S4E24 – Mathew Pezon – Going from $50K in Debt to $3M in revenue with real estate

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Key Timecodes

• (00:59) – Show intro and background history
• (03:28) – Deeper into his background history and business model
• (06:15) – How he achieved financial independence with real estate
• (08:09) – Understanding his marketing strategies
• (10:57) – What are the red flags running that real estate model
• (13:42) – A bit about his numbers
• (15:57) – How he scaled this type of business
• (20:33) – How many properties were enough for him to be able to leave his job?
• (24:29) – What is his revenue today
• (20:55) – Deeper into his business model and strategies
• (24:21) – What are the biggest challenges he faced and how he overcame them
• (30:13) – What is the worst advice he ever received
• (31:27) – What is the best advice he ever received
• (33:05) – Guest contacts

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – Intro

Hey this is Sean Tepper the host of Payback Time, an approachable and transparent podcast in building businesses, increasing wealth, and achieving financial freedom. I’d like to bring on guests to hear authentic stories while giving you actionable takeaways you can use today. Let’s go.

[00:00:17.570] – Sean

My next guest shares his story of going from $50,000 in debt to making about three million in revenue a year with real estate. He starts his journey off by talking about getting into engineering school, then becoming an engineer, and realizing that working a job can actually take a really long time to pay off debt and to build wealth. That’s what led him to creating passive income with real estate. So in this episode, he talks about how long it took to become a full-time real estate investor, what properties he looks for, what are red flags to look for on an application. That part was really valuable, and how he scaled his company to about three million in revenue. All right, let’s get into it. Please welcome Matthew Pezon. Matthew, welcome to the show.

[00:01:01.680] – Mathew

Sean, thanks for having me.

[00:01:03.170] – Sean

Good to have you here. So why don’t you kick us off and tell us about your background?

[00:01:07.180] – Mathew

Sure thing. I am from the fourth generation of engineers, electrical, mechanical. I went to college to learn chemical engineering, and I was one test actually away from becoming a licensed chemical engineer. I never took the test. And out of college, I got my first job in 2010 for a large chemical company. I had no inclinations of being an entrepreneur. I didn’t know what real estate ownership even was. And I just knew that I had 50 grand of debt and I needed to get a job to pay it back, which I think is a somewhat typical path for those that take the college route. So I was placed in a career development program for a large chemicals company, and we rotated positions, we tried different roles to figure out where we wanted to work in that chemicals company. And from there, my first job was I went into an IT role, and my boss told me that I was the worst employee he ever had, and the company should fire me. It was hard at the time. I was afraid. I was 22. How am I going to pay all these bills? How am I going to pay back my student loans?

[00:02:14.680] – Mathew

What am I going to do? And it was eye-opening for me. There were no processes, no procedures. It was just sink or swim, like go build this server. That’s all it was. And we’re using this ancient coding language. It was awful. I hated it. And apparently, he didn’t like me. So that was when I realized I needed to go into entrepreneurship. And I worked for three more years for the same company. I went and did a Fulbright scholarship in Madrid, Spain, and I did my Master’s in International Management degree. And that’s when I learned about entrepreneurship, about problem-solving, using business to create value in society. And I knew when I got back to the US that I wanted to buy houses. And then I started buying houses and working a full-time job in 2014. I worked the full-time job so I could get loans. I was buying houses on the side. I did that for 10 years, approximately nine years. And now I run my own real estate company. That’s my general professional trajectory. On the personal side, my wife and I have three kids under three. It’s busy at home, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

[00:03:26.290] – Mathew

So lots going on.

[00:03:28.250] – Sean

Three kids under three. Are we talking about you got a set of twins in there?

[00:03:32.270] – Mathew

Oh, yeah. Yeah, our twins were born two months ago.

[00:03:34.980] – Sean

Good for you. Usually when I hear three under that age, because I’ve only run into this before, it’s like, Okay, there’s twins in there for sure.

[00:03:44.320] – Mathew

Yeah, that’s right. So yeah, lots going on and we’re super happy.

[00:03:49.690] – Sean

That’s awesome. I love the backstory here. 50k in debt paid off. How long did it take to pay off the 50K?

[00:03:57.140] – Mathew

It took about two and a half years. At the time, I think I was making like $60,000 or $65,000 a year. And I was living really low cost, like in a friend’s basement, basically paying next to nothing in rent, eating ramen, just rice and beans, just doing a little bit extreme type thing so I could pay off that debt and get away from that. Because I wanted to go to business school, I wanted to go to Europe, and I thought that I had to be debt free to do that. I don’t know why I thought that. But I thought that I had to get out of debt before I went back to school. So that’s, yeah, 50 grand of debt.

[00:04:36.860] – Sean

Pretty good. Two and a half years. And even though you didn’t really have to, it’s still a good mindset. Sounds like you’re probably following the Dave Ramsey protocol there. At the time. Don’t go out to dinner, don’t have any fun. Fun is, I’m just kidding. I got a rig on his program. But there are principles that do make a lot of sense. All right, well, let’s dive into your business a little bit here. A lot of people that have invested in real estate that have been on the show, they really start with single-family, and then they graduate to multifamily and then up to syndicate. Did you start with single-family?

[00:05:15.780] – Mathew

I did. The first house that I bought was a single-family. And then I bought a four-unit. I did an FHA. But I haven’t actually taken any money from investors for syndications. And the largest property that I own is… Actually, I have two 10-units. But I don’t really do 50, 100 units. I buy a lot of single families, and they add up to those numbers. But I didn’t take the traditional path, I guess, in real estate ownership.

[00:05:46.740] – Sean

Right. Although a few people have done what you did, and to the listeners out there, this is really important if you want to invest in real estate. Just keep your day job, number one, because you can get help from a bank. There have been people that make the mistake that go all in. And then it’s like, Oh, you can’t get a loan because now you’re an entrepreneur with no income. So the banks are like, Nope. So it sounds like you kept your day job for nine or ten years, you said? That’s right.

[00:06:12.620] – Mathew

Yeah, for that very reason.

[00:06:14.880] – Sean

Yeah. And that is the standard to the listeners out there. If this is one of the first episodes on real estate. That seems to be the trend is about ten years. You want to keep your day job, you’re investing, and then you’ll have enough revenue and a passive income to say, hey, I can step away from my day job. I’m making more than enough. So it sounds like that’s exactly what you did.

[00:06:36.950] – Mathew

Well, that’s right. And excuse me, I know other people that have jumped too soon and then they struggle to get the loans or they didn’t have another business built up with three years of tax returns. They’re just passionate and they jump. And I’ve seen that happen multiple times and I really just stayed the course. And I could have probably gotten financing for some of the new purchases, but the value was really in the refinance and then recycling. In order to get higher cash out, I needed to have the job. It was chicken or the egg for a long time for me.

[00:07:10.440] – Sean

Got it. Did you start hiring a property management company right off the bat, or did you put yourself in a position where, Hey, I’ll do some of the maintenance on the homes were needed?

[00:07:22.790] – Mathew

Well, the maintenance I never did, although my wife and I did a bunch of renovations just if the property was vacant, but we never did maintenance or service calls. But I hired a property manager that they weren’t very good, but I hired them and they did a lot of the management. But I self-managed 10 units at or around the time that I also brought them on. So I was still taking the Saturday night calls and, Oh, there’s noise. Oh, they’re bothering me. Oh, could I get someone over here to put more salt in this area, the sidewalk? Whatever, right? I just’ve dealt with that for too long, but now I don’t deal directly with the residents.

[00:08:06.250] – Sean

Got you. Yeah, smart play. And this will be good, too. With this podcast, we dive into the numbers a little bit. I assume you’re paying a property management fee percentage between 8 and 15%. Somewhere in there. Is that correct?

[00:08:18.940] – Mathew

I usually pay 10%.

[00:08:20.880] – Sean

10%. Okay, nice. Well, let’s dive into your specific strategy a little bit. We’re going to talk about what I’d like to talk about are locations and probably property size is what investment levels. Let’s start with the locations first. Where are these properties? Are they in your city or area or do you invest in other cities outside of your city?

[00:08:42.990] – Mathew

Right. They’re within, an hour to an hour and a half driving distance from me. When I was getting started, 20 minutes. But now that I’m more comfortable and have a team, I can go further away. But it was just local and the property locations within my market. So I live in the Lehi Valley, Pennsylvania, Allentown, East in Bethlehem, about an hour from Philadelphia, north. So a lot of the times they were basically urban type town or row houses that needed maybe $20,000 to $30,000 worth of work, but almost always in an urban environment in the beginning. Now I buy more suburban or even rural homes, if it makes sense. But in the beginning, it was only urban.

[00:09:26.990] – Sean

Urban, right. Some of the other people on podcast have about finding areas that are closer to, let’s say, hospitals. If you can get nurses and doctors, somebody who’s in med school, the reason is a lot of these people, they’re renting, but they’re not really living in your property, which means there’s no parties, there’s no breaking of equipment or utilities. That’s a good renter. I’m curious, what’s your strategy? What properties are you looking for in the urban side?

[00:09:57.920] – Mathew

Yep, workforce housing, long-term family type situations where they would tend to stay. I’ve purchased a lot more single-family homes. They’re more desirable. There’s a yard. They’re typically more privacy than an apartment building with shared spaces and different things. So that’s been my model. But I also don’t like the transiancy of some of the medium term rentals, especially the short term rentals. It’s a lot more management intensive versus a family that lives there for five or seven years, which is who we try to cater to. Got it. That’s what I’ve found. The turnover costs are killer. I’ve tried to buy the properties where it’s likely that a family would stay. But to your point, near amenities, near hospitals, near grocery stores, if putting wash or dryer hookups in the homes. But if you can’t or it’s an apartment situation, is there a laundry rent nearby? What do people need? Then being close to that?

[00:10:56.260] – Sean

Right. Yeah, good call. I never thought of it that way. I always thought of it like that’s great if you can find an area that has nurses, doctors in med school, police officers just getting started, firefighters. I say police officers and firefighters because I actually talk to a guy who said they’re great because they’re usually very responsible. They’re not going to throw a party in most cases. There may be anomalies out there, but they’re going to take pretty good care of your apartment. Of course, everybody, not everybody, but certain people get to a certain point in their life where they save that money, then they can go buy their own home. But it’s a good demographic to focus on first. I’ve never asked this question before. When you’re looking at applications and who can stay in the properties that you’re renting, what are some red flags that jump out at you?

[00:11:46.000] – Mathew

Oh, yeah, we have a whole procedure on that. We look at the credit report of the applicant. Do they have recent? So what’s the score? But then why is the score what the score is? Got it. We look for employment, how long have they been at their current employer? Or are they hopping around jobs a whole bunch? Have they had periods of where they haven’t had income? Now, that’s not to say that if someone is receiving Social Security income or unemployment income or other things, that’s fine too. It’s just if there’s six months where we don’t know what’s going on, that’s a red flag. How long were they at the prior residence? Were they at 10 homes in five years? Then it’s likely they’re going to be at 11 homes in five and a half years, right? So all those types of things we try to gather. We call the current landlord where they’re living just to verify. We call the employers. Sometimes we see fake pay stubs and other things, so we just call and verify. I mean, there’s just so much. We’ve seen it all with respect to all the applications. An obvious one is, do they make enough money to pay the rent, right?

[00:12:59.390] – Mathew

So the minimum we accept is two and a half times what the rent is for their take-home pay, just because if it’s any less than that, they’re extremely cost-burdened. It’s more than 40 % of their income is going to rent. It’s not going to work. So all those things are things we look for.

[00:13:16.570] – Sean

Got it. And today you have a little over, it sounds like 200 properties? That’s right. Or would you call them properties or more doors?

[00:13:25.590] – Mathew

Doors, I don’t really like that term, but it’s like houses or apartments.

[00:13:30.890] – Sean

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, because I’ve been down this road, some people phrase it as doors. You could have an eight-unit complex. There you go. You got eight doors, one building. But yeah, good call there. Then what is the average rent you like to collect per unit?

[00:13:50.640] – Mathew

Yeah. It depends if it’s one, two, three or four bedrooms or whatever it is. It depends on the market. But in my area, a one-bedroom will rent for $900 to $1,000, a two-bedroom, $1,000 to $1,100, a three-bedroom, maybe $1,150 to $1,250. Now, if it’s a three-bedroom house, though, it might fetch $13.95, and then four-bedrooms might be 13, 14 to 16, 17 if it’s the house.

[00:14:20.380] – Sean

There are okay. Interesting. I’ve heard you get up to three, four bedrooms, they can be 2,000 or more. It sounds like where you’re living housing is maybe a little more affordable. I could be wrong in this, but I have heard numbers that can push 2,000.

[00:14:35.890] – Mathew

Oh, yeah. There was an article, I think it was the Wall Street Journal, three or four years back, but Allentown is one of the most undervalued markets in the United States. So we’re close to Philadelphia, New York, and there’s issues in affordability issues, other issues in those locations. And the Lehi Valley has been a safe haven for affordability and quality of life that some of the larger areas with bigger problems, people come to this area.

[00:15:06.900] – Sean

Got you. And do you have a threshold for profit margin you like to make per property?

[00:15:15.970] – Mathew

That’s an interesting question. The passive income side of things, I really like to be a positive $200 per unit per month. But it’s tough to really quantify that because you could have a roof go bad and then all right, well, it’s going to take four years to pay that back. And so it’s tricky. But the way that I look at, okay, am I going to buy an asset or a house or am I not going to buy it? I want to be all in for 80% of what it’s worth. So if it’s worth $200,000, I want to be into it for 160, and it’s just enough of a margin. And then my cash flow is good enough to sustain on a passive income basis.

[00:15:57.200] – Sean

Got you. So how do you scale this type of business? Right.

[00:16:00.530] – Mathew

So I was working full-time, and the question that I get is, well, how did you grow while you were working full-time? And how do you do both? And it really comes down… First, you have to learn what you’re doing, and you have to get educated to try to avoid as many mistakes as possible. That’s just fundamental. You don’t want to lose money in the business, you want to make money. So you need to get educated and know what you’re doing. But how do I do that? I’m working a full-time job. Well, I spent nights and weekends. I would get up early on Saturdays. I met a group of investors. We’d go around and look at properties. I met people, built relationships, got educated. And in order to say yes to those things, I had to say no to other things. And so I needed to avoid going out to parties or doing other things like that because I was investing in my business and growing full-time. I was working full-time and investing in real estate. But then there’s the practical aspect of, well, how do I buy that many properties? How do I finance that many properties?

[00:17:03.890] – Mathew

And you have to just get enough at bats. You have to create a marketing funnel. You have to put in enough offers where you’re going to get enough deals to look at where they make sense. And you get a good enough deal where you can refinance and bring your capital back out. And then you do it again. So that’s what I was able to do while working full-time. It required tough choices, but it required a vision and commitment.

[00:17:32.270] – Sean

Yes, that’s so inspirational. You hear this not only in the entrepreneurial space, but those of you that listen out there to or follow sports a lot, some of the top athletes, it’s this focus and this commitment and at the same time, sacrifice. You got to say no to probably a lot more than you say yes to. But if you stick to the plan, great things can happen. In your case, it’s about nine or ten years. That’s a long time. But I give you a lot of credit there sticking to the plan. I can be financially free. I can be without a boss here. If I get enough properties, enough revenue coming in, say goodbye to not being good at setting up servers, it sounds like.

[00:18:13.950] – Mathew

That’s right Yeah, never doing that again.

[00:18:17.270] – Sean

Those days are done.

[00:18:18.530] – Mathew

It’s a good feeling, right? If my old boss is watching this, I doubt he is, but if he is, thank you. You did me a huge favor.

[00:18:24.030] – Sean

That was like, Mark Huber, one of the Sharks from Shark Tank, he even said he was the worst employee. He had no choice but to be an entrepreneur. That was it.

[00:18:35.390] – Mathew

Yeah, I learned a lot as an employee, and maybe part two of the question you asked about growing the business. So I was working in SAP, I was working in Salesforce. I saw on the inside, I had eight direct reports, and I was learning and operating a company at a high level that’s an international company. So I took those learnings and I applied it to my own business. So I’m not saying that being an employee is bad. I learned a lot of skills from multinational companies that allowed me that I could implement my own business. So as long as you’re in the right employment situation, don’t just work to work, work to learn, right? Yes.

[00:19:21.900] – Sean

I 100 % agree because I spent about 12 years. My goal with this is going back to like 2010. I wanted to work two years in big business, turned into 12. It took a little longer than expected, but before I could go full-time with the company Tykr today. But yeah, my objective, yeah, it’s good to learn your job, but that’s not your goal. I always tell you want to learn the business. How does a business really scale? I look at the Triple Threat: marketing, sales, and operations. How do you scale those three things? How do big businesses, especially public companies, how do they do that? It sounds like you did the exact same thing, get in, do your best on your job, but learn the company. How does this company scale? How does it move? Because you can always apply that to another business you work for, another company you work for, or in your case, start your own business.

[00:20:13.470] – Mathew

Yeah, that’s right. I took the approach that I’m going to work to learn and I’m going to learn how… Because I had to train folks. I had to mentor folks. I had to be a leader. And so now that I started my own company, I can apply those principles here. So that was huge. I learned a lot working for a large company.

[00:20:33.590] – Sean

A question I didn’t ask, just to backtrack a little bit, you did the or went 9-10 years. How many properties did you have at that point that gave you the ability to go full-time and do this on your own?

[00:20:45.020] – Mathew

I had about 140 properties with 20 on the docket. I thought, you know what? For me, it was an opportunity cost because my wife had… We had our son, and this was before we had the twins, and I just realized, wow, I’m going to have to choose between my job, my family, and buying real estate. And I wasn’t willing to give up my family. I wasn’t willing to give up buying real estate. So that left the job. But I had accumulated enough. I had planned enough. I had executed enough where it was time. And I saw that the value of my time… I was taking a pay cut by working my job, and I was losing time with my family and getting stressed, and I just decided that’s it.

[00:21:35.700] – Sean

Yeah, you hit a certain point. You want to bootstrap. I’m a big fan of bootstrapping. You want to keep your job, keep things moving in parallel, that business, whatever it is, whether you’re investing in real estate or starting a company, whether it’s service or product-based. You’re going to have to move things along. You figure out what moves the needle the most. You get really good at time management. But yeah, you got to pull plug at some point like you did. I’m out of here. It’s time to do this.

[00:22:02.630] – Mathew

Well, that’s right. And for us, it was after we closed on our primary residence, and then I took a little bit more time to make sure everything was good. But I remember I told my boss that I was moving on, and I thought that I would feel really happy. And I guess I was, but it was more of a humbling experience for me that, okay, it’s all on me. There’s no boss anymore, there’s no one giving me a paycheck. It’s up to me now. So it was a sobering experience. It wasn’t what I had imagined for all those years that I was just going to… I don’t know what I thought, have some type of a party or, Oh, this is going to be great. It was a little bit more scary and, Okay, I got to buckle down now.

[00:22:46.700] – Sean

Yeah, especially if you have a family, it’s like, Well, I’m starting this business for a reason to help my family, in your case, put your kids in a good spot financially, I imagine. It’s like, You got to do this. It’s now or never, and we’re not going to sit around here playing games. It’s go time. That’s at least the language I tell myself.

[00:23:08.780] – Mathew

Yeah, well, that’s what happened for me. I buckled down and really got towork. And that’s how I… Once I had the time, full-time to build the business, that’s when I started recording Zoom calls and building documents, building procedures. Okay, we have this acquisitions funnel. Who does what? And how do they do that? Where’s the training? Show me the documentation, was what I said to myself for the past year. Because if it’s all in my head, there’s no organizational knowledge, there’s no… Everyone’s coming to me and I need to give them training tools. So I spent the last year really building the infrastructure.

[00:23:50.120] – Sean

Yes. Nice. And how big is your team today?

[00:23:53.160] – Mathew

Right. So our team, so we have two acquisitions managers that are locally. We have about, well, it’s five. It’s about to be six office staff, myself, and then a couple of part-time employees, and then some various 1099s. And then, of course, all the management companies. We probably indirectly employ 20 or 30 people between the rehab crews and the managers, the office staff, but they’re on… That’s a 1099 relationship.

[00:24:21.270] – Sean

Yes, like a contractor base.

[00:24:24.340] – Mathew

Right. But it’s 10 full-time employees.

[00:24:28.260] – Sean

Good for you. Awesome. And can you share with us what are the top line revenues of the company to date?

[00:24:35.400] – Mathew

Right. So on the rental side, we’re doing a little over $3 million of rents collected every year. But then we also sell properties that we’ve owned for maybe seven or eight years. We sold about $1.5 million worth of basically capital gains in so far this year. We’ll offset some of that, but that’s just a general temperature check on where we’re at.

[00:25:08.230] – Sean

Nice. Good for you. I assume you just reapply that, take the revenue you generate from selling, put it back into other properties you’ve identified.

[00:25:18.550] – Mathew

Well, that’s right. Or we do improvements. We repair. Okay, we have this bucket of capital projects we have to do. This roof, this boiler, this facade, whatever, and we reinvest into the properties we already own before we buy new ones. Because for me, I was never the type of suck the property dry, do no repairs, profit at all costs. That was never me. I always saw the family who’s living there, is it a good experience for them? Will they want to stay. So we reinvest. But then we also save for reserves and then whatever is left, we buy more with.

[00:25:56.040] – Sean

You hit a hot point there, which can be applied to really any businesses. Talk to your customers, find out those pain points. And you can, if you want, because you made a really good point about long term renters, it’s a lot of headache of the turnover costs. If you can keep somebody there longer, go ask them, hey, are you satisfied? What improvements can we make on the property to incentivize them to stay longer? I think that’s brilliant.

[00:26:22.920] – Mathew

Yeah, well, we’re going to have to find someone else to live there anyway. And the most obvious person to live there is who’s already there. So we really try to… It sounds so obvious, but trust me, when I started out, I would get the cheapo faucet and whatever, just the shower kit, the mixer kit and all this stuff, and it would break. Six months later, they get annoyed, and I would be, too. So I found that the best way to succeed in the business is to do things right, even though it costs more money. But ask me how I know this stuff. It’s because I made all the mistakes. And I still make mistakes, but it’s about the long term thinking.

[00:27:06.030] – Sean

Sure. I have a good mindset. Let’s take a quick commercial break. Hey, this is a quick heads up that we have a second podcast titled Top Stocks. With Top Stocks podcast, I talk about investing, business and finance. The audio content is published on your favorite podcast platforms such as Apple, Spotify, Google or Amazon. And the video content is published on the Tykr YouTube channel, so you can either watch or listen to each episode. These episodes are just me, so no interviews. And the overall goal is to help you become a better investor. Go ahead and look up Top Stocks Podcast or check out the Tykr YouTube channel. All right, back to the show. Before we jump to the Rapid Fire round, is there one good takeaway you can give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there that are working a full-time job and maybe want to get into real estate?

[00:27:55.390] – Mathew

Get educated. So there are lots of websites, lots of forums, lots of books. I read probably 60 or 70 books on real estate investing before I bought my first property. You can learn trial by fire, but it’s painful and you’ll get burned. I would say read as many books as you can, listen to podcasts, get educated, and save yourself the headache and heartache of making all the mistakes yourself. Someone already made that mistake. You just have to go find out what it was and don’t do it.

[00:28:26.840] – Sean

Yes.

[00:28:28.160] – Mathew

I know this because I’ve not followed that advice so many times that the universe just beat it into my head that I just go read, look it up. It’s all the answers are out there. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:28:40.670] – Sean

Love it. Great advice. All right, let’s dive into the rapid fire round. This is the part of the episode where we get to find out who Matthew really is. If you can try to answer each question in 15 seconds or less. You’re ready?

[00:28:52.260] – Mathew

Yeah, let’s do it.

[00:28:53.650] – Sean

All right. What is your favorite podcast?

[00:28:55.960] – Mathew

I love Get Rich Education with Keith Weynhold. Keith is fantastic. I totally reversed my money mindset thanks to him. And I’d recommend it for anyone who wants to learn to invest in real estate and build wealth.

[00:29:10.410] – Sean

Yes. Good recommendation. All right, next question. What is a recent book you read and would recommend.

[00:29:16.860] – Mathew

I just read Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell. And this is a great book on systems, processes, scaling, but a practical way. What do I need to do day-to-day to day toget myself to buy back my own time so that I don’t have to do the tasks of my business? I can work on my business. Yeah.

[00:29:36.860] – Sean

Dan Martell. I do like his content. He’s a good guy.

[00:29:40.380] – Mathew

Oh, yeah, Dan’s great.

[00:29:41.500] – Sean

All right, movie question. Here we go. What is your favorite movie?

[00:29:45.130] – Mathew

I’m not a big movie guy, but I just watched Home Alone, and I’ve always watched that movie. I love it. It’s great. And we’re recording this around the holidays, so love that movie. Just always cracks me up.

[00:29:57.150] – Sean

It’s on the list. I had to hit the usual suspects for Christmas movies, starting with Die Hard, moving over to Christmas vacation. There’s one more in there. Not as good, but I can’t think of it. But yeah, Home Alone, it’s on the list.

[00:30:11.590] – Mathew

Oh, yeah, top for me.

[00:30:12.990] – Sean

Nice. All right. What is the worst advice you ever received?

[00:30:18.480] – Mathew

Get out of debt. I spent three years trying to reduce my debt payments from 450 bucks a month to zero. If I only would have realized that I could have taken all that… If I could have taken all that money and bought four houses that made 150 bucks each, the residents could have paid it off. But instead, I was living in friends’ basements and cutting my lifestyle to pay off debt when I could have just been using rents. I could have taken on more debt instead of getting out of debt to accomplish my goals.

[00:30:52.730] – Sean

You’ve given a ton of great advice in this episode, and that right there, I love that. There’s so many people they can’t stomach a little bit of debt, and it puts blinders up in front of them of what can be achieved. And what you just explained there is brilliant.

[00:31:09.190] – Mathew

I only know because I did it all wrong and I lost three years of cutting my lifestyle. My early 20s, I should have been doing different things, enjoying, learning, growing, and I was afraid. It drove me to make decisions that I regret.

[00:31:25.550] – Sean

Yeah, awesome. All right, flip that equation. What’s the best advice you ever received?

[00:31:30.870] – Mathew

Get mortgages and buy property.

[00:31:32.730] – Sean

Literally exactly the opposite.

[00:31:35.930] – Mathew

If the worst advice was get out of debt, the best advice is here’s how you use debt as a tool. You can use a hammer for good or you can smash your finger. So if you get educated, going back to my first answer, and you learn how to use debt as a tool and as an instrument, it can be a valuable asset. But if you don’t, then you can get burned. So get educated, learn how to use debt appropriately, scale a business, build a team, and get educated to do all those things. Yeah.

[00:32:07.720] – Sean

It is the name and the game with real estate. You do have to stomach some debt, but you do things right, it can pay off.

[00:32:14.260] – Mathew

It’s leverage.

[00:32:15.200] – Sean

It’s leverage. Exactly. Yeah. All right, last question here, the time-machine question. If you could go back in time to give your younger self advice, what age would you visit and what would you say?

[00:32:25.240] – Mathew

I would go back to when I was 18, first going to college. I still would go. I went to Lafayette College, I still would go. But I would tell myself to focus on the reason that I was going, which was that I wanted to have a profession, make money, achieve, build wealth. And I would have said to my 18-year-old self to focus less on the schooling and the education part and more on the reason why I was there and really study money, study wealth. Off and get to the whole purpose of why I went to that school to begin with.

[00:33:03.730] – Sean

Yeah. Awesome. Love the advice. All right, Matthew, where can audience reach you?

[00:33:07.960] – Mathew

They can reach me on my website, pzonproperties. Com. They can fill out our form there and love to talk to anyone who’s interested in learning about real estate.

[00:33:17.180] – Sean

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time.

[00:33:18.930] – Mathew

We’ll see you. Sean, it’s been a pleasure, Sean. Thank you. Hey, I’d.

[00:33:22.360] – Sean

Like to say.

[00:33:22.970] – Sean

Thank you for.

[00:33:23.680] – Sean

Checking out this podcast. I know there’s a lot of other podcasts out there you could be listening to, so thanks for spending some time with me. And if you have a moment, please head over to Apple Podcast and leave a five-star review. The more reviews we get, especially five-star reviews, the higher this podcast will rank in Apple. So thanks for doing that. And remember, this show is for entertainment purposes only. If you heard any stocks mentioned on this podcast, please do not buy or sell those stocks based solely on what you hear. All right, thanks for your time. We’ll see you.