Entrepreneurial Appetite
Embracing Investment : Insights from Antonio Adams the Firefighting Real Estate Investor Part 1
Have you ever wondered how one man can juggle multiple jobs and still find time to invest in real estate? Meet our guest, Tony, a firefighter and real estate investor who’s mastered the art of making smart investments. He takes us on his intriguing journey of managing ten properties, his early investment in Tesla, and his hands-on approach to property maintenance.
Tony's unique experience provides a fresh perspective on the impact of new local policy regulating Airbnb. He shares insightful strategies such as house hacking that he used to virtually eliminate rent payments and how he evolved from a one-salary job to a successful real estate agent. Tony's testament to the power of education, seizing opportunities, and persistence is nothing short of inspiring.
This episode is a treasure trove of valuable advice for anyone interested in real estate investment or simply looking for that motivation to chase their dreams. Tune in for an episode that's as entertaining as it is informative!
Have you ever wondered how one man can juggle multiple jobs and still find time to invest in real estate? Meet our guest, Tony, a firefighter and real estate investor who’s mastered the art of making smart investments. He takes us on his intriguing journey of managing ten properties, his early investment in Tesla, and his hands-on approach to property maintenance.
Tony's unique experience provides a fresh perspective on the impact of new local policy regulating Airbnb. He shares insightful strategies such as house hacking that he used to virtually eliminate rent payments and how he evolved from a one-salary job to a successful real estate agent. Tony's testament to the power of education, seizing opportunities, and persistence is nothing short of inspiring.
This episode is a treasure trove of valuable advice for anyone interested in real estate investment or simply looking for that motivation to chase their dreams. Tune in for an episode that's as entertaining as it is informative!
Yeah, probably. Yeah about pretty fast yeah.
Tony Adams:Like so many thug talking Testing, testing one, two, three, yeah, just make sure you kind of make sure you talk me to the mic, brum, or just suggest it.
Langston Clark:Yeah, keep it this way. He has a strong voice. All right, so I'm going to do the. Well, I'm going to do a like a three, two, one clap, uh-huh, and that's going to set the point where, like, I know where to align everything, and then we can get into the conversation.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay, and I'm just asking questions where it comes from.
Langston Clark:You know, I'm just looking back like we talking.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I mean, but I have to make sure this thing picks up my voice. Oh, I have a very light voice and he doesn't. Oh, yeah, yeah, I have a very light voice, but we'll see if it works from here. I think it should be fine. I think it should be good. Yeah, all right, but this is actually not comfortable. I don't sit like this. See how you see how you normally sit. Yeah, I don't sit like that, all right.
Langston Clark:So Three, two, one, all right.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:All right, we in it, let's do it In it to win it First time on the podcast. We'll see how it goes, but First time hosting the podcast First time hosting. That's what's up. I'm honored that brother Clark of House Clark would have me doing this thing for him. So yeah, Cool, yeah, just tell us a little about you, Tony Cool.
Tony Adams:What you doing. Well, as you just said, my name is Tony. I am from Chicago, born and raised in Chattel. Okay, I do real estate investment. I'm a firefighter for Dallas. I am an investor in general, like stocks, option trading, stuff like that. You're in the crypto. I used to be, I mean, you know, I was in a Ponzi for a little while, but I still believe in. I still believe in.
Tony Adams:Bitcoin I think Bitcoin is definitely. I'm still rocking with that, so I got a little bit in Bitcoin and but mainly, right now, I'm investing in stocks that I've always believed in, like, for example, tesla, like I feel like that's one that's going to skyrocket to the world.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Oh, you think it's going to still go.
Tony Adams:Yeah, I think it's going to keep going up, cause all the way back in, the first time I invested in him was like 2010. Like I just knew, oh, you got in from the beginning. Yeah Well, I wouldn't say it was the beginning, but it was the first time I heard about it and I just liked the concept of a self-driving car. There was always the concept of a self-driving car and I was like, man, that's a concept I really believe in. Even without seeing the numbers. I'm like yeah, that's something you should definitely dive into, yeah, so yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay, so let's talk about your properties. Yeah, or you do real estate. How many properties do you?
Tony Adams:Right now I'm at 10. I'm at 10 right now.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So yeah, so you got 10 properties, uh-huh, and you're a firefighter. Yeah, how you make time for all that. You saving lives and you got 10 properties.
Tony Adams:Yeah. So I mean, think about it like this the average person works 40 hours a week, right, more than 50 hours a week, yeah. So as a firefighter, for me, I work one day on and get a couple of days off. The traditional firefighter in Dallas works one day on and two days off. I work in fire dispatch, so now their schedule is a little bit different. I work one day on and I get three days off. So for me, basically, I'm working two 24 hours a shift. I added up this 48 hours. It's just a regular work week for a normal person, but I knock it out in two days.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Ah yeah, so now you have all the extra time to do your real estate thing.
Tony Adams:Do real estate stuff. Yeah, absolutely, I'm really hands on, so I do 90% of the repairs, the maintenance, the rehabs, all that stuff I'm doing to myself.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So you got two full time, really three jobs, and you want to count.
Tony Adams:You know, count the hours. And the reason I got into real estate is because I was trying to be lazy and I turned out to just turn it out and trying to be more, yeah, yeah.
Tony Adams:It's crazy. I'm always doing something like early today I was just fixing a pool, googling how to do this with a pool sand filter. I've never even touched before. So now inside, I didn't know it was even sand inside of a pool filter. So actual sand from the beach, okay, okay, in a pool filter and it filters the water that comes out of it, right? So the water's running in through the sand. I mean, it's very natural process of how anything is really cleansed A filtrate, a filtrate. Yeah, it's hard for anything, any type of dirt, to make it completely through a huge dome of sand, you know. So, just a little stuff like that and try to figure out. I was getting actual sand in my pool and I was trying to figure out, like why was that? What was happening? Yeah, I Googled it and they were saying, like well, something in sand filters broke that's allowing sand to be sucked in through the pipes. It shouldn't get sucked in through the pipes, got you? And make it to the actual pool.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So you're not paying somebody to come fix these problems for you.
Tony Adams:No, I mean, I could. I definitely could afford it. But the thing is, when you get into the mindset of always paying somebody to do some yourself, it's going to come to your profit margin. You know what I mean. So learning how to do something like that takes, like I don't know, 10 minutes. Okay, it could save you over $1,000. Somebody come out and they're like, oh, I can fix that, but it's going to cost $1,000. So it's like yeah, yeah, so you save yourself a lot of money. Yeah, at the end of the day, that's what it's about.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay, and this property is? Where is this property?
Tony Adams:This property is right outside of Dallas and Mesquite, so right now we're close to downtown Dallas and it takes me maybe 13 minutes to get there. Something like that, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Now all your properties in the Dallas area. Are they all south of Dallas? Are they all?
Tony Adams:down there. No, I don't know how many things south of Dallas, not until they gentrify up there. But I had one property in south of Dallas. It might take a little longer over there. Yeah, yeah, it might take a while. It might take a while, but I don't know the way these taxes are going up in Dallas. It may be gentrified. I did have one property there. I flipped that one and just got rid of it. Just sold that one because most of my properties are in the DFW area. So I'm my forward garland Mesquite in Dallas proper.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah. Now about that gentrification. Have you ever thought about being a part of the gentrification process? Black people can gentrify too. What do you mean by that? So going into a neighborhood and flipping the houses yourself, or building up the neighborhood yourself instead of relying on an outside people source?
Tony Adams:I see what you mean. So that takes a lot more money and influence because it's more like I can come in, because lately I've been buying my properties cash. Right, I can come in and buy one property cash but I can't buy a whole block or a whole neighborhood not yet anyway, yeah. So it takes a massive amount of money to make that happen immediately. So it would take if I were to do something like that. First of all I would be buying a property cash flow that I'm used to making so for my next house that I would buy on that same block. It would take forever to even just build up that capital to even buy the next one. So that process for me would take years, years and years where I would buy somebody a house with a hedge fund or something like that. Once they make a decision, our group of people- yeah, it can take one year, you know, okay, so yeah, that's the difference.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Have you ever thought about, have you ever found a group of people? Do you know other people in your community that do these type of things?
Tony Adams:I don't, but if anybody listen to this, they want to get down on my Instagram. It's Tony Real Estate. They can hit me up and we can. Tony with an I with a Y, no, Tony with a Y. T-o-y, Real Estate, T-O-Y yeah.
Langston Clark:T-O-Y. Tony, tony, tony, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:You know there's a lot of them which yeah yeah, I'm the one with the Y.
Tony Adams:Okay, tony, with a Y, real Estate.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:y'all check that out, okay, so you got 10 properties, yeah, In the Dallas area. They all range from price scale or do you stick to a certain price.
Tony Adams:It depends on the season. So most of the properties I have I'm out of some that's traditional Real Estate where you have a renter that's just paying rent per month, and then I have some that are Airbnb, vrbo, vacation rental type situation. So it kind of depends on the market, like it depends on what that property is best for. Okay, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Now Dallas just came out with a new law that starts in December. Right, Right. How is that going to affect you with your Airbnb properties? Or will it affect?
Tony Adams:you. I don't think that it is they. I wouldn't say it's a new law. I think it's something that they just publicize, because you've always had to register your Airbnb's, which I have. You almost have to pay hot taxes, which is hotel occupancy taxes, which I have, and so I've already abided by the rules they've already had in place, so I don't really see anything different. The only thing I've noticed is different is that they said in certain zip codes they're going to prohibit it altogether. Okay, and so I haven't heard anything. But if that does happen, then I'll just go to traditional route.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, and just do long-term rentals with those properties.
Tony Adams:Yeah, okay, and you haven't heard anything about that, but you haven't heard anything about that. In that zip code. Again, I haven't heard about any. I heard that there would be certain zip codes oh, that would be but I haven't heard it. Yeah, but I doubt it. I honestly doubt it because the city of Dallas is making so much money off hotel occupancy taxes. It's kind of like why would you eliminate that source of revenue to the city? Why would you do that?
Tony Adams:To me it doesn't make sense from a business perspective, because the city of Dallas has no problems raising taxes, no problem writing tickets, no problem doing all those other things to get revenue. Why would it take away such a great source of revenue?
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, because a headline makes it seem like it's over with for Airbnb's and that.
Tony Adams:I think that's to pacify a lot of people who just hate other people making money. Okay, now, I do get like if your neighbor is doing Airbnb and it's a wild party every weekend, like I get that. Yeah, that makes sense. I think they need to put regulations in place for those particular situations. But minds are more so like long term guests, just families. I screen very well. As for deposits, I tell people if you do have a party, police will be calling, you'll be asked to leave with no refund. I tell everybody that.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Oh, you said you send the law down from the gig, absolutely, absolutely.
Tony Adams:Because my thing is like I want my neighbors to be comfortable. You know, yeah, you know I want to be comfortable, but some people are just in their feelings because they just don't like strange faces. Like you got to get over that, you don't like strange faces. But as far as real estate, I mean, as far as just like just being, just being a decent neighbor, you know, I'm all about that.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, I mean because a lot of people shoot videos and he's Airbnb. They do a lot of different things. They shoot music videos and he's.
Tony Adams:Airbnb. I see those inside. They're not buying anybody like make a lot of them, shoot it. You know, if it's like all the pools I have, they're really tall gates so I do maybe a traditional gaze like six feet tall, so I do eight to 10 feet. I'm gazing around pools. Now you don't need spaces too. I have done one fence. I didn't do all the things. I did one face.
Tony Adams:Yeah, the other ones were done professionally by a fence guy man. You sure remain nameless because I can't remember his name. But yeah, shout out to him yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Shout out to the fence guy. Okay, all right, fence guy. Yeah, now you got 10 properties, do you plan on getting a bunch more?
Tony Adams:Yeah, and the process is moving slower because I've been buying them cash.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So Okay, talk about that, you buying club. I love talking about that. I mean, most people came by houses cash, I know. I mean it's a luxury day. A lot of people don't have to. And then how do you talk about how you even reach that kind of capital?
Tony Adams:to start, off by cash. You start off by we talked about this off air earlier house hacking.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay, what is house hacking for the people like you don't know what. I never heard the term house hacking. I might know the concept, but I've never heard of the term.
Tony Adams:My. House hacking is basically where you find a way to lessen or eliminate your rent in your own house. You're dwelling. You don't necessarily have to have a house, you can. You can be just people do it without even knowing doing it, you know, just subsidizing their, their payments, by having a roommate, for example. That's house hacking. Or your first investment property being a duplex, so that you can rent out one side and that one side pays for the mortgage of the whole duplex. So now you live in for free. Yeah, yeah, I mean. So it's like giving yourself a head start. However, you can do it.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, so having like a triplex or a complex and having three other people rent out the spaces and you've been one of them to show your, to show the cost of the yeah Expenses and they y'all kind of shared, but they really cutting off the mortgage on your end, exactly, exactly. So you did that with your first property. That was the first property.
Tony Adams:And so, and where was that one at? That was a. That was a duplex in North Dallas, and so we had a tenant for a long time. Me and my long time girlfriend at the time moved into a duplex and we had the tenant and that basically covered what the mortgage would be. I think we, you know, maybe had to put maybe 400 into it ourselves. Yeah. You know what I mean. But paying $400 with the double household income, it's like just nothing. What year was this? This 2016,.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I want to say, okay, so this was me and the grand scheme. That wasn't that long ago.
Tony Adams:No, no we had 2023. So seven years from seven years ago.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay, was she not with the plan? She wasn't with the plan.
Tony Adams:Yeah, yeah, she was with the plan, absolutely, absolutely, and so we were able to grow up to 10, you know, because we were cheered with the plan and it wasn't cash. So I was like that's how you get to that point. It wasn't cash, it was a finance property and but we made sure we had a good interest rate, went through a good housing program, shout out to NACA and NCA.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:What year? Five, Five this time.
Tony Adams:I had just.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I had just got the job I got hired in 2016.
Tony Adams:So this was like months before I got hired, a couple months.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:It's hard. I mean, I just know I know a couple of people that's trying to get into being a firefighter, yeah, and that is it's hard to get in on Dallas, yeah. Dallas for sure Right, the bigger cities are harder to get in.
Tony Adams:You can kind of get in with the Dentons and Coincidentally Dallas is one of the harder ones to get into and they pay the less to lease them out. They pay the lease them out, but fortunately they went up a lot in their pay, so the gap is not too far off, yeah, from the other cities. Uh huh, I think it's the proceeds behind it, because everybody wants to be a Dallas firefighter.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Ah, yes, it's a major city.
Tony Adams:Like, how, like being.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Chicago PD. Yeah, it's like you know Chicago.
Tony Adams:Fire. Yeah, exactly, yeah, you want to be in the top. You don't want to be in. I'm not going. I don't want to disparage any of the cities.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:You don't want to be like Don't say Mesquite, don't say Mesquite, say something, say something, say something.
Tony Adams:I ain't going to say nothing. You know you don't want to be one of the other people. You know you want a major firefighter brand behind you, yeah, so that's that's what people you know. A lot of people do it for the recognition and I did it for the financial freedom and the schedule personally?
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay, so you weren't. You were making a low average salary when you first started, but you were still able to buy your property Right Now. Did you do that by yourself?
Tony Adams:Yeah, I did. I have to explain that because I had money before I became a firefighter. When I left college, I was actually. I worked at let me get this back up. So I worked at T-Mobile since 2006. And you were in Chicago at that time. Right, I was in Chicago at that time, and so I fast forward through that. But I got into college, I decided to move to Texas. I moved to Texas, but I kept my job at T-Mobile. I transferred and so I paid for college cash using T-Mobile money and just basically say that when I got out of college, I was like man, I'm done with this T-Mobile stuff. Man, I'm not doing any more cell phones. I don't need to see that cell phone again in my life, never again.
Tony Adams:Then I started working at AT&T as a manager. So I was just like this is crazy. It came all the way back to full sync. Yeah, I was always, and I went up quitting immediately. It took me basically another six months to realize I'm doing the same thing over again, and so I quit. I didn't really have a plan. I talked to one of my friends in college, adam, shout out to Adam, adam Edwards. Yeah, he was in real estate. He told me about real estate all the way back then he was like, man, you'd be great at it, you'd be good, I'm making this X amount of money doing this and you should come work with me. And I was like you know what? I think I'd give it a shot. So I just took the real estate. I like myself in a room, this is no lie. I like myself in a room Two and a half days and finish all my real estate coursework In two days, in two and a half days. Two and a half days, yeah, two and a half days.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, so if you're listening, you can do it.
Tony Adams:Yeah, you can do it If you're that motivated. Yeah, you're motivated. I don't feel like I'm not that book smart. I have a tremendous amount of common sense, but book smart that was just like willpower man, because I would leave out the room, go for a jog, come back, go right back on it. Yeah, get right back on it, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So you were a real estate agent? I was a real estate agent, yes.
Tony Adams:So that's just the coursework. Then you got to take the state exam and the national exam. I was able to pass it the first try, and then I moved to Houston and started working in real estate with Adam. Okay yeah, and so that was a crazy experience.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Do you know, brother, I'm from college how do you know?
Tony Adams:Oh, Adam. So, yeah, Adam, I met Adam in college, so Adam and Adam were great friends. He actually did not like it at all. Okay, At first he thought I was trying to pick up his girl, whatever. But I was like, bro, what do you think you? Probably you could have been, I don't know. I mean, I could have been, but I was not.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Which you was not okay, that's clear, so I understand his perspective.
Tony Adams:It was like she was one of many girls. That was just like hey, tony, when I was like walking to a room, I was in a SOB, student American, the student African American brotherhood program, and all the girls were in Emoja, which was the, you know, the sister opposite of SOB, and so whenever the two would collaborate you know I was a new kid on campus, you know I came out of transfer students, so everybody who had been knowing each other since freshman year, I come in basically junior year, yeah, yeah, and you started college later.
Tony Adams:Yeah, and I started later too, so you were older than everybody else Exactly, and I started when I was 23, but junior at 25. Yeah, and so that means everybody else like 21. Yeah, At the time it felt like you know, like 30.
Tony Adams:Yeah At the time it felt like it was way off, but it wasn't a big difference. But you know, I walked in, I smiled and I was like hey, tony, hey Tony. And Adam was like who the fuck is this? Adam will tell you this story. He said he was sitting in the corner leaning like who the fuck is this tall chocolate motherfucker? You know what I mean. But we became really really good friends, really good friends. So, yeah, he put me on. He put me on a real estate. I'm Woody Houston. He gave me an address for my interview, but it really was more like a what do you call it when it's not a real Like almost like a get to know you. You said, yeah, like a get to know you thing. But they call it a formality. Oh yeah, just formality. So I gave me the address, I go in and I was like, oh shit, this is a strip club. You know what I mean. My interview for real estate was at a strip club.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So did you have any money?
Tony Adams:on you? Did you throw any money? I didn't have any money on me. Okay, so you got no dances. No, I was there for the interview. I just wanted the jobs, wanted to make sure I was good. So I met him, broke her. His name was Brian. How you doing, brian? I was like hey, so okay, like just literally it was like a two minute conversation. It was like Were y'all in the strip club or were y'all outside the strip club? We were in the strip club, I walk in sit down.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Hey brother, brian, why you trying to have people meet at the strip club for a formality? Anyways, go ahead, continue.
Tony Adams:Adam was there, brian was there, was sitting at the booth. They bring drinks. We were just talking for a few minutes. Literally, he was like I gotta go, you have to be in there maybe four minutes, I gotta go. He takes out $200 and once gives me one stat, gives Adam a stat. I was like y'all, have fun, I'll see y'all on Monday. Dang, yeah, and he was doing it because he was a couple years younger than me and real estate, but he had his broker license. So you get your real estate agent license and you become a broker. So you didn't have an actual broker license at that point. So, yeah, so I, literally man, I was thankful to Adam and I was like man, I took like half of the ones, put them on my pocket, gave Adam the other $50, I told him man, I'll find that balance. Okay, it's your thing.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:It's not my. Thing.
Tony Adams:I mean, I love women but it don't do anything for me. I'm more excited about the business aspect of it. You got a facility where people come to spend all their money for something they could gift-free if they put in the effort. Yeah, I just don't understand. And people literally like when I was coming up, the strip clubs were for people who were no disrespect, but people who were disabled, disfigured, stuff like that. You would go to the strip club that's what I heard about it To feel good. To feel good because no other woman would want a message and the women were a little quality of a woman too like she was, and they weren't as nice looking. It was just like a low lower level type, job type situation.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:It's extravagant. Now.
Tony Adams:Yeah, now it's extravagant. It's like I don't need to pay for that. I don't need to. I don't see the point. So yeah, it was never my thing. But fast forward, brian was obsessed with strip club, like obsessed. This dude gave you a job right, yeah, he gave me a job he spent plenty of money in there by now.
Tony Adams:Oh man, they knew his name. He would. I never bought money to strip club because he would just give out money to everybody. He would just you know what I mean. You just have money by the section or whatever the case was. And he was doing some other stuff too some, so he was on that stuff. But I was like I'm good, I'm just here for money, yeah, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So I kind of want to rewind back, because you said that you went to college.
Tony Adams:Yeah, What'd you go to college for? I went to school for radio, television, film and I'm minoring in business management. Okay, meaning I just took, I had a concentration in business management. I took a lot of business classes, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So do you now looking at what you're doing? Now you own 10 properties, your environment, yeah. Do you feel like going to a university was beneficial?
Tony Adams:for you? I think so, but I don't think I tell people this like I went to college to find out you don't need college to be successful. That's what I went to college to learn, because a lot of times a lot of people have a psychological breakdown as to why they can't do something. I never went to college. I have a daddy or whatever. Like whatever it is that their particular situation. Imagine if somebody that didn't have a daddy all of a sudden you get a daddy and you're like oh, I mean, I love having a daddy, but I didn't need a daddy to be successful, like I could have been actually, but it's a psychological breakdown A lot of people have.
Tony Adams:So when I was coming up, a lot of people, a lot of my friends, didn't go to college. You know I have some successful friends today that didn't go to college but they still have that that, that what if? Psychological thing if they had went, I didn't want that. So I just I wanted to just go experience college for myself and see what it was all about, and it was a good time. I don't have zero regrets. We'll do it again.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay. So even though what you know now, you will still go do it again.
Tony Adams:Yeah, because it was about, for me, it was just about the experience. It was just it had nothing to do with really the coursework or something, Cause you, you know, you're not going to really learn unless the college is specifically tailored to your job, like if you're in STEM, if you are an engineer, yes, you need to go to college. If you are going to be a medical doctor, yeah, yes, but if you an arts or something like that, I don't, I mean personally, I don't think you need to go. Yeah, I mean personally.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, cause it's a social institution as well.
Tony Adams:Yeah, so you meet, yeah, you meet a lot of friends Like I met Adam there. Well, yeah, I mean I really say later in life, had I not, did I maybe I would have never got him, cause I was like man, if Adam doing it, I can do it. Yeah, you know. So I felt like, yeah, absolutely. I met friends like Langston, like like Tom France, a bunch of people. So I I guess why I have zero regrets by going yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah. So I'm kind of going to go back to these properties now. Yeah, I'm very interested cause you doing these things about cash, which has me kind of like taking it back, because right now I can't fathom going to put money down. Cash for I mean, especially with the housing market. Now they 270 to 8,300, wherever, depending on where you're going. So now, you got 10 of these properties.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I'm doing it, I'm doing these computations in my head. Yeah, on average, in Dallas, you look at about 2.5, almost three million for total properties if you buy cash. How long does these, how long does it take to get to the point where you had none? And what was that? What was that road like?
Tony Adams:So when I first started buying properties for not for myself I started by properties for this hedge fund because the broker that brought me in he worked for a hedge fund which is basically a collaboration of people. It's just a really a bunch of funds from different people used for a single purpose, and this purpose was buying real estate. Plan was buy these properties, for at the time they were like you can get a three bedroom too bad for $100,000. So they will buy these properties cash, fix them up, make them work a little more and then pull the money out with a refinance. So if you bought a property $100,000 cash, they pull the equity out. They pulled the equity out.
Tony Adams:But I want to explain in a way that other people can understand. If you buy cash, it's all equity, so 100% equity. So you can only pull out, maybe depending on what bank you're able to go with, maybe 80%, if you're lucky, you can pull out 80% of that money back. So if you buy for 100 and it's worth 150, now you can pull out that initial 80 that you put or 100 that you put into a plus a little more. You know what I mean. And then you take that money, use somebody else's money from the hedge fund and then buy the next property, rinse the repeat and just keep doing this so they can scale, keep the properties for five, six years. Let them build up with time, because you know the the market just started going up and that's the reason they did this, because they predicted that this will happen. The value of all the properties started going up and then they just sold them and they got paid. In many ways, they got paid and the equity they got paid, and the rehab costs, because they had in house rehabbers that will fix these properties up as well. So it was just like a lot of different angles to make money, and they had management fees as well. Yeah, you know stuff like that.
Tony Adams:Do you own properties? I do, yeah, so that's a yeah, I do save a bunch of money that way too. Yeah, and to get you a question about how, how to happen, at the time the properties weren't. What I learned in that, from doing that, is that you have to squeeze every opportunity, like you have to squeeze every single one and so okay, so I'll give you an example. I'm a firefighter, right? But when I, when I became a firefighter, I learned from researching that as a firefighter, you can get a property half off through a program called the Good Neighbor Next Door, so program. Now this program still exists, but I've never seen a property that falls under it, since I've got one, but prior to me getting one, they they would have like three or four that would come on the market and so this is available to everybody, yeah, but so it's not only available to firemen Firemen police and teachers.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay, firemen, police and teachers. Now I'm asking this because I'm in education system. I've used a different program to get my first house, okay, so I'm paying down payment assistance. I don't have to pay down payment. So I got in the house for free, right. But you're saying I could go get a house for half off At the top.
Tony Adams:I haven't seen they still have the program of it Like I went to. I went to websites literally like yesterday just out of curiosity. But it's at hud hud homestorecom and you can click under property type. It says owner, occupant, investor, good Neighbor Next Door and foreclosure may be on there, some other ones, but when you click on it there's nothing there in the state of Texas there are no properties listed under foreclosure.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Good Neighbor Next Door, yeah, I haven't seen one since I got one. Now, does this program only apply to Texas? No, it's just natural. Okay, it's national, so I can, you could, be a Texas fireman by house, or how do they are they?
Tony Adams:are they? I can't, I can't, I can't answer that, I can't answer that, but they, they can. You know, I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, that's just a lesson. Like you have to squeeze every opportunity that's available. So at the time I did it was a foreclosure. They wanted $42,000 for the house and I was able to get it for $21,000. So that was like now that property today is worth, it's a small house worth about $200,000. Yeah, but that's 200 cash like that. Yeah, that's all me. Yeah, now can you?
Mar'Shauwn Grays:yeah, I'm interested. I know you said there's no houses on there, but could you use that program to buy multiple houses? No, no, I see one, you only get one. Yeah, this is one. Yeah, so you use that for one property? Yeah, what about the other nine? And I know you bought your first one. Yeah, you, your girlfriend at the time. Right, what's your girlfriend at the time? Yeah, now you got eight more Mm-hmm. And now what can you do? Even more to buy? How much can you buy within a month? And then, what's so?
Tony Adams:no, I don't want to buy more because in the future I could just build avard, alright. So the third one was the third one was a. It was a good deal. It was a finance deal, like you just put the money down so that one was not cash. The only cash properties I've ever purchased were the last. Well, the first one and then the last three, okay, yeah. So basically half of my portfolio is financed and the other half is cash. Gotcha, yeah. And the rest of it, like the cash properties, is just about saving money throughout the years. So living off one income if you're in a relationship or if you're married, living off one income, or just half of one income, for that matter or just making good deals within real estate. So I'm saving a lot of money too because, again, I'm a real estate agent, slash broker, because I have a broker's license as well.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So you go into body's houses like, oh, you're not paying any money, you're not paying any good work for you to go look at a house.
Tony Adams:No, you can do all that. I mean I have all the information, so I know we're bouncing around. But going back to the hedge fund thing, we were buying 50 properties a month doing estate. So I had a tremendous amount of experience just going into properties, evaluating them, knowing what the rent should be, knowing what it would sell for, knowing what work needs to be done how much? It's going to cost, how quickly it can get done, like everything, yeah. So it was like evaluating the deal was nothing.
Langston Clark:And I was actually just better at it.
Tony Adams:I was good at it. I was the number one buyer. I was buying a very bad but good deals though you weren't just buying over paying for them.
Tony Adams:Good deals or undiscovered deals are deals that people thought were broken and I fixed them, type of stuff. It was like you call a person up and you're like are you still interested in selling? No, I'm not selling. And they buy. Well, hold on, mr Wilson, before you ain't going up. Yeah, so he let me know why you're not selling. It's like well, because my wife no, no, no, fuck that bitch, you know whatever. It is Like damn okay, so all right, cool. So let me tell you. So you said you're not doing that spike because your wife stole your lawnmower or whatever. If I get your lawnmower back for you when you sell, just like that, you know, just kind of diving diving in to fix the problem to.
Tony Adams:you know what I mean.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So no, not leaving any stone unturned, yeah, Okay, yeah, now do you have any advice for somebody who is, let's say, single, they making $80,000. How do they get started in some like this but they don't have access to this yeah Fund that you would try not to hedge fund, but the what's that that you do? Good neighbor next door, good neighbor next door that you talk about, what would be some first steps that you give to people who are in that situation? Who's looking to get started?
Tony Adams:Yeah, the first step is is looking within and knowing that it's going to get uncomfortable, like it's not. This is not an easy ride. It wasn't easy even doing it the way I was doing it. It's not. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable for a time.
Tony Adams:It's like two different scenarios that I tell people. It's like people who are living in an apartment or people who are staying at home, or people who already have a house or want to give it to the state, and I'll give you an example of what East person can do to progress. So the the first slide, like if you're in an apartment, you say, make 80,000. I would say, yeah, I would say, but stay where you are. Possibly get a roommate if you, if you need to go save your money, go through a program called NACA. I mentioned that earlier.
Tony Adams:Naca will allow people to buy a home Excuse me for 0% down, no interest, no, no clothes costs. 0% down, no, no closing costs. They give a competitive interest rate and they also allow you to buy down the mortgage rate. So right now we the market right now is like six and a half, something like that yeah, you know, you can get a seller credit to help you buy down there and that's part of negotiation. So if you have a good realtor broker that can negotiate that for you.
Tony Adams:So I say to how the price of the house is 250, 300. You can, you know, you could say, hey, I said to ask before we do something on the price, say we'll give you 300, but we need, we need 20,000 back in sellers concessions and use that 20,000 that they give you to buy down your interest rate. Okay, to make your interest rate lower, okay, yeah. So and then once you have the property that's now you aren't you got your one. What I tell people is you got your first property, don't move into it, because that's the first thing. People don't move into it, right, because people want immediately, they want to jump into that property, like decorate it.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I'm going to get that.
Tony Adams:That's what it. That's what an uncomfortable part is. Right, it's one thing to say, it it's nothing to fill it yeah.
Tony Adams:It's uncomfortable to go through that way. You have to actually stay in your apartment and watch somebody else move to your house, right, yeah. So I say, do that, you can go. You can go to Airbnb around, you can go to traditional realm, but either way you need to sit out for two years, right, I'm not saying you can't make other moves, but for two years you collect your revenue, maybe save your money up, and in two years two things happen.
Tony Adams:One you got, you got 24 months of saving income, like from that property, right, yeah. The other thing is you have, you have proof to a bank that now that you have something that's income producing and you can use that as collateral or you can use that as an asset as part of your debt to income ratio yeah, okay, so that you can. Then the bank will trust you to do another one of what are different, different house. You know what I mean. So that's the way one person now you had. In two years you had two properties. You get what I'm saying, but you're still staying in an apartment, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:It's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable Because, like why can't you move to the second one now?
Tony Adams:You could, but you're going to slow yourself down. Yeah, you're going to slow yourself down, you could. So you know, but usually what you're going to slow you know what I mean. So I was like what you trying to do? Yeah, right, yeah, so you're still one, or you still you're going to try to keep going yeah, so it gets uncomfortable.
Tony Adams:It's not, it's not sweet for everybody. So it's like the average person in real estate maybe, oh maybe, one or two properties and then you stop there, that's it. They don't go any further. It's like keep going. You know, rinse and repeat.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Now did you? Now would you live in your first one?
Tony Adams:I did Well, house hacking. House hacking, which I'm not, which I'm not against if you're going to do something like that, but why don't you do that? You already have a property in this scenario. Oh, yeah, you already have an apartment. Yeah, take, take yourself out of that arena. You know, unless you won't live in a property, you can also live in a property and you can Airbnb it out, but that's still uncomfortable because you got strangers and always coming in, always coming in where you live. Yeah, you know.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So it's like, either way it goes, it's going to be a little discomfort and yeah, yeah. So be uncomfortable, being uncomfortable. Yeah, be comfortable, be comfortable, right you have to.
Tony Adams:Yeah. The second scenario is somebody who's already living in the house like how can I get into real estate? I just tell them the opposite Moving to an apartment, you got your first. Yeah, that's real uncomfortable because now you got a uprooted show. You got a family and whatever. Yeah, I'm going to do that.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, now you're speaking to me. Yeah, now you're speaking to me. I got a property yeah, right. And I got a wife and a kid yeah, and now you give me advice Get out of there, yeah.
Tony Adams:And now we're taking the step further to make it more comfortable Moving to a nice apartment, moving to a really nice apartment.
Tony Adams:Yeah, you know what I mean, yeah. And then you prove, in two years you can prove to the bank that, hey, this property is doing well. You know what I mean? Uh, huh. And then from that we move back into your house and start off slower, yeah. Or moving to the next house of how you want to do it. But that's a super easy way to get started. But most people want to do it because they just can't accept that. Okay.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Now tell me, because I'm already uncomfortable they even thinking about it. All right, now tell me about this. Tell me how you feel about this. Yeah, you know what I mean. The house that you in, uh huh, and you just go rent another house. Can you do that too? You could. Can you just go rent another house? Absolutely you could.
Tony Adams:It's the same concept Go somewhere else and rent. Yeah, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:But I could just buy another house and move into that one and it's not as comfortable and comfortable. No, no, no, don't do that.
Tony Adams:Well, if you buy another house and now you're taken away, you have to take yourself out of the equation. Okay, if you buy another house, okay, that's still attached to you. So now it's like you. It's a liability If you move into a, if you. Now, if you rent a house, if someone goes wrong with the AC, guess who got paid for it? I don't, no, the landlord.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Oh, if I rent a house. Okay, you saying I'm going to go rent into a house. Yeah, yes, yes, yes.
Tony Adams:Yes, something wrong here in this apartment.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I ain't got to pay for it, you don't have to pay for it, yeah, and it's a lot of expenses that go into real estate.
Tony Adams:If people are not prepared for it Like it's, it can happen. Okay, you know everybody's not savvy, everybody can't just fix stuff. So sometimes you got to call the AC person. They go, they go tax you for something that's only. They go and say, oh, the capacitor went bad, which costs $7 by the way, it's going to cost $400. I was supposed to get that done for you today. What it cost literally cost $7.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:You sound like you got experience with the capacitor.
Tony Adams:Absolutely. Yeah, plenty, yeah. Yeah, I'm replacing myself, but they literally cost $7. $6.99.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:At Home Depot you go to Home Depot, get your capacity.
Tony Adams:Yeah, I was telling them, I was at Home Depot. I was telling them that.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Ace Hardware on Amazon. Oh so you know? Yeah, I know I'm on there. So Amazon got everything Amazon.
Tony Adams:Amazon said your whole AC system. Wow, yeah, yeah, everything, everything.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, $7 for a capacitor, they going to charge you $390 for labor. Yeah, that is that's crazy. Yeah, with a smile. Yeah, yeah, they robbing you. Yeah, they don't mind. Now you think. Now you got me thinking. I need to learn how to fix mine.
Tony Adams:You should, yeah, you should, because it can happen. I mean, it will happen, it's not, it can't, it's going to happen. It will, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Ac unit is going to go out? Mm-hmm, they all do. Yeah, if you want to save some money, yeah, yeah.
Tony Adams:I mean that's you know. I think about it like especially because you got kids right, I have one, you have eight kids, you have eight kids. So it was like for your kid you would give your right arm. Yeah, you know what I mean. That's your kid, right? Yeah, it's kind of like for me giving away $400 is like taking away from my kid when that kid needs something from you. Like I'm trying to go to college but I'm trying to do this, or can I get piano lessons or something like that. Yeah, I'm trying to get a son because I get that $400. A son, I was unwilling to do it myself. So now you can't have these lessons, like it all comes back to that, but it's not. It's connected, but it's not in front of you, so you don't think about it, yeah yeah, yeah, it's perspective.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, the perspective $400 for that. Yeah, I can't stop thinking about that. No, yeah, because I know my parents, I know it's going to go bad and I know I have to get it fixed.
Tony Adams:I get it all the time. I can show you crazy posts Like just Outlandish, outlandish, like stuff like yo, you do dog do's myself, right. Sometimes I'll switch stuff because I don't have the time for it or I rather like I had to pay. I had to pay $600 one time for I gotta put free on into my AC system because it's an older unit, Sometimes at leak or sometimes whatever case was, and if I had the time I would have did it myself, but I didn't have the time. Like I had a guest checking in the next day. Yeah, you know, in Texas, 100 degrees outside, yeah, they gotta have AC. They gotta have AC.
Tony Adams:I could have ordered myself, like I'm doing myself. I looked it up, I'm Bob's stuff and da, da, da, da, da, because the free on was literally it comes. It's basically $40 a pound, that's how they measure it, yeah, and the system, my system, needed maybe like five pounds of it, so five times 42 pounds, yeah. So instead of that, he's like oh well, you know, I don't know anywhere to, I don't know anywhere to sell them like that, like it's right on Amazon, like they, you know, 40 on a scale. That's not much. I charge, I charge, but I had to do it.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:But you know he gotta make his money too yeah but the guests they checked in, guess what?
Tony Adams:They paid $1,200. They paid me $1,200 to stay for the weekend. Yeah. So you know really, yeah, I made $600. But it's still. You know, like damn, I still get away $600 because of this issue.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Now, of these properties, which ones are, would you say, your best investments?
Tony Adams:Are you?
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Airbnb's.
Tony Adams:I'm expecting one. Well, you know, airbnb's are definitely the best ones, and why is that? Because people are willing to pay more on the weekend than they are for a whole like month somewhere, like when somebody's gonna say someone. Long term, they think more economically than having. When people think of fun they think of I have to spend some money for that fun, like funding freedom more. Yeah funding Right.
Tony Adams:That's not. Let's just go to the park and walk around Like people don't mind spending money for experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly bringing all their friends or whatever like that. So if we have a five bedroom oh man, I got my cousins here they can bring their kids and there's a pool in the back and the ambiance is nice, yeah and they split in the cars. Yeah, and they split in the cars. They make sense for them. So, yeah, that's $1,200. I think maybe six people stayed there. Yeah, so they all paid you know $200.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, $200. Yes, but for you, you doing it every weekend. Yeah, you got somebody coming in every weekend, every weekend For $12. And Dallas is a hot spot.
Tony Adams:It is, it is, and that particular one is only 10 minutes from downtown. Oh yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:It's trendy growths area.
Tony Adams:Where's that? No, no, that one's East Dallas. Okay, it's still 30, it's still 10 minutes on a freeway you write downtown.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, you watch your maps game, you know go down.
Tony Adams:I tried the by property in Trendy Grove. That guy never he went to sell it to me. I think he was as lonely though it was a funny story. But this guy just like was like oh, I'm selling it to you $60,000 for this house. Yeah, I'm like man, I know it's right now it's still worth like maybe $140,000. But he was like he was like $60,000. And he had to sign out like home for sale.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So I know, he just needs some cash.
Tony Adams:I think he needed attention.
Speaker 4:Cause he never sold to anybody. He just had people coming over and he talked to him.
Tony Adams:Yeah, he just talked to him and he showed him around and went by him and I was like I'll think about it. I was like listen, I'll give you $70,000. Just sell this to me right now. Yeah, I was like, yeah, okay.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Man, they redoing that whole area. Yeah, they Trendy Grove. You talking about the gentrifying yeah, they gentrifying that whole area.
Tony Adams:Yeah, they've been doing it for some years now it's been. It's still a little rough over there At the time like this was years ago and I was trying to. Maybe four, four or five years ago. I'm trying to get that property.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, I don't even know about it, cause I have a friend who has an Airbnb property Intrinity Grove and he is just doing really well over there, yeah.
Tony Adams:Because they have all of restaurants right there, right down the street.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So yeah, and it's a good spot. Any advice you have for I'm gonna get pretty personal, all right. So I got a home, right, I got a home, I got a kid, yeah, and we've talked about buying property and doing property and doing all these things you telling me. I'll make sure I heard just right. The next step for me is to move out that house. Yes, 1000%.
Tony Adams:You know, really there are ways around it. I'm gonna say there's no way around it, but that's a surefire way. Whatever way around it you have, you should still move out, cause that would do that way too. Yeah, both of them. You know what I mean.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So yeah, for sure. Okay, and then does NACA work for a second property or does it have to be a first?
Tony Adams:So, yeah, you can't do NACA because it needs to be a first. Well, I told people before they get married, I told Langston as well. I was like before you get married you should get a NACA property, and then you know your wife can get a NACA property.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, and then oh, so you both get a NACA property, yeah, and then get married, then you'll get another house.
Tony Adams:Right Now. Well, yeah, you already got, you got married. Yeah, exactly, but once you're married, they don't let you do that once, Because if either one of the entities own a property, you know they consider you a whole at that point. Yeah, yeah, they only do it for people who don't own any property.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Oh yeah, yeah, that wouldn't work for me. That part didn't work too late, it's okay. Somebody else is gonna hear this and then get in on it. Yeah, yeah.
Tony Adams:Now I will say well, if anybody does is, I will say this is my NACA. It's a fantastic program for what you get, but it's super annoying, and I always make sure I told people that because they can't ever say I didn't tell them. But it's annoying. I think about that for a while. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah yeah, it's annoying because they always the people who work there are underpaid and overworked, so they have that sounds like the rest of the job working in the world right now.
Tony Adams:It's wild, it's just wild. So they're very slow, they lose your paperwork. Their website is not even up to date. When you're trying to upload stuff, it's like oh, we didn't get it, and it's just like. I know. I said that.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, I know, I said that so just send it again.
Tony Adams:So you have to be prepared for that annoying factor and just push through, just get it, go through it, because some people are like I've been in the NACA program for three years and I still haven't. I was in and out making like four months.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was done in and out. It's lovely when we work out like that. Yeah, one guy I remember walking in.
Tony Adams:It was like, damn you ready to close already yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah.
Langston Clark:I was in the plant.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah.
Tony Adams:I'm trying to get this done so you guys stay on top of do their job for, like, learn what they are doing for you and help them do their job, Push them along. What's next? Always keep the ball in their court. What's next? Yeah, hey, I'm just following up. You know you have to be very diligent. You gotta keep your finger on it. Yeah, because they're not gonna profit from making you successful. No, you know they get a little money from it, but they're not. You know this is what's gonna change your life.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So you gotta be on it. Yeah, yeah, and would you. Is there any? What's the most difficult part of doing what you do?
Tony Adams:Ooh, it's a lot of difficult parts. Maybe just staying sharp, I guess, like mentally sharp, on certain things like what's going on. You gotta be man, multi-faceted in a lot of different arenas, like you gotta be damning out my arena. You gotta be able to interpret what people are really saying. What's going on? Is this person trying to play me? Yeah, or are you. Are you someone's trying to throw a party? Yeah, did I change the filter last month?
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Oh, I didn't change my filter when I get home, but you know you think about it, but you just started.
Tony Adams:You learned to start putting like systems in place so that that automatically plays fine. So now, like for the filters, for example, I buy 12 filters a year because it's 12 months in a year Should change them every once in a month, unless you get the three month one or whatever like that. Yeah, I'll defer once a month because so you got the schedule. Yeah, you got pets and stuff like that. So you, you know you wanna make sure that's up to date, cause if you don't, you know it could cost you a lot of money later if you don't change your filter. Yeah, it's something simple like that. So I'll just buy 12, put them in the attic or wherever the AC unit is, and it's ready to go.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Well, you bought 120. Yeah, I am, I bought a lot. Yeah, you bought 120 filters and you're going around.
Tony Adams:Yeah, then do you have a day that you put it. Well, it depends, Like if people are there.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I'll just.
Tony Adams:Amazon, I'll just you know, send it and say, hey, can you put these in the closet for me? Something like that, Okay.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, oh, so you got a real relationship. Do you build relationships with your tenants or do you kind of like I try to call If someone's standing for a while.
Tony Adams:I try to call people especially towards the end of the stage and make sure everything's good. I check in at the beginning, check in in the middle and definitely at the end Because you want to like, if somebody was about to write you a bare review, you can kind of hear it in their voice, Something you might not even know about, Like I didn't know. Yeah. You know, I didn't know that there wasn't. You mad because there wasn't a specialist. The last guest told a specialist who checks the specialist every day.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I don't know that means reviews like that.
Tony Adams:Yeah, there was no cookware or bubble going. It's like I didn't know. Hey, have you had told me that I would have brought you something? I would have brought you something, I would have brought you a whole new set. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal.
Tony Adams:Talk to me. You know what I mean. So that's what it is. So you got to check in with people and just talk to them. Yeah, I've never had a time where I've only got bare reviews from people I forgot to talk to. That's the only time you get a bare review is if you didn't communicate well, or they're just crazy, like they're just I don't know what's the word. Another word for unsatisfiable oh, Like they're just insatiable.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I don't know. They just you can't please them.
Tony Adams:Yeah, then you can do. Then you can do it. So it's like you know, I'm sorry, all right, cool. One lady was like oh, the toilet's got clogged, we're clogged. And I'm like, lady, you told me the day you checked in that your family was gonna be coming. Park was right on the side of my house. There's no toilet there. Yeah, all them people running out in and out the house and you think that the toilet's clogged before you got there. Yeah, yeah, no.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I don't want to. I don't want to. You know you got kids. They was. It was dead. They flushed the toilet paper down the drain.
Tony Adams:Yeah, there was another time that called a plumber. I could have did it myself, but I had a 24 hour shift right. But you got an emergency situation where the toilet's clogged right now. Yeah, we need that and I'm on the fire fire job so I can't do nothing. Yeah, you can't leave, I can't leave. So I had the call plumber to get over there and I had to pay him about 600 bucks. 500 bucks to do something I could have did for maybe $60. Man, that's what it is. It gets you.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, it gets you. It gets you. Everybody gotta make that money.
Tony Adams:Yeah, but now I gotta assist him now to help stuff like that.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Oh yeah, you have a landlord. What are they?
Tony Adams:calling. Well, I call him he's. You know, he's my right hand, but I'm property manager, I go to the cell.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay, he's a property manager.
Tony Adams:Yeah, but I'm the property manager. What he is too? He's an assistant property manager. I guess you would call him. Yeah, I try to make sure that you know. I still keep a good eye on things.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, what does his brother do for a living? Because I mean obviously he gotta have a little time to help you.
Tony Adams:That's what he does. He just recently got his real estate license and he's under my brokerage. I recently put him under my brokerage and he's helped me rehab the property the last, the 10th property that I'm doing right now and where's his property at? I'm missing Garland. It was a burned down house, ironically. You know what I?
Mar'Shauwn Grays:mean it didn't be a burned down house.
Tony Adams:Yeah, yeah it was yeah, it was burned down. You didn't play any.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, you didn't burn down with nothing. No, I ain't do it. It wasn't me, it wasn't me, it wasn't me, it wasn't me, it wasn't me, yeah, okay, so so you go buy houses that are burned down in any condition.
Tony Adams:Felt the nasty, dirty stink.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Are you going in and redoing all the remodeling too? Everything?
Tony Adams:I'm telling you, man, I'm gonna show you something after this. This is their beautiful like after. I like properties that they have potential. You know, I want them to look bad because it deters everybody else away who doesn't have that imagination. So all these people come see the house, because of the price point, 90% of the people walk away. Another 10% give a you know, unreasonable low ball offer. Yeah, cause it needed a lot of work. Yeah, so you, at the end of the day, you only compete with a couple of people you know for that property at the end of the day, and then those people may not have any financing together or they can't pay cash or you know, Cash always win.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, cash and time. Cash and time. I always say time is the most valuable resource that you have.
Tony Adams:You can say hey look, I'll give you $100,000 in one year. Or somebody say I'll give you 95 to seven days. You know what I mean. You're like, I'll take 95 to seven days.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can do some of that right now. Yeah, I can do some of that right now, instead of waiting the whole year for my entire. Yeah, by that time I'd have made 120. Right, and made money with that 95.
Tony Adams:Yeah, they trying to go. They're like I don't even they're nervous. They got other things going on. They you know wife yelling at them or whatever. The case is they trying to get in and get out, Like they trying to get rid of this property.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So yeah, yeah, they might be going through divorce. Yeah, they not doing. You're doing them a favor.
Tony Adams:Like, I'll help you out.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you got it. You doing all these old properties. Do you ever buy new properties, or you always buy ones that you?
Tony Adams:can work One day. I wish to. I want to. You know what? I don't want to buy new properties. I want to build new properties. That's what I really want to do. I would love to buy a subdivision and develop the whole subdivision.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Okay, yeah, and do you have a dream location? Do you have an area that you like? Do you have a? No, I mean, they're building it everywhere in Texas they are.
Tony Adams:I mean, I think I would like just something that makes sense like close to you know nothing spectacular I think just the idea of doing it is spectacular in itself. But just I mean something close to shopping or a lake or some type of attraction would be Okay.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So would you ever go back to Chicago? It's about property?
Tony Adams:Yeah, probably not at this point. I can't see that right now. Only because, only because, because there is a lot of opportunities there, but it's just more. I don't like long distance landlord and a lot of people do that and I'm gonna tell them and I got a good friend of mine who's in the real estate buying properties and like Cleveland and stuff like that and it's like it can be lucrative because the properties are cheaper up there right now. Yeah, cleveland, detroit, yeah, but it's like you ain't there. When you're not there, like you create a whole system of headaches for yourself. I'm getting into this for profit and peace, like I want to profit peacefully. You know I don't want to fight for it.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, Talk a little bit more about that, like you say you want to, you doing it for profit and peace. I just made that one a five.
Tony Adams:So it's like I'm the philosophy behind it, but I'm saying that right here.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:It sounds good it sounds like you need to go, like you know, to your plotto, like proper, yeah, proper peace. You know, this is my business, this is what we do, I'm doing this.
Tony Adams:So, yeah, I don't want, I don't want that stress, man Cause it's like, at the end of the day, like you said, time is the most valuable resource and everybody has time. It's like how do you spend it? Yeah, you know you spend. Do you spend it in dismay, you know worrying in, or do you spend it chilling? And they're just like making something happen, like doing, doing the things you'd like to do. Yeah, and personally, I like to fix stuff. You know Like I like working on properties and not I would just outsource it.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, you know you would still make money, Just not as much.
Tony Adams:Yeah, just not as much. And I like I don't mind it at all, Like I would. I would if, if, like, if I wanted to be somewhere else, If I wanted to live in Mexico and not do anything, I would easily just hire a property management company and just turn it over to them. If that's what it is, I want it. So you gotta do what's best for you. You know what I mean what fits best for your person, your family. There's no one right way to do it. I don't think so. No, there's a lot of wrong ways, though. A lot of wrong ways. I like that.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:No, yeah, a lot of wrong ways. Yeah, a lot of them. Yeah, no, you have all these properties, right, dude? Why don't you just stop being a firefighter? Why do you keep going and doing this?
Tony Adams:Oh man, it hurts fancy.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, I mean you got all these properties. You're making this income. Yeah, you still choose to have a job, I think.
Tony Adams:I can rationalize it in a way that I'll tell you this so I'm 38 right now. I am not gonna be a firefighter past 40. I'm not saying I'm gonna quit on my 40th birthday, but before the strike, the clock strikes noon, my birthday. For it, I would have quit the fire department. Yeah, because in my mind I've always wanted to retire, like before the age of like 45. And then as I've gotten older, it turned into 40. Like it turned into 40.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:As you start to materialize and you start to see it like I can actually do this before 45.
Tony Adams:Yeah, exactly yeah, yeah. And so we talked about early like you could, if you bought your second house right and then moved into that one. I was like, but you could do that, but you're slowing your process down. Me quitting the fire department now would slow my process. It's gonna slow it down quitting that at 40, because it's like a hundred K job, you know. You just you're giving up and plus, I'm only working six days a month, maybe sometimes five days a month, and it's like how do I rationalize giving away five K and I'm only working five days a month? You know I'm giving away a hundred K, yeah, you know, because I don't want to do this.
Tony Adams:I don't like being in a beyond stress, like I don't. I love the people I work with, I love the fire department itself, but it's like I don't like the fact that I'm not free, that I have to be there. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. You can strain, yeah, you have to strain Psychologically. It bothers me. It bothers me, yeah, but it's hard to give up. It's like it's a great job though.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:It is a great job, got good benefits.
Tony Adams:But at the same time, what you tell, what you you know. People tell me like man, why would you quit this great job? And I'm like would you, would you recommend a job to Oprah or Michael Jordan, or would you recommend it to them?
Speaker 4:Why is it good for me and not for them? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I?
Tony Adams:mean.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Like I'm there, that's how you see yourself. Yeah, that's how you see yourself. I'm there, naturally. So it's just like I like how you name two Chicago people, that's what you do.
Tony Adams:I'm just, you know, I'm just giving you pantry.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, name two Chicago people. What do y'all call? Y'all say People from Chicago. What do y'all call?
Tony Adams:Shy, I don't know Shylights or something like that, I guess.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Illinois people. Yeah, what do y'all?
Tony Adams:You's a group too, but I don't know the Shylights, the Shylights, I think I don't know Chicago.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Chicago and what is the Illinois? Personal Illinois is kind of. I have no idea. I know Texan is called personal Texan.
Tony Adams:I know Chicago is a different thing. It was Illinois Chicago. Oh, okay, yeah, y'all separate. Justin Kinda, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, but I've been in Texas so long man, I'm so out of touch. I've been in Texas since 2010. So you spent on your dope hood, ain't you? Yeah, my early dope hood in Chicago, and then from 25 on, because even at 23, I wasn't really doing it, I was in the books for the two years, and then 25, I moved down to Texas.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, and when did you start your real estate process?
Tony Adams:I started it right after college, pretty much after that was. I know you met Adam, but what year was that? Yeah, let's see 2014. 2014, yeah, for real estate.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, in 10 years. In less than 10 years, you've set yourself up to retire by 40 years on. Yeah, yeah, man, I mean, how does that feel? In 10 years you've set yourself to retire.
Tony Adams:I mean to be honest with you. I feel like it should've been so. To be honest with you, really, I feel like it should've been so.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:What were your missteps? What did you go wrong? What could you have done? Look at how it's like.
Tony Adams:I literally was somehow buying property. I didn't have my real estate license or anything, but I was somehow buying properties in college in Austin and Austin market is way higher.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Oh yeah, yeah, your Tesla boy then came down then.
Tony Adams:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I'm rocking it out now, that's crazy, right, yeah.
Tony Adams:And the properties down there at the time, like they had some properties in the hood in East Alice for maybe like 15, 20. East Austin, east Austin. So in retrospect, like had I do it, I had to do it and got, probably wouldn't change much because you never know what the alternative reality will bring you. Like I might get hit by a car or something, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, driving any way to Austin, going to Whiteco, going to Whiteco.
Tony Adams:Realistically I could've. I could've took out hell of student loans, like I didn't take out student loans, I paid cash for college, but I could've took out hell of student loans, bought those properties and banked in the gentrification to happen. I would've just I'm more than 10 X my money, you know what I mean. I just would've kept doing it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't care, it was like the fault on my loans, whatever, it's all good, I would've had all these properties and then at that point we talked about earlier, I could've gentrified the whole block. At that point at that time, yeah, especially if I got some other people to do it with me, like yo, because people were buying cars with their student loans and all that stuff.
Tony Adams:Oh, yeah, yeah 60,000 dollar cars and stuff like that, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:That's too long. Yeah, yeah, I mean, the interest brand is all the rest of it. It's strange, extreme.
Tony Adams:Right, if you keep them for a lifetime, yeah. But if you would've kept it a couple years and again, you could've paid all that off with the properties.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:With the properties you had? Yeah, man, I didn't think about that. Yeah, do you give any of this game to college students?
Tony Adams:I mean, I give you to those who listen, who want to listen, but it's not. It's not, it doesn't really resonate with a lot of people, unless you have a thirst for knowledge already, because a lot of people think they don't. They know everything.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah. And a lot of people don't care to know they cool with just the way they live it.
Tony Adams:It's comfortable, like growing hurts Even growing for the better hurts, because you have to make change. You gotta do something different. You gotta get up early, you gotta stay up late.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:You know, you gotta, you gotta study in two days, two half days.
Tony Adams:Yeah, man, I was motivated bro.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, I'm gonna do it so now do you sell houses for other people.
Tony Adams:I have? Yeah, but I don't typically do any type of tradition over the state. Yeah, I have the ability and capacity to. I just don't enjoy it, you know, but it's a lot of money to do it. It's just like I've never marketed myself in that way.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, there's, I mean there's a. Especially in the Dallas area. The market is hot. Yeah, everybody wants to be in Dallas and, yeah, they eat those.
Tony Adams:I don't see them, there's state taxes.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:A lot of people move it in, yeah, from different states and cities and Right, so there will be a lot of opportunity there. But you like now?
Tony Adams:I'm good, right, yeah, I'm good on that. I'm good on that, like it's just, it's money, it's 3%. Every $100,000 is $3,000. So a $3,000 house is $3,000. Yeah, so a $3,000 house $300,000 is $9,000. Commission that you've been made, yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:You know, and these houses in here can get expensive, mm-hmm, five, six, seven, yeah, easily yeah. Then what is Tony going to do when he retired? More real estate, probably more. Are you leaving the country? Are you staying in on you, nah?
Tony Adams:I mean, I've been out of country plenty of times, like you know, even in college, like you know, I stayed in China for three months, mm, you know, it was pretty cool, pretty cool experience. So it was like I've been a lot of places overseas South Africa and France and Rome and you know, oh, you've done the whole, you've done the whole night.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:You've done all the big things.
Tony Adams:Other major yeah, I need do some local stuff, man. I haven't been to Jamaica, oh yeah, yeah, I haven't even done a broke nigga shit yet.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I could just move to the ones that they think they rich Right yeah, you think they rich, I gotta do the DR.
Tony Adams:I gotta do. I ain't did Cancun, I just I did out all the other stuff. So yeah, I still want to do that. Yeah, cancun.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I mean, have you did? The states have you done?
Tony Adams:Some you know Miami. I've been to Miami, vegas DC. I love.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:DC. Dc's been DC. I always talk about DC anytime I can. Yeah, dc is cool. It's in a cool place. Yeah, so you're gonna live in Texas. You're gonna stay there?
Tony Adams:Yeah, I think in Texas there's a hub right, and this is where you go to retreat, where you go to relax. And then you know, now you can be anywhere you wanna be in a day, like you wanna be. I wanna be in Vegas tomorrow. I wanna be in Vegas tonight. I can literally go buy a ticket for maybe $200. You know it might be cheaper. Yeah, and get to Vegas tonight if I want to, like I can just go.
Langston Clark:Yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, you can do that. Yeah, but you're not going about property outside of Texas, though you always keep any of your property that you have.
Tony Adams:Most I think I'll probably do is a flip. I do an out of state flip, but it would have to be like a team I trust and no out of state, to knock it out and get it done and then, like you don't have to be like a, maybe a quick flip at first, just some like lipstick on a pig which is in real estate basically means new carpet, if you have carpet, a new floor and then maybe paint.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:That's it and then flipping For another $10, $10,000. Yeah, $1,000. Yeah, depending on what you do. Do they really work that easy? This one's flips though.
Tony Adams:Paint works wonders, especially to pick the right color.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, it makes all the difference Paint and a new floor? Oh yeah, and now you don't have to price it, but it's like, yeah, I can't.
Tony Adams:I mean, there's a, there's a, it's scientifically, there's something to it. The perception you have of when people walk into a place and they can see everything and everything is continuous, it makes a difference in their judgment. When you don't understand where you are, then it makes you uneasy and uncomfortable, is like the cousin of fear or something like that. So it's like if you're somewhere where it's dirty and it's nasty and you don't understand that, oh man, all you gotta do is clean this place up and painting is gonna look great. That's the difference between I don't know no profit and maybe $50,000 profit, like just just by painting you gotta have that vision though.
Tony Adams:Yeah, yeah, you gotta have that vision for it. They're all boxes. You know, the house, they're all boxes. Yeah, yeah, we just box it. As long as it's not the room with the structure of it, it's a box. It'll be fine, you know. Yeah, make sure you're not. You know, just nice area, yeah, good.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Now I'm guessing this is all the game that you gave Langston?
Tony Adams:Yeah, we talk all the time. Yeah, yeah, he's aware. He's aware of the game. I feel like this is the first time like he's here in, like a one-sided spew of information coming from my brain, cause usually it's a dialogue like we talking about I tell a story and he tells a story, and it's like a derailment of you know, a pure information, yeah, that you can just get.
Tony Adams:Yeah, and I'm as equal as my equals. So it's like we, I can't. It's not like I can really teach him much, Like we take lessons from each other, but I can't really teach him much because he's not looking up to me or something to aspire to. We're like brothers, you know.
Langston Clark:Yeah, you know, yeah, it makes a difference.
Tony Adams:We're like twins in a sense. It's like you don't really look up to your twin. Maybe you're older brother, but it's like you don't look up to your twin.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And even if you do look up to somebody, it's not like I'm trying to match you, like I'm trying to one up you, right. I'm trying to get the information that you know and apply it to my life in a way that you know. I'm not trying to get to where you at right, now, right. And I think that's another area where people kind of get lost in that journey is that, like I said, you got 10, I need 10 now, right. Like I need to get there quick. All right, it's a journey, brother.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:You know it don't work that way. Yeah, it's a journey.
Tony Adams:Yeah, it's a marathon.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, and it's going to take time to get there. I think people, people like me it's good to hear that like, hey, you didn't get that wrong with building a day Right.
Tony Adams:But some people try to get that quick and that's where you get into, like the people who are big believers in the birth strategy, which is the birth strategy, not may get the Rs reversed, but it's BRR, like five hours or four hours, oh, like burr, like cold freezing, yeah, but it stands for buy. I'm going to say buy, refinance. No, I'm sorry, buy, renovate. Then you want to refinance it and then you want to rent it out and then you want to repeat, like that's the process, and so you keep doing that over and over again. And the theory is you can scale faster if you do that, because you're taking all the equity out and then putting it into another house, and so I I'm not really. I've never refinanced the property before and I don't plan to, because I just think that it is. It's counterintuitive, it brings more stress, it brings more risk and it you got a hit now.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Now you got a hit because you took out every finance money right, well, yeah, so it's like this.
Tony Adams:Easy numbers, right, let's do a hundred thousand dollar house, even though those really don't exist anymore. Not when you want to live in anyway, yeah, but not in Texas, for sure. It uses a 1% rule, which, again, really doesn't exist anymore. 1% rule is you should probably rent out the property for 1% of what the value is. So if it's a hundred thousand dollar house, your rent should be 1k, right, and so the theory was Well, when I pulled the money out of it, the, the mortgage may be 800, I'll still profit $200 per month from that property. Right, because your mortgage is 800. It's like what? But what about the repairs? You know about the mainest cost? Yeah, so they don't account for that, but they didn't pull it out 80,000 dollars out this property.
Tony Adams:Now onto the next one. And they want to say they want to be able to say oh, I got 10, 20, 30 properties, but it's your only profiting $200 here, $200 there, but you're able to pull out a lot of money. And you also have you know, you have a lot of risk, like if the economy ever crashes, for example, and your, your tenant, stops paying their rent. Yeah, what are you gonna do? Yeah, with all your properties. Yeah, what are you when COVID happened? So many landlords like everybody's like, just stop paying it. Right, you know they couldn't. Yeah, what are you gonna do when you have all these mortars to To compensate for?
Mar'Shauwn Grays:yeah, and it's like the banks don't need their money.
Tony Adams:Yeah, they still need their money and it's like all right, well, you just lost a whole real estate empire because you didn't want to do things to the slow way. Yeah, but the profit margin is the same. Actually, profit margin is greater to me with cash Because you don't have any any overhead. Yeah, I don't know if you ever looked and um, because you're in the house right now. Have you ever looked at your amortization schedule?
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I've looked at it. I think it's like yearly I look at it.
Tony Adams:Yeah, when it comes to you when you've looked at it before, like the first man, really, like the first ten years, they get you, yeah, so you got your principal, which is what's actually going towards how much you got your interest Interest yeah, if you're more than a thousand bucks interest gonna be $700. Yeah, in the, in the present movie, 300 For years, yeah, yeah, years and years and years. So and people say, oh, you can write that off. Yeah, yeah, it's not, it's not worth it. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, because you get that means that you're taking a gamble, that for 30 years and you're gonna make your payment every single time and nothing's ever gonna go wrong with. Yeah, not just you, but with you, with your tenants, with your neighborhood, with your city, with the state, yeah, which, with the, with the government, with the United States, with the world. Yeah, I mean like what?
Tony Adams:are you gonna do when with something crazy like that? So to me is it's too much risk involved in there. So that's why more recently I've been I've been Fortunate to be at a buy cash.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, now do people use their refinance Mm-hmm home to go buy another home.
Tony Adams:Yes, that's the whole person, that's the repeat, that's the last, which is repeat yeah, to do it again, and so you're not keeping at 80,000, for, oh, just in case You're putting it into another property.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, so now I'm not running my situation. My head it's like oh hmm, I bought for this much. The market says it's worth this much. Now, right, you're telling me, if I go rent it to 1% rule Now I'm renting it for $3,000 more. But I don't think people, I don't think people my neighborhood are renting for that's what I'm saying.
Tony Adams:It doesn't apply to more. Yeah okay, it's not really a real thing because rents have exceeded that number. Now, yeah, I mean not exceeded, but it's lower than the property value. Yeah, yeah, so it's not. It doesn't really work anymore, but that it used to be. They used to be the case. They used to be like a general rule of thumb, like, yeah, around that area, yeah, Inflation is just going too crazy.
Tony Adams:Yeah, has that hurt you any in your? Not really I mean. So it is, it's, it's, it's just a way like I'm searching, so it's like I'm gonna see waves, yeah, moving with the way. So it's like not really start. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's the problem. You got so many problems in this industry, so you just have to just just deal with it. Yeah.
Langston Clark:Man, yeah, okay.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Langston.
Langston Clark:That's good.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, I mean, I mean, I just appreciate it.
Tony Adams:I'm not. I want to say one thing about the um, yeah, no, go ahead. People who Really like the idea of or people will show okay, I'll give you a shortcut. This is a good shortcut for people when you do get your property or if you want to do something like I. I believe that using credit cards to purchase properties or Help out work rent, like renovation costs, is a good thing.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I mean I'm a huge advocate. I'm gonna she continue on that. But I mean even just Everyday finances. I'm a huge advocate of credit cards. I mean it's an easy way to make money if you use it right. I was like all the time like younger people that was like, hey, I'm thinking about getting a credit card, what should I do? I say, man, use it, yeah, because. But I always pay it off, either daily or weekly, or I have it whenever I see that charge pop up, I just use like a debit card Right, like I only use it within my means. So now at the end of the year I had a mate $700 and I did was use credit Right. I made $700 cause I put everything on it.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I'm paying my bills they allow me to pay it, mm-hmm, I use a credit card. Well, if I could pay with credit. I pay it and I just pay it right off and now I'm a somebody from using right now. Now credit card company wants me not to pay it so I can pay them, but now I'm using.
Tony Adams:They pay me what they think, you know you make a mistake like oh, you bet, you bet all more you can chew, yeah, yeah, I think that that is it's better than to me is better than Hard money lenders, because sometimes the hard money lenders people will loan you money at 12% when you can get a credit card. That's like 0% for 12 months, yeah, or your, or maybe five right now, which is better because you're not to pay Any origination of closing costs, for that money is just yours immediately. Yeah, pay. Maybe they want 3% or something like that, up front cost or whatever and it's at the 12 months right Most of the time.
Tony Adams:Yeah, 18 months.
Tony Adams:Whatever it is, you can use that money, especially if you want to flip, for example, if you plan to flip in the six months, use the credit cards. They just use them. And the other thing is, if you use a hard money lender, if you use a traditional mortgage, they have the first lien on your property, meaning that they can take that property away from you and invent that you can't pay them One payment. You know they can start a foreclosure process on you, right, but with a credit card it's an unsecured line of credit. They can't take anything from you. Yeah, they'll take you to court and you know, by the time you would have probably fixed the situation. So I'm not saying you should go there far and yeah, yeah, go to court. But yeah, like it's it's, it's more, it's, it's safer to do it that way. So that's a little piece of game. And always apply for credit limit increases without the money in your credit, because you can start off with a $2,000 credit and then end up with a hundred thousand dollars.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, you know I mean, and sometimes I do on their own. They may be like, hey, yeah, so well here.
Tony Adams:So imagine if you ask every couple months yeah, so you just keep doing it.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, and they, they, they cool. We'll give them that money, yeah, yeah.
Tony Adams:You are three thousand four thousand, but you just keep doing that 40 four times a year, Mm-hmm you know, and they want you to mess up, though they really hope you mess up at some point, right.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, but you take care what you got to take care of.
Tony Adams:You be sure, yeah, and most people do yeah, I'll yeah, because everything they got a handle on it, oh, do not know.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:And now they bought some Gucci shoes and they will splurge. And now they lost a job. And now boom. Right now you're trouble.
Tony Adams:So I'll take you moving out now.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I don't know about that.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Situation me and my situation a little different. You know everybody's situation. But I am now I am thinking about that refinance situation and going taking that money and buying the property. Yeah, like that sounds like a good option for me in my situation. Yeah, and why I'm mad. You know, I'm looking at the value, I'm looking at the property value of the people around me, mm-hmm. I'm looking at what I bought the house for, mm-hmm. So even if I take the refinance out for, say, 30,000, I still left myself a big piece of wiggle room.
Tony Adams:If they take an arrest though you increasing your mortgage. You have my interest rate Because right now your interest rep, I'm assuming, is probably lower than four. It's around an area. Yeah, so now you it 4.2. Yeah, so now. But now you're gonna be at. You know, you know and you gonna have you. I'm assuming you're not gonna buy another house cash for that. It's not enough to actually buy cash. I ain't a bot, it ain't a body, I mean another mortgage, if you're using it to put down on.
Tony Adams:Now we'll have a renter, yeah, and I will have something over here right as long as they're ready, is doing what the suppose is. You know what can't go wrong. We'll you have to pay for it.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So yeah, if I had some a mentor, tell me if is what happened.
Tony Adams:If is what happened.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, if it's just, it's gonna happen. Yeah you know, just playing on ifs to be popping up.
Langston Clark:Yeah, it was what happened, okay so I don't know if this is gonna catch me, but I Got a. I got a colleague that I work with and she's a professor. Her husband is the real estate person, property manager. Mm-hmm, they bought a whole bunch of houses in San Antonio, oh Right before pandemic. They moved. They have two kids. They moved Into an apartment. The house they were living in that they flipped. They left it. They moved into an apartment.
Langston Clark:Hmm and yet two kids. It just it made more sense financially because they can get more out of renting the house out mm-hmm then.
Langston Clark:Then they were paying in rent for where they were staying, but it also helped build the portfolio so that they could get more properties. We didn't make it didn't make sense Because the way the value of the property went up, so they didn't get the 1%, but because they flipped it, they could charge so much more than what the what the mortgage was for them, and the husband can do all the fixing up. You know me, so it's, I Agree like I think the best thing to do is to is to rent your house and then go Live somewhere else. Yeah, and you just do that for two years. Yeah, like you could get an apartment that's not much smaller than where you live. Mm-hmm, you get three bedroom apartment, you know me. Yeah, studio for the painting, baby room, whatever, and just and just do that. Just dug it out to you. Yeah, I got out it just two years.
Langston Clark:Now, let's, let's in this podcast, you know, talk over here. I need you to say you've been invested in Tesla since 2020. Wow, because the stock didn't until 2020. Right, I was invested in before that, though. Yeah, I mean how I do invest the Tesla before the stock was open.
Tony Adams:No, it was no. It's been open since Retribute, sure positive. I tell no lies, bro. I've been invested in Tesla since 2012. I want to say 20, maybe 20. You said 20. I'm sorry, 20, 2010.
Langston Clark:I want to say Say I've been invested in Tesla since 2020, just in case.
Tony Adams:Well, I'm so just get I know for a fact, like some, that I've invested in Tesla Since, like, I had the head to stock while they UT Awesome Matter of fact, I know what it must. It was when you know cause, martin told me about stocks and that's when I started investing stuff, and I told my ex in Chicago at the time she should invest in Tesla, and she did too. Okay.
Langston Clark:Maybe I'm confusing Tesla and Coinbase when public Coinbase Maybe that's what I'm saying that's what I'm saying Cause Coinbase went in about 2019, 2020.
Tony Adams:All right, cool yeah. Everything else is factual.
Langston Clark:So I need Marchionne to come do like a thank you, closing type thing. Yeah, just close it out, yeah.
Tony Adams:Close it out properly and then go get edited. That was good, I thought, so it's actually a really good conversation.
Langston Clark:I'm gonna not know, know you.
Tony Adams:It was a really good interview. I was like yeah, it was good.
Langston Clark:Yeah, it was a really good interview Cause I wanted to jump in but you all eventually got to the things that I wanted to. So, marchionne, I typically end the last question with like what books are you reading? Or what books have you read that have kind of like got you on your journey? Like, what are some of the things that you would suggest for the people who listen today to read, to like educate themselves on real estate and business or whatever? That would be the last question you would ask.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:So, tony, what books have you read or you know podcast you've listened to or interviews you watched on YouTube or YouTube education? You know a lot of that goes on YouTube university. So what have you been using to so I would pause.
Langston Clark:So I think you got a transition from a conversation. You'd be like Tony you've given us a lot of wisdom, a lot of insight, a lot of guidance. What are some of the things resources, books, articles, podcasting that you've read, that helped educate you on your path to in your real estate journey, something like that. But just put a segue on that. I'm sorry, I should have said that before. Yeah, okay.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:All right, tony, you've given us a lot of game. You put us on to a lot of new information, especially for me. You know I'm in this situation, man. Now I can take some of the information I've got from you. I've kind of gotten bits and pieces through Langston and I think he hasn't given me the source yet, but you know, I now have the source and you've given us a lot of information for us to apply and to go on to get our own houses and to get that own financial freedom that I think a lot of people are looking for. What books, articles, publishings have you read? Or interviews or podcasts you've listened to? That has kind of helped you and guided you. Besides, adam brother, adam, I can't get him out my head now that you have shaped, kind of shaped where you at today.
Tony Adams:Oh man. So I'm gonna be completely 100 with you. I am not a huge reader, like my Langston is other people around me. I've always been like a big fan of just watching and observing certain things I do like. Well, that was in college.
Tony Adams:But a book that really did inspire me was Rich Dad, poor Dad, a lot of people who really say read that book like it's super popular and it was a book that made you basically it took you out of the mode of thinking like a regular traditional person like, stop doing like. In that book there's a Rich Dad and there's a poor Dad that this guy has. His poor Dad was his actual bylaws for that and his Rich Dad was his friend's Dad, who he looked up to, and his friend's Dad was basically making all these business deals, had his hands in the mud and kind of getting it, and his actual Dad was a teacher that was just like very straight as an arrow, complaining about his life and why he didn't have money and stuff like that. So that was a really good book. And also another book by these books have our Robert Kiyosaki Cash Flow Quadrant is a good one, and Mali Morsel talks about numbers and now Real Estate can work for you, so that's a good one.
Tony Adams:Millionaire Next Door as well, and these are all books written by the same. No, millionaire Next Door is written by a different author, but the other two were written by Robert Kiyosaki. And as far as like podcasts, I used to listen to a lot of Dave Ramsey. I mean I don't 100% agree with everything that he's saying, because I definitely-.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Do you do the Dave Ramsey method? No, with your money.
Tony Adams:I mean, I'm definitely buying houses cash if you can do it. So buying houses cash is great for a lot of different reasons, but I talk about credit cards, like, I believe in using and leveraging credit cards to help you out because it's unsecured debt, you know, yeah, so it's not something that can happen to you detrimentally as a result of not paying it, that you can't fix anyway. Yeah, yeah, they're coming to risk to you. Yeah, yeah, so and other than that man just listening and talking to people who are doing better to you, better than you in some capacity, ask questions like how can I get that? You know, yeah, and stuff like this just watching listening learning.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Now, when people find you again on your IG, what is it again?
Tony Adams:Tony with a Y T-O-N-Y real estate. Tony real estate Okay.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Now, are you open to get people this game that you you know do?
Tony Adams:people reach out to you on Instagram, IG, Twitter, we didn't talk about this, but I, this rehab I'm doing now like I'm filming little episodes, right? So for the, I'm giving from the start all the way to completion. You know, I'm filming the good, the bad, ugly, like everything, and putting it in little, little short segments and putting it on my Instagram and I'll get people who will reach out in my inbox and ask questions, stuff like that, and the first thing I say is like, yeah, like I can, I can answer your question. Whatever 50 bucks, I'll talk to you for 30 minutes. Yeah, 50 bucks, there's nothing to me. Yeah, yeah, and for them, it should be nothing for them, but it definitely differentiates who's serious and who's not.
Tony Adams:Yeah, you don't hear back from people who don't want to pay 50 bucks, like you want to. You want to ask me all these questions and you can. You won't get me $50 for all this dollars. I'm about to get you, but, yeah, but you're about to. You gonna pay $20,000 down and out Like I can't help you, yeah, you have to go spend $50 on that wingstop.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, I can't, yeah, exactly.
Tony Adams:Yeah, exactly, I can't, I'm not worth wingstop.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah yeah, you can skip one wingstop meal. No To get this now. You can't skip one wingstop meal to get this now?
Tony Adams:Yeah, but I get.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I get inbox here and there and you know, but yes, I put serious inquiries on it.
Tony Adams:I don't think that's gonna work, though yeah, I was with you, but yeah, that definitely differentiates. But I've been talking to another real estate friend of mine, Maria. She was like I mean, you need to put your link tree up and you know I'm gonna do that, so I'm gonna get that together. Okay, you know, I don't know if you ever seen the link tree, but you click it and you know you got different options.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:you can go to your website website.
Tony Adams:Yeah, do you have a website. I do a website. Yeah granadamsrealticom Grand.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Grandadamsrealti G-R-A-N-D. Yes, adamsrealti, yeah, like big.
Tony Adams:Grandadamsrealti. Yeah, and that was more so just a site, because I'm a broken. I feel like I should have a website, you know, but again, I don't really do traditional real estate, so I really don't.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:I honestly don't even need it. Yeah, yeah, cause you ain't selling no house for nobody, this is just for you. Yeah, do you got family members that that's in on this, that you trying to get in on this with you? I?
Tony Adams:have a older cousin that I looked up to that has a lot of real estate in Chicago, but I didn't learn any real estate from him at all. We talk a lot now but I didn't get any type of. I guess I was inspired by the idea of what he was doing but I didn't learn anything. So I don't want people to think like I had, you know, this rich cousin that put me on him Like I didn't know anything about real estate at all. Yeah, yeah, all that credit goes to Adam for putting me on Adam and the strip club yeah, adam is, that's it.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:That's all I can think about, that's all I can think about that. That both my mind. That you went to an interview, yeah, at a strip club, at a strip club. Yeah, that may be doing interviews at strip club right now. He might be.
Tony Adams:He might be at the strip club right now. I'm sure he's probably in one right now. That was a doubt In Houston.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:that's what they had, yeah.
Tony Adams:That's what the biggest one was that's what, yeah, James Harden could say out. Might have been VLog, might have been yeah.
Mar'Shauwn Grays:Yeah, james Harden spent people's yearly salary in that place. I heard I don't know that person. Yeah, you know. Now, this was a pleasure, man. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to. No problem, man. We got to do this again. Yeah, anytime man. Yeah, but the next thing All right, good, good and cut. I always wanted to do that. I've never interviewed somebody. I mean, I was out of a job. I think you did a really good job. Yeah, you did do a good job. I can stop this.
Tony Adams:Yeah, I can stop.