[00:01:50] Patrick Donley: I’m happy to have you on. I listened to two of your interviews you did with my colleague, Robert maybe a couple years back.

[00:01:57] Patrick Donley: But you’ve got a pretty interesting story and background, not just what you’re up to now, but in your early days that I wanted to hear more about and learn about, talk to me about after college, moving to New York city and what your steps were initially when you moved into New York city, you’ve got some pretty funny stories, I think.

[00:02:16] Alan Corey: Yeah I moved to New York and I had no connections and I didn’t know what I was doing. And it was the most expensive city in town. So I found the cheapest place I could possibly find to rent. And it was an illegal sublet in the Spanish Harlem project. So I was paying 400 bucks a month. To stay in the projects and this is how naive I was.

[00:02:34] Alan Corey: I didn’t even know it was the project. I was living there for about nine months and I couldn’t figure out why people wouldn’t come over and visit me. And they’re like, we just feel unsafe. You live in the projects. And I was like, I do. And I just thought it was New York City living, but that’s all I could afford and that’s how I could live in New York.

[00:02:48] Alan Corey: And the reason I wanted to go to New York, ’cause I thought. My path to riches and wealth, which was important to me coming out of college. I was like, this is what I got to do as an adult was to be an entertainer of some sort. Cause in my head, it’s like, if you’re an entertainer, you make a lot of money and I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t dance, I couldn’t do anything.

[00:03:08] Alan Corey: So I was like I might as well try standup comedy. And I got that confidence. Because I was the class clown. And I’m here to tell you just cause you’re the class clown of your high school. It doesn’t mean you cut out for comedy, but I still enjoyed it. I did it for about five years in New York city and found a tech support job to pay the bills during the day.

[00:03:26] Alan Corey: And then I was in the comedy clubs at night and it was fun. It was actually a way to save money because instead of me paying for entertainment, I was the entertainment. The similar strategy on social media is, You can either consume content on social media or you can be the provider of content and then get paid for it from now, now and then.

[00:03:42] Alan Corey: So wiped out my entertainment budget by being entertainment and I didn’t have a car. I took the bus and subway everywhere, and then I lived in the project. So those are the three big sorts of financial hurdles that everyone has. And I was able to save some money and get into real estate eventually.

[00:03:59] Patrick Donley: So tell me more about that. When you were in college, were you doing stand up or did you just go cold turkey into New York saying, I’m going to make it and jumped right in? 

[00:04:09] Alan Corey: My real dream was to be a comedy writer. That’s what I wanted to do. So I wrote some sketch shows and comedy things in college.

[00:04:16] Alan Corey: And a touring comic, David Tell came through Atlanta and I talked to him after the show and I said, listen, I just want to be a comedy writer. And he told me, move to New York city and do stand up and then people will hire you to write for them. And so I was like, Oh, that’s my career plan. Let me do that.

[00:04:30] Alan Corey: And that’s why I started doing more and more standups just to get more exposure to my writing. 

[00:04:36] Patrick Donley: It’s gotta be such a tough gig, I would imagine. You’ve got to handle the rejection, and I imagine you developed a pretty tough hide that you could then apply to real estate later on. Was that the case?

[00:04:48] Alan Corey: It’s a combination, because the people who are attracted to comedy, they just want the limelight, they want to be on stage, they want That’s the dopamine hits when you are like having a great show are so high that you’re completely fine bombing nine times in a row to get that high of the, the one that just kills.

[00:05:04] Alan Corey: And then also in New York city, like people are in the subway, like cutting their fingernails and brushing their teeth. Cause you’re like, I’m never going to see these people ever again. And so it’s the same sort of way when you’re on stage, whoever’s there, it’s if I embarrass myself, I’m never going to see these people ever again.

[00:05:18] Alan Corey: It doesn’t matter, kind of thing. You trick your mind into having little safety nets of your ego, just in case things go south. 

[00:05:25] Patrick Donley: Yeah. It’s a good way to look at it. You also did, I just found this out too, that you got involved in some reality TV shows. How did that happen? And tell me more about that.

[00:05:34] Alan Corey: Yeah. So this was early 2000 pre YouTube, pre social media, and the formula at the time, if you were going to make a reality TV show is that you would go cast the male roles from comedy clubs because they were comfortable on camera. ideally provide some sort of entertainment. And then they would cast the women parts from the modeling agencies.

[00:05:56] Alan Corey: And so I got a lot of opportunities to be on stand up or on reality TV, mainly through being a stand up comedian. I also did improv at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. So that sort of fed into reality TV. I’m a terrible actor. And so I could just. Basically play a buffoon version of myself, or what my wife would probably say is myself on reality TV.

[00:06:16] Alan Corey: And, I got on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I got laid over on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I was at Jerry Springer, the restaurant with Rocco Dispirito. I was one of the waiters, a couple dating shows, a game show, and so it was just, it was fun. It was just, it became a hobby for me.

[00:06:33] Patrick Donley: So like you said, it’s almost, it’s entertainment, but I wanted to hear a 

[00:06:37] Patrick Donley: A little bit more. You’re 

[00:06:38] Patrick Donley: working at this tech support job. It sounded like for 40 grand, you’re doing the standup, comedy stuff in the evenings. Talk to me when you first started practicing some of these financial habits that you started to start really saving money and some of the habits that you, there were, you had a tweet that I saw about six things that you copied from wealthy people.

[00:06:58] Patrick Donley: So I wanted to talk about just some of the things that you did that people could do today that really worked for you to start saving up a nest egg. 

[00:07:05] Alan Corey: Yeah, I got to New York and I realized it was the first time I’d really seen wealthy people, people taking the cab. I was like, Oh my God, how did they get in?

[00:07:12] Alan Corey: They afford a cab like that. But I want to be that rich one day kind of thing. So I didn’t have any mentors. I didn’t have any network connections at all. People are making New York seem to come from Ivy league backgrounds. My parents were public school teachers and I was just on my own.

[00:07:25] Alan Corey: And so I. went to the library every day because again, this was a pre YouTube podcast. And so I got every single book I could in the business section about stocks and IRAs and real estate and wealth building, personal finance, because I knew none of this. And I was like, I don’t have any mentors. I’ve got to learn on my own.

[00:07:44] Alan Corey: And so then I started thinking about who were the richest people in my life. And they were two of my basketball coaches who I admired. One, because I loved basketball growing up, but. Two, they never wore a suit and tie. They always were able to make the afternoon practices and coach and all the other parents were working.

[00:08:00] Alan Corey: And it seemed every story they shared, they were on the golf course. And I was like, Oh, everything I thought it meant to be rich, where you have to wear a power suit and you go get, Ivy league education. My mentors, when I look back, I didn’t realize they were my mentors at the time, but they were small business owners.

[00:08:14] Alan Corey: They were real estate investors. And so I was like, Oh, I think I could do that. And after reading all these books, I realized it had nothing to do with stocks. I felt like it was a 30 year horse race, almost like a gamble where, yeah, it makes sense. I’m looking at numbers in a paper and let’s invest in it, but I have no control.

[00:08:32] Alan Corey: Like I can’t shake the neck of the CEO and tell him to change things to make his company better. But real estate, I felt like I had control. If I bought a property and my goal was just to buy one property a year for five straight years, I thought that would be enough for me to retire, but at least leave my day job so that I can focus on comedy full time.

[00:08:50] Alan Corey: And so that was my plan. And so it just really resonated with me because I knew I could control what I bought for roughly what financing terms I could get, what I rented out for, whether I renovated it or not. whether I sold all those sorts of things was my decision. So I felt and I wasn’t going to let myself down when it came to money.

[00:09:07] Patrick Donley: So that’s zeroed in on real estate. I feel the same way. My first love was actually the stock market. And, as I got older, I came to the same conclusion as I have way more control in real estate, exactly for all the reasons you pointed out, but I wanted to talk a little bit more about it. I want to talk about your first investment, your real estate investment.

[00:09:26] Patrick Donley: But prior to that, you were living pretty extreme. You were living on 40, 000 a year, doesn’t sound like you were making much income from the reality TV shows or the comedy. Talk to me a little about how you saved up for your initial down payment for your first purchase. 

[00:09:43] Alan Corey: Yeah, way to rub it in that I made no money from comedy, but yes, you’re correct.

[00:09:47] Alan Corey: It was a terrible comment, but I often had to pay to get up on stage. That’s how bad I was. So I had a 40, 000 salary. I went to the HR person who handled the direct deposits. And I said, Listen, I need you to put 50 percent in this bank account, which is the one I use every single day, which is the ATM right outside the office.

[00:10:03] Alan Corey: And then I need you to put 50 percent of my income in this bank. That’s across town on the other side of Manhattan, really tough to get to this is pre online banking days and all that too. So I physically had to go there. If I threw away the ATM card, I just didn’t want to have access to it. And so that, and then I just spent whatever, I didn’t feel like I had to save or invest anything.

[00:10:22] Alan Corey: I just spent whatever was in my day to day account. And but that got really lean, sure. I was paying for it this month in the projects, but I wanted to be even leaner. And so I went to the bodega, bought some. at the time, ramen noodles in bulk. And if I got like a 36 pack, they ended up being about 13 cents each.

[00:10:39] Alan Corey: And so I ate those every day for lunch. I’d go to the bakery right before it closed, where they were throwing out that day’s fresh baked bagels and bread. And they would sometimes give it to me for free or at least 50 percent off, or, I just, I’m like, listen, I know you’re going to throw these away.

[00:10:52] Alan Corey: And they’re like, fine, Alan, they got whatever they got to know me pretty well. And so I just now call this lean fire. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was fine. Like none of my friends had money. I lived in the projects. I wasn’t showy. I was taking the bus everywhere.

[00:11:05] Alan Corey: So it was just part of my lifestyle to just have a little bit extra money. My goal was every January 1st, I would make that trek across Manhattan to that other bank account. And whatever I had saved up there, I would use as a down payment on a property. And so my first year of saving, my first year of my job, I was 21 years old.

[00:11:24] Alan Corey: I had 10, 000 saved. And so I was like, okay, that’s a 10 percent down payment on a 100, 000 property. And I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And I found one property in all of New York City that was actually listed for 110, 000. And this was right after 9 11. And, there’s always fear in the newspaper.

[00:11:42] Alan Corey: Don’t buy real estate now. Get out of New York City. This is the dumbest thing you can do, which, now 25 years into real estate investing. That’s when you want to buy it when everyone is fearful. But I negotiated them down from 110, 000 to 100, 000. This is a Brooklyn apartment. I actually got for 99, 600, a one bedroom, One bath.

[00:12:01] Alan Corey: I had never been to Brooklyn at the time. And I know people were thinking like, Oh, it must be nice that you bought a property for a hundred thousand dollars in Brooklyn. It doesn’t matter when you buy real estate. It always feels expensive. Definitely expensive for me, but I was, I don’t care. I’ve never been to Brooklyn.

[00:12:12] Alan Corey: I made an offer on it. And I was like, what’s the worst that could happen is if this doesn’t work out, I live in the projects again. I’m used to living in the projects. It was like, I felt like. I had such asymmetrical upside. If I just, my plan was to buy this property and I turned it into a two bedroom and I loosely say two bedroom.

[00:12:30] Alan Corey: I just took a heavy curtain, put it across, siphoned off my living room and rented that out to another friend of mine who covered my mortgage. They call this now house hacking. But at the time I was like, Oh wow, I just bought a property with my 10, 000. And now I’m saving. I was spending $400. Now I’m spending nothing on my property because I have a roommate who’s paying.

[00:12:49] Alan Corey: And then it just clicked. And I was like, okay, I’m onto something. I just need to do this once a year. Let me save up again. That whole 50 percent thing. Let me save another 50 percent and see, next January 1st, how much money do I have? And I had 15, 000 the next one. And so then I bought a duplex.

[00:13:06] Alan Corey: There were two, three bedrooms, duplexes on each side, so six bedrooms. I moved in and rented it to five comedians. We called it the House of Clowns. And then there, that paid all my mortgage as well as an extra 2, 000 on top of that profit, which was more than my take home payment by day job. So I could have left my day job after my second purchase, I sacrificed Brooklyn at the time.

[00:13:27] Alan Corey: It was on Myrtle Avenue, which they called Murder Avenue. People were always stopping me and saying, are you a cop? Are you living here? Did you move here because you’re a police officer? And I was like, do you want me to be a cop? What’s the right answer? Like what’s safest for me? Yes, I’m a cop or no, I’m a cop.

[00:13:42] Alan Corey: I don’t know how to answer you. And they’re like, oh, you’re definitely a cop. I’m like, okay, I can’t wait. So I lived in places where you looked like a genius. If you invest in real estate and wait, real estate’s not get rich quick. It’ll get rich eventually. 

[00:13:54] Patrick Donley: So was that your strategy going into it? This house hacking idea?

[00:13:58] Patrick Donley: House hacking really wasn’t a thing, I don’t think, or maybe it was a thing, but it wasn’t called house hacking at the time you were doing it, right? 

[00:14:06] Alan Corey: No, I think Brandon Turner of bigger pockets fame coined house hacking, so kudos to him. What was the thing was being a landlord. And so to me, it made sense.

[00:14:14] Alan Corey: That’s what I was trying to be. I was like, if I buy property and, oh, I owe x amount of dollars, but I charge y amount of dollars, then I get paid that difference. And I was like, it’ll probably take me five properties to replace my 40, 000 day income after taxes and everything like that. I was already living on 19, 000.

[00:14:31] Alan Corey: So roughly 20, 000 after the 50-50 split. So then that just made sense. And then what I realized is when I bought that duplex, I could charge. I can make more money if I charge by the room rather than by charging for the whole unit. And so it was easier for me to charge for the room if I actually lived there as well.

[00:14:50] Alan Corey: And so I took the smallest room that I couldn’t rent out. It didn’t have any windows. It barely had a closet. It was all it had. I could only fit a twin bed in there. Nothing else. And so I was like, okay, I’ll live here and I’ll rent out the master and the primary bedrooms and for a little bit more money than the rest.

[00:15:04] Alan Corey: And so it was, I wanted to live with my friends anyway, other comedians. So it was a great setup and the more money that I saw, I was like, it just reiterated, I need to do more of this. 

[00:15:15] Patrick Donley: Sure. So it sounded like every January 1st, you would take your savings and make a purchase roughly around, in January sometime.

[00:15:22] Patrick Donley: During the rest of the year, were you following the real estate market? Were you keeping an eye on things and a pulse of what was going on? So like when the next January rolled around, you knew, or had some idea of where you wanted to buy or potential deals that you wanted to pursue? 

[00:15:35] Alan Corey: Yeah.

[00:15:37] Alan Corey: Yeah, I became obsessive about real estate because I was like, this is my path so far as my path out of the projects. And now this is going to be my path to wealth. And so blogs were just getting invented. I became the number one submitter of posts and information to new blogs. Blogs were new at the time to curb brown starter.

[00:15:53] Alan Corey: com. There was a New York. I was just like, Hey, did you know about this? And they’re like, Alan, you’re our biggest lead source. And I was like, cause I was just talking to everyone wanting to know what was going on. And so I was just obsessed. Cause I was like, this is my path. Then this is, I don’t have the skillset to get paid a big salary.

[00:16:09] Alan Corey: I also, I hated the corporate world. It’s just, it wasn’t for me. I just felt like I had to kiss butt to my boss and hope that they gave me a raise or gave me a new position. Like I, again, I just wanted control. I just felt like I only had, there was always a ceiling and I didn’t have the pedigree to make it right.

[00:16:26] Alan Corey: So at least on the timeframe I wanted to make it. And so I just kept coming back to real estate and I. had all my eggs really in one basket. And that’s why I am obsessed over it. And it was one of those things where the financial crash happened, the great financial crisis of 2008, 2009. I was so far removed.

[00:16:43] Alan Corey: Like I didn’t even realize I was in the middle of that really like sure there’s reports, but I didn’t have stocks. If anything, real estate became easier for me. I couldn’t get loans. But it created a higher demand of renters because fewer and fewer people were interested in buying real estate.

[00:16:59] Alan Corey: They didn’t want to buy real estate in New York or they couldn’t because they lost their jobs or whatever. And my properties, sure. Let’s say I bought, let’s see, my second duplex. I bought it for 450, percent down, 15 of my own money, but also borrowed 30, 000. Hard money to get it done. But that property went up to a million dollars before the crash in equity.

[00:17:18] Alan Corey: Then it came down to 300, 000. And, but I didn’t care because I wasn’t trying to sell. Like it wasn’t my primary residence. It was my ATM machine. So I’m like, Oh, it actually produced more money. Let me get more of these. And then all the other properties were on discount. So it was easier to buy my third property and easier to buy my fourth property.

[00:17:35] Alan Corey: And a funny story about my third property that I bought is I didn’t have money because I just finished my second and I wanted to buy it without waiting for a year. So I found a really good deal in a sleepy town that was undiscovered at the time called Red Hook, Brooklyn. And my next door neighbor was a contractor and he didn’t have any work because no one had money to hire him to do things.

[00:17:54] Alan Corey: And I found this deal. I said you renovate it, for free and then we’ll split the equity. And then I knew one person that I thought was rich. I have no idea to this day whether he’s rich or not, but he was a lawyer. It was my girl. I was dating dad. I was like if you’re a lawyer in New York city, you must be rich.

[00:18:07] Alan Corey: Oh, wow. You went to college and you got a job. Wow. You’re a rich person in my life. And I said you can be our third partner. We need the money, but here’s the spreadsheet. This is what we can buy it for. This is what we think we can renovate it for. You’re just paying for materials because my contractor is going to work for free.

[00:18:20] Alan Corey: And that’s what we can sell it for. And so we formed a partnership. We bought a building. It was a mixed use with a little bodega storefront at the bottom and two apartments up top. It was. Terrible shape. There was a family living throughout the whole thing. Even at the storefront, they’re using it. It was dangerous to live in and they knew it was dangerous.

[00:18:37] Alan Corey: And they were asking 600 and I was like, guys, we can only make the numbers work if we buy it for 400, 000. And so we got them down to 400, 000. We bought 200,000 in materials to renovate it and we sold it for $1. 1 million and a year later, And so I think roughly I made 150, 000, 160, 000 at the end of it.

[00:18:56] Alan Corey: But what was funny is the buyer of that property. My first flip was Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran. She bought it for her own personal property. It was on the front page of the New York Times. Like Barbara, has discovered Red Hook Brooklyn and is making it her own. And that is, I was 25. I just made 150, 000.

[00:19:14] Alan Corey: It’s like working three years as a tech support job. And I was like, okay, screw comedy, screw corporate. I’m going all in on real estate. And that was just the confidence boost that I needed that Barbara Corcoran’s buying my properties. And I’m one year ahead of her and the neighborhoods that I’m looking at and all this is something I should leave it to, so I haven’t looked back since.

[00:19:34] Patrick Donley: Were you doing a mix of buying properties for cash flow and keeping them as rentals, but also it sounds like you were doing flips. Did you continue with that strategy of kind of a mix, rentals for cash flow and flips for a bigger payday if you want to call it that? 

[00:19:49] Alan Corey: Yes, I would save my own money to buy rentals just for myself, but it was much easier to create partnerships for people who wanted that short term return.

[00:19:56] Alan Corey: Put some money in or a contractor that would work for free and then needed that equity because he’s been working for free for six months or a year or whatever. So that little partnership, we did, I want to say two, maybe three more deals after that. And we were so successful. My contractor didn’t need me anymore.

[00:20:11] Alan Corey: He’s not splitting any more deals. I’ve got enough money. I don’t need you. Alan is fighting the deals. I don’t need the girlfriend’s dad. I ended up breaking up with my girlfriend. So I was like, I felt bad asking her dad for more money, even though he was making money. And so, yes, I became an opportunist.

[00:20:25] Alan Corey: So I just started looking at things. Oh, what can I do with this property that I like buying? properties where I have options. So I’ll go into every single property I buy and say, can I make money as a long term rental? Cause that’s the path of least resistance. And if so, okay, I’m excited. Can I turn this into a short term rental?

[00:20:42] Alan Corey: Back then the short term rentals didn’t exist, but this is how I evaluate today. Yes, I can. Okay. And I can make more money. Okay, great. Now I have an option here. Can I flip this and make some money? Yes. And this is what it looks like. Can I rezone this? Can I add square footage to it? Can I house hack it?

[00:20:57] Alan Corey: Like I just want options. And if the other options don’t work out, I can always go back to it being a long term rental and profiting for me. So that’s my lowest bar. Does it work as a long term rental? And I like to have options on top of that. I like 

[00:21:10] Patrick Donley: that. I think about it the same way, kind of option A, B, C, and then the worst case scenario is I move in and like I’m generally doing a renovation.

[00:21:18] Patrick Donley: So it’s like. Doing a good job on the renovations. That’s not the end of the world if I have to move into the place. So yeah, I like the options of different strategies. And that’s, what’s great about real estate is that there are so many different ways you can approach it and still make money. I want to get into the books behind you.

[00:21:33] Patrick Donley: There’s three different books behind you. When did the idea of writing a book come about? Tell me a little about that. I’m very interested in the process of book writing and what gave you the confidence to do it? 

[00:21:46] Alan Corey: I wanted to be a comedy writer, right? So it lends itself. I was already writing jokes every day.

[00:21:50] Alan Corey: And when I wasn’t writing jokes, I was devouring personal finance books. And I was like, these are all boring. These are all textbooks. And there is not a creative, there’s not a funny, real estate investing book or an entertaining personal finance book. And so I was like, I’m going to write one. And actually I put it on my website that I was at a comedy website at the time, which was brand new, all in HTML.

[00:22:13] Alan Corey: Wow. Exciting tech whiz that I was. And my bio, I said, Alan’s currently writing a book about personal finance. And real estate investing, which I put on my bio as a goal as Oh, I’ve put that out in the world. Now I have to follow through because I don’t want to be a man of my word.

[00:22:28] Alan Corey: And so when I was there was a sort of synergy of events where I was on reality TV. Queer Eye just hit. I was in season one. I was made over. I was also on, which was like an hour long show of me being a real estate investor on the show and they’re making me over. And then I was also at the exact same time on a show called The Restaurant with Brocko Dispirito, which was like a high end restaurant where I was a waiter.

[00:22:51] Alan Corey: And they were both airing on Bravo TV. And so they aired back to back. So you would see me on Queer Eye for an hour immediately after you would see me as a waiter. So I went from a real estate investor made over to back to being a waiter in a restaurant. And then the Barbara Corcoran thing hit the New York Times.

[00:23:07] Alan Corey: And I was in like, everyone’s Who the hell is this guy? It’s like a chameleon and is he a waiter? Is he a real estate investor? Is he, and so all those things, I was getting a lot of press all at once. And so luckily someone, a publisher, random house, someone, an editor working there, was following this and there were, there’s actually petitions to get me off reality TV.

[00:23:25] Alan Corey: I was trying to like, people were really upset because I ruined the illusion of reality TV for them. And she reached out to me. I said, Hey, I’d like to see your book that you’re writing that you talk about on your website. I was like, Oh damn, I have not written a book. I was like, but I didn’t say that. I was like, sure.

[00:23:38] Alan Corey: Let’s meet in two weeks. And then I threw everything together in two weeks and I brought it to her and she was quite honest and was like, this is Alan. I was like, yeah, I agree. But she was like, I like your attitude. I like what you’re doing. Let’s work together. And that, Led to a book deal and that first book was called a million bucks by 30 about how I became a millionaire by 30.

[00:23:57] Alan Corey: Actually, it took me six years. I started at 22 when I bought my first property. When I was 28, I became a millionaire and that book came out when I was 30. So it’s step by step and I made it funny. I tried to make it funny. And when I realized as I was writing it, it’s really hard to make personal finance advice funny.

[00:24:15] Alan Corey: I was like, Oh I see why this doesn’t exist. And it’s really difficult to do. 

[00:24:20] Patrick Donley: So at what stage of the game did you leave your tech support job and you went a whole hog into real estate? How old were you at that point? 

[00:24:30] Alan Corey: So it was a combination of things where I realized that if I had a job, it was easier for me to get mortgages, right?

[00:24:36] Alan Corey: And so then instead of the job, it wasn’t a vehicle for me to live and pay for my food. I got enough of that from my real estate. I lived off my cash flow of my real estate. And then I only used my job as a way. to get mortgages. And then, that mind switch allowed me to tolerate going to a corporate job because then it was like you think you’re using me.

[00:24:57] Alan Corey: I was like, no, I’m using you. Kind of thing. I was still doing the same work. I was still a good employee. I occasionally get raises of a small bonus of 2000, 5, 000 each year or whatever, but enough to get, appreciate it. But the crash, what happened in 2008, 2009, everyone got let off everywhere.

[00:25:11] Alan Corey: Like it was a tough time. And so I lost my job. And it was difficult for me to get mortgages, even if you had a job, because all the mortgage lenders were going under the time of you getting a loan and you got a loan and you got a loan and they were all paying the piper finally.

[00:25:26] Alan Corey: So it was one of those things where I was bored and depressed. I couldn’t do any deals. I’m a real estate deal junkie. And so that actually led me to my second book idea where I was like. The most I’d ever made in the corporate world was, I think $65,000. If you add up all my bonuses and stuff during those five or six years of some raises, and I was like, you know what?

[00:25:45] Alan Corey: I know I don’t have the pedigree, but I wanna be in the c-suite. How fast can I recreate myself to get a $150,000 salary? I was like, I just like goals and I like timelines. And I was like, okay, I wanna see if I can in five years create a $150,000 salary from scratch. And so that’s if you wanna get into my second book, the Subversive job search.

[00:26:05] Patrick Donley: I assume you made the goal of 150, 000. So what did you do, what was your strategy? I’m interested to hear. 

[00:26:12] Alan Corey: Yeah. So what I did was first I went through all the job hunting sites at the time and copied and pasted all the job descriptions that I thought I could potentially turn into. Because I worked in tech support.

[00:26:23] Alan Corey: I was like, I’ve got some experience. I don’t want to do tech support, but so I was like, let’s get something computer related, maybe customer service related. Those sort of two things. I also did some project management, which really loosely defined what project management was, but there was a little bit there.

[00:26:38] Alan Corey: And so I took all the jobs that were in the season. Suite that were in these industries, in these roles, and I put them in a word cloud, and so just copy paste, and then press the button. In the word cloud, what it does is the words that appear most frequently appear in a larger font kind of thing.

[00:26:53] Alan Corey: And so then I was just reverse engineering what I needed in my resume, and I was like, okay, now I know if I want these jobs, I have to have all these big words in the word cloud. in my resume. And so that was great. Now I had goals to reach and how fast could I get there? And quite often, many of them wanted an MBA.

[00:27:12] Alan Corey: And but a few of them, which I wasn’t going to do and didn’t have the money to do and didn’t have the time to do. But I was like, Okay. They want an MBA that has this sort of expertise. And I would find online certificates or courses that were like a three week course or six week course that were similar.

[00:27:28] Alan Corey: So I can check that. Like it wasn’t an MBA, I could go get a project management designation, which was like a six weeks, online course kind of thing. And so I just reverse engineered that way. I. Got really creative and would finesse what I was doing at tech support, right? I’m sure I was answering tech support, but also if someone was implementing their software rollout, I had to create a plan that says, okay, we’re going to do this week.

[00:27:53] Alan Corey: And next week we need to do this. And I’m like, oh, now I’ve got project management experience, right? Oh, I was talking to you, now I’ve got customer service. So I took my one job, which was tech support and made it into. 10 different roles so I could go down different alleyways. And so one thing led to another.

[00:28:09] Alan Corey: So I got a new job and because I didn’t care about this job in that I knew I wasn’t going to stay there for, I had a goal. So I got a job offer at 65, 000, which was what I was making before. And then I just spent. my entire time at my desk when I wasn’t doing anything, applying for other jobs. And I would just, I didn’t care what it was as long as it was closer to 150, 000.

[00:28:28] Alan Corey: And what I realized is people weren’t fact checking me. So when I’d go into the interview, I would be like, yeah, I make 85, 000. The checks and balances may be better now, but, or maybe I didn’t get the jobs because they did checks and balances. But I’ll be like, I’m looking for 100,000 jobs. Cause I make 85 and they’re like, Oh yeah, we understand that.

[00:28:44] Alan Corey: And they’re like, sorry, Alan, we can’t pay you a hundred, but we can pay you 87, 000. And I’m like, okay, I’ll take it. And so I just kept doing that. And so I didn’t want to stay at a job for two years. Cause I realized, and what I realized now as a business owner who has employees is that I have a budget, right?

[00:29:00] Alan Corey: I can only pay my employees so much. Even if you’re a rockstar superstar, there is a time where maybe I can’t pay you what you’re worth. And I wish I could, and I understand you leaving because you can’t, you are worth more than I can actually pay you. But if I do have it in my budget to pay you, then I will keep you around.

[00:29:16] Alan Corey: And so I would work really hard at my job and say, listen, I have got an offer for 87, 000 over here. Can you match it? Because I’ve been busting my ass and sometimes they would, and sometimes they wouldn’t like, then they’d be like, we get it, Alan. We understand you go take the money. And so I wasn’t like burning bridges or anything like that, but I, and then once I got that 87, 000 job, every free moment was how can I get a 90, 000 job?

[00:29:39] Alan Corey: Because most people get a 3 percent raise. 2 percent raise, things like that, but it takes a whole year where that might happen, but I could get a 10, 000 bump, a 15, 000 bump in six months or a year. That’s so much better. And then what I realized is, or what I wanted, I was like, once I hit a hundred thousand dollars, then I can pick the job that’s close to my house or has the perks that I want, or, it’s something I’m interested in.

[00:30:02] Alan Corey: Let me spend. The next two, three years, I’m just getting up to the chain where now I can have options, but I don’t. I think people get too picky about their jobs when they’re early in their career. And I was just like, no, let’s chase the dollar. Let’s stay in the industry that I want to be in and get to the top.

[00:30:20] Alan Corey: Spoiler alert, subversive job search. Yes, I eventually did it. I think it took me two and a half years to get up there. And so, everything I did, I would have recruiters. I worked with multiple recruiters, which are great. Their job is to go get me a job. And I’d be like, don’t call me unless you have a job that’s 125, 000, but I’m not paying them anything.

[00:30:36] Alan Corey: It’s like having a real estate agent, like they get a commission if they can find me a job paid by the employer. And so I would utilize them and I was just using every tactic that I could. Now that I’m older, if anyone really wants to go this route, what I realized is every company that I worked for, the salespeople, the best salesperson in every company made more than the CEO.

[00:30:55] Alan Corey: And so is that right? If you want to make a lot of money. Yeah. Cause it’s on tapped commissions, go sell our product. The more it was sold, the more you’re going to get a commission. And so go sell something expensive because you’re working in software, the people sell a hundred thousand software packages.

[00:31:09] Alan Corey: They had boats and everything. And I was like, and they were dumb as rocks. Like all they did was go out drinking with people. And I was like, I pivoted into sales at the end because I was like, I can be dumb and I could go drink with people, but it seems so much easier, more fun than being a CEO somewhere.

[00:31:24] Patrick Donley: That’s funny. I like how you just gamified the whole process of job search and career advancement. It’s pretty cool. So that one’s called subversive job search. 

[00:31:33] Alan Corey: Yes. Yes. 

[00:31:33] Patrick Donley: Cool. So let’s talk about the next one, house fire. That, I think, is a brilliant name for a book. Talk to me, first of all, what FIRE is.

[00:31:41] Patrick Donley: There’s some of our listeners that don’t know that term. It might be new to them. Get into that a little bit and then we’ll get into the book after that. 

[00:31:48] Alan Corey: Sure. Yeah. And House FIRE, just like subversive job search, just like a million bucks by 30, meant to be entertaining and fun. But FIRE stands is an acronym and sort of a niche personal finance community that stands for Financial Independence and Retire Early.

[00:32:02] Alan Corey: I didn’t come up with FIRE. I would have come up with something way more creative than that, but it just doesn’t really roll off the tongue. Financial independence, retire early, but That’s the FIRE movement that you may be seeing some press about or find some Reddit threads or whatever. And it’s a strategy that is really how to do it, when do you know you can retire?

[00:32:21] Alan Corey: And this guy, the professor at Trinity University about 40 years ago, ran a bunch of, Monte Carlo simulations and things and realize that if you have 25 times your annual expenses saved up in a stock portfolio, regardless of your timing, if you, right after, the stock market crash, right before you put all your money in, as long as you withdraw 4 percent of your stock portfolio of that 25 X, your annual expenses.

[00:32:45] Alan Corey: So if 100, 000 you’re spending a year, 25 X, is that 2. 5 million? 2. 5 million. Yeah. Terrible. Yeah. So if you have 2. 5 million in stocks, it doesn’t matter what’s happening in the stock market. Historically, as long as you withdraw 4%, that’s 100, 000 and you can maintain your lifestyle. I didn’t like that.

[00:33:02] Alan Corey: I hated that because one, it was, yeah, of course, I got to save 2. 5 million. I have options. Like that number was ludicrous to me. I was like, yeah, I got to work for 30 years to get there and live in the corporate life. That wasn’t exciting. So I was like, but I understood living below your means.

[00:33:17] Alan Corey: And so a lot of it was, okay, don’t live for a hundred thousand dollars, walk everywhere or house hacks so that your expenses are 80, 000. And I didn’t want to do that either because As I was growing older, I wanted a higher level of lifestyle. I think everyone does. No one wants to plateau or live below their means as they get older.

[00:33:35] Patrick Donley: Keep eating ramen noodles. You wanted to move on from that. 

[00:33:37] Alan Corey: Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to start impressing girls finally. They take them out on dates, kind of thing. You have to visit me. That kind of thing. So I had a problem with the fire moon because of that. And then also you were, you’re on a constrained budget and retirement, even with inflation, even though you’re drawing that same 4%, whether it’s a hundred thousand dollars or whatever, it doesn’t go as far.

[00:33:55] Alan Corey: And so I just saw problems with it, but I felt like I was part of the fire community. So I was like, how can I make this real estate related? How can I improve this through real estate? Which is the business of the book house fire. And so what I realized is if you take their formula that they teach, Let’s say I have an internet bill or phone bill combo.

[00:34:14] Alan Corey: That’s 150 a month, a year of that. That’s 1, 800. So 25 times that is 45, 000. So in their methods, save up 45, 000 and you can have. internet for life, right? Like they love going to Costco and everything. And I can’t go to Costco and buy internet access for life. Like you can’t buy that in bulk. You can’t prepay that.

[00:34:36] Alan Corey: So this bill is going to follow me forever. And I was like, it’s going to take me forever to save 45, 000 just to pay 150 bills. And so I was like, let’s take half of that. And that’s 22, 500. I know I can go buy a property for a hundred thousand dollars. That’s crazy. Back in the day, but even today, I’m still buying properties for 100, 000.

[00:34:55] Alan Corey: And with 20 percent down on 100, 000 property, get 80, 000 mortgage. There’s about $2,500 in closing costs. That’s half of what I had saved for. If I do that, put in a property manager, put in tenants and budget for repairs, CapEx, vacancies, My cash flow typically is 150. And so all of a sudden that’s what the house fire switched where I was like, Oh, all I need to do is save up for 22, 500 and all that house will pay for that bill.

[00:35:23] Alan Corey: And then, so then I was like, what’s the next bill I have in my life that I hate? Okay. I hate my utility bills. I can’t get rid of those either. They’re going to follow me for life. Let’s add up the electric bill, the gas bill, all that. Okay. That water bill. Okay. That’s about 150 bucks a month. Let me save another 22, 500.

[00:35:37] Alan Corey: So this is my house fire method. I bought a house for every single bill in my life. And then that, that also took about five to six properties. I just say, Oh, my goal, gamify, let me save up 22, 500. Let me save 22, 000 and it became easier and easier because I had a house that was paying my bill and house paid my bill.

[00:35:55] Alan Corey: So it knew that the loop around, to save up another twig, became faster and faster. And so then I just started. a house for every bill, a house for every bill. And then you retire much faster. And not only that, I live larger in retirement because what eventually happens is your rent goes up a little bit.

[00:36:13] Alan Corey: So I make a little bit more money. Eventually, I, let’s say I had a house for a car note, right? A five year car note. I could take, I want a Tesla. I could take 50, 000 and go to the Tesla shop and hand it to the richest man in the world and say, Let’s exchange my money for your Tesla.

[00:36:30] Alan Corey: And he said, that works for me. I was like, no, I’m not going to do that. What, how much is it going to cost for a five year car note on a Tesla? I was 500 bucks, for example, whatever it is. I was like, okay let me take my 50, 000, go buy a house, put that as a down payment. that kicks off 500 bucks and that way I get to keep my 50, 000.

[00:36:49] Alan Corey: That house pays for my car note, that car note, that house pays the richest man in the world, not me. And then eventually in five years when that car note paid off, I now have 500 to go somewhere else, that could go to my food bill or my vacation budget. So I had all these assets that would pay off my bills.

[00:37:07] Alan Corey: And then eventually the mortgage would be paid off or the note that I earmarked it for was paid off. And then I could allocate it to another expense in my life. And that’s another way, five years is really all it takes. If you take this approach, most people, depending on how large you live to siphon off your little segment off, burn up those bills with the house fire method.

[00:37:25] Alan Corey: And that’s what I teach in the book as well. 

[00:37:28] Patrick Donley: How many rentals would you say it takes on average to become financially independent, retire early? What would you say the number is? 

[00:37:35] Alan Corey: So there’s not a catch all answer to that, but I would say roughly five. And so you don’t have to be a mogul. You don’t have to, try to own a thousand properties.

[00:37:43] Alan Corey: If anything, five is going to change your life and it’s going to 5X your speed to retirement over the typical investing in stocks fire method. 

[00:37:54] Patrick Donley: Yeah, I agree with that. I think that’s, I did the same kind of strategy. I don’t know how many rentals I had, but I got to the point where I had enough income to meet my expenses.

[00:38:03] Patrick Donley: And at that point I said I was going to do something that I loved, which ended up working here at TIP and doing the podcast. So it really just gives you optionality once you hit those rentals. And once those bills are paid for, you can then go do your comedy if you want, or you can pursue whatever dream that you want to do at that point.

[00:38:20] Patrick Donley: What do you think it is that keeps people or what do you see that keeps people back from doing this? I think there’s a, I’ve got several buddies that are in the trades that they talk all the time about investing in real estate, but they never do. So what is it in your experience that just holds people back from all of this?

[00:38:39] Alan Corey: A lot of it comes to analysis paralysis where they want it to chase everything and it’s tough because I say there’s a million ways to make a million dollars in real estate. You can make a million dollars a year as a short term rental host. You can make a million dollars as a long term rental host. You can make a million dollars buying townhomes.

[00:38:54] Alan Corey: You can make a million dollars as a flipper, as a wholesaler. So people are constantly learning all the different strategies. And they’re like, which one should I do? And I’m like, it doesn’t matter. Pick one and just focus on one by anyone’s book. I don’t even care if you buy my book or someone else’s book, but the blueprint is in those books and they’re not trying to lie to you.

[00:39:13] Alan Corey: They’re giving you the footprint and it doesn’t take away from me. If you institute my strategies in your life. Because there’s so many deals around that even if you’re, you are my next door neighbor and you’re doing the same thing, there’s plenty of deals because I physically can’t buy them all. I don’t have the time or the energy or the money.

[00:39:30] Alan Corey: And so I’m an open book, literally in the book. And so I don’t care, just pick one and stick to it. And because I think people want to divert. They’re all worried about diversity, diversifying their profile. And I think that’s not what you should do because you don’t become an expert. If you’ve got a duplex.

[00:39:48] Alan Corey: I’m looking at duplexes in Florida and I’m looking at a short term rental in my hometown. And then someone will come to me like I see an apartment building in Texas. They’re like, what, which one should I buy? And I was like have you looked at all the comps yeah, this is the best apartment building in Texas.

[00:40:02] Alan Corey: This is the best one in my hometown. I was like, then buy them all because you found the best of that product. But I can’t tell you which one is better than the other, but you’re going to scale. And scale is going to make your life easier if you just focus on one, if you become known as the condo queen in Manhattan and only buy condos, what happens is the neighbors tell you, Oh, you buy condos here.

[00:40:22] Alan Corey: Oh, I know what I heard my friend Susie at a happy hour buys condos and the deal starts finding you once you have that expertise and are branded. And so like I bought, I have four quads on the same street. And quadruplexes. And I bought one and then a real estate agent was like, Alan, I heard you bought a condo on that street.

[00:40:39] Alan Corey: Do you want to buy this one I’m about to list? Yeah. And then the neighbors like, Oh, you bought those too? I’m going to sell mine. Do you want to buy mine? Sure. And then all of a sudden I didn’t tell anyone. It just happened where Alan buys a condo for 40. Quadruplexes in this zip code.

[00:40:52] Alan Corey: And I ended up buying them all because they found me and those deals are so much better than having to fight. And then once, I also realized that it’s easier to manage because I don’t have to create different teams. Leveraging money is one thing to get wealthy, but leveraging teams is the other thing you have to do.

[00:41:07] Alan Corey: And my contractor on my luxury properties is not the same contractor I use on my section eight, government housing properties. I could, but they don’t know whether to buy linoleum floors. I’ve never had to do this before. They don’t know how to install it. And so what I was trying to diversify, I had to recreate my contractors.

[00:41:25] Alan Corey: I did have different property managers because different property managers are in certain city limits and things like that. I, now that I’ve scaled up and I’ve been doing this for 25 years. Sure. Diversified. But in your first five, if you’re going for that one a year for five years for an early retirement, the house fire method, or even the million bucks by 30 method, then yes, I think you should focus on one area because then when you look at a property, you can be like, I can’t rent a two bedroom for that because I own three, two bedrooms and I don’t get that for rent.

[00:41:53] Alan Corey: Or this is a miss, this is labeled incorrectly. Like you’re going to recognize the deals and the flaws so much faster. Because that is the only lane that you swim in. And it’s so much easier to be successful if you create that niche for yourself. 

[00:42:06] Patrick Donley: Yeah, it’s a really good point.

[00:42:07] Patrick Donley: There’s a guy that I interviewed, Sean O’Dowd is his name, that he just focuses on one zip code. That’s it. One zip code and he knows, literally, he probably knows every house within that zip code and he becomes the guy, exactly like you said. It’s in a really expensive school district, really good schools.

[00:42:25] Patrick Donley: That’s where he’s focused and now he’s become this guy that buys in this school district and does rentals for like longer term three years or four years. For people that want to be in that school district for their kids for a good education. 

[00:42:39] Alan Corey: Yeah. And you’re cutting out all the noise and anything that’s not in that school district.

[00:42:42] Alan Corey: And what is great is I’m the opposite of Sean. I would never invest in a good school district. So I’m like, okay, he found a way to make money. I teach not to buy a good school district because you’re paying a premium price and it’s hard. Sure. You’re going to get long term tenants, but your cash flow is usually not as good.

[00:42:57] Alan Corey: It’s more expensive to buy them in a good school district. And then the 10 school districts. can only stay at 10 or go down. But if I buy in a seventh school district, it has the opportunity to go to eight or nine, and I make a lot of money that way. So it doesn’t mean don’t do it. He found his strategy that works for him.

[00:43:12] Alan Corey: I thought his strategy works for me. And when you have a niche yourself, you’re going to find a strategy that works for you. 

[00:43:18] Patrick Donley: Good points. I want to talk a little bit about what your portfolio looks like today. Where are you focused? Where are you concentrated? Where are you seeing opportunities? What are you focused on today?

[00:43:28] Alan Corey: Yeah, so I have only multifamily properties in Atlanta by myself, about 18 doors, mostly quads and triplexes and some duplexes. And then with some partners, we bought into a couple apartment complexes, another 350 doors. And those are all in town, Atlanta and in Huntsville, Alabama. And so I live here and I feel like I’m an expert.

[00:43:51] Alan Corey: My expertise is here, but I have invested in New York city. That’s where I got started. Charleston, South Carolina. I love college towns and it just happens that I’m 1031 and sold some properties and moved my portfolio closer to me. Too many frozen pipes are happening in New York City, so I don’t have to deal with that in Atlanta, but now I have to deal with termites.

[00:44:11] Alan Corey: I’ve just swapped one problem for another. But you liquidated all of your holdings in New York? Yes. And cause when I moved on Murder Avenue, right? Like it was all 99 cent stores, bodegas in Brooklyn. I say every property that you buy comes with imaginary lottery tickets. So I buy every property for that, but the house fire method, just what bill will this pay for?

[00:44:32] Alan Corey: And then Brooklyn changed over the 10 years that I owned there, the Brooklyn Nets came to town the bodegas turned into Chipotle’s, the 99 cent stores turned into Starbucks, and I sold my properties that no one wanted to live in, 10 years later to celebrities, Christina Ricci, the Wednesday actress, played Wednesday, bought one of my properties and, The mayor’s right hand man became a tenant at another one of my properties.

[00:44:56] Alan Corey: So like we’ll really distinguish people started moving into the neighborhood and I didn’t plan on that, but that’s the imaginary lottery ticket that comes with real estate investing. You buy the basics and you may get super lucky. Both those two of these townhomes I bought in Brooklyn, I sold for $2 million each, and I bought one for four 50 and I bought one with a hundred percent financing for a million and sold it a couple years later for 2 million.

[00:45:19] Alan Corey: So I had 2 million, two $1 million payouts just because of these imaginary lottery tickets. But I bought ’em for the minuscule cash flow that would cover a bill in my life. Yeah, that’s interesting. 

[00:45:29] Patrick Donley: So you’re, when you talk about the basics, you’re primarily buying for the cash flow, and then if there’s appreciation, that’s just, you view it as just bonus upside, 

[00:45:37] Alan Corey: yeah, because I can’t control that. And that’s speculative like everyone’s Oh, Alan got lucky, I didn’t try to get lucky. I was like, it wasn’t like, let me lose money each month. Let me break even all my months because I think the property values are going to go up. I can’t control that.

[00:45:51] Alan Corey: So it doesn’t even factor into when I’m purchasing a property. If, if I couldn’t control that, it felt, investing in stocks, I can’t control that. So why even spend my time thinking about it. 

[00:46:02] Patrick Donley: I wanted to talk a little bit about debt and leverage. I saw a tweet that you had that said you never pay off long term fixed rate debt.

[00:46:10] Patrick Donley: Talk to me a little bit about that and your thoughts on leverage. 

[00:46:14] Alan Corey: Yeah. So Dave Ramsey and I would probably have a really good debate on this if he would be open to it, but I see where he’s coming from, but I am definitely anti pay off your mortgage early. And as an example, what I realized now, I was in that mindset because I grew up on Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman and these talking heads, pay off your mortgage, pay off your mortgage.

[00:46:32] Alan Corey: So I thought that was the goal to get a 15 year mortgage. And so I did that and I learned every single time I did that, it was a mistake. Now if I have a paid off house, I can’t sleep at night. And so some people are like, I want to pay off my mortgage so I can sleep at night. I said if you really understand how money works, you would not sleep at night.

[00:46:47] Alan Corey: And the way I illustrate this is imagine that you bowl into a gas station today and you find a dollar on the ground. You pick it up and you have two options. You listen to what Dave Ramsey says and pay off your mortgage early. Let me take that dollar, mail it into the bank and get a dollar off your principal.

[00:47:03] Alan Corey: Or if you don’t have those long term goals, you’re going to treat yourself and go into the gas station, buy a dollar Snickers bar, right? Pull in one of two camps. Are you going to be a prudent financial person? Or are you going to, you might die tomorrow. So let’s go get that Snickers bar today.

[00:47:16] Alan Corey: So you do that right now. Let’s say that You didn’t pick up that dollar and you came back to that gas station 15 years later, but that dollar was still there. So 15 years later, you pull back in. No, one’s picked up that dollar yet. Fine. I’m going to get out of my car and pick up that dollar. We’re in a cashless society.

[00:47:29] Alan Corey: I’ll find a way to spend this dollar. And so you have two options. You can go into the gas station. You’ll get your Snickers bar, but hold up. You can’t because that Snicker bar is 3 now, right? So you, that purchasing power is worthless in 15 years. You can still mail that in to your bank and get a full dollar off your principal, right?

[00:47:52] Alan Corey: So it’s got triple the purchasing power of your mortgage. Because that is a fixed rate mortgage for 30 years. That’s not going to change when everything around you is constantly changing. The price is always going to go up. It’s called inflation. It’s just, it’s inevitable. Why would you get rid of that benefit?

[00:48:09] Alan Corey: The best benefit you have is a 30 year expense. The largest expense of your life is your mortgage. Most likely. Why would you get rid of the benefit that’s locked for 30 years? It doesn’t make sense. Everything around you is going to get more expensive. Buy that now. Buy all the Snickers now because they’re going to be more expensive.

[00:48:26] Alan Corey: Hoard Snickers. It’s so much. That’s a better investment than paying off your mortgage. I want to hear a little bit. 

[00:48:33] Patrick Donley: You focused obviously on real estate, but do you look outside into other asset classes for your portfolio at all? Or are you just strictly focused on real estate? 

[00:48:42] Alan Corey: I call myself a real estate maximalist.

[00:48:44] Alan Corey: I try to solve every problem with real estate. I try to do everything through real estate. I have at times bought individual stocks. I’ve done some mutual funds. I’ve done crypto. And then every single time I’m like, let me get into this. And I do all the research. I find a property that I can’t buy unless I sell all my crypto and I sell all my stocks and my mutual funds to go buy real estate.

[00:49:05] Alan Corey: So I get in this cycle where I try to, but I just get sucked back into real estate because that’s my expertise. I love it. And it’s treated me well for 25 years. And I now preach the gospel and I’m an evangelist. I’m trying to convert everyone else who’s not doing real estate to do more real estate.

[00:49:21] Patrick Donley: My dad says something similar where he’s you make money in your own business and you inevitably often lose it when you try to venture outside of your circle of competence. And that’s totally my experience. Focus on what you know, stay in your lane, focus on your circle of competence and deviate from your strategy.

[00:49:40] Alan Corey: Yeah, I just don’t have the patience to wait. Like I understand it works. I know historically it works, but if I have a day off, I can go improve my property. But if I have a day off, I can’t improve my crypto. Like I can’t improve my stocks. I just feel like I’m sitting idle and I’m like, Oh, I hope someone else is working extra on the weekend on the stock.

[00:50:00] Alan Corey: I just, it just drives me insane. 

[00:50:03] Patrick Donley: I want to talk a little bit about House Money Media. It’s a new venture that you’ve got going. Talk to me about it. Tell us about it and why you decided to partner up with Lauren from Adulting is Easy. 

[00:50:13] Alan Corey: Yeah. So I didn’t have a real estate mentor. I didn’t have any rich mentors, as I mentioned at the top of the biocast here.

[00:50:19] Alan Corey: And so I wanted to be that, I wanted to create a company for that. And I, my niche is mostly small multifamily, long term rentals. I see other people online who are teaching short term rentals and that’s Lauren’s niche. And so I was like, we’re chasing the same audience. You want to teach these folks?

[00:50:35] Alan Corey: You want to be a mentor? They have a lot of questions. I have some short term rentals, but I’m not. I don’t have as many reps in as Liz Lauren does. And so I was like, why don’t we combine forces and be the mentors for these people and create, we’ve got courses, we’ve got podcasts, newsletters.

[00:50:50] Alan Corey: I blog, I still get my creative writing, try to make them funny, try to make them entertaining. Just like my books, this is all on house money media. com. And you can sign up and be in our private discord where you can post your deals. And Lauren and I will chime in, tell you our thoughts and bring you on the podcast or whatever it is.

[00:51:06] Alan Corey: Try to change people’s lives. Typically, first generation real estate investors. I’m a first generation real estate investor. I had no one. And I want to be that person, so to save someone having to read 50 books in the library, I’ve done that. Let me just regurgitate what I’ve learned in 25 years of experience and let me hold your hand and make it make your life easier and you’ll be more successful.

[00:51:27] Alan Corey: So you can change your life like I have. I just try to give back at this point. That’s awesome. 

[00:51:32] Patrick Donley: That’s what’s so great about today is that there’s so many resources out there that, like 25 years ago, you had to go to the library. There was no nothing to listen to. There was, no interviews to listen to.

[00:51:44] Patrick Donley: It’s just like the times are so much better now in terms of learning what you want to learn. You guys are producing a ton of content. You mentioned a newsletter, podcast courses. How do you guys manage all that? How there’s a, it’s tough to pump out that much content. 

[00:52:00] Alan Corey: We all left our day jobs because of real estate.

[00:52:02] Alan Corey: So when we’re not looking at deals, we’re not doing real estate deals. That’s the, we create content. And honestly, it’s just, it’s like a diary entry. What did I do today? Okay. This could be a learning lesson for someone. Let me put it out there. 

[00:52:14] Patrick Donley: That’s awesome. Alan, this has been a lot of fun. I really have enjoyed your time.

[00:52:17] Patrick Donley: It’s fun to talk about the books that you’ve written and your journey to financial independence using real estate. How can our listeners find out more about you, find out about House Money Media, just all that you’re up to. 

[00:52:28] Alan Corey: Yeah I’m on social media, real estate maxi. I’ll also go to housemoneymedia.com

[00:52:32] Alan Corey: That’s where our blogs and podcasts, search up the house money media podcast, and you’re going to find me talking about real estate. If you find me in the bar, I’m going to trap you and talk about real estate. The reason I have a podcast, the reason I write about real estate is everyone in my life is sick of me talking about real estate.

[00:52:45] Alan Corey: So now I have to talk real estate to strangers. 

[00:52:48] Patrick Donley: I love it. Alan, thanks a lot for your time. This has been a lot of fun. 

[00:52:51] Alan Corey: Thanks, Patrick. 

[00:52:52] Patrick Donley: Okay, folks, that’s all I had for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed the show and I’ll see you back here real soon.

[00:52:59] Outro: Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to follow Millennial Investing on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on our episodes. To access our show notes, transcripts, or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.