My brother Phillip and I return to make our case for buy and hold real estate investment. While yes, the market is a mess right now. But overall, real estate investment is, in our opinion, the best way for someone of modest means to become independently wealthy. Here we outline why real estate is the IDEAL investment:

I: Income
D: Depreciation
E: Equity Build-up
A: Appreciation
L: Leverage

We explain each and more in detail in the video, which I hope will convince you that real estate is something you should consider investing in. Check it out:

Previous Episodes
- How to Positively Resolve Tenant Disputes
- Interview with Jay Papasan on Scaling
- How to Screen Prospective Tenants
- How to Manage Collections and Delinquency
- A Guide to Due Diligence for Buying Houses
- How to Find Banks for Your Investment Properties
​- A Crash Course on Building a Buy and Hold Real Estate Business
- Is the Economy on the Edge of a Cliff??? How Should Real Estate Investors Respond?
- An Introduction Into Buying Portfolios
​
And don't forget to subscribe to our Youtube channel!

My latest BiggerPockets article digs into a study by ATTOM Data Solutions on housing affordability and the results aren't good. This, of course, shouldn't be surprising as the United States is currently in a deep recession, yet housing prices are going up. Combine flat wages, high unemployment and rising housing prices and you get very unaffordable housing.

Here's the study's key takeaway:

The article itself goes into far more detail and concludes that it's hard to imagine this continuing apace that much longer without a correction in the housing market.

Check it out!

And at last we come to the final episode of The Good Stewards Podcast, Episode #46: How to Succeed with Student Rentals. In this episode, we discuss, well, how to succeed in student rentals. It is, after all, how my dad built his real estate company from scratch.

I've also written two articles for BiggerPockets on this topic, which if you're interested in student rentals, would also be worth checking out (see here and here).

Enjoy:

Previous Episode: Mastering the Art of Negotiation

So much has been made about the unimaginable dangers of "conspiracy theories" lately, mostly by the Left. I think this clip of the, uhhh, comedian Sasha Baron Cohen whining about how conspiracy theories are a threat to democracy sums up the hysteria pretty neatly:

OK, so here's my critique.

Does democracy actually depend on shared truths? I think authoritarianism depends on a "shared" truth in fact. And demands to censor social media sound fairly authoritarian to me as well.

There are three problems with this. 1) Free speech (not the First Amendment specifically, but the principal. 2) What is a "conspiracy theory" exactly? Why does Russiagate or Iraq has WMD or Saddam is throwing babies out of incubators not qualify? It would seem the most dangerous conspiracy theories come from official channels (most notably the WMD lie). Further, this will likely get worse if no "conspiracy theories are allowed. For example, this made-for-TV film was released in the middle of the Waco siege regurgitating the government's line about it. Jump to 1:16:40 of the film to see how they portray it.

Note, the screenwriter later apologized, recanted and blamed the government for pretty much the entire debacle.

3) Sometimes "conspiracy theories" are true or at least party so; obviously some of the "conspiracies" regarding Waco are true, some not (for example, the Branch Davidians probably started the fire). Something about some guy named Epstein (by the way, do the theories about Trump and Epstein count as "conspiracy theories" or just the ones with Clinton and Epstein?) Assad almost certainly didn't gas his own people while on the edge of victory as the OPCW leaks showed. The WMD thing was a lie. There was at least some bullshit going on with Crossfire Hurricane (like Clinesmith's forged email to the FISA court), the USS Maine was not blown up by the Spanish, the Lusitania was carrying weapons, etc. etc. etc.

I would leave with one parting thought. I doubt Kennedy assassination theories would have taken hold had we not invaded Vietnam soon thereafter. Which leads to an interesting thought; while I do not believe 9/11 was an inside job or anything like that. It's hard for me to disagree with the sentiment that if the vast majority of Americans had in 2002, the world would be a better place today.

Phillip and I return to tell you how to go about finding, analyzing, negotiating, performing due diligence on, getting financing and closing portfolios of real estate.

They don't come along that often, but they are a great way to jumpstart your business! So pay attention:

Previous Episodes
- How to Positively Resolve Tenant Disputes
- Interview with Jay Papasan on Scaling
- How to Screen Prospective Tenants
- How to Manage Collections and Delinquency
- A Guide to Due Diligence for Buying Houses
- How to Find Banks for Your Investment Properties
​- A Crash Course on Building a Buy and Hold Real Estate Business
- Is the Economy on the Edge of a Cliff??? How Should Real Estate Investors Respond?

​And don't forget to subscribe to our Youtube channel here!

My 200th article for BiggerPockets is now up (well, it's been up for a little while, in fact so is my 201st article). The article takes on the state of our economy and where it's heading, which a lot of people are fretting quite a bit about.

The market is, after all, extremely hot. But we're also in a deep recession with a pandemic going on and record-setting deficits.  So what should real estate investors do?

The article also includes our video on the economy and how investors should proceed:

Now on to 200 more. Check it out!

And here I come to the second-to-last episode of The Good Stewards Podcast. On this episode dives into real estate negotiation (which, if you're interested in, you should also check out J. Scott's book on the topic). 

It's obviously a wide topic with many general lessons and specific lessons to real estate, but I think we cover it well. Enjoy:

Previous Episode: Apartment Investing

Well, Trump appears to be back and tweeting after his short bout with a virus whose dangers have been much exaggerated and the lockdowns it inspired have been mostly useless while causing massive economic damage. And of course, Trump is tweeting about the stock market,

Ahhh yes, the good ole stock market reaching all time highs in the middle of a deep recession. Perhaps "money printer go brrr" doesn't exactly make everyone well off, just Wall Street.

Indeed, as The New York Times reported, the big are starting to simply gobble up the small.

On the other hand, here's how Amazon has done this year:

This is an absolutely massive and growing problem. And it really doesn't seem like either Trump or Biden has much to say about it.

In this episode of The Good Stewards Podcast, we take a dive into apartment investing. We specialize in houses, but have done some apartments as well. (Like this 29-unit apartment which went not-so-well, at least at first, and this 32-unit apartment that went great.) 

Here we discuss how to approach apartment investing and what makes for a good deal. Check it out:

Previous Episode: The Impact of Property Taxes

Also, check outour Youtube channel as well!