm a PE teacher. And just like everyone working in Los Angeles, it's an expensive city to live in. So my wife and I were looking for different opportunities, different investments. You know, where can we. Where can we move some money to maybe fast track our retirement or how we can kind of get out of the rat race? And so we started looking at real estate, and I have zero real estate background. Alex mentioned I'm a PE teacher. So where did I go? I went straight to YouTube. University of YouTube. And I just started digging into videos, and most people say, you know, I don't even know where to start. Well, neither did I. I just started. And then these algorithms keep on sending you stuff here and there. So naturally, like most real estate investors, they find themselves on bigger pockets. So then I started watching bigger pocket stuff, and then from there I started looking at different meetups, and I'm like, hey, I'm like, really uncomfortable. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to put myself out there because I don't want to be here. So I started going to meetups. And your meetup was the first meetup I went to. And I found it online on meetup.com and I remember driving there that day. I was like, man, like, I don't know anything about real estate, you're gonna look dumb. But I was like, nope, just keep on driving. And I kept on driving and kept on driving and I parked and then I met everyone there and everyone was so warm and welcoming and answered as many questions as I, as I had and I felt comfortable and you know, knowing that what I had learned on the University of YouTube and all these videos was going to translate well into our meetings and yeah, that's kind of how I started and just kept on going to your meetings and, and other meetings. But, you know, mostly I get a lot of value from the people we meet at yours.

Alex Nahle [00:03:00]:
Awesome. Well, this is a, a lot of cool stuff to unpack. So, you know, part of it was like you mentioned YouTube University, which is, you know, it's a great place to start. That's where most people do get started. However, would you say, you know, it's a little bit overwhelming. There's a lot of different things out there, a lot of different perspectives. Especially in real estate with, you know, you have different aspects. You know, wholesaling, you have multifamily single family fix and flipping, etc. Etc. It could get overwhelming. Am I wrong?

Carlos Quiros [00:03:28]:
No, you're not. I mean it's it, you have the single family route, the duplex, the triplex, you can join a syndicate, you can, you know, take a heloc out, you can cash out refi. So for me, I just started at the basics and I said, okay, I gotta understand how to buy a house and how to get a loan. And then from there I kind of found my little niche on where I wanted to go. But yeah, I would say don't overwhelm yourself, give yourself an hour a night. And what I was doing is I'm, I'm very big on time management, so I will watch everything on 2x speed. So I'm going to get as much information as I can on 2x speed and I'll watch maybe four videos instead of two. And after that, like you said, like, okay, my mind is overwhelmed, but my option was to do nothing about it for another day. And I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. So give myself an hour. 2x speed. Okay, that's it. I'll do it tomorrow. Another one. And then you just pick up momentum, you know, and then you figure out what you, what you gravitate towards and what you don't.

Alex Nahle [00:04:29]:
2X speed. That's a great hack. You, you, you, you, you shared that with me recently.

Carlos Quiros [00:04:33]:
I love it, man. I love 2x speed on every. I'm trying to get to 2 and a half speed. It's a little fast, but I mean, you can, you can get a lot of information in two and a half speed.

Alex Nahle [00:04:43]:
No, 100% agree. So, so you mentioned, you know, again, you found your niche. You, you look through. Would you say you did not get distracted, like, you weren't attracted to, for example, multifamily. Did you just, you wanted single family. I want to buy a house and then we'll see what happens from there. Is that your approach?

Carlos Quiros [00:05:02]:
No. So I looked at single family and multifamily and again with bigger pockets, I ended up buying their membership.. And for me, early on, learning how to run numbers just with the template they had, the single family didn't make sense. I was not even breaking even. And so I said, okay, I'm going to look at duplexes because the Midwest, as you know, where my properties are, are full of duplexes. So then I, it was like single family or duplexes. And then once I ran the numbers, it didn't make sense to do a single family. I'd be losing money. And, you know, starting off in this game, I'm like, I want to make $1,000 a month. Well, that's not really going to happen in this market right now, especially with the interest rates when I was getting in and like they were like 8% or something. So I was happy to make just a few hundred bucks. Right. Or break even and have a property that appreciated. So I at least understood that. So I did start off on a single family. Looking, running numbers, I'm like, this just doesn't make sense. And then I started looking into duplexes, and that's kind of where I ended up on multifamily. But it wasn't my original intent because everyone that buys a home, I'm going to buy a home, they're thinking single home. But it just works out that the numbers work better in the Midwest to do a duplex or triplex. Quadruple.

Alex Nahle [00:06:16]:
Absolutely. Well, that's cool. So in regards to the journey that you shared with us, you, you mentioned, you know, you had a lot of challenges, a lot of dilemmas. Right. You know, mental challenges, the most likely as well. And then you said, you, you, you started, you knew you need to take action. The only way to learn is by going ahead and doing it. And you did that, and it sounds like that helped you. And then you expose yourself to, you know, networking and so forth. So what did networking do for you? It Sounds like you started networking after you did get your first property, right? Okay. So did networking help, you know, scale that? How do you feel networking, you know, contributed to that?

Carlos Quiros [00:06:56]:
I think networking helped me fast track my learning process because I could talk to people at different events and. And say, you know, we all introduce ourselves, or you shake hands, you meet people. Like, what do you do? Like, oh, I have out of state rentals. Where do you have those rentals? Oh, I have those in Georgia. I have those in Columbus. I have those in Indianapolis. Let me ask you a question about that. Gentleman talked to me not too long ago about pipes. I'm not familiar with pipes being frozen and pipes breaking. And it was a market that I'm looking at, and he's like, I wish I would have known that, because I bought properties and all my pipes froze, and I had to spend all this money on redoing all the pipes because I didn't insulate them correctly. Nobody told me about that. So now I'm like, oh, I'm gonna stop looking at that market. Not that I'm afraid, but it's just something I don't want to handle right now as I'm starting to get my feet wet. And this was like, two years ago, so it would fast track my learning process. I could. I have a phone full of people that I can call right now. They're in my market, and ask them questions. Hey, do you have this contractor? My contractor sick or my contract's out of town. You have this other property manager, so I can leverage people that I know and use them for any type of help questions. I think that's the biggest thing that networking did for me, and it continues to grow. Every meeting I meet somebody new, I find a new piece of information, and it just. You just can't stop. You just can't get comfortable is what I'm learning. Just keep on growing.

Alex Nahle [00:08:19]:
Got it. And then, so what is the reason you. You feel. So both you and your wife work, right? You're full time, and then you. You got into real estate. What. What made you want to get into real estate? What was there a need for it? What was the reason?

Carlos Quiros [00:08:33]:
The real. The real reason was we were looking for a home in Los Angeles.

Alex Nahle [00:08:36]:
Okay.

Carlos Quiros [00:08:37]:
We had a good chunk of cash set aside, and we were looking at properties here in Los Angeles. And as you mentioned, I'm a teacher, my wife is a physician, and we're looking at the prices, and I'm like, that's a lot of money for what we're looking at, right? Where we want to live. And so we're looking at about $10,000 a month mortgage. And that doesn't include going out on the weekends, getting gas, paying insurance, car, cell phone, etc. Right. So I said, yeah, that's not going to be obtainable for us. So then we started looking at, well, we got to put this money to work somewhere. Where can we put this money to work? And we were already comfortable enough with our position in the stock market, so we said, let's go and look at real estate. And as you're aware, a couple of years ago the Midwest started booming after Nashville took off and everyone started looking at, at places and it was either Indianapolis or Columbus, Ohio. And so again I, I just dug in deep into those forums on bigger pockets and started asking a ton of questions about Columbus, started asking a ton of questions about Ohio. And then in the end my, my mother in law had some ties to Ohio because she had taught at University of Ohio and a friend of mine lives in Ohio. So I said, you know, I have boots on the ground. There's that if something happens, I can say, hey, can you please drive around my property? Right? And he said, yeah, no problem, like I'll do that for you. So that was ultimately why we chose it. Again, there's little things with Columbus that we found out in the process that kind of swayed that decision more. One of them being that it's, it's kind of turning into a little Silicon Valley of the Midwest. It's a lot like Facebook, Microsoft. I just saw something on CNBC this morning that Oracle is building another small server farm there. So it is turning into attractive place for tech. And so that's kind of, kind of what pushed us over the edge as to why we wanted to go over there and how we got into it. Because just something here in California wasn't obtainable for us at that time.

Alex Nahle [00:10:35]:
Price point. Affordability, I get it. I mean it's probably something I hear every single day, right. When, when you're at the events, at my events as well, when I'm there. I mean I, I hear from the majority of people I talk to.

Carlos Quiros [00:10:48]:
Right.

Alex Nahle [00:10:49]:
You know, it's all about the affordability. I don't want to, you know, buy in California or Los Angeles. I want to go elsewhere. That's great. And you know, you, you and I are now exploring the, the idea that it could be different. Right. You know, if you have intention, if you have passion and if you have, you know, knowledge of the local market. Now you see how that could Be different and could be possible for. For. For many. So. So that's. That's very cool. Now, you got into it by doing a BRRRR, right? Walk us through what? That, you know, that first deal looked like you. You ended up BRRRRing it. What did you. How did. What was the process you went through? What are the steps? It sounds like, you know, you had a team on the ground, and. And that most likely contributed to, you know, the success or maybe the peace of mind of not having to worry as much over there. So if you can walk us through that, that would be awesome.

Carlos Quiros [00:11:38]:
Sure. So the first deal was not a BRRRR, but the deal right after that, like, six weeks after that turned into a BRRRR. I'll walk you through it. So the first deal we got, we said, okay, let's buy something turnkey. We don't know what we're doing. Let's buy something that's finished. It looks nice. So that was the first deal. We bought renters in. There was one renter already. They got the second unit rented out. Cash flowing immediately, right? It was like $300 a month is what I was Cash flowing. And I was like, hey, this is great. At least it's paying for my mortgage. The realtor that I worked with was like, hey, I know you just bought a property. And I had already let him know that we had room for one more because of the price point, right? And he's like, I know you just bought this property, but I got another one for you if you're interested. And I said, okay, let me take a look. I wish I had a picture to show you. But it was a boarded up triplex. It was all brick. It had wood boards all around the building. I'm like, is this a joke? Like, what is this? It looked like. And I had a Burned a black burn on it. I guess it was a fire there. And he's like, this is a great property. I'm like, I don't see it, man. You know, I see it now. But I was like, I don't see that this is a great property. And then he's like, look, let me send you some pictures. So the inside was fully remodeled. I guess that the. The original buyer ran out of money and he couldn't do it. And they. So they boarded up for protection of, you know, people breaking in or whatever. So I said, okay. We negotiated a price, and then we started to do the BRRRR method. I understood the BRRRR method on paper, but I had never done it. But after running some numbers and seeing what some comps were I'm like, okay, this does kind of make sense. So to give you some numbers, ended up buying this triplex for 197.5. And it was like two months after we are closing our first property and then from there going to your meetings and, and learning and meeting people. I needed access to capital, so I needed to paint this place. I needed to do some little things to give it force appreciation, just force adding value to it to make it worth more so it could appreciate to those comps in the area. So through the networking through people I know I had some access to capital. I was able to use that capital, bring the appreciation up and then I was able to refinance, cash out refinance. I didn't know what a cash out refinance was. I just knew it was a way to get money out of a property after you had done some work on it. I met this person at your meeting. I sat there and spoke to her and I said, hey, can you walk me through a cash out refinance? I need to understand what this is. So long story short, I bought this property for 197 5. It appreciated for 300,000.

Alex Nahle [00:14:33]:
That's awesome.

Carlos Quiros [00:14:34]:
So over $100,000 of equity, cash out, refinanced. I got about $60,000 out of the deal. And then with that $60,000, I just recycle my money and I bought the last one that we just bought and then I did the same thing with that one. I bought that one for 155,000, did some fixings to it for some appreciated Asian painted. It did little things here. I brought the property value up to 255,000. Another hundred thousand dollars worth of equity. I just pulled that money out and then that's in my next deal here in California. So it took me that long to learn how to do it. It's only not even two years of learning how to do this, but it was tons of YouTube University, tons of going to networking events and asking questions. Like I always say, you know, get comfortable being uncomfortable. I say that to my students. I think that's the biggest lesson that people can learn is you don't know what you don't know. So go out there and ask questions. If not, you're going to be the same person you were a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. And the, the story is one day, but then one day never comes, right? So I just kind of took the leap. And I knew once I joined your group, I was like, okay, I can ask questions. And that's Kind of how it happened. Yeah.

Alex Nahle [00:15:55]:
I mean, asking questions is a great way to start. It's a great way to learn. You know, you have to ask questions. Always, always be learning. That's the way I say it. Also, taking action. You know, you did a lot of that. You took action. And you know, one of the things you mentioned which really, you know, stuck with me is, you know, it took a long time, it took this and that, but that's the way it's supposed to be. If it, if it's not boring, I mean, real estate gets boring sometimes. And if it is boring, that's a sign of a good thing, you know, because you got to be patient. It's going to take time. You know, you got to stabilize the asset, right? That's, you know, when you're buying and holding, whether you're BRRRRing, house hacking or whatever the case is, it's a long term game. Now when it's a fix and flip, it's a completely different thing. Right. It's all the time is against you. You got to move fast. You got to move fast. The holding cost is taking, so it does require patience. So congratulations. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. That's, that's a real eye opener. That's solid, a real example, real numbers. What you did, what you went through it and I, I mean, like you said, anybody could really do it, right? You, you did it. You didn't. You're not coming from a ton of money you had. You know, you work, you're a hard worker, like you said, you know, educators. I, I have educators in my family. My sister's a school principal. And, and I know for a fact, you know, they're, they're underpaid. They're underpaid. And you know, as the most important thing that I see is they're not, they don't have the exposure to this, to what you got by going out and getting yourself. You didn't. Nobody came to your school or taught you this kind of stuff, right? Oh, I mean, curiosity, you know, you wanted something for your future, for your family, build that wealth, and you went out there, you learned about it and you took action. So that's amazing. And I hope you know, that can resonate with somebody out there, whether an educator, anybody that's wanting to get started just to know that, you know, take the right steps, connect with the right people, you don't have to do it all yourself. Would you disagree?

Carlos Quiros [00:17:50]:
No. There's tons of help up there. I'm gonna, I'm gonna mention something that they Tell us in school all the time. And we say it to the students, but it obviously plays into anyone's life.

Alex Nahle [00:18:00]:
Yeah.

Carlos Quiros [00:18:01]:
So always tell the students, don't have a fixed mindset. Have a growth mindset. Right? Fixed mindset. What do I mean? Like, I'm not good at math. I can't do math, you know, Only. Only smart kids are good at math. Growth mindset, you know, I don't know how to do that, but I will eventually. I'm going to learn. And that, that translates right now. Like, like you said, we're so overworked. We have papers of grade. We got all these things to do. I started on YouTube university. I didn't start off at an hour a night. I watch a video for like 15 minutes, right? I could have said, you know what? I don't know how to do this. This is only for rich people. I don't know anything about real estate. I'm just going to, you know, I'll figure it out later. But I started somewhere, so I had a growth mindset of, I'm going to. I'm going to figure this out somewhere. All I got to do is run. I don't know where I'm running to, but I just got to get one foot in front of the other. And sometimes those videos were a waste of time, right? Well, I didn't really learn anything there in 15 minutes, right? But start somewhere, right? It's the. They always say intrinsic motivation at school, like the, the motivation from within to do something better or be something better. So I knew that that was there. I just didn't know how to access it. But I just said, you know what? I'm gonna start the. I'm gonna start the marathon. I don't know how I'm gonna finish, but I have two choices. Either someone hit the gun and I just stand there, or I start running. And for me, the running was going to meetings and watching YouTube videos and asking questions, and then they continue to stack on each other.

Alex Nahle [00:19:30]:
So would you say, I mean, as we mentioned, you know, many educators are on a fixed, modest income, right? You know, they work hard, they're dedicated, they're committed. Just like, you know, many a 9 to 5 job would you say, you know, the, the perception is real estate investing is just out of reach for us? For example, do you think that's the mindset?

Carlos Quiros [00:19:49]:
Yeah, 100%. Because you, you see this? Okay, I want to put something down on a property. Oh, I need 20% down. Well, 20% down on a property in California is like 200 something thousand dollars, right? Let's be honest, I don't have that kind of money. You go to some type of meeting and it may not be your meeting because not all teachers live close to your meeting, right? They live close to other meetings. You can form partnerships, you can join a syndicate. You can find somewhere where you can make passive income, right? Where you can lend somebody money. Hey, I don't have $200,000. I have $10,000. You know, I can use that money for my own fix and flip or my own whatever project somebody has and they can make passive income that way. I think the biggest thing for anyone that doesn't have access to a substantial amount of capital is just go ask. There's always people out there looking for a way to give you a return. Obviously do your due diligence, right? Don't just give someone 10,000 because I told you to go to this meeting and you know, hey, I got $5,000. If I saw a quarter on the street, I'd pick it up. If you're an investor and you saw a quarter on the street, you pick it up. If someone said, hey, let me give you $5,000, because that's all I had, that investor is going to pick it up because it's access to capital and they'll pay you some type of return. Obviously they're going to need to access different avenues to get more, but it's $5,000, it's $10,000, right? Some investor will say, I can use that. Maybe not everyone, but someone can use that and give you some type of return. And then it's a snowball effect. It may take a couple of years, but now you have 100 grand and I can go make a move. Your alternative is, this isn't for me, I don't know how to do that. And you stay with that $5,000 for the next 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 12 years. And, oh, I should have, could have, would have, I didn't know. Your biggest waste of time is the hour that you went. And maybe the meeting wasn't with you, just wasted an hour or you wasted an hour on YouTube, but you don't know until you try.

Alex Nahle [00:21:44]:
And let's be honest, many people got burnt, you know, in their past. Maybe they, they've heard, you know, stories and, and it's real. It sucks. However, also unfortunately, many people listen to the wrong advice, right? They, they, they listen to others that may have never done what they're trying to do, right?

Carlos Quiros [00:22:03]:
That's, that's the biggest mistake. So I heard this somewhere. Like, don't take advice from someone that isn't somewhere where you want to be. Your uncle says, oh, don't do that. That's a scam. Your uncle's not even a real estate investor. He just had a friend that got burned at work and, you know, take advice from people or they're giving you advice of where you want to be and at the meetings or online. There's, there's tons of meetings online with investors. You don't have to go to a physical location. You can find these on meetup.com Los Angeles real estate investors. Zoom meetings, bigger pockets, YouTube, in person meetings. Ask those people for advice. Not your uncle's brother's cousin, you know, that knows a guy, that knows a guy. Yeah, that's, that's where, you know, they get their advice. And it's like, oh, yeah, this guy told me not to do that. So just doesn't make sense. But it makes you feel good. So you're like, okay, yeah.

Alex Nahle [00:22:58]:
You know, and the common things that comes up, especially here in LA, you know, because of the price point, because of the affordability, is, you know, people are discouraged, whether buying or even investing, right? Yes, there's, you know, investing out of state. It's great you're doing it. We talked about it. I do it. It has its pros and cons. However, as you know, I'm focused here in, in the LA area. Right? Heavily focused here in the LA area. But many people don't know is like, you know, they feel that they don't have the resources. You know, they don't know that they actually have resources. Some people think, you know, they have money, they don't have time or they don't have money, but they have time, right? They, they don't have the, the experience. So they, they, they're afraid to even take action. They're afraid to even ask the right questions or just go there and just ask any question in general. Right. So with that said, as you've learned, you know, you started actively investing in real estate, then you started learning about, you know, other opportunities to invest with others, joint ventures. Right. There's equity investing, which you have skin in the game and you're part of the deal one way or the other. You don't have to be financially part of the deal. There's, you know, you can be part of the deal with different parts of resources, or you can be passive investor, passive investor. You don't need to have time, you don't need to have experience. You just need to partner up with the right person that you can trust. At the end of the day, it all comes down to trust. Because if you really think about it, you are investing in real estate, but then the day you're investing in the operator that you're working with.

Carlos Quiros [00:24:22]:
You're investing in the person.

Alex Nahle [00:24:23]:
Yeah.

Carlos Quiros [00:24:24]:
And I think with, I mean, not to. To piggyback up what you're saying. When we first met you, my wife and I, we went to about, I think, six projects. I remember our first one, you took us to something that was down to the studs, something you had just bought, and something was completed. And I think we went a second time and saw maybe two more projects. I mean, if anyone's thinking about doing this after watching this, you really do have to. You're investing in the person. You aren't just investing in the asset itself, you're investing in that person. And you're, you are building. I think you told us this. You're. You're building a relationship. Right. I think in our case, we had lent you some, lent you some capital for, for some type of deal. If you're going to do this, if you're going to go to meetings, understand who you're dealing with, you know, go see their properties, vet the person and get a good understanding so you don't run into a situation where you're like, oh, I got burned. My uncle was right. You know, it's, it's really your own due diligence. But there's a lot of opportunity there if you just put yourself out there.

Alex Nahle [00:25:28]:
Just put yourself out there. And I want to touch on that. You know, as far as, you know, the, the one of the deals we did together, you mentioned you lent us some money. And that's another thing that you ended up learning is you can invest passively in other ways. I want to talk about that. But before I go, if you're finding value with this episode, if you can, please, if you're watching on YouTube, please subscribe to the channel. It really helps us out. We'd love to put more content out there. If you're listening on Spotify, please check out the link below to YouTube. Check out the YouTube channel and we'd love your support. So I want to touch on, you know, the, the IRA, right. I don't want to go too deep into it because I, I do want to mention and remind those that are listening that we do have an event coming up in August. One is in person, right? It's in the LA area in Pasadena specifically. And one is going to be virtual. The in person event is August 5th. It's going to be Nate Hare from Directed IRA. He's going to fly out talking to us about, you know, IRA investing in IRA and, and then he came out about a couple of years ago as well. And I believe you met him there. And that was one thing that, you know, that really inspired you to do so. So if, if you like what you hear here and you want to learn more about that Investing, utilizing your 401k or IRA, or maybe you've never even heard of that being possible, you can check out more videos on, on our YouTube channel. Check out an episode with, with me and Nate as well in the past. Because it's, it's a wealth of knowledge and it's, it's, it's a true hack for building wealth, in my opinion. So can you touch on that just a little bit, please?

Carlos Quiros [00:27:03]:
Yeah. So I not, I think we, we went to one of your meetings and there was someone from Directed IRA that was there.

Alex Nahle [00:27:12]:
That's the same guy. Yep.

Carlos Quiros [00:27:13]:
Yeah. And I was like, I didn't know you can do this. Right. So they always say that, you know, there's, there's a million ways to be a millionaire. Right. But you just have to learn the game. And so this is a game that we learned that's 100% an honest way to do it. It's just nobody ever teaches people how to do this. So to break it down for you, we had some money in IRA. We thought that IRAs were only for retirement, that you can't touch them till 59 and a half years old. So they're sitting there growing. And you know, we've been investing that for several years. So it had a substantial chunk of money in there. It wasn't until we went to this meeting and we're telling you this because teachers could do this. You know, moms and dads can do this. Young kids can do, anyone can do this. We had an IRA and we could self direct the IRA what a self directed means. It means that we took control of the IRA and we're able to use the money in that to invest in whatever we want. Could be stocks, could be crypto, could be real estate, etc. Nobody told us that until we went to the meeting. I thought that you just invest with Charles Schwab, your IRA to your 59 and a half. Hopefully it grows. Right. And then you can retire off that, plus my pension. Right. I think, I think somebody told me a story, you told me a story that somebody was taking their IRA and buying land in Texas and then just sitting on the land and then when Pulte Homes comes knocking on the door, they say, yeah, I bought this land for whatever they bought. I'll sell it to you for 5 million. And they can fast track their retirement. Now, you still can't touch it at 59 and a half, but you can make your own lottery ticket almost with your IRA if you know how to invest it in. That's how we started with you. We talked, we spoke to this gentleman and say, hey, we have this money that is growing, but we want to have it grow a little bit faster. And then they set us up with the whole process. Very simple, a lot of paperwork, a lot of, lot of signatures. If you're interested in doing this, it's 100 legit. You don't have to sign a lot of paperwork and understand who you're dealing with. But yeah, we took that IRA, transferred it over to you, and then of course, we had our first passive investment deal. And that's kind of how we got started. But nobody told me that you can do this with your IRA.

Alex Nahle [00:29:32]:
That's the key there. Nobody told you. And that's really what's very, very sad. And that's truly what, you know, where, you know, our community is really coming from is we want to provide, we want to show you what we're doing, what other people are doing, what works for you. Because what, you know, we may be doing may not be the right thing for you. So please find, find out what your risk tolerance is. But if, just like Carlos, myself and many others that I've spoken with, if you are not aware that you can use your IRA or retirement funds in a similar way by investing in alternative assets. Subscribe to the Channel. Check out the episode with Nate Hare from Directed IRA. Connect with our community in the comments below. We would love to collaborate, share with you more information about this, connect with our community. We'd love to see you. It's. This is what it's all about, is just sharing knowledge and seeing how we can help each other get better. So with that said, Carlos, what advice would you give an investor that's starting like the Carlos three to five years in the past? What would you tell them? What kind of advice would you share with them?

Carlos Quiros [00:30:40]:
I would say, if. I would say just start again. I, I heard this recently from someone like, you know, all of us in this life, we're in a marathon. I don't think any, I don't think everyone wants to work till they're 65. They want to try to retire as fast as they can so they can enjoy their life, enjoy their children, enjoy vacations, etc. So I said earlier, you know, the gun, the gun went off. But most people just stand there because they don't know where to start. And then Alex is at mile 10, I'm at mile zero because I didn't know where to start. And now Alex is at mile 20 and I'm at mile five. Just start. Pick up a book, pick up an audiobook. Listen it on 2x speed. I mean, we all live in Los Angeles. We're in our cars. I was listening a lot, right? I don't. I don't really have a lot of time to sit down and, and read a book anymore, unfortunately. I have a few books that I always go back to, but I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I listen to a lot of YouTube. Start somewhere. Ask questions. Ask somebody, you know, that's in real estate. Go to bigger pockets. Go to a forum. Go ask people that have questions already and read their answers. That's one of the biggest things that I did was I started reading real estate forums because I'm like, dude, this is a stupid question. I don't want to look dumb, right? Start reading answers. Just start somewhere. Watch a YouTube video. Pick up an audiobook. I have, you know those Real Estate for Dummies books? I think I bought one on hard money, Loan for Dummies, because I wanted to understand hard money loans. I mean, like five hours on. On 2x speed. It took me like two and a half hours to go through this. Don't be afraid to start, because if not, you're going to be in the same position you were last year and then the year before, and then, oh, I should have, could have, would. And you're not gonna, you're not gonna know it all. Once you know it all. You're 80. I learned that too. I'm like, okay, I have as much information as I can have. I just have to go. And even if I make a mistake, it's not going to cost me as much as I think, because I know I have access to capital. I know I can have some type of terms here that I make more favorable in my, you know, advantageous for me. I didn't know how to do any of that. How do I learn how to do that? Reading books or listening to audiobooks, watching videos, asking questions online and meeting people at meetups. Two years ago, I had no idea how to do any of this. I'm a PE teacher. It's not that hard. But the fear of starting is what holds a lot of people back. And then they're like, I'll do it later. I'll do it later. Because it feels comfortable to say, I'll do it later. Yep, that's what I would tell myself. Just start. Should have started this five years ago.

Alex Nahle [00:33:25]:
Amazing. Amazing. I love it. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon.

Carlos Quiros [00:33:30]:
Marathon.

Alex Nahle [00:33:30]:
Just get started.

Carlos Quiros [00:33:31]:
Next year I'm going to be doing something different and in two years I'll be like, oh, yeah, I'm totally different. Or I could be the same person I was two years ago. Still watching YouTube videos. One day I'm gonna do it. You're never gonna do it. You just gotta start.

Alex Nahle [00:33:46]:
Awesome. And it's good to look back and see your progress versus comparing yourself to other people. Right? Compare yourself to yourself. Get started. So thanks again for taking the time. Man, I really enjoyed this conversation. If you guys found value in this, please, you know, check out our future episodes, subscribe to our channel, share this with friends and family and we'll see you on the next one. Thank you so much. Thank you all for joining us on the BRRRR Investor Podcast. If you found today's episode helpful, please hit like and subscribe to our channel for more real estate insights. We love hearing from you, so please leave your thoughts, questions or topics you'd like us to cover in the comments section below. Be sure to check out our website, thebrrrrinvestor.com and follow us on social media @thebrrrrinvestor. Keep learning and investing and we'll see you in the next episode. I'm your host, Alex Nahle. Stay invested.