Investing Your Way to 7 Figure Pay Days with Alan Corey

Alan Corey: [0:00] Partnered with two people, one who was a contractor, one who had money, and we bought a mixed use building in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which was also unknown at the time, and we flipped it. And the buyer of that property was Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran.

Dan Austin: [0:16] Nice. Real estate mogul from New York.

Alan Corey: [0:18] Yeah, and so at that point, I was like, You know what? Maybe I've got the knack for real estate. Like, if she's buying my properties, know, I'd got in quicker and renovated it, and I made some good money on that, Then I was like, screw comedy. Like, I'm going all in. I'm keeping my day job so I can get more mortgages. Yeah. So I I got a million dollar payday on that one.

Speaker 3: [0:39] Welcome to the collecting keys real estate investing podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [1:03] Alright, Alan Corey, OG investor from Atlanta. You've here for a long time, man. Twenty two years. We don't meet very many people that have been in real estate for that long. I feel like everybody, they kind of got the bug after 2008. They waited ten years and feel like the missed opportunity and jumped in in 2018. And that's like the core of every real estate investor, but you're really superseding that.

Alan Corey: [1:27] I mean, that's half my life, twenty two years, which is crazy to say, and every time I post some something on Twitter about investing in real estate, everyone's like, what about the two thousand eight, two thousand nine crash? Well, you'll learn, and I was like, yeah, I I had seven years experience by then. Yeah, yeah. I I went through that.

Mike DeHaan: [1:41] Yeah. Love that, man. And and I always have so much respect for people who got through those things too, because I feel like so many people, like if they were doing it beforehand, that was kind of like the nail in the coffin where they were done. So awesome. So people who don't know who you are, maybe give us like a little bit of background. I know you have a ton of stuff going on the real estate space. Now, I guess talk about sure where you came from and all the stuff that you're working on now. Because you have a podcast, you have content that you do, you've been investing for a long time, there's a ton of stuff that you can go into.

Alan Corey: [2:09] Sure. I've got twenty three years of stuff to get get you up to speed on, so I'll I'll get started. I I started at age 21. I was living in the Spanish Harlem projects in New York City, and I was like, I just want to get out of here. I want to change my life. I just everyone in New York just felt so wealthy, and so I saved I had a $50,000 tech support job during the day, and I was doing stand up comedy at night. And so my path to riches was going to be being an entertainer, be stand up comedian. And it, you know, when you're a new stand up comedian, it doesn't pay very well. You can't pay your landlord and laughs, you know, and especially if you're not a good comedian, that doesn't help either. But that was my delusional mind in my early twenties, so I lived off ramen noodles for an entire year to save $10,000 and put that in down on the $99,000 condo, one bedroom condo. And I told myself that if I just do this and buy one property a year for five straight years, I'll replace my day job income, and I can go all in on comedy. I wasn't getting any sleep, you know, just just working constantly. So I bought that ninety nine one one bedroom condo actually turned into a two bedroom and started house hacking before, you know, Brandon Turner named it house hacking, but it changed my life Was able to save money for a duplex the following year, house hack that duplex, and this was in Brooklyn. And I'll tell you at the time, no one wanted to live in Brooklyn, and people would come up to me in the streets and say, hey, hey, like, why are you living here? Are you a cop?

Alan Corey: [3:44] And I didn't know what the answer was. What's the correct answer to that? Like, do you want me to be a cop or do you not want me to a cop? Like

Dan Austin: [3:52] What's better for me?

Alan Corey: [3:53] Yeah, exactly. So I'd be like, I don't know. Like, which probably makes me feel like a cop, but I, you know, like, but now, you know, obviously, they paid off. But fast forward a few years. Anyway, I just kept on that path to win one one after another. And actually had a big win on my third property. I partnered with two people because I didn't have any money at that point after buying my second property. Al Sacking. I partnered with two people, one who was a contractor, one who had money, and we bought a mixed use building in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which was also unknown at the time, and we flipped it, and the buyer of that property was Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran.

Dan Austin: [4:29] Oh, nice. Real estate mogul from New

Alan Corey: [4:32] And so, at that point, I was like, you know what? Maybe I've got the knack for real estate. Like, if she's buying my properties, I got in quicker and renovated it, and I made some good money on that, then I was like, screw comedy. Like, I'm going all in. I'm keeping my day job so I can get more mortgages, and I just spend my nights and weekends doing real estate deals. And, you know, at this point, I've done probably 400, 500 deals. And, you know, I've got 350 door portfolio and I love it. I've done every aspect of it and wrote a few books about it. Now, tweet about it every day and just like you guys got a podcast where I'm talking about it. So it's a it's a passion. Literally is a passion and I don't feel like I'm working.

Dan Austin: [5:13] That's awesome. The question I have is do you still own the duplex in Brooklyn? Because I gotta imagine if you do, it's worth a hell of a lot more when you bought it.

Alan Corey: [5:21] I don't, but I bought it for $4.50. Right before the crash of the two thousand, two thousand eight, I got a HELOC line because it went crazy up in value for no reason. Pulled out $400,004.50, renovated it, so I had a million basis in it, and then lived in it for like five years, and then I sold it for 2,000,000. Wow. After the hit was Yeah. I I got a million dollar payday on that one. That's sweet. And it also helped people like, you got lucky, you know, the Brooklyn Nets came to town. Brooklyn became a real city, you know, cool hipsters, you know, turning their businesses there. I bought it for the cash flow, and that's happened to me three times. Got a million dollar payout on a property that just skyrocketed appreciation, I never I planned on any of just buy for a couple $100 a month, and you know, you do this long enough, you wait long enough, you gotta get lucky.

Dan Austin: [6:13] Right. Yep. You gotta play to win, right? You gotta be there for those big wins.

Mike DeHaan: [6:16] Yeah. I love what you just said there. That's one of my biggest pet peeves recently, especially as stuff started to turn over. And like the must be nice crowd and like the you got lucky crowd is starting to get a little bit more vocal because they all realize that they missed out on 2001, you know, sorry, 2021 because they're not in it. And you're completely right. They have to take action. Like you got into this position in like the most, I guess, like simple way doing this house hack. And lo and behold over, like, what was that timeline until you sold like fifteen years about? Like almost twelve years?

Alan Corey: [6:48] Yeah, maybe like twelve years.

Mike DeHaan: [6:49] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Twelve years. So like, you held on this property twelve years, you house hacked it, just held the long term and you made a million bucks. Like, like, the game of real estate is to take action and then wait long enough for that to happen.

Dan Austin: [7:01] For it to pay off, yeah.

Alan Corey: [7:03] And then I was house hacking, so I could take that money to go buy more real estate. Like, I'm just constantly buying so real it's more than just a million dollars, and that's

Dan Austin: [7:11] it

Alan Corey: [7:11] was a HELOC that paid for it, so it wasn't like I had to save up to renovate it, like, so it's just that and then that house, once I also used that HELOC as a down payment on another duplex on my on my same block, and so I basically got a 100% financing, and so I bought another, and that also doubled in value, and so basically a 100% financing because my down payment was a HELOC as well. When you know, once I renovated, I could get a bigger HELOC. Yeah. I'm anti Dave Ramsey. You'll you'll you'll find out. It's like I You love that. Loved it. Yeah. Let's put it to work. And, you know, that's treated me well.

Mike DeHaan: [7:44] Awesome. That's good stuff. You know, you jumped forward there really quickly. So you have three fifty units now. What does that consist of? Is that all like residential stuff like that condo? Are you just moved? Did you scale up to multi families? Like, how did she sort of like build that? What was your whole scaling method? I wanna hear all the details in between.

Alan Corey: [8:00] Yeah. So after I I acquired five properties by '26, I was like, you know, to scale up, I'm gonna start ten thirty one in everything I sell, I wanna buy more a bigger unit kind of thing. So I would sell a condo and turn it into a duplex. I'd sell a duplex, turn it into a mixed use, which is a duplex with a store, and then I'd sell that, turn it into a triplex, and then I'd sell my triplex, you know, if the timing is right, and so I kept going bigger and bigger. I did kind of get pulled back in in a single family three or four years ago, but I bought a 50 single family home portfolio.

Dan Austin: [8:33] Oh,

Alan Corey: [8:34] wow. It was seller financing, and the numbers were just so good. But I just recently sold that two and a half years later, and that was my third million dollar win right there. Nice. But again, I bought it for cash flow. Like, was like, yeah, I bought these things roughly $40,000 each, and they were, you know, $600 a pop in rent, rental income, and I was like, yeah, this is just, you know, mailbox money. Great. And then investor came along and wanted the whole portfolio from me, and he had $10.31 money. Didn't make sense not to say yes, and so, anyway, long story short, I only invest in multifamily now, typically apartment buildings in in the Atlanta area. I relocated to Atlanta, and I'm sort of looking at things 20 units or above.

Mike DeHaan: [9:14] Nice. So when you're when you're taking those properties down, are you like syndicating these deals? Are you I mean, you have had a couple million dollar paydays. You're just buying them yourself and moving up from there?

Alan Corey: [9:26] My current portfolio, I've got 18 doors, that's just my wife and I personally, you know, that's all duplexes, triplexes, quads. And then the the remaining 320 doors or whatever. It's me and two partners, and typically, we've done private money to to raise and and some private combination of private money and and hard money, and, you know, I guess, LP investors as well thrown in there, depending on the deal, but that that that's sort of how we're pulling it off.

Mike DeHaan: [9:56] Nice. Gotcha.

Dan Austin: [9:57] Wow. That's pretty incredible. It's it's interesting to do that, especially with the private money, like, or the private partners in the private money, so you basically can own a larger share of that is what you're saying. Yeah. You're not doing the typical syndication. It sounds like you have some syndications, but you're not going and raising and giving away 70% of the deal to your LPs.

Alan Corey: [10:15] No, no, no, we are. My two partners and I, we raise the GP side, typically, portion of the down payment and the renovation goes, we'll buy value at apartment buildings, but, Gotcha. Depending on amount of them, you know, if we raise the money, great. Sometimes we'll raise the entire money, we don't have to bring anything, and then sometimes the investors aren't ready to invest, and we put our own money into it, so it really is a case by case, but, you know, I tell everyone this, you know, if you do something for twenty two years, people start coming and asking if they can give you money to invest in real estate, so just stay in the game, and it almost gets easier and easier, but you also get better at it and that so you just 22 year old me.

Dan Austin: [10:56] LeBron James.

Alan Corey: [10:57] Yeah. Yeah. 22 year old me in projects by one bedroom. That was the craziest thing that I thought I'd ever pull off in my life and and now I'm like, wow. I can't believe that this path that has taken me on.

Mike DeHaan: [11:07] Yeah. I'd love to touch on that really quick, where you're talking about you do this long enough, people start to come to you with one who would best me in real estate. How do you have those conversations? Because I I get that somewhat regularly, You know, I know Dan does a little bit as well. But the problem is, is it's usually uneducated people who have like an unrealistic view about what that deal should look like on the return. Yeah, they're they're like, here, I'll give you some money, and we can split a deal fifty-fifty. I'm like, I'm not gonna do all the work. You get 50% of the

Alan Corey: [11:35] deal. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [11:35] That doesn't make us Yeah.

Alan Corey: [11:38] I think it's it's one of those things where it's I I guess, it's first started with everyone was asking me to me to be their realtor, And I was like, I don't want be a real estate agent. Every real estate agent I I've met is an idiot when it comes to real estate investing. And they just kept begging me. Then I became, I was like, I'll get my realtor. And then I love being a realtor that I've been a realtor eight years now, and I'm and now I'm like, oh, real estate agents aren't idiots. Just didn't understand the other signs transaction. And then people so what is it like? Hey, will you be my realtor to help me real estate invest? And so then I was started helping real estate invest, and that and how God help grow them. And then, you know, just talk in real estate with people. How's your deal going? How's, you know, what are you working on? Oh, I'm working on this. And they're like, oh, I want to do that, you know, something bigger and better or whatever. And I'll be like, you know, well, we're looking for $200,000 duplexes right now in Georgia, and you've got $50,000. Honestly, you know, I'm not begging you. I don't need your money. But if you put $50,000 in my deal, I think you're gonna make more. I definitely know you're gonna make more, but worst case scenario, you're gonna make the same, and you're not gonna have to do any work. And you obviously trust me.

Alan Corey: [12:44] I've been your mentor, you know, let me just go just let me do my thing and we'll share their income in that. What usually happens is that that first deal the first time they do it. It works out really well and they're like this money's earmarked for real estate now and like, for the cash on refi, but can I put it back into your next deal and and then you just reinvesting the same investors money because you keep returning their money and they're like, no, this is this is my retirement fund? You know, let's let's do it again. Let's do it again. Like they're not expecting that income to live off of or affect your lifestyle. So I think it's just earning their trust over time and then people have an idea. Think how small or residential deals Joe single families maybe up to a quad but commercial and I learned this. I'm only been doing the commercial side for like four years. It's a different language. It's a different way to look at deals and it's different way that structure the deals get done. So I find that either the people who wanna invest with me, they know more about how these deals are run because they've been investing private equity deals for a long time.

Mike DeHaan: [13:45] Exactly.

Alan Corey: [13:45] Or they know nothing, and I'm educating them so they don't come in with a sort of $50.50 expectation because that $50,000 isn't like, I have put in 50, and you put in 50. It's okay. You're one of 10 people putting in 50. Yeah. And so, it's a different conversation. I think expectations are get aligned much easier.

Dan Austin: [14:03] A little different. That's a great perspective, though, going back to your point of, having people coming in. Yeah. I've got 50,000, because Mike is right, like people, they're like, I wanna I wanna invest in real estate, can you show me how to do it? I'm I'm gonna buy a duplex this year. And it's like, well, like, you need to educate those folks on what the, what a realistic return is, because although we all have stories, once you've played the game long enough, of like big wins, you've got your million dollar payouts, you weren't banking on your, I'm investing for cash flow. Mike and I have had big wins on our ends as well, for things that we didn't expect, and they see those, and they're like, well, that's what real estate is. It's like, no, no, no, no. You're trying to invest like a little bit, like this is what we do full time. So your little bit, your return on investment is probably not gonna be anywhere near ours, but we

Mike DeHaan: [14:48] can give you that if

Dan Austin: [14:49] you just give us your money, and you don't actually have to work for it, because there are a lot of unrealistic expectations that every deal's a home run, and it's just not the case, and so Yeah. I always try to tell people this, like, the actual cost of owning a property is way higher than you think if you don't know how to own a property.

Alan Corey: [15:04] Yeah. I said those expectations are like, listen, this is not a get rich game. This is get rich slowly, get rich eventually. You will get rich, right? Right? Like, I

Dan Austin: [15:14] love that.

Alan Corey: [15:14] And so, I'm like, the HGTV shows, those are flippers, and it's all, you know, for show. The way I educate is, okay, look at the bills in your life, and let's say you have a $150 phone bill, phone and internet bill, 150. You know, was looking to retire. I've retired the first time at age 28 when I thought I was a hotshot back then, because I had five properties, but the way I approach it was, okay, have a $150 Internet bill, I cannot escape that for the rest of my life. I can't go to Costco or Sam's Club and buy internet access in bulk, you know? Can't, you know, if anything I wish. Their phone bill's gonna get higher and higher each month, but there's bunch of I don't know if anyone's familiar with the FIRE movement, Financial Independence Retire Early. Their whole thing is, oh, this is how much money you have to save in stocks, which is take that $150, and what is that a year? That's $1,800 a year. If you save up 25 times that amount in a stock portfolio, and then you withdraw 4% each year, you'll you'll always have enough to cover that $150 bill. So that's that's a $45,000 investment. And that's crazy to me that I have to save up $45,000, put it in stocks that I don't have control of, and hopefully my phone bill doesn't go up, but that's I have to be a millionaire basically to retire. So I was like, that is not the real estate way. Cut that in half. If I save 22,500, right, half of that $45,000, I can go buy a $100,000 single family house, $100,000 duplex, that cash flow is a $150.

Alan Corey: [16:43] Uh-huh. And that $150 is gonna go to my internet bill. Right? So this is my house fire method. This is my by the book I just published, and it's it's taking every bill and signing it to or every house and assigning it. So when someone comes to me and they're like, hey, I'm gonna get rich off this. It's like, no, no, no. What bill do you hate the most in your life? But, you know, let's start with the bills you you'll never get rid of like that bill. And some people come to me like, well, I'm gonna pay $50,000 off my student loans, and then I'm gonna start investing in real estate in, five years. I was like, no. No. But I take that $50,000, go buy a house, and that house is gonna pay your student loan bill.

Dan Austin: [17:18] Yep. Yep.

Alan Corey: [17:19] Then you have that asset instead of giving I did the same thing for my Tesla. Instead of taking $50,000 and saying, here, Elon Musk, you're the richest person in the world. Now when you get $50,000 of my own money, I didn't wanna do that. I wanted to go buy a house with my $50,000. That cash flow is enough to cover my Tesla car note. And then so in seven years, that car note's paid off. The student debt's paid off. My Internet's always and I've I've acquired three homes. All those bills are paid off. The house fire burning up those bills. And Mhmm. Typically five, six, seven homes, and you just do it at 25, 30 chunks a year, you can have all your bills covered, and now I'm buying houses and making up bills. I wanna go live in Hawaii for three months. What kind of cash flow do I need to pay for that?

Dan Austin: [18:01] Yeah, right. I love that point of view too, because it's like, you said it, you're like, here, Elon Musk, here's my $50,000, which that $50,000 is an asset to you, you're just giving it away. Why not keep that asset, which you totally can to real estate? Keep that 50,000, buy an asset, and now that asset's paying for whatever the hell you want it to pay for. It's just kinda like this idea. I think about any time you can make an investment and own an asset, that's way more valuable than buying something. It's just a waste of money. That a Tesla's kind of a waste of money. You need it to get around, but you can pay for it with your damn house.

Alan Corey: [18:35] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [18:35] Yeah. It's so awesome.

Dan Austin: [18:35] It's just a unique perspective.

Alan Corey: [18:37] It's a longevity thing. So, you know, in seven, like most people's car notes, seven years, right? So in seven years, when that car note's paid off, I still have a house that's generating cash flow. And that's like, okay, I gotta earmark this extra cash flow to another bill now. Right?

Dan Austin: [18:50] Right. Yep.

Alan Corey: [18:51] Over time, the the mortgage gets paid down. The rent goes up. So once you sort of break, you cover all your bills, you actually live richer and more abundant each year in your retirement because you're making more cash flow as these homes appreciate and the rent goes up and expenses go down. And so it's it's a it's a baby step approach, but that's why I said, you know, get not just rich eventually, but get loaded eventually. Yeah. Right.

Mike DeHaan: [19:14] Yeah. Well, and then the crazy thing is to wealth and, you know, being rich, whatever aside, that is the true fast track to like the financial independence sort of concept is using that leverage and approaching it that way. And that back when I was a corporate engineer, I worked at Boeing for a number of years. And I hated it, man. Like, I hated being an engineer so much. And I wanted to be financially free. Right? So I got into like these Reddit threads, you know, Mr. Money Mustache, like doing all the original, like fire content. And some of the things these people would do, they'd be like, I now have my entire family, and we only eat, you know, like, bulk rice and beans. Rice and beans. Beans and rice. And we just moved into a tiny home that is in the hood of like Memphis, and I'm just like, so that we can, know, with this projection, with my savings rate, we're gonna be financially free in seventeen and a half years. Right.

Dan Austin: [20:10] And honestly, in a method that I don't buy in, like you use the 4% rule, Alan, which I is a very widely used for retirees, which I don't know that that's even valid.

Alan Corey: [20:19] Yeah.

Dan Austin: [20:20] Honestly, but I do know owning assets that sit on your balance sheet on the asset side of your balance sheet is a as a sure way to become wealthy.

Mike DeHaan: [20:27] It is. And and one of the problems with that stock market, like for after method two is it does not adequately account for inflation. So a lot of them will be like, Oh, yeah, you save a million bucks, you know, you can pull 4%, you can have a $40,000 a year. What about 9% inflation? Yeah, right, we have 9% inflation, you know, sure the stocks go up today, like this last year, the stocks tanked what 30%? Like that screws up your whole thing.

Dan Austin: [20:50] Your 4% is a lot less now 4% on something that's worth 30 less where your cash flow never really goes down. Exactly. Real estate asset.

Mike DeHaan: [20:57] Yeah, yeah, exactly. Your cash flow stays somewhat consistent unless there's rental adjustments, but then also, you know, the debt pay down increases your total IRR, the property appreciates over a long period of time, you have tax benefits, you know, sure you have to use debt, which is quote unquote risky, if you're irresponsible with it. But I mean, it just made so fascinating to me that despite all of the like, numerical evidence about how much better real estate is, people still fixate on like, the fire movement from the antiquated method of like, the 4% stock Not

Alan Corey: [21:29] to totally like, pick on the fire movement too much because I did lean fire when I was when I retired at 28, but I'm over that now, and I'm not the super frugal guy. But when they do, when you have that frugal mindset and you decide and and think that real estate's for you, they end up being all cash buyers. And I always walk them down the math on that and not not to be an all cash buyer back to my anti Dave Ramsey sort of lot of thinking. And, you know, the way I sort of explain that to folks is, let's say you have a $100,000, you know, house, you get a thousand bucks in rented for it. Right? That's that's great. You're investing in real estate because you think rents gonna go up. Let's assume that the property increases 10% and maybe rents go up, you know, $50 a year for for a couple years. So you've turned that in five years forward, maybe you rented that out for $1,300, and it's 10% more. It's a $110,000. Great. You turned a $100,000 and a $110,000 in five years. If there is vacancy, then obviously you're not making anything. And I said, well, let's take the other approach. Let's assume that we wanna do a mutual fund of houses, where we have five houses. We take that $100,000, put $20,000 each on five different homes. And the exact same thing happens. We buy them each for a $100,000 with a 20% down payment. They each rent for a thousand dollars. They each go up $50 each each month.

Alan Corey: [22:50] Right? Well, fast forward five years, real estate went up 10%. Well, instead of making instead of having a 110,000, you now have a 150,000 because you have five homes that went up 10%. Right? If you've raised the rent 250 per place, instead of making an extra $2.50, you're you're making an extra thousand a month because it's all covered. And if you have one vacancy, two vacancies. Right? Those three other ones let's say you don't rent something for an entire year. Those three other ones will carry you because you got a mutual fund approach, and you'll make just as much money as if you only had one. So you're you're building a safety net with debt. So debt is not scary and not risky. You want as much debt, as much leverage as possible so that you can kinda get amplify the your your returns and spread it out. And then you're gonna get those, I call it imaginary lottery tickets. Like those three things, like, that I bought was because it was a 100 you know, leveraged as much as I possibly can. I bought it for the cash flow. Then I get lucky. And the more houses I buy, the luckier I get. If I buy one house, I may get lucky. But if you've got a 50 home portfolio, you're gonna get lucky three times, kinda thing.

Dan Austin: [23:58] Mhmm, absolutely. Absolutely. That's why Mike buys scratch tickets every single day, because he knows if he buys more,

Mike DeHaan: [24:04] I'm eventually gonna get lucky, man.

Dan Austin: [24:05] Yeah. No, but that is so true, though. I believe, and Mike and I preach this to a lot of folks is like, there is reduced risk with scale. Uh-huh. Because you have things that so more, to your point, more debt, more leverage is actually in your benefit as you continue to invest.

Mike DeHaan: [24:20] Yeah. Like, that's always sort of coach people, I guess that if you're going to get into real estate, don't just buy like one single family and expect that to be the be all the end all for you. Because, you know, you have an issue that happens to replace the furnace, that's now a huge liability on your personal expenses, unless things just a cash cow, which is probably not if it's a single property. But if you have like 10 properties, the furnish goes out, kind like you said there, Alan, everything will pay for itself, you have a vacancy. And I remember being in that boat when I first got started, and I had some of these properties, I'd be like, my god, there was like, I have to get a new dishwasher? That's like $300. Like, that's horrible.

Dan Austin: [24:54] Two months worth of cash flow.

Mike DeHaan: [24:56] Yeah. But now that we have, you know, 50 units, it's like, oh, I gotta get a new dishwasher. Think we got some extra ones that we bought, like, when they were two for one at Lowe's. Yeah, where are they? They're in the garage at the other unit, you know?

Alan Corey: [25:08] Yeah, totally. But Dan, you just said something that I think a lot of people think, like, when you have a $300 repair, I don't think, hey, this is coming out of my cash flow. Like, that's two months of cash flow. Because it's I've already budgeted for those repairs. My cash flow is after So my repair budget. I think that a lot of people are like, well, what happens if, you know, in that scenario, especially with my house fire method? No, we budgeted for that. That $150 is paying for your internet bill or phone bill, that's after your expected repairs and maintenance and vacancies. So, yeah, you gotta kinda trick your brain in saying this is not taking it out of your cash flow pocket at all.

Dan Austin: [25:44] That's like this. That's a very small nuance that I think a lot of new investors overlook that they don't understand. When you're saying, I make a $150 a month on that rental property, people are like, oh, god, that's not a lot, it's like, no, no, that is after I've paid every single thing, and that $1.50 is secured monthly into my bank account, unless a tornado takes the house out. Guess what? I have insurance. So we're good.

Alan Corey: [26:03] Yeah. Yeah. That too.

Mike DeHaan: [26:04] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're gonna have the insurance come out and be like, well, you did ask for it by buying the house in like the tornado lane. So we're not gonna give you the money for it. Sorry.

Dan Austin: [26:15] Yeah. Gotta call FEMA.

Mike DeHaan: [26:16] Yeah. Awesome. So that's all good stuff, Alan. So I guess you've been doing this for a while. You've had some big paydays. You've been buying these multi families. I guess what's kind of next for you? Like, you keep doing real estate, you're doing this content. What is your current goals for your business going forward? What sort of stuff are you working on here going into 2023?

Alan Corey: [26:36] Yeah, I'm more of a real estate coach now. So I'm offering classes and then I'm launching my second podcast. I've got one that's just me interviewing real estate investors. Mike, you were recently on my show, Real Estate Maximalist, but we're launching right now a second podcast. This is a spin off of a personal finance show that I love called Stacking Benjamins. I was a guest on their show couple years ago, and I was like, man, you need to do a real estate spin off because this would be great, and if you do it, I'd love to be the host. And so, you know, two years in the works, we're finally making that happen, so Stacking Deeds is the spin off that's available now. And that's more of a fun educational show. Very, very new real estate. Like, we don't do any deep dives, but it's just sort of introducing real estate to folks. Something I can put on with my family in the car or something that'd be like, oh, it's light, it's airy and entertaining. And and you you know, maybe my kids will learn something about real estate that it's not me shoving it down their throat kind of kind of kind of, you know, concept. So I do that and I recently fallen in love with Twitter. So I'm real estate maxi. My podcast real estate maximalist, but my Twitter handles real estate maxi.

Alan Corey: [27:43] I tweet every single day, and I've I've sort of become addicted to Twitter. So I guess they call that digital real estate. So I guess that's gonna be There my new

Mike DeHaan: [27:51] you go.

Alan Corey: [27:51] New portfolio. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [27:53] Nice. I love it. So yeah, just going on and starting to create that content. And it's always funny. People. There's always like this weird sort of thing when there's people out there start doing this content and you know, coaching that sort of stuff. And we've started to receive this a little bit, Dan, I don't know if we've started to get our first round of haters, as our podcast has started to gain some significant traction, and we started to have more success people in our course. But people always hit like, reach out, and they're like, Well, if it works so good, why are you teaching other people? Why are you creating all this content? Why don't you go and you do more, know, you more real stuff? It's like a, because this is way more fun, if I'm being completely honest. And b, because it's something that's so simple to like anyone can do it. And once you've kind of figured out, it's hard not to get excited to get one to want to get other people excited about it.

Dan Austin: [28:36] Yeah, to help people along.

Alan Corey: [28:38] Yeah. I know. I I should stop talking about Dave Ramsey, but talking about haters and trolls. No. Everyone's like, oh, Helen, you're you're an idiot because look how much money Dave Ramsey has. Look how much money you have. And I was like, no. He made his money off of media empire talking about how he went bankrupt in real estate. Like

Mike DeHaan: [28:55] Yeah. Right.

Alan Corey: [28:56] You know? So it's like, real money's in media, you know?

Mike DeHaan: [28:58] Yeah. It is.

Alan Corey: [28:59] That's where he makes his money. So I don't think it's a scorecard, really, how wealthy you are. It depends how good you are. I've gotten lucky three times. I promise you, there's there's way better real estate investors who haven't received that that luck. Right? And there's worse ones that got luckier than me. You gotta play the game to get lucky, but even if you have no luck, you'll be successful over time. So I think it's my first book was called A Million Bucks by 30, and everyone's like, oh, you got lucky because it was before the the run up in prices in 2005, 2006. And I was like, yeah, I was I was really lucky that I ate ramen noodles for years and house hacked and bought in places where people nicknamed it Murderer Avenue instead of Myrtle Avenue. Like, I got so lucky, you know, just silver spoon in my mouth. So, you you just it is what it is.

Dan Austin: [29:45] And nobody sees the sacrifice. Yeah.

Alan Corey: [29:47] Yeah. You become overnight success. It it, you know, it takes ten years to become an overnight And ten years.

Mike DeHaan: [29:52] Yep. What and the crazy thing is to with real estate, especially by the discount, a millionaire status comes incredibly quickly. I mean, with with Dan and I, when we started working together, I crossed millionaire status, was hoping hit it by 30. It was shortly after my thirtieth birthday. But it was it happened in like a couple of years. Like it didn't take very long. And, and even then people have said, you know, oh, you guys are at the right timing. And also, as we did, what they don't see is when we first started, it was me and Dan walking through these like hoarder houses, these heroin houses, talking to these like weird ass people like on Saturday afternoons, you know, trying to get these deals signed around the stuff that nobody wants to do. But we were buying houses at 50¢ on the dollar, you know, and when you went to a $4,000 house, you buy it for $200,000 net worth comes incredibly fast. It's just math. Yeah.

Alan Corey: [30:40] Oh, yes.

Mike DeHaan: [30:41] That's all it is. It's mathematics.

Dan Austin: [30:42] Yeah. And you gotta put in the legwork. You gotta put in the effort. You gotta crawl through murder basements like we've done and all sorts of gross things. And, you know, it's not overnight, but then people see all the success, they're like, yeah, it must be nice.

Alan Corey: [30:53] Yeah. Yeah. Everyone wants the FastPass It is. Ticket to to real estate success, but it doesn't exist, and it, you know.

Mike DeHaan: [31:00] It doesn't exist legally, or without getting real weird. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Real weird. But it's

Alan Corey: [31:07] the same thing. It's like, why do you expect that in real estate, what people don't have that expectation of the stock market. People used to have that expectation in crypto, but like, that didn't work out. Like, why does real estate have that expectation that you're you're it's gonna be skyrocket to success? You know, most people throw money in their four zero one k, IRA, and then they're fine with a thirty year wait. And I'm like, just take that mindset and apply it to real estate.

Mike DeHaan: [31:30] It's because we have the flip or flop people, you know, and the chip and Joanna Gaines. It's very, like present. Can flip a house

Dan Austin: [31:37] in a thirty minute episode. And yeah,

Mike DeHaan: [31:39] yeah. So we have like the flip or flop people. We have the chip and Joanna Gaines. We don't have like, this is Wayne. He's a day trader.

Alan Corey: [31:45] Yeah. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [31:47] Know, it is a mom's office

Dan Austin: [31:49] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [31:49] Trading, you know, penny stocks. Away. No one wants to watch that. He's, wearing a diaper. Sweet. Does it yeah.

Alan Corey: [31:55] The before and after photos are are as good. Yeah. Yeah. Here's my Robinhood account before, here it is after, as much Yeah. Hit the house, actually. Before and after.

Mike DeHaan: [32:05] Yeah. You know? And and you're starting to see that a little bit with some of the crypto bros that are out there. Yeah. And so that's why people have the get rich quick scheme mentality with crypto. But at the same time, it's you know, it's just different, right? It's like good gambling versus stuff that you can actually structure and give you that guaranteed wealth over the long term. Awesome. So good stuff, Alan. So we're gonna go into the end of the show here. You guys had the same questions that we ask every guest that comes on the show. I probably should start saying this people ahead of time. But I don't know, I was kind of like the off the cuff answers to. So the first question, which is the group favorite, what is your craziest real estate investing story? And the number one rule is you're not allowed to talk about finding a dead person in a property. Because that's a that's a common answer. Mean, unless it's really unique,

Dan Austin: [32:49] because we haven't had one of those in a while. So I mean, we could, you

Mike DeHaan: [32:51] know, we could spend one. Well, so the problem is we say we haven't had one of those in a while. But the way the recordings come out, it might be like seven in a row,

Alan Corey: [32:57] and I

Mike DeHaan: [32:57] was like, oh, man.

Dan Austin: [32:59] We didn't live on Murder Alley, so I'm just, you know Yeah,

Alan Corey: [33:02] that's true. I would say interesting is, when you're at a certain store, getting to a certain price point, these aren't bad stories, these are good stories.

Mike DeHaan: [33:09] No. Good stories are good too. Yeah. Being that crazy, good stories.

Alan Corey: [33:13] Like, I mean, I sold a property, Barbara Corkan. Right? And then the my that other duplex that I sold was sold to Christina Ritchie. She she played Wednesday in in The Adam's Family Play.

Dan Austin: [33:22] Yep.

Alan Corey: [33:23] This is on Murder Avenue. Right? Myrtle Avenue. When I bought there, it was bulletproof bodegas and liquor stores, right? And then when I sold, it was Chipotle's and Starbucks, right? So to me, my crazy stories was like, Damn, how did this happen? Why are celebrities at a closing with the celebrities? I think I pushed down the bad memories so far down that I can't even recall them, but moving in the highs all the time to kinda keep me going. But my bad stuff, couple break ins here and there, definitely bought some hoarder houses, but to me, the fun ones are just like adding back to the neighborhood like this, turning coal into a diamond, wow, you know, a celebrity wants to buy this. This is all sort of my I career

Mike DeHaan: [34:12] love it, the real estate optimist. That's probably why, you know, you shifted away from stand up comedy, because those people only see the negative in things, but it sounds like you only see the positive.

Alan Corey: [34:22] Yeah, yeah, that's self preservation, guess. It's just my ego and my spirit, and just to keep on moving, because like you said, you've been crawling call spaces and dealing with last minute lender issues, and you know, appraisal snafus. Like, that's so much stress every single day. You do this long enough and you try and pull off some very creative deals, but to me, it's I guess the other side is just changing lives, you know? Yeah. It's great when you change the life of the seller who has to sell, change the life of the buyer, and it's those wins kinda keep me going.

Mike DeHaan: [34:53] Yeah. For sure. Awesome. I love it. Alright. Second question. What is the number one tip that you would have for either a new investor looking to get started, or a small time investor looking to take their business to the next level?

Alan Corey: [35:05] Yeah. So no real estate investor I've ever met says, man, I wish I got started in real estate two years later. Like, like, like, this is like that. Everyone's so happy that they started when they are. Everyone. When I bought my first place, it was seven and a half percent interest rate. I was high fiving anyone who would talk real estate with me because I got the best interest rate ever. Right? That's 7% right now as we're recording this is is, like, typical. So just start buying. Things will happen. Don't wait. I guess this is more for the new timers because the big big time guys know this. But that that would be my my my, I guess, advice for that. For the big timers, it would be go to multifamily as soon as possible if you can. Just when I sold my portfolio and turned it into apartment building, it was, wow. I only have to drive to one location. I only have one roof to replace. I only have one landscaping build now instead of 50. I don't I only have one water main to worry about instead of 50. One water heater. Like, all the expenses are just get scaled down so much. It's quite amazing. So people say, oh, I should start in multifamily? Because when I give that advice, it's like, no.

Alan Corey: [36:11] Like, most people don't have the money, or It's not in their town, or whatever it is. I worked up to this over twenty years, you know? So just start with a one bedroom condo and flipped it up. But if you can start there, great. But everyone eventually, I think needs that kick in the butt to kind of start doing apartment buildings. And it takes time. It takes confidence. It takes money. And, yep, you'll get there eventually. Yeah, everyone will.

Mike DeHaan: [36:35] Good stuff. Alright. And last question. I know you touched on some of your platforms before, but let's go into them again here. Where can people find you, follow you, and reach out to you if you like them to do so?

Alan Corey: [36:45] Yep. Real Estate Maxi is really my Twitter handle, but I've got a newsletter called The House Money Newsletter that I send every single week. So you go to realestatemaxi.com and sign up for my newsletter, and I pretty much put my recap my week there, so my podcast, my tweets, not just my own, but other people's stuff that I've liked, so that you get a, you know, a weekly dose of real estate education and nice bite size, you know, pieces, so. Nice. Realestatemaxi.com, or or find me on social media and sign up for the my newsletter. Thank you.

Mike DeHaan: [37:13] Sweet. Very cool. I'm gonna go sign up for your newsletter, so I can steal some of your topics for our show on a

Dan Austin: [37:18] weekly Sign it up for right now.

Alan Corey: [37:20] I mean, it it it's just gonna be pictures of you, and then your blown quote that says Right. This is what Dan and Mike said this week. Yeah. Yeah, there

Dan Austin: [37:27] you go.

Mike DeHaan: [37:27] I can support that. Awesome. And then, just one last thing, did you have what what was the launch date for your new podcast? It's coming up here soon, isn't it?

Alan Corey: [37:35] Yes, Stacking Deeds is my new podcast launching March 7. Check that out. That's the light and airy one, and then sort of a more deep dive is Real Estate Maximalist podcast.

Mike DeHaan: [37:45] Awesome. So definitely check that out everybody. The March 7, that'll be shortly before this episode comes out. So you'll probably be a couple episodes in when you hear this. So definitely go and check it out, guys. Alan is an incredible wealth of knowledge. Awesome, man. Well, thanks a for coming to show. I really

Dan Austin: [37:58] appreciate This was great.

Alan Corey: [38:00] This was a blast. This was great. Let's do this again over beers or at a closing table sometime soon. I love it.

Mike DeHaan: [38:05] Absolutely. I love it. So awesome. Well, thanks so much for listening everybody. Hope you enjoyed this show with Alan. Please reach out to him and check out his content. He is a wealth of knowledge, and he's super happy to chat with people. So, you know, check out his show, hit him up on Twitter. He, know, wants to hear what you have to say and think about real estate and all the stuff that he's doing. So go ahead and reach out to him at all of the places that he expressed. Aside from that, guys, please share this show with anyone who might find it interesting. The easiest way for us to grow this show is for you to tell all of your friends and family about it. Even if they don't care, they might know someone that does, and maybe they'll share it. And so it's kind of like a exponential growth. So just go and tell everyone about it. First person to get a collecting keys tattoo, I will literally write you a thousand dollar check and send it to you. And I am 100% serious about that. So if you do that, and I'll set on your social media check on your social media account, I will send you $1,000 I'm gonna keep going in the gutter with these random promos. Alright, guys. But besides that, if you want start getting off market deals, go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free, you can get our free five step guide.

Mike DeHaan: [39:05] And that will give you everything you need to get started. Besides that, guys, thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to y'all next week. See