He Was Laid Off From TSA, Now He Owns an Entire Rental Portfolio

Before building an entire real estate portfolio, Matthew Garland was laid off from the TSA. He went from searching for contraband in your suitcase to searching for jobs ASAP. He had no degree, no office job experience, but he was good at connecting with people. He got a job as a loan officer and was making money hand over fist. Then the market crashed, his savings dwindled, his credit score plummeted, and he even got foreclosed on. It was time to build something real. That’s when a rich client of his introduced him to the “wealth hack” that helped him rebuild his life through rental properties. Now, you probably know Matthew as MG the Mortgage Guy, sharing as many insider lending secrets as possible so you can buy your next property. In this episode, he’s doing the same, telling YOU how to get preapproved now, what you need to get a lender to take you seriously on your first deal, and how he rebuilt his life, one property at a time. If you think you can’t build a real estate portfolio because you’re starting from zero, MG will show you how to get ahead and into your first deal, even if you feel way behind the starting line. In This Episode We Cover The “wealth hack” of the rich that gets you investment properties with little money down How to rebuild your financial foundation with real estate investing (even if you have little money or low credit) Why you never overleverage yourself and why scaling quickly (probably) isn’t worth the stress Four things you need to get preapproved for a mortgage (and what to do if you’re missing one or all) When to call a lender: Do you need to have perfect credit before you start? And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠⁠t⁠t⁠ps://www⁠.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1285. Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Henry Washington?

  If you want to buy rental property, but think you can't, you need to hear this episode. Before building an entire real estate portfolio, Matthew Garland was laid off from the TSA. He went from looking for contraband in your suitcase to looking for a job real quick. He didn't have a degree. He didn't have office experience, but what he did have was he was great at connecting with people. So he got a job as a loan officer, and he was making money hand over fist. But then the 2008 market crash happened and his savings dwindled, his credit fell off a cliff, and he even had to deal with the foreclosure. It was time to build something real. And that's when a wealthy client of his introduced him to a wealth hack that allowed him to rebuild his life with rental

• 0:45Henry Washington?

  properties. Now, you probably know Matt as MG the Mortgage Guy, who's been sharing many insider lending secrets as possible, so that you can buy your next property. In this episode, he's doing the exact same thing, telling you how you can get pre-approved now, what you need to do to get a lender to take you seriously on your first deal, and how he rebuilt his life one property at a time. Ready to get in the property game? As MG says, "Slow motion beats no motion." So what are you waiting for?

• 1:21Henry Washington?

  What's going on, everybody? I am Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast. And today, I am excited because we have Matthew Garland, AKA MG the Mortgage Guy, ready to share some amazing information with you. So let's bring him on. Matthew Garland, welcome to the show.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  My brother, Henry Washington. What's going on, bro? How you feeling today?

• 1:43Henry Washington?

  I'm feeling fantastic, man. So good to have you. Look, I want to jump in and talk about your story, because I know a lot of people know who you are, but not everybody on our side of the fence in this audience might not know who we're talking to here. But before you jump into that, I need a good old MG the Mortgage Guy video introduction.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  So this is Matt Garland, NMLS number 58700. I'm better known as MG the Mortgage Guy. We are live, we are blessed. Thank God for another day. Let's grow.

• 2:16Henry Washington?

  Appreciate that. All right, MG. So tell everybody kind of what your background was and how you got into real estate in the first place.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  So I like to say, nothing happens by accident, right?

• 2:28Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  I think, I think everything happens in God's divine timing, right? So my best friend, who's now a pastor, a shout out to my brother Philip Anthony Mitchell. This was back in 2003. I just got laid off for TSA. I was probably one of the first people that were hired, part of the first couple of classes that was hired for TSA right after 9/11.

• 2:50Henry Washington?

  Wow, wow.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  And I did that for like a year and I got laid off because of quote unquote budget cuts, right? We'll leave that there. And I was, I was home, I was in Queens. I was a little feeling a little down and I was speaking to my brother like, yo, man, I got a new girl. Like, I need some money, man. I need, I need, I need to figure this out. And I'm not trying to hit the block or nothing like that. You know what I'm saying? I'm not trying to take this to the streets or nothing. I need to figure this out. I'm a college dropout. So one day I was speaking to him and he was like, yo, you should get into the mortgage business. I was like, what's a mortgage?

• 3:29Speaker 01

  He was like, you know, when people want to buy a house, you know, they go see a loan officer. I said, a loan officer? I said, bro, we from Queens. I'm not trying to be a cop. Like, he's like, no, bro. Like, no. He was like, the loan officer is the one at the bank who gives the people the mortgage or the loan so they could buy a house. So I said, you know what? Let me just start calling people, sending my resume. And I sent it to like 10 companies, three of them called me back right away for interviews. I went on interviews with all three and immediately I started negotiating comp plans. And I didn't even, I didn't even know what a comp plan was. I just know, I know I could get more.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Cause I know the first offer is never the best offer. Like I knew that back then. You know what I'm saying? And that's kind of like how I got. Into the business, right? Like, I got into the business just because of what my best friend had told me.

• 4:19Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  And I never looked back.

• 4:21Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  You know, and it was just one of these things as when I got into the business. Now, mind you, this was the wild cowboy days, right? This is pre O eight. So I'm not new to this. I'm true to this.

• 4:29Henry Washington?

  Oh, so y'all was, y'all was slanging mortgages.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm probably part of one of the reasons why the market crashed.

• 4:40Henry Washington?

  Throwing money at people.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  If you had a pulse and a heartbeat, you could get a loan. That's just how it was like, and you gotta understand, like, I'm, I'm from, I'm from Queens, New York. I was working in Long Island. Like, anybody from Newark would tell you that Long Island is where a lot of, there was a lot of financial firms, a lot of Wall Streeters who didn't make it on Wall Street. They opened up shops in Long Island, right? Because it was a little bit cheaper rent wise. Um, and you didn't have the top talent like Wall Street and Manhattan had, but you still had good salespeople. So I was trained like a killer in this business. Like, we had the smiling dial. There was really no technology at this time. There was no social media. There was no such thing as content. It was either you smiling or dialing or you out.

• 5:26Henry Washington?

  Yeah. This was pre dialer. So there wasn't no calling thirteen numbers at a time and you take.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Nah, this was no predictive, bro. There was no predictive dollars. There was no power dollars. There was literally pick up the phone that had a cord to it. You know what I'm saying? Plugged in the wall. And everybody had their own phone. And then, and then when you really got some money, you bought the headphones. That's when you knew you was making money. You could buy the headphones with the, with the, with the mouthpiece and you could talk and you could stand up at your desk and talk a little bit. That's who you knew was making money because those, those headphones just cost like a thousand dollars.

• 6:00Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Right? So that was my era. Literally smiling and dialing. If you ain't making calls, you ain't making no money, right? That phone is your cash register. And we were just, I mean, crushing it, bro. Like, it, it was good times.

• 6:14Henry Washington?

  Yeah, I can imagine it was. But I, I'd imagine too, you also probably learned a lot about the real estate business in general. Did you start to buy? Properties back then, or did you, or was that post, post crash?

• 6:27Speaker 01

  No, it was before the crash. So when I got, and when I got into everything, started dibbling, dabbling, buying because it's just was so easy, right? Like, you know, I'm in my twenties now, you know, you start buying properties and you don't really know what you're doing in all honesty. Because it's not like how it is today, guys, like how we have it today. I think the market today is so much better, especially starting off new. Because there's so much education. That you can learn from, whereas let's face it, Henry, people who look like me and you wasn't really in real estate. And the people who were in the business at that time, from my experience, they wasn't trying to teach me anything about real estate. They just saw a young, hungry kid. Let me see if I can get this kid to work under my team or be a part of what I'm doing.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  So he can make me some money. So when I started buying real estate, it wasn't like I'm out here, like I'm gonna be a super investor. I didn't really even understood what that really meant. It was just like, okay, I could go buy a property, fun. I could get a hundred percent financing. And it was not a no doc, but it was like a light doc type of loan. So I didn't even really need like the pay stubs and all that stuff like we need it now. It was all subprime lending. So that's how I bought my first house, right? Is using like eighty, twenty, twenty strategies. And then just did that a couple of times, but I didn't know what I was doing. Right? We partnered up, partnered up with a couple of people and it was just like, all right, this is pretty easy.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  You know, people paying rent, but it was so, I was so focused on the mortgage side because I saw. I can make so much more money, not just buying the properties, but just lending the money, just being the loan officer. So by the time I looked up before the crash, I'm at a couple of properties. I'm making two, three, four hundred thousand dollars a year. I'm in my twenties. I don't know what the hell is going on. I'm just like, yo, money's falling off trees in my opinion. Right? Like this is like, this is, this is great. This is America. Like holy smokes. Like this is amazing. And then, you know, I'll never forget this. This guy at my company, he was like, he told me, he's like, yo, you're moving too fast. You need to start saving your money.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  And I didn't, I was like, what? Save money like for what? When I can go spend twenty and I make twenty in the next two weeks.

• 8:46Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Like twenty thousand back then may not sound like a lot, but twenty thousand back then was probably like fifty, sixty thousand dollars now.

• 8:53Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Um, so for me, I didn't understand the economics of the mortgage business because again, no one taught me. They just taught me how to go out here and close and make more money. Like you lose a deal, replace it with two more.

• 9:08Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Right? So when the market crashed, I had a couple of properties and the overhead was just, the money was going out, but the money wasn't coming in.

• 9:18Henry Washington?

  I got caught in it too. I bought my very first condo. It was, I had never bought anything before. I bought my very first condo in two thousand, late two thousand and six.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:27Henry Washington?

  And, uh, I was so worried about this whole process of buying a house. I couldn't believe how fast they approved me to buy a house. I bought that house, brand new condominium complex. They were building them, uh, you know, I bought it in the second building, but the, the whole complex had like nine buildings planned to be built.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:44Henry Washington?

  So the crash happened in two thousand and eight. I tried to sell my unit, but they were now selling brand new units for twenty, thirty grand less than what I bought mine for. So I ended up getting, I, I was holding the bag on my first property. Although I had no idea what was happening, but it, it, the ball dropped quickly.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  It was like overnight almost. On every news channel, there was nothing but doom and gloom. So now I'm going through my own depression. I went through foreclosures myself, short sales. Like, it was like, wait a minute. Like no one prepares you for this side of the thing. I mean, it got really bad for me. But I think that was the greatest thing that ever happened to me in my career. Because one, it showed me when I'm in an industry that damn near bankrupt the whole world. That's when I knew this is the industry that I need to be in. Because if this industry has that much power, it's not just about you buying a house. You gotta look at how many businesses

• 10:44Speaker 01

  and, and, and corporations are tied into just one person buying a house.

• 10:48Henry Washington?

  Man, I say this all the time. I love it.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Right? Think about that. It's so many different businesses. The economics behind home buying is so, is, is beyond what we thought.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Twenty years ago, I had no clue that the mortgages people foreclosing could bankrupt the world and this many banks could go out of business. So one, it taught me that this business, I need to really learn and study this business because if I do, I can, I can be well off, right? Number two, what I learned is because of this business, I can't go get a regular job. Those days are done. Henry, I tried.

• 11:27Henry Washington?

  You got spoiled.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Like, I, I know, but I tried because look, I'm losing everything. I have two small kids at this time.

• 11:33Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  And I'm like, yo, my ex is telling me, yo, you gotta do something. Like, you know, riding around in a seven fifty L I with barely gas money in your pocket with a $2,000 custom suit, ain't keeping food in this house. So you got to do something. And I tried, bro. I tried to go to these companies, sales companies, but when they were trying to offer me, you know, minimum wage, barely above minimum wage. I'm like, yo, I'm just coming off of making 20, 30,000 a month. I can't work for minimum wage. Like, I'm, I gotta stick this out, right? So it taught me, you gotta just, no matter good, bad, or ugly, if you're doing something that you feel passionate about and you know you can make money, it's

• 12:17Speaker 01

  not about the short term. You gotta ride through the season of it.

• 12:20Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Right? And to me, that crash was a season. It was, it was maybe two years that the, the whole economy was kind of messed up. But then when President Obama got elected and they came in and they had all of these bailouts and all these different things that they started doing to stabilize the economy. I said, okay, I'm, I, I gotta just survive, right? And one of the, the third best thing that I learned from this, sometimes you gotta take two steps backwards to move 10 steps forward. So what I did was I took a pay cut. And I wound up getting a job, but I stayed in the industry and I got a job for J P Morgan Chase. And I became a loan officer for them because they started recruiting heavy during this time.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  And that also showed me too, when there's, when there's crisis, there's opportunities, right? If you're positioned well, you can take advantage in the crisis. J P Morgan was positioned well at that time. And they still was hiring loan officers while people were still laying off.

• 13:19Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  And then when I got with J P Morgan Chase, that was probably one of the best things that happened to me in my career. Because they taught me how to deepen the relationship with the customer. They taught me about customer service. They taught me about how to work with referral partners. So working for them, honestly, I tell people this all the time. And this is why I have no problem shouting them out. And when I have these conversations about my past is that that was like me getting my MBA in mortgage banking.

• 13:44Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  It's like that four years that I spent there really, really like reshaped. Like my whole entire way of thinking of working and how to be a real professional in this business. But also it taught me a lot of wealth hacks. See, two of my years of working at J P Morgan, I, I spent on Wall Street. And that's when I learned house hacking. Because one of my clients there, they were buying a multifamily house. And I've done plenty of multifamily loans at this time. But when, when I looked at his income, I'm like, this guy's making six, seven hundred thousand. Why is he buying a multifamily when he could just go buy the, the big house with the picket fence and all this other stuff? And he told me, well, I'mma live here for a year or two, have Rito cover it.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  And then I'mma move out and keep renting and then keep repeating the process. He was like, yeah, I'm hacking it. And I said, oh, house hacking.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  I said, I'd never heard that before.

• 14:40Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  And I said, wait a minute, the way they're doing it is completely different than how our people are doing it.

• 14:45Henry Washington?

  When I first learned about house hacking, what really sold me on it? Cause I, I did a house hack for one of my first rental properties. But the thing that sells me on it is what people don't understand is if your goal is to buy an investment property anyway, you're spending so much more money if you buy the personal house first and then go buy the duplex. Yeah. But just by switching it around and buying the duplex first with the low down payment loan, you live in it and then you go buy the personal home, you save anywhere between, I mean, it depends on the market you're in, but you literally save tens of thousands of dollars. Because if you do it the original way, the way we're all taught, right? Go buy your personal house. And then if you want to invest, you go buy something, but now you're putting 20, 25% down. Yeah.

• 15:29Henry Washington?

  Do it the other way around, you're putting three and a half percent down to 5% down each time. That keeps so much more money in your pocket for the exact same two houses. And that's just not something that's taught to people. You have to, you have to go seek that information out. MG, I want to hear more about your house hacking journey and how that led you into A, building more of a real estate portfolio post-crash via the lessons that you've learned, and B, how that helped shape who you are as a content creator and why you create the content that you do. But we'll get into that right after this break.

• 16:06Dave Meyer?

  A lot of insurance companies compete on one thing, speed. But if you're protecting an investment property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, should speed really be the priority? Enreg believes strong coverage starts with understanding the property, the risks and the realities of ownership. That's why they don't rush the process. Their policies are designed for real world claims, not just quick quotes. If you want insurance built to protect your investment when it matters most, visit nreg.com/bpllc and learn more today.

• 16:40Henry Washington?

  Here's a strategy that most W2 employees have never heard of. Normally, if you want to write off a rental property against your regular income, you need real estate professional status. That means tracking hundreds of hours a year. Rent to Retirement just launched a program that skips all of that. It's called the STR loophole tenant placement program. Here's how it works. You buy one of Rent to Retirement's Class A new construction investment properties. You set up an Airbnb listing and self-manage it for the remainder of the year. Rent to Retirement then rents the home as a short-term rental to establish it as an STR for the year, no furnishing required, making this the easy button to save five or six figures in taxes this year.

• 17:22Henry Washington?

  And because you're the sole manager, there's no hourly minimum to meet. That lets you use a cost segregation study to accelerate the depreciation and potentially write off over $100,000 against your income, even on your first rental. Add in cash back up to 13% of the home price, which exceeds $60,000 on some properties. With this massive cash back incentives, investors are seeing total returns up to 126%. New construction, A-class properties, and inventory is limited. Learn more at biggerpockets.com/retirement or text REI to 33777. Again, text REI to 33777.

• 18:04Dave Meyer?

  There's a point where basically every investor realizes traditional financing stops scaling with you. At first, it works. You qualify with your income, your job, your tax returns. But as you grow, that model starts to break. Now, it's not really about your personal income. It's about the income from your properties. That's where DSCR lending comes in, and it's why a lot of investors end up working with lenders like Host Financial. Host Financial qualifies deals based on property income, not personal income. So you're not dealing with W2s, or tax returns, or DTI constraints. And with 80 to 85% LTV, you can stay more flexible as you scale.

• 18:44Dave Meyer?

  It's just a different framework, one that tends to align better with how investing actually works. If you're buying rentals, refinancing, or growing your portfolio, go to hostfinancial.com. That's H-O-S-T financial.com and see what you qualify for.

• 19:00Speaker 03

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• 19:33Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm here with my friend MG the Mortgage Guy. We're talking about his history, talking about lessons learned through the real estate crash, and how that helped shaped who he is as an investor and who he is as a teacher, and essentially what his investment career looks like now. So MG, we're talking about you learning about house hacking. It sounds like you put that strategy to use. What did that look like?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  At this time, there wasn't like a lot of the strategies where you have where you can do like, oh, no money down, you could do subtool finance, and there wasn't a lot of that stuff, right? So, once I decided to get back into it, it was more from a partnership perspective. Because then I started looking at, and what I've learned with working on Wall Street, and then after that is like, you don't have to be 100% owner of anything. When you grow up, when you have siblings, you're in the hood, you just want to get out the hood. You just want to have everything on your own. So what I really leaned on was, you know what, let me create more of a buffer for myself. So that way, I'm not putting myself in harm's way 100%.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Now I have people that I trust that are doing this, so I can learn. And let me just see if they need more capital. Because now, as I'm rebuilding my credit and rebuilding my business, now I have a couple of dollars. Can I get on this deal for 25%? Can I get on this deal for 35%, right? And some of the properties that I own still to this day, I have 35, 40%, 25% ownership, but we purchased them 10 years ago, right? And now the equity in those properties are absolutely out of this, out of this world. And you're talking about buying multifamilies in New York for 500, 550,000, and in those same neighborhoods, these properties are now selling for 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 million, right?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  But I don't own 100% of them. I have good partners that were experienced partners that just needed more capital at the time, and I had the capital. But didn't necessarily had the credit. So that's how I got back in the game of investing was to partner up. Why I rebuild myself, my credit and got the confidence to why I felt like, you know what? I can do some deals on my own and be a hundred percent. And then also at the same time, now I can help more people because now I don't feel like I have the stress of me doing something on my own.

• 22:02Henry Washington?

  I think that that's important to share too, because yes, we're talking about, you know, I'm, I'm sure a lot, some of that played. You have some PTSD from the two thousand eight crash, right? Absolutely. You learned some lessons. You don't want to repeat those lessons, but there's a lot of people sitting at home, listening to this right now, who didn't go through two thousand and eight, but they may be sitting in a situation where their credit's not where it's where they want it to be. Their finances aren't where they want it to be. And that, and, and that doesn't have to stop you from actively investing. I think this is the best time I've seen in a long time to get into the real estate market. You said it earlier, right? There's opportunity in, in chaos. There's opportunity when problems come, right? And a lot of people right now would tell you that there's chaos and some problems and some opportunity out there to make money.

• 22:47Henry Washington?

  And if you feel like, man, I don't have what it takes, like, listen to MG's story. Because there are other people, other investors who you can partner with, who can help you get in the game while you rebuild yourself. This doesn't have to be a all me or all nothing. And don't be surprised, a lot of these people that you see out here on social media, talking about all these doors they got, they only own percentages of them anyway. Like, there is nothing wrong with partnering. You just have to be smart about who you partner with and about what it is that you each bring to the table.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, bro. Even there's deals that I was able to be a part of, bro, where I didn't have no money in the deal, but I still had equity in the percentage of the business because I understood the mechanics of financing and funding and finding those deals. And that was my role in the company. So what I try to tell people all the time, you don't need to be the person with the cash. If you know how to operate, right? Sometimes you can put yourself in A position to still get equity a part of a company because you know how to operate a certain thing better than the other partners can and that's your superpower. That's your skill set. And that's why even for me, MG the mortgage guy is my name on all social platforms. I focus on the financing aspect because that is my superpower. That is my gift.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Right? And now I'm even to this day, bro, I'm able to get into partnerships into deals just because I operate at the highest level possible in my space.

• 24:15Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  So my message to everybody watching this, like Henry said, if you don't have the capital, you don't have the money. You don't have this. Learn how to operate. Learn the game. That's why BiggerPockets is around. This channel has been around for years, teaching, showing you so many different strategies, this, that and the third. Go to the conferences, go to the meetups, join the programs, right? Really learn because if you learn how to operate, you can get yourself in deals and still make a lot of money. You don't need to be a hundred percent owner of anything.

• 24:44Henry Washington?

  Absolutely. So I want to jump into how or why you started creating content as it relates to helping people learn how to buy houses, but also just education in the real estate space in general. But I want to wrap up about your portfolio. So is the majority of your portfolio now partnership deals? And are you still acquiring assets or are you just kind of sitting on what you have?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  I'm sitting right now. I'm waiting for a couple of things to finish on my end that I'm working on from the rehabs and stuff like that.

• 25:11Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Um, cause I got a couple of things going on including my, my new primary residence. That's just been a pain in my ass.

• 25:17Henry Washington?

  I saw when you started that a few years back. You're still going, huh?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still going. It's a pain in my ass. It's a pain in my ass, but God willing, it's gonna be up. It's gonna be finished this year so I can really move on to other things.

• 25:27Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Um, but yeah, so a majority of what I have is partnerships. Um, a couple of the properties that I have is I'm majority owner in them. But a lot of them, I'm anywhere, like I said, between 25 and 40%. And you know, it works out perfectly for me and, and I'm fine. Acquiring like over the past couple of years, I've invested into flips. I don't have time to be the guy who's on the boots on the ground. So you know, with the content, you know, it's a great thing because. When you're speaking to the algorithm, I tell people all the time, the algorithm is your number one referral partner. Right? Whatever I put in the algorithm, she's gonna bring it back to me. So there's deals that come across my desk all the time where I see investors out here. Doing fix and flips and I like, you know, I like these numbers on the deal.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Like I want, I, I got this amount of money to be twenty five, thirty percent owner on this flip and then I, I start joint ventures. Right? That's how I keep my money flowing too. Right? Like I'm still involved in the deal, but I don't have to do the everyday grunt work. I'm just, I'm either your bank. Cause I'm lending you money or I'm being JV partner. Right? And I'm bringing certain resources and everything like that, that I have access to, to the game. So still investing, right? But just doing it a little bit smarter with limiting my exposure. So that way I can keep myself free for when I see something that comes up that I really want for me. That I'm gonna do. But the reason why I put out content, Henry, just to get to that is I'm, I'm a lone originator. That's my bread and butter, right? I like to close deals. I like to help.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  People achieve their real estate goals. So social media for me was a way for me to get leads and to get business. And it grew into something far greater that I didn't even think it would grow into. Where now it brings me so much other things, but that was why I got into the business of social media and, and creating content was to, to feed my mortgage business. But then I'll tell you guys, it flipped quickly because I realized putting out content as a salesperson, it's not gonna get you nowhere. And I think that's the biggest problem that salespeople have is that they wanna result today. They wanna sell today or it's not worth it. I used to be that person. If I put out a video and I'm saying to sales here, I'm expecting results and that was not the thing.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  When I got into just becoming an educator.

• 27:43Henry Washington?

  There we go.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  And becoming Professor MG and now teaching you about this business and teaching you.

• 27:49Henry Washington?

  There we go.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  About real estate finance and then giving you the ABCs and the one, two, threes. That's when my page started blowing up is because now I've realized with the content that how many people don't know this stuff?

• 28:03Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  And I'm thinking people know this and they really don't. Even to this day, when I put out content, I remember like, I'm surprised people still don't notice, even with all this information that's out here. But that's what really got me into it. And now I'm more of an educator than than than anything. And I love it.

• 28:20Henry Washington?

  What I love about MG's content, y'all, if you've never listened to him, go listen to him. Cause when he speaks, he speaks from a place of I am trying to help you. Right? That's the vibe you get when you're on his page. You don't get a vibe of I'm trying to sell you. You don't get a vibe of I'm trying to make a buck. You get a vibe of this is information that I need you to know and understand. So that you can go out and better yourself in your life. And I started producing content MG because I had a panic attack 90 days before I bought my my first rental property. I didn't know how I was going to take care of my family financially. And then 90 days later, I owned a rental property. I had bad credit. I didn't have any money.

• 29:02Henry Washington?

  I bought it with none of my own money out of my pocket. It was cash flowing. It was paying for itself and it was paying me. And then the bank called me and told me to take out a line of credit on the equity. So they could do so they could help me do more deals in the future. And after they had to explain to me what a line of credit meant, I realized I was staring at $30,000 in the face. And to go from panic attack about money to realizing that I now have access to $30,000 plus a cash flow rental property was so mind blowing to me that I didn't feel like God led me down this path of learning about real estate. So I could be wealthy. I knew I was led down this path because there's got to be other people who are in a worse financial position than me, who have no idea how close they are to changing their life.

• 29:46Henry Washington?

  And what you said that I love is that you started to see more growth and things start to shift for you. When you realized that you were giving people education, where you were helping people. And that's first and foremost, that's the way of the world, right? Nothing we do is for us. Everything we do is for somebody else. God didn't put us here to do anything for us. We're on this planet to improve the lives of people around us. When you put out content and you do it from a place of I am trying to help people. So much is going to come your way. And I feel like you probably get this too. People ask you, I'm sure. Man, I, I, I want to put out content. What do I do? How do I do it? How do I get people to follow my page? And when I, the first thing I always tell people is I'm like, if you're doing

• 30:31Henry Washington?

  it for money, if you're doing it for likes, or if you're doing it for views, don't do it. You're wasting your time. But if you're doing it because you just want to help people, I think you're gonna be okay. And that's actually a perfect transition because while I got you here and while I got all these people listening who probably either have gotten loans in the past or are going to get loans in the future for investment properties or for personal properties, I want to talk about what makes people lendable. What makes people like you notice the applications or the people who are prepared and ready to get deals financed. But before we do that, we got to take a quick break.

• 31:09Dave Meyer?

  For my wife's birthday, I wanted to make her a new website for her landscape design business. So I researched a lot of different options. I tried out a couple, but honestly, it was really overwhelming. It was pretty time consuming and still the site wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to. Then I tried Hostinger and everything was super simple. I asked Hostinger's AI to build a clean site for her business and it had a working version up in minutes. No coding or designer needed. Plus, its AI agent helps with SEO, website copy, and email marketing after launch. You get domain, website, email, all in one account. And right now, you can get Black Friday

• 31:50Dave Meyer?

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• 32:09Henry Washington?

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• 32:54Henry Washington?

  So when it's time for your next Toyota, you could trade in for more from a great deal today to a great value tomorrow. A Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 33:09Dave Meyer?

  I just booked a ski trip to Park City, and I've already got the whole thing planned out. Five days, first tracks every morning before the crowds show up, my knees reminding me I'm not 25 anymore by the second run, and an embarrassing number of overpriced burritos at the lodge. I don't even care. This is the trip I look forward to all year. But here's the part I actually appreciate. The practical side of my brain kicking in is that my place doesn't have to just sit there empty the whole time I'm away. I can list my space on Airbnb and bring in a little extra income while I'm out getting humbled on a mountain. And with the co-host network, I'm not the one handling all of it. You can partner with a vetted local co-host

• 33:53Dave Meyer?

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• 34:38Dave Meyer?

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• 35:50Henry Washington?

  All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. I'm here with my man MG the Mortgage Guy. We've talked about his history as a loan officer and investor. We've talked about his ability to produce outstanding educational content and how that's played into both helping to grow his business and grow him as an investor. But now, I want to talk about the lending side. But not the lending side from the bank's perspective. I want to talk about the lending side from the borrower's perspective. People everywhere seem to have two issues when they think about real estate investing. Their problem is either, I don't know where or how to find a deal, or I don't know where or how to find the money. And then when they find somebody

• 36:31Henry Washington?

  like you who's like, all right, we have some money. I feel oftentimes, they come to the table unprepared. So how should somebody come to a loan officer or come to a lender? What kinds of things do they need to have prepared? What questions do they need to be asking? How do they best prepare themselves to be able to get that, yes, you're approved? Versus the no, thank you, we don't want to work with you?

• 36:55Speaker 01

  First things first, your mindset. You have to come to the lender, the bank, whoever you go into to get money, with a mindset of, I know what I'm doing. Right? I don't care if you buying your first house or your 10th house. You need to have the mindset of a CEO, real estate investor, because you need to be able to guide and dictate the people that you hire on your team. Right? A CEO in the business can't go as far if they don't have a good team. But the CEO needs to be able to lead the team to the promised land. Right? There's reasons why Tom Brady is Tom Brady, why Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan. Right? Because they were able to lead. Right? And if you don't have that right mindset, you're not going to be able to lead properly. That's number one. Number two,

• 37:40Speaker 01

  you need to understand real estate financing. You don't need to know as much as I know as a loan officer, but you need to know enough to have an intelligent conversation to know if I'm bullshitting you or not. Because a lot of salespeople out here will BS you and put you in the wrong type of products and deals that will mess you up from getting deal number two and number three because deal number one was not structured properly. But if you don't know enough to have an intelligent conversation with me about these loan products, then guess what? I'm gonna put you in a product that's going to be more of a high margin. It's like when you go buy a car. Right? That finance manager's job is not only to get you financing, but we gotta make, the finance manager at the car dealership gotta make money for the car dealership. They're not making money by selling the car.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  They're making money on the financing. It's the same thing in the mortgage business. Right? We could do a loan. We can either make a good margin or a very low margin. Right? Pick your poison. And some loan officers, if you working with a client, like if I got a client that comes up to me, Henry, and they kind of know everything they're doing, I know I have to be very thin. Because I know they're gonna shop me. But if I don't feel like they're gonna shop me, then that gives me an opportunity to make more money. So you gotta know. And I'm telling you guys all of this just, I'm keeping it real. Insider information. Like, this is, this is just some real talk right here. Because like, everybody, everybody is, and when you're in sales, you have to make money. You have to meet quotas, period, point blank. So those two things. Number three,

• 39:10Speaker 01

  I would say you gotta have a vision for your business, right? You gotta be able to tell me. As the leader of your business, I want to buy this type of property. This is what I'm looking doing and then I want to buy this next. Right? You can't come to me and say, well, maybe I want to buy four properties this year, maybe, or I don't have all the money for it. Or I'm trying to figure, like, you're just confused. Like, you just don't really know what you want to do. Right? So if you don't, again, again, back to the leadership part and the mindset, if you don't really know what you're doing, then how you expect me to work with you? Right? Because remember, I'm a part of your team.

• 39:48Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  I need to know what's my directive, so I know how to really structure this.

• 39:53Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  The right way to make sure I'm making you money. Uh, number four thing I think people need to come to the table is you need to have a full team.

• 40:02Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  You need to come to the table when you go into the lender, you need to say, look, I have my contractor. I'm trying to do a rehab loan. Not many people I speak to say, hey, I want to do a birth strategy or I want to do a rehab loan. You got a contractor? No. How you trying to do a rehab loan or a birth strategy? You don't even have a contractor or even have an idea of who you might want to work with as a contractor. Like, that doesn't make sense to me.

• 40:25Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Right? So having your team together is very important because when you come to the bank, if they, if you have all these things, again, to me, I'm looking at, okay, you're serious.

• 40:36Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  You're trying to execute and close, so I need to work harder with you than I do the other person who's coming right behind you, who might just be at the starting point.

• 40:45Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  So I think if you come to the table with your knowledge, your expertise, your mindset right, have a vision, have some sort of a team.

• 40:55Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Together, then it makes it a little bit easier for you to get yourself financed and have a person that you can work with, not just on one transaction.

• 41:04Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  But multiple transactions and grow with.

• 41:07Henry Washington?

  Absolutely. Like, you need to know enough to be able to speak intelligently about what it is that you want to buy, why you want to buy it, and your plan for the future. The more you're able to communicate with your loan officer about who you are, what your business is, what you're looking to buy, why you're looking to buy, and how you want to buy it. The better rates, terms and, and experience that you're going to have. Because A, if you don't know what you want, how do I know how to help you, right?

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:39Henry Washington?

  I think, I think, uh, one of the things that people don't understand is how many different types of loan products are out there. People just have no clue. There are so many types of loan products out there. And there are experts like you who can take someone who knows what they're looking to buy. And who knows why they want to buy it and who even has some idea of how they want to buy it. And you can then now look at that deal and then you can go to your arsenal of, of loan products. And you can say, hey, I think this one might be better for you and here is why, right? And they can't pull that out of thin air though. So you have to be able to articulate enough so that A, they understand that you know what you're doing. And also when you talk like you know what you're doing, it gives lenders what?

• 42:24Henry Washington?

  It gives them peace and confidence because they're giving you, they're lending you a big chunk of money. And no one wants to lend out money with the expectation that they're going to have to go take that property back. They want to lend out money to people that they feel like are going to be able to service that loan. And so if you don't speak with confidence, right, wrong or indifferent, some lenders are going to look at you and say, I don't know if you're the kind of person I want to give money to. All right. So that, I think that that's excellent advice, especially for new investors getting into this business. Secondly, when should an investor engage a loan officer in their real estate investment process? Should they do it right away from the beginning so that they understand what they can afford to buy?

• 43:09Henry Washington?

  Or should they wait until they get a little further down the road in their, in their looking for a deal throughout that process?

• 43:14Speaker 01

  I think you should engage any loan officer and any team member when you have these three things.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Credit, capital and capacity.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Let me repeat that. Credit, capital, capacity, okay? Credit, number one, if you got a 550 credit score, 520 credit score, look, fix your credit. There's a reason you got a 520 or 550, right? Even if somebody can give you a loan at a 520, 550, look, fix your credit.

• 43:47Henry Washington?

  The rate's gonna be astronomical, you don't want that.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Like, your deal's gonna be terrible, right? And you're not gonna probably cash flow. And if somebody's lending you at that type of low credit score, there's something wrong, right? So my first thing is fix your credit, fix your utilization. I mean, get it together, get over 620 at least, right? Before you wanna start doing that. Because if you can't pay your Verizon cellphone bill, what makes you think a bank wanna give you 300, 400, $100,000 if you can't handle a $200 cellphone bill? That's number one, so get your credit right. Capital, capital's extremely important, in my opinion. Whether it's your capital or somebody else's capital, right? You need to have some sort of capital or access to capital. Because if you have no money,

• 44:33Speaker 01

  you cannot, I don't care what no one tells you. Yes, there's plenty of content out there that will tell you how to buy real estate with no money, no money out of pocket. Hell, you even got loans like VA, NACA, where you can do 100% financing and stuff like that. But nobody should be buying real estate with no money because anything can happen. Tenants are not guaranteed to pay you. Things break. And if you live in a cold climate state, like tri-state, it no matter where you live this winter, this winter, everywhere was cold, right? It doesn't matter, global warming is real, right? Things break. And I don't care if the house is $100,000 or a million dollars. The pipes and the plumbing and electrical cost the same on a $100,000 house as it does on a million dollar house, right? The mechanics are crazy.

• 45:17Henry Washington?

  MG, I tell people all the time, you can, absolutely.

• 45:22Henry Washington?

  Absolutely purchase real estate with little to none of your own money. But you cannot own real estate with no money.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's a difference.

• 45:33Henry Washington?

  Is a difference because even if you buy a deal a hundred percent financed, thirty days after you close, they gonna want that mortgage payment. If something breaks.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  They want that mortgage payment and you gotta fix it. Especially if you got a tenant, the tenant don't wanna hear, oh, I gotta wait a week till you get paid again.

• 45:51Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  No. I'm calling the town on you, I'm reporting you and I want this fixed and I'm not gonna pay you no rent.

• 45:59Henry Washington?

  Be on the news when they when they send the mayor a letter.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying, bro. So the capital is extremely important. Too many people buy real estate without having no money, no reserves, they're not planning for CapEx. It's so many mistakes that people are making. And that goes to the third thing is the capacity, right? You gotta have a mental capacity for this. You gotta have the capacity to me is the number one most important thing, right? Cause you can have credit, you could have capital. But if you don't have the capacity, meaning you're not mature enough to handle real estate. You're not disciplined enough to handle real estate.

• 46:34Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  You don't have the resources that are in place to make certain things happen for you within this real estate space, right? That capacity, right? That mindset, if you don't have that, all these other things can fail, right? How many, how many times we see businesses fail? People got money, right? They got credit, but businesses still fail because sometimes along the leadership might have failed and ran that business. We've seen too many stories of leadership failures. And this is why businesses fail too. It's the same thing in real estate. So the triple C to me, credit, capital, capacity are the three most important things that you need to have in place before you trying to buy some real estate.

• 47:14Henry Washington?

  Matt said, do not call him until you got the three Cs.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  No, the triple Cs ain't in order, right? So like if you got capacity, your credit might be six hundred and you got a couple dollars, but you might have access to some capital, meaning retirement funds or you got a partner, something like, okay, we could work together.

• 47:33Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  And, and you, but that capacity is there because you've been studying.

• 47:37Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Right? Like you've been building, so too many people wanna build the house and start with the roof, Henry.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Like you gotta start with the foundation. The foundation. You gotta, you gotta excavate, bro. Escavate your life, right? You gotta put the footings in, then you gotta pour the concrete.

• 47:56Henry Washington?

  Absolutely. Hey, if you start with the roof first and your foundation is a roof and that is not a solid thing to build on.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  That's not a solid thing, brother. It's gonna come crumbling down.

• 48:03Henry Washington?

  I haven't, I haven't heard it put that way before in terms of capacity. I think people say mindset all the time and, and that plays into this too. But I, I love the term capacity because, um, real estate is not a get rich quick. But it is a get rich for sure. As long as you stay in this business and you're not forced out, right? Forced out because the market shifts and you weren't prepared. Forced out because you bought a terrible deal and you can't afford to keep the mortgage payment and you gotta give it back. But if you're not forced out and you can stay in the game because you bought decent deals, because you had cash reserves to cover you when times are bad. Because you're able to pivot a strategy and keep a property when things shift, right? All of that is what capacity means.

• 48:47Henry Washington?

  You gotta have the capacity to endure through these ups and downs because 2008 was bad. And what do we know about real estate? At some point, it's gonna get bad again. Some people think it's bad now and they're right. It's not great right now, but what that tells me is great's around the corner. Real estate's a cycle. And so if you've got the capacity to stay in the game, you're pretty much guaranteeing at some point, you're gonna be able to build wealth for yourself and for your family. That's a pretty good thing to have, but you gotta be able to stay in the game. And people don't realize like real estate is great. Like people see the big paydays. I flipped the house, I made 50, I made 60, I made 70 grand. I bought a rental property.

• 49:30Henry Washington?

  I got a hundred thousand dollars of equity and a cash flow $500 a month. Yeah, all of that's great. You don't hear how much pain they had to endure before they got to that win. How many deals fell apart? How many lenders told them to kick rocks? How many times they had to fix something that might've seemed catastrophic and they killed all their cash flow for the year, right? You don't hear like, there's so many downs in this business. The ups are great, they're big, they're awesome, but you gotta get there and it's gonna take that capacity, man. I like the way you put that.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  You know what I tell everybody, Henry? Welcome to the dark side. Because real estate is the dark side, baby. Like, and I love it here.

• 50:09Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Right? The good, the bad, and the ugly of this business is incredible, right? You gotta understand, there's gonna be good, there's gonna be bad, and there's gonna be ugly. But it's always gonna go back to good.

• 50:21Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  And then it might go back to bad, and it might be ugly, but it then it'll go back to good.

• 50:25Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Right? So this is the dark side. Like, any way you slice the bread, like, you can make millions of dollars, or you can lose your shirt.

• 50:33Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Right? This is the dark side, and you have to be prepared to understand and set your expectations right. You have to set the expectations that you have for yourself, what your capacity is, and don't over, don't, and, my god, please, don't bite off more than you can chew.

• 50:50Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Right? It is not, and I'm gonna say this, and I'm gonna be honest with everybody. To me, it is not that important to sit here and stress your life out, having so much debt, stressing out over paying this bill and paying that bill. Nothing in life is worth the stress, in my opinion. I don't care how much money you can make for it. I wanna live a long, healthy life, stress-free, and if that means you don't buy seven properties a year, then don't do it. You don't need to buy, you don't need a hundred doors. You don't need two hundred doors. You don't need a thousand doors, right? And I think many people, especially the younger kids, they go and says, oh, I wanna be, do what this person is doing. No, you don't need that.

• 51:32Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Right? You need to put yourself into a point to where you can handle what you can handle. You can live a good life, and you can have great balance, right? You hear a lot of people, successful people, say it's not a lot of good balance. They don't have balance, right? It's because they chose that life.

• 51:47Henry Washington?

  They choosing that, yes.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  I don't choose that for me. And I used to think, oh, I can't have it all. No. I can have it all because it's on how I'm designing my life. So if I wanna have great family time and, and great time with my, my fiance, and still have great business time, then I'm gonna find a way to do everything. Because you know what? I lived a life where I was just so focused on, I gotta get money, I gotta get this, I gotta get that. But my quality of life with my family was terrible.

• 52:13Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  And honestly, that ain't rich.

• 52:16Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  I don't care how much money in your bank account. That ain't rich. So if you're getting into this business, just understand you don't have to go balls to the wall. I love real estate and I'm always gonna be involved in the real estate deal, whether I'm a hundred percent owner, fifty percent owner, twenty-five percent owner. But I do also understand I can make money in other things too. I don't need necessarily need to go out here and buy a thousand properties. I can buy two properties a year and invest into the market and still make a lot of money. I can invest into this business and still make a lot of money and still be happy to where I'm not sitting here having to micromanage every single thing. And now I have no time for myself, right?

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Self-preservation and taking care of myself. And that's probably the, in my twenty-three years in this business, Henry, that's probably the most important thing I've learned over the past year is self-preservation is the number one rule of nature. If you are not happy within yourself,

• 53:11Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  if you don't feel happy just waking up, just forget how much money you have or how many properties you have or what business is going on. If you're just not genuinely happy, right? Cause a lot of these people are miserable out here.

• 53:23Henry Washington?

  Yes.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Right? I don't care what the luxury stuff they showing you guys. I don't care what it is. I speak to people on a personal level that are miserable right now. And when you look at their socials, they look like they're the happiest people in the world. But behind the scenes, they are miserable, they are hurting, they don't got no family. They, they, they got bad relationships with their kids, with their significant others, they're going through divorces. Like there's a lot of people that are unhappy because they chose to prioritize making millions of dollars before taking care of themselves first.

• 53:54Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  And to me, being rich is not just about financial success. It's about being rich within, being rich within your family, and then everything will fall into place. So that's just me, person. I had to learn that. I'm forty-seven, I'll be forty-eight this year, bro. And I have to learn that. I'm happy that I'm learning it now in my forties than in my seventies when it's over. You know what I'm saying? In my eighties when it's over.

• 54:18Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  So if there's one thing that anybody from the bigger pocket audience can learn from me during this episode is you gotta be happy within yourself, bro. And I wanna say this too. I'm sorry, I'm, I'm kinda going on a rant, but I have to say this, Henry.

• 54:31Henry Washington?

  You say what you can't say, my man.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Enjoy your progress.

• 54:34Henry Washington?

  Amen.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Enjoy your progress. You might not be where you want to be, but you're not where you just came from.

• 54:40Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  We all have to stop looking at, damn, this wasn't good enough. Oh, I didn't make this much money. But two years ago, five years ago, you wasn't even in this game.

• 54:49Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  If you look back just ten years, if I go back to two thousand and sixteen, bro, I was trying to figure it all out. You know what I'm saying? I'm thinking, I'm like trying to get realtors to give me business out there. Now, sometimes you get to a point like, man, I only closed this many deals this month. Or I only spoke at this many events, or I only made this amount of money. And you looking down at that when people pray for the problems that we have today.

• 55:15Henry Washington?

  Yes, fact.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  People literally pray for the problems that we have, and we look down on that sometimes. And we're not taking the time to smell our own roses. I had to learn that. The hard way, I had to learn, and I'm glad I learned these lessons because now it doesn't matter where I'm at right now. I'm enjoying all the blessings that are coming my way. And when I see things are not moving where I think they should, I just look back where I came from. And I say, you know what? I'm still further. Slow motion is better than no motion.

• 55:43Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  I'm in a great position. So I hope they learn something from that more than anything we spoke about because I think too many times, especially the younger generation, we looking at these phones. We, we comparing ourselves to this person, that person, this person. And me, I have, you know, a twenty-one-year-old, a nineteen-year-old. I try to tell them this all the time, too. Focus on your own growth. Work in your own greatness. Don't worry about the world.

• 56:09Henry Washington?

  Right.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Like, your time is going to be your time when God says it's your time, right? And I want everybody to understand the same thing. It's your time when it's your time, but if you continue to move forward, understand, slow motion is better than no motion. And that consistency will build up, and you'll look back two years, because time goes like that.

• 56:25Henry Washington?

  That's right.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Two years, three years, five years, you'll look back like, damn, I got a million dollars. I got five properties. Whoa, I'm actually pretty good, right? So understand that, man. Enjoy your progress.

• 56:38Henry Washington?

  MG, man, this has been a blessing, man. It's been great for me. I've learned a lot just sitting here, listening to you and talking with you. So I know it's of great value to our audience. We appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your experience.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Look, Henry, man, thank you, man. I'm super proud of you, man. Your growth has been incredible to watch over the past couple of years as well. Shout out to you, man. You're doing an amazing job on the platform and well deserved, man. Well deserved, man. So give it up. Give it up for you, Henry. You know what I'm saying? Y'all throw some gems in the comments for my brother Henry Washington. He's definitely the real deal, but again, I appreciate the opportunity just to be able to be on this platform and being able to share some words with the audience. Thank you.

• 57:19Henry Washington?

  All right, MG, one last thing before we get out of here. Where can people connect with you?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, you guys can reach me on all platforms, MG the Mortgage Guy. I spend a lot of time over there on YouTube, so catch me on the MG the Mortgage Guy, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, all platforms. And if you got, you know, you want to apply for a loan, anything like that, just link is in my bio. You can send me a DM and let's, let's, let's close some deals together. Let's grow.

• 57:46Henry Washington?

  All right, my man. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening. I hope you got great value from this episode and we'll see you on the next episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Peace.

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