Serving up high-proof discussions between top-shelf real estate agents. Insights on sales, marketing, lead conversion, and technology.
Bought the first property, which was a commercial office building in 2018, and now I currently own over 253 doors. 6 year time frame. So I can only imagine had I started when I should have started, where I would be now. So I didn't technically lose a $1,000,000 in cash, but I lost the opportunity to purchase properties at the bottom when I knew it was the right thing to do. I continue to let fear stop me.
Announcer:Welcome to the Real Estate Distilled Podcast. Get ready for a smooth pour on insights on sales, marketing, lead conversion, and technology. All shaken, stirred, and perfectly balanced to help you succeed in real estate. Mixed just for you.
Liz Hack:Hey. It's Liz Hack here with Scott Hack, your enthusiastic host for Real Estate Distilled, the podcast. We are back with another great episode. This time, who we having on today?
Scott Hack:Mister Antonio Cousin.
Liz Hack:And Antonio is from the great state of Louisiana.
Scott Hack:Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge.
Liz Hack:We like saying that, don't we?
Scott Hack:Yes. We do.
Liz Hack:Antonio is gonna talk about investing again. He was one of our breakout speakers from the 2024 conference. People were out the door, listening, standing, wanting to hear what Antonio had to say. So, stick around for some of the great information that Antonio's gonna share with us today on the Real Estate Distilled podcast.
Scott Hack:Thanks, everybody, for joining us. And as a really quick note, we recorded our conversation with Antonio sometime in either March or April, and it's now December when we're finally releasing that. So if you hear any references to things about the conference last month or a few weeks ago, just know that there's a little bit of delay there. But Antonio is a wealth of knowledge. He has a background in, banking and finance, So that is one of the reasons why he has made such a effortless leap into being a landlord and doing investing.
Scott Hack:So
Liz Hack:Basically killing it.
Scott Hack:Yeah. So we're we're excited to share with you a little bit more from Antonio, and and share the story with you.
Antonio Cousin:I'm here. I'm happy to be here as well.
Scott Hack:Awesome. So Antonio's coming us to us today from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He's got a independent brokerage there, Service First Real Estate, that covers, all of Southeast Louisiana between Baton Rouge and into New Orleans. So thanks again for joining us, Antonio.
Antonio Cousin:Thank you for having me.
Scott Hack:So you were one of our speakers at Real Estate Distilled this year, and you attended in 2023 as well. So, we get to spend some time together and over the past couple of years and gotten to know each other. And I know your talk this year was, really popular. We,
Liz Hack:Yeah. The room was packed. Yeah. Like, standing room only for Antonio.
Scott Hack:So one of the, the goals of our podcast today in getting you on is to basically share some information from your talk because we ran with a multitrack setup this year. So there were people who attended the conference that might have wanted to hear your discussion, but weren't able to because they were in a different room. So, I'm going to, step away from the mic and let you, step through what, you know, the the premise of your talk was and and, basically, give people a high level, overview of what your discussion was and really what you wanted people to take away from it.
Antonio Cousin:Okay. So first off, I would say this, that I will be there in 2025 as well. Looking forward to it. That's gonna be one of my annual conferences because I like the small knit community as well as the information. So I I feel like I was able to talk to almost every single person that attended this year, which was amazing in my opinion instead of having those 1,000 people conferences where you can't really get to talk to people.
Antonio Cousin:So I felt like, that was great. That was a really good benefit. I enjoyed that part of it, and I will be there in 2025 and going forward. So We can't wait to hear you. With this.
Antonio Cousin:Thank you. My topic at the, conference was unlocking your earning potential beyond real estate sales. And the reason I decided on this topic is because just looking at the numbers. Right? The data.
Antonio Cousin:So the National Association of Realtors, they put out that every year, and something that stood out to me was existing home sales. So if you go back to 2021, existing home sales were 6,100,000 and 5,500,000 in 2022 and then 4,100,000 in 2023. So it's showing a trend. Right? So existing home sales have declined for 3 straight years.
Antonio Cousin:Mhmm. So looking at the numbers, it's a very high probability that the majority of people that went to the conference also had some kind of decrease in their business over the last year compared to 2022, me, myself included. So my speech was more so behind increasing your income without just relying on real estate sales. Because I feel like we, as agents, like, we have access to the to the the properties. Right?
Antonio Cousin:We're pushing these properties on people, but we're not investing in them ourselves. And that's a real big problem in my opinion. So I just started it off by telling everybody my story. I think that helped because I I captured their their attention right away. I told them, you know, who I was.
Antonio Cousin:Basically, I've been licensed since 2010. I started in Dallas, Texas. And then I want me and my wife, we got engaged, and we wanted to move home to well, first of all, we got engaged. I got my license because I wanted to help pay for the wedding. I didn't wanna have to go in debt for a wedding.
Antonio Cousin:I know a lot of people do that, and I just don't subscribe to that. So I got my license just to make some extra money. At the time, I was working as a bank examiner full time for the federal government, so I was doing a lot of traveling. But I got the license just to make some extra money. And my first sale occurred, I wanna say, a year and a half into it.
Antonio Cousin:And I just there was something about that sale that just stood out to me and made me feel special. It made me feel good by helping somebody achieve home ownership. And it was just something completely different from what I was doing in my full time career. And I just knew that that was the way. I didn't wanna, you know, work as a bank examiner because I didn't see the value in it.
Antonio Cousin:I didn't see the the end user benefit. So, I did the both of them simultaneously for a number of years. I actually just quit the bank examiner job in December of 2021. So for 11 years, I was working both at the same time.
Scott Hack:Uh-huh.
Antonio Cousin:But I started it off by telling them my story. So my story goes like this. In 2007, I read a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. 1 of my friends recommended it to me. When I read that book, you know, at the time, I I knew that was my way out.
Antonio Cousin:Real estate was gonna be my way out. So I began searching for answers. Because Rich Dad Poor Dad in and of itself is just a mindset book. It doesn't give you any type of technical advice of telling you how to get into real estate. So I started off by talking about that and just letting everybody know how I lost a $1,000,000.
Antonio Cousin:So I read the book. I started going to all kind of conferences, reading more books on real estate investing, attending networking meetings. However, I didn't take any action. And a lot of people probably have my same or a similar situation growing up where they don't have access to the resources or friends or family that's doing real estate investing. So I was scared to do it.
Antonio Cousin:So I read that book in 2 2007. You know, the market crashed in 2,008, so properties were really, really cheap starting about 2,008 going into 2,009. I still didn't take action because I was scared. So 2,010 rolls around. As you as you probably remember, during that time, there was a tax credit incentive to incentivize homeownership by the federal government.
Antonio Cousin:It was $8,000. So I figured I'd just start there. Plus, I was tired of, you know, hearing everything my neighbors were doing. I was in an apartment at the time. When I say everything, I mean everything.
Antonio Cousin:You could hear everything they were doing. And so I knew I had to get out of the apartment. So my my fiance and I at the time, we went ahead and bought the house. We got the $8,000 tax credit, but I still didn't get feel satisfied. So that was in 2010.
Antonio Cousin:Bought my single family residence, my owner occupied property. Right? So about 2 years later, Warren Buffett, he purchased 420 Acres right by me. And Toyota moved at North American headquarters less than a mile away from my house. So property values skyrocketed.
Antonio Cousin:But 2010 to 2016, I still didn't purchase anything because I was scared. I always felt like I need to know more or I need to know I need to do a little more homework about this or I need to do you know, I just I let fear stop me. So I didn't purchase anything during that time frame. We moved back home in 2016 because we wanted to start a family, and we wanted to be close to the family to help us raise the kids. So I moved back in 2016.
Antonio Cousin:We sold our house that we purchased in 2010. We sold it for 6 figures more than we paid for it. Put it on the market. We had 6 offers all over asking price on the very first date. That's how hot that area was.
Antonio Cousin:So we took that that profit. Obviously, we didn't pay our taxes on it because y'all know about the the capital gains exclusion on the primary residence that the IRS allows you for. So that became our seed capital. So moved back home 2016, I still didn't buy nothing because I was scared. And then one day in 2018, I just said forget it.
Antonio Cousin:Like, I've been putting it off all this time. I went ahead and I purchased an office building. So it's not your traditional, you know, single family residence, probably what most investors do for the first one. I didn't do that. And I I don't even know why I purchased the office, but I did it.
Antonio Cousin:That was in 2018. And it just so happened that that's where our brokerage is based out of now. But I kinda I have a situation where it was rented. It's basically one office with 4 individual offices. And when I bought it, all 4 offices were rented.
Antonio Cousin:So it's like a house had situation to a office building, which is crazy. It's different. But 2,007 all the way to 2018, I let 11 years go by without purchasing anything. Although I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew real estate investment was gonna be the way for me, but I was scared. So I left fear.
Antonio Cousin:And if you think about it, like, back then, property values were so low. So I could have made so much money had I just taken action ins instead of overanalyzing. So at this point in time, you know, I bought the first property, which was a commercial office building in 2018, and now I currently own over 253 doors. So that's in a 6 period 6 year time frame. So I can only imagine had I started when I shoulda started where I would be now.
Antonio Cousin:So I didn't technically lose a $1,000,000 in cash, but I lost the opportunity to purchase properties at the bottom when I knew it was the right thing to do. I continue to let fear stop me. So one thing I wanna, you know, let everybody know out there that's listening is you will never know everything. Sometimes you just have to start and course correct along the way. So I started off like that, telling them about my story just so they have an idea of who they're talking to.
Antonio Cousin:And then from there, I told them my objective, which was to show you other ways to generate income outside of the hustle and bustle of selling real estate. Because that they know, like, a lot of people, they they focus a lot of realtors, they don't own real estate. Or they they they're basically depending on the next sale to survive, and I don't want you to be like that. And
Scott Hack:I'm I'm sorry.
Antonio Cousin:You're about to take some
Scott Hack:Analysis paralysis, I mean, for sure, that that's definitely something that the that we're stuck with. You're right. There's there's no what's what's the one of the sayings that, you know, I hear a lot of people talk about? Like, don't wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.
Scott Hack:Yep. Yeah. So absolutely.
Antonio Cousin:A 100% agree. So that that's just one thing. That's 11 years that I wasted, that I will always regret. But, you know, I'm still doing good now, but I'm just imagining what I could've been had I done it back then. But, my objective was just to show the listeners or the the audience that they need to diversify the income and not be fully 100% relying on selling real estate.
Antonio Cousin:And I I I brought up the point of how we're experts in the area. We know the market as we do this on a day to day basis. So why aren't we investing in it? And I told them that if this doesn't resonate with them, you know, at least they can take the information because you become more valuable to your clients when you have the knowledge. So the more I always tell my agents this or the the agents that I partner with at the brokerage.
Antonio Cousin:I don't like to call them my agents. But, I say the more knowledge knowledgeable you are, the more valuable you become. And I truly mean that. So I from there, I went on talking about the 5 different, ways that real estate pays you. Most people are aware of the cash flow.
Antonio Cousin:That's the amount of money you keep each month. So the amount of money you bring in from rent minus all your expenses for that property, whatever you have left over, that's the cash flow. Then I talked about appreciation slash equity capture. Everybody's familiar with appreciation. You know, over time, property values go up even in the hood over the long period of time, but they go up in value.
Antonio Cousin:And then equity capture, as your tenant is paying down the mortgage or as your tenant is making their rent payments, you're paying down the mortgage if you have one, which is increasing your equity in the property. Then depreciation, that will be the third thing. I didn't really go into too much details here because this one can be a little tricky and confusing. But, essentially, the government, they offer so many tax advantages and encourages investors to buy real estate. The tax laws, the way I look at it, is basically like the brew the blueprint and teach you how to play the game if you wanna win.
Antonio Cousin:With depreciation, essentially, their government is providing you with an incentive to buy investment real estate, and it allows you to pay a lesser amount in taxes on the actual cash flow that you bring in. So you can look it up if you're interested. Residential property, you could depreciate over 27 and a half years. But, yeah. So it allows you to keep more money in your pocket and then leverage.
Antonio Cousin:The banks are gonna be willing to finance you up to 85% on the investment property. You basically make the banks your partner and keep all the ownership benefits. So you get to keep the cash flow, the appreciation, and the depreciation tax write off. And then the 5th one, the most one of the most important ones that people don't really understand is called inflation profiting. Basically, by borrowing money from the bank, you're locking in a loan in today's dollars.
Antonio Cousin:We all know how inflation increases and shrinks your purchasing power. But with real estate, when you're borrowing money, you are locking in that amount, and the bank can't require you to pay more than that said amount. So we can all agree that 30 years from now, x amount of dollars won't be looked at the same as it is today. However, that doesn't matter because that's the agreement we signed with the bank, and they can't make us pay a penny more unless you default, of course. But over time, you'll get wage increases, you'll make more money, but you've locked in that amount owed to the bank.
Antonio Cousin:So let's say if I lock in a a principal interest payment to the bank of $1,000, 10, 15 years from now, I'm still paying that back $1,000 with cheaper dollars because we know that the the value of the dollar goes down every single day because of inflation. So they're basically the banks are your friend and not the enemy. You just have to know how to use them to your advantage. That's the 5 ways real estate pays you. I I turn it back over to you, Scott, because I feel like I'm talking too much.
Scott Hack:No. No. All that I mean, that's all awesome. And and that's definitely what I wanted to do is stay out of your way and let you, share your expertise. I think that, number 5 is super interesting.
Scott Hack:You know, just as a side topic to your conversation because we are in a an environment right now where as you were talking about the number of transactions has been declining. And I think that it would not be a stretch to say one of the reasons why we are seeing a decline in the number of transactions is because so many people have locked in an interest rate on their mortgage that is, let's just let's say sub 4 4%. So they are you know, even on a primary residence, they're taking advantage of that. What what term did you call number 5, inflation locking?
Antonio Cousin:Profit inflation profiting.
Scott Hack:Inflation profiting. So, I mean, I think that there's a lot of people that, are taking advantage of that. I had a conversation with, the agents at my brokerage probably about a month ago, and we started running through some near scenarios where there's a possibility for some move up buyers that it makes more sense for them to keep their primary residence and convert it to a rental and then apply that cash flow to the mortgage on a new primary residence instead of selling and moving up, Just keeping that primary residence as a rental and starting their portfolio.
Antonio Cousin:Yeah. I 100% agree. I looked at a stat recently. I just we talked about this. I wanna say 2 or 3 weeks ago on my podcast, I have a podcast called the Financial Flows Podcast.
Antonio Cousin:And there's a stat that Redfin put out that said 83% of all homeowners that had a mortgage under, were under 5%. So, essentially, why would you sell that 5% or lower mark of a house to buy a 7% house that that's gonna probably be more expensive. It just doesn't make financial sense. Right? I'm I'm I wish I would have taken taken advantage of those low interest rates more because I bought a few properties.
Antonio Cousin:I try to buy at least 1 a year, but I wish I had bought more. I have some, investment properties with 3.25, 3.6, 3.9. It's basically look like a looked at like an asset now having that low of a debt. You know? It yeah.
Antonio Cousin:So I do wish I had taken advantage of it. I didn't.
Scott Hack:Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. So you went through and shared about who who you were and your history, and then you went through and laid out your the 5, the 5 ways that real estate pays. And then and then what what did you do from there?
Antonio Cousin:Talked about the disadvantages, which is, obviously, you can't sell it immediately. It's not liquid like a stock. Down payment requirements, whenever it's an investment property, it's treated differently than if you're gonna live in it and own or occupy the property. So down payment, you know, for single family, you're looking at 15%. Multi family, you're looking at 25%.
Antonio Cousin:There are certain exclusions just depending on the property because I have done it before where I didn't pay anything down for an investment property, but it was a renovation loan. And I bought it at such a peak discount that, the value was there where the bank didn't require me to put anything down. And then ongoing maintenance. So you're responsible for fixing anything that breaks. And I told them about how on January 8th this year, one of my properties got hit by lightning.
Antonio Cousin:It didn't catch fire. Wow. When the lightning hit the property, it, basically knocked out the motherboard on the oven, on the tankless water heater. It knocked out the blower motor on the HVAC. It It knocked it did something to the coil on the HVAC.
Antonio Cousin:It knocked out a lot of the the outlets in the house, the camera system that she put in. And what else? It knocked out a few more. The garbage disposal stopped working. So I thought that I can get all these things done without having to go through insurance because I have the their their, contacts.
Antonio Cousin:Right? So I thought my refer my my deductible is 25100. I thought I can get it done for less. But I ended up spending $4,086. I was so upset.
Antonio Cousin:I could've just filed an insurance claim. But $4,086 later, we got it back together, and everything is fine now. But I just wish I had just filed that claim to save that $1500. Yeah. That's the thing, ongoing maintenance and then tenants.
Antonio Cousin:You have to deal with tenants. Sometimes that could be a good thing. Sometimes it could be a bad thing. I'm working on training my tenants better to stop calling me or texting me so late. I'm on do not disturb anyway, but it just bothers me when I wake up the next morning and see a late text.
Antonio Cousin:Something about that just hurts me. But, after the the disadvantages, then we went through and I talked about which was the core concept of what I want to share with the people, which was different real estate investment methods. So I went through 9 different ones. There are a ton of them out there, but I just honed in on 9 different ones. And I showed exactly, like, pros and cons of all 9, as well as case studies showing some of my properties as well as some of my client's property.
Antonio Cousin:And those 9
Scott Hack:Yeah. You said well, yeah. Let's let's list them in. I'm I'm curious to hear which one are the ones that you think are most viable in today's market.
Antonio Cousin:Perfect. Okay. So the 9 include buy and hold, which is your traditional, you know, buy a property. I run it out. Hold it for the long term.
Antonio Cousin:Then the second one was the BRRRR strategy. Basically, buy what is it? Buy, renovate.
Scott Hack:Refinance.
Antonio Cousin:Buy, renovate, rent, refinance, and repeat. Then fix and flips, you know, that's everybody's familiar with fixing and flipping. That's the HGTV stuff you see on TV, but it's not really like that in real life. Woah. Short term rentals.
Antonio Cousin:Short term rentals was number 4. REITs, real estate investment trust was number 5. Wholesaling, number 6. Syndications, number 7. Crowdfunding, 8.
Antonio Cousin:And then house hacking, number 9. And then I went through pros and cons of all 9 and just show some examples, like my properties and numbers, things like that.
Scott Hack:I don't know if I know the difference between syndication and a REIT in, the grand scheme of things.
Antonio Cousin:Okay. Well, let's talk about it. Okay. So with syndications, that's gonna be where you have a GP, general partner, and a LP, limited partner. And a GP is the person that's responsible for and I say person, but it could be multiple people.
Antonio Cousin:But they're the people that go out and find the deal. They put the business plan together. So is it a value add opportunity where we're gonna go in, fix the property up, fix the units up, raise the rent to increase the value? They're gonna be the ones signing on a note responsible for the debt. And the LPs are gonna be the ones that's basically putting up the money, like, putting up the equity in the property, and they're getting a return.
Antonio Cousin:Right? That's monthly, quarterly, whatever the the structure, however that's figured out. And so I had an example on the screen of a 240 unit apartment complex that I'm actually the owner in. It's in Dalton, Georgia, which is, north of Atlanta, south of Chattanooga. But it's the, Chattanooga MSA.
Antonio Cousin:So it's, you know, that that area. But it's they call it the corp the carpet capital of the world. So that's where most of the carpet is made. Real blue collar. You know?
Antonio Cousin:But a syndication, essentially, you you wanna put that together because in this deal, for instance, this is $25,000,000. Like, who has $25,000,000 to purchase a property? So you have to go out and raise that money. The debt, you have to get that financed, you know, through a lender. But then the equity side, you have to raise that from limited partners where they put up money and they get they're expecting a profit.
Antonio Cousin:A quote some some form of profit from the cash flow of the property, but when you sell at the end of the that holding period, whatever that is, in this case, it was 5 years. So we bought this in August of 2021. The goal was to sell it in 2026. Sell it for more than you know, we paid, obviously, of 25,000,000. It's worth about 31,000,000 now, 32,000,000, something like that.
Antonio Cousin:Because the the value of income property, specifically large multifamily, is based on the value that the net operating income that the property provides. So if you go in there, you fix it up, and you increase the rent, you just increase the value of the property. So that's why I say it's worth around 31, 32,000,000 now because we've gone in, fixed up the units, and have increased the property's value because now we're getting more rent than we were before.
Scott Hack:You've increased the cash flow, basically.
Antonio Cousin:Yeah. So the pros and I talked about it from the LP perspective because most people in the room would probably be far more likely to go from the LP route right away than trying to tackle this kind of deal on their own from the GP side. So from the LP side, the pros will be geographic diversification because you can invest anyway. I just told you. I'm in Louisiana, and I and that property is in Georgia.
Antonio Cousin:It's a 100% passive investment because all you're doing is putting up money and collecting a return. You're not responsible for the debt either. The GPs are gonna be the one signing on the debt, not the LPs. As far as cons, it's not liquid. You literally have to wait into the property sales or refinances to get out of it and then lack of control.
Antonio Cousin:Essentially, you're relying on a track record of the operator. You don't have any control. You make no decisions. Things like that. And you mentioned what was it?
Antonio Cousin:The REITs? You asked about the REITs. Yeah. So that's a real estate investment trust. Essentially, what that is is it's just like a stock or it's real similar to a stock where you own shares of multiple properties.
Antonio Cousin:And I gave an example of 1 on on the in a slideshow. It was an apartment income REIT. Essentially, that particular REIT owns 76 different apartment communities in set in 10 different states. And you can just buy it, you know, on the open market. So the pros would be they provide real high yield dividends or high dividend yields, I should say.
Antonio Cousin:The the law requires them to dispose 90% of taxable income to the shareholders, so that's why the dividend yields are so high. And And then you get access to commercial real estate without a substantial amount of capital. I think the one I put on the board was, like, $38 or $42 a share. So it's just like a stock as far as that. And then it's highly liquid.
Antonio Cousin:You could just sell it. You can sell it right now on a on a open market. Just click a button and it sells just like that. But as far as the cons, there are taxes on those dividends in addition to your ordinary income tax. You have something called a cert a surtax, which is 3.8%.
Antonio Cousin:So it's a little bit higher than normal. And then trends trends influence REITs heavily. Let's say, for instance, you invested into a REIT that only own shopping malls. Well, as we know, you know, that's not in high demand right now. A lot of companies are leaving out of malls.
Antonio Cousin:So the stock value is probably gonna go down along with it. And then they're just you gotta look out for high fees. There's a lot of fees involved with this stuff. You just have to read the fine print, like transaction fees, management fees, things like that. But, yeah, that's that's those 2.
Antonio Cousin:But I went over 9 different ones with examples.
Scott Hack:Well, I don't I'm not gonna get too much deeper in that. I'm curious to hear which one of those 9 methods are your preferred and which ones you think would work best in today's market.
Antonio Cousin:So depending on the point of view, are you talking about from, like, someone that's starting out, they don't have a portfolio, and they just wanna get started?
Scott Hack:Yeah. Let's let's use that perspective.
Antonio Cousin:Okay. So if I was that person, I would 100 well, it's 2 things. Let me can I highlight 2?
Scott Hack:Yeah. Absolutely. It's 3 if you think it's necessary.
Antonio Cousin:So if I was just starting out, I had minimal income, minimal capital, I would do the house hacking strategy. Because you're gonna occupy the property with a lower down payment because you're gonna live there for a year and run out that's where you basically you either run out rooms within your house or you could if you get a multifamily 2 to 4 unit, you could run out the other units. So, essentially, you you occupy that property with a lower down payment as opposed to if you were just an investor. You have to come to the table with more down. So the the benefit of it is, you know, obviously, lower down payment, but, also, you have a tenant that's hopefully covering your whole mortgage.
Antonio Cousin:If not, the whole mortgage is definitely, you know, covering a large substantial amount because taxes and housing are our largest expenses. So if you can get that partially eliminated or completely eliminated, you'll be far ahead. And then on the, in the slides, I showed an example of someone purchasing a single family house versus someone purchasing a more expensive duplex and how the numbers made more sense to just go to duplex route because you're reducing the housing expense significantly. But the cool thing about it is you only have to do that for a year, and then you can repeat the process and do it again. Move out of that unit, purchase another multifamily, and keep the you only used to have.
Antonio Cousin:Now you're renting it out. Now you you're making even more money in cash flow. That's how you build your portfolio and just do that over and over. The second strategy I want to mention is the BRRRR strategy. The reason I like that one is and I show as an example on the screen of a property that me and some of my partners did.
Antonio Cousin:That one, you're basically buying a property that needs work. Right? So you find a value add opportunity. You put money into it to buy it. You put money into it to rehab it, and then you rent it out.
Antonio Cousin:Then you find a bank that's gonna be willing to give you a loan on the property. So that way, once you get the loan on the property, you can get all your money back or most of your money. Hopefully, you can get all of it out. The example I showed on the screen was a, double wide mobile home that me and I have an investment group as well. I didn't mention that, but it's me and 5 other people.
Antonio Cousin:We put our money together every single month, and we buy real estate with it. So of the 253 units, 6, maybe 7, I think 6 of the units we own. So that that's 6 of my 253. So I don't own all those properties 100%. And that's a common misconception.
Antonio Cousin:Like, you don't need to own a 100%. You just need to own something. Something is better than nothing. I think I only own 7. Me and my wife, a 100%, only 7.
Antonio Cousin:7 units. So that's a common misconception I wanted to, you know, go ahead and address. But with the BRRRR strategy, essentially, we put our money into the property, rented it out, and then refinance it. So when we refinanced it, we were able to get all of our cash back that we used to purchase the property as well as fix it up. So now we have a loan on it.
Antonio Cousin:We have the property rented, and we're making a cash flow each month. The difference between those two numbers and that money we got back when we refinanced the property, all we did was take that money and go repeat the process on another property. So essentially, you're recycling money, the same money every single time, and scaling your portfolio. The cool thing about it is if you do this successfully, you can get an infinite return because you're pulling all your money out of it. So everything, you know, now is just the the the lender's money in the deal, you're getting a return every single month.
Antonio Cousin:So it's called an infinite return because none of your individual money is in it. Plus, something I pointed out is that anytime you get a loan, you don't pay taxes on the loan. So it's just money in your pocket. In this particular example, we were able to take out in in the loan more than we invested to get it, you know, buy it and fix it up. So that's just extra money in your pocket.
Antonio Cousin:You don't pay taxes on it. Never on a loan. So that's the 2 strategies I recommend for somebody just starting out.
Scott Hack:Which of those nine strategies do you think does not make sense, at at in most instances? So if you were to say, hey. I'm gonna take this list of 9, and we're gonna cut it down to a list of 8. Which one would you take off the list? For for all instances, a beginner as well as, you know, someone that already has a portfolio, which one do you think is the least attractive?
Antonio Cousin:Okay. Given the the current environment we're in, I would say short term rentals. And that's because what I've seen is a lot of different ordinances, well, municipalities are creating are making it a little harder. Like, for example, in New Orleans, they had a big thing where they basically are limiting the amount of short term rental permits that go out now because they felt like a lot of investors were buying these properties and putting them on short term rental, which was hurting the local market, the rental demand well, not the demand, but hurting the rental supply in the markets because people need to rent. But if you're buying up all the properties and putting them on short term rentals, that's making a number of available housing lower.
Antonio Cousin:And, you know, they have the lobbyists for the hotels. You know, that's a big touristy area. So the hotels were not feeling it too much. So, they made it really, really difficult right now. They have a a they're not giving any, actually, right now, short term rental permits.
Antonio Cousin:So if you have one and it expires in a year, you know, they're not they're probably not gonna renew you. So it's just making it real difficult. Another example in Atlanta, a lot of people are buying these properties and, you know, putting them on short term rental. And Atlanta said, you know what? We're gonna cut put an end to this, and we're only gonna allow each person to have 2 permits.
Antonio Cousin:So just imagine those people who are buying multiple properties. Now they have to figure out a exit strategy. Am I gonna rent it out, or am I gonna sell it? So that's that's the environment we're in right now with short term rentals. They could change the laws at any moment.
Antonio Cousin:So that's one of those that I'm personally not investing in. I don't even own any short term rentals because I just don't like the the amount of work it takes. Mhmm. I don't have that kind of time. And, yes, I could hire a manager to do it, but I'm just not interested in doing that.
Antonio Cousin:And, so that's short term rentals. I wouldn't do that. Another one, I'm a get you one more. More. Wholesaling.
Antonio Cousin:So wholesaling, that's the the people you see with abandoned signs around town that says we buy houses, any condition, you know, that kind of thing. Those abandoned signs you'll see everywhere. That's a wholesale. Essentially, what they do is they get the house on the contract from somebody who's in a distressed situation. Maybe they don't wanna list with an agent because it needs work.
Antonio Cousin:That's most more times out 9 times out of 10, that's gonna be the situation. They don't have, funds to fix it up, or they just don't want people coming through their house, whatever. So the the wholesaler get it under contract for, let's say, $50,000, then they'll go find end user who's a buyer to buy that contract from them for, let's say, $60,000. And they'll keep the 10,000 in the middle once they close it. So that's what a wholesaler does.
Antonio Cousin:The reason I said, I added that to the list because right now in in different states, different cities, you're starting to see that pop up where they're starting to question the legality of it. I know in Louisiana, I don't know what's the situation on it, but I know congress, they were trying to put in where you had to have a real estate license to do wholesaling because they felt like it was taking advantage of people. And some wholesalers are are like that where they will take advantage of you. They want you to use their paperwork, but the the paperwork is gonna protect them, which I understand. But in the example I just gave on the, in the slides at the presentation, I just showed them a property that I buy a property I bought.
Antonio Cousin:I'm sorry. Property I bought from a wholesaler. I I love wholesalers because they out there doing the work to find these properties that I don't have time to do. So I I don't mind buying from a wholesale if the numbers make sense. They they serve a purpose.
Scott Hack:Yeah.
Antonio Cousin:But that's that's what I would say.
Scott Hack:I I think that, Kentucky is a similar market to Louisiana and that we have been recently trying to put laws in place. They did pass something that says that a wholesaler needs to be a licensed agent. But the enforcement of it and the way that they wrote it doesn't necessarily, doesn't really make it have a lot of teeth yet. I think that it was a good good try initially, and and, obviously, they'll have to make another pass at it to to make it a little bit better. But I agree.
Scott Hack:Wholesaling is certainly a function of the market that needs to exist, but there's definitely, an ethics situation that comes into play when people are essentially just taking advantage of people.
Liz Hack:Yep. Antonio, I had a question for you. If if you were to go back and, besides that one re regret that you had about waiting so long and you were to go back and and be able to tell yourself, hey. Don't do this thing. What would it be so that people can learn from it as they get into investment portfolios?
Antonio Cousin:So my one thing would be don't wait. Just do it. Just do it and course correct. Like, you have to take action. Stop, like Scott mentioned earlier.
Antonio Cousin:What was it? Paralysis? By analysis?
Scott Hack:Yeah. Analysis paralysis.
Antonio Cousin:Analysis paralysis. Yeah. That was me. Like, I always felt like I just needed to know one more thing. And then I'll get that one more thing, and then I'll come up with something else.
Antonio Cousin:I continue to let fear stop me, and that's one of life's biggest regrets for me. Never again.
Liz Hack:When you decide to buy that office building, would you suggest people buy, a resident a residence? Or would you suggest them to to to do what you did, which is buy an office space first?
Antonio Cousin:No. I never so currently, in this this market we're in right now, office is in the dumps. Yeah. I would not recommend you buy an office. You definitely wanna start with residential.
Antonio Cousin:But I would just say this, residential for sure, go with what you're familiar with, though. So if you're familiar with single families, duplexes, traffic, whatever, just do something you're familiar with and get help along the way. Don't don't think you have to do everything. Don't even think you have to buy everything by yourself. Like, partner with people that's that's have a, like, interest as you, and you can grow from each other.
Antonio Cousin:Like, don't be afraid to just do it. If if that's what's stopping you, you know, you feel like you don't know enough. Partner with somebody that does, and you can find those partners everywhere these days. YouTube University give you all the information, but going to your local real estate investment associations, like the local RIAs, they'll help. You can get on Facebook and type in, you know, your your city and real estate investing behind it.
Antonio Cousin:I'm sure you'll find a group that does some real estate investment in your area. You can get on meetup.com. There's bigger pockets. There's so many opportunities and so many avenues now to connect with like minded people and get those, get those skills that you're missing. And I told them in the class, I said there's 3 when it comes to investing, real estate investing, specifically.
Antonio Cousin:There's 3 different areas you wanna, to look for. So there's the capital. Do you have the capital for it? Do you have the time? Or do you have the skills?
Antonio Cousin:If you're lacking one of those, then find somebody that has it and partner with them. Them. But those are the three things. So capital, time, and skills. If you don't have all 3, find someone that does.
Scott Hack:So skipping ahead a little bit, Antonio, to, basically the end of your presentation. So you did you did your presentation, and your presentation was for roughly an hour. So after your presentation was over, what are some of the questions that some of the audience members came up to you and you all had discussions with later that day and into the night?
Antonio Cousin:Okay. So the way I ended the presentation, I had a quote on the screen by Harley Dates. It says, when writing the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen. And what I was saying by that was don't leave your livelihood up to the economy and its impact on the housing market. Take control by diversifying your income stream.
Antonio Cousin:So I after that, I going into, you know, the following week weeks since then, I've talked to multiple people. I gotta like to connect with people that have me at conferences, especially if you have a good vibe. And it's been more so, like, just trying to, better understand where they should start. And I'm just like, you gotta start. I'm here to help, but I I've been teaching real estate investment every single Tuesday night for the last it's me and 4 other people.
Antonio Cousin:We've been doing it every single Tuesday night since August of 2020. And we do a different topic every single Tuesday. We have investors not investors. Other people come in that has a specialty and teach. You know, their specialty to the group is about 700 members in there, but not everybody shows up because it's free.
Antonio Cousin:But it's on Zoom. And, we've been doing it for that long. So I always invite people there if they're interested in learning more. I have books. So I've been I sold some books at the conference too, by the way.
Antonio Cousin:But I have one from listed to sold, 55 expert strategies to selling your home in any market. And originally, I had that book. I put it out to send to for sale by owners and as a lead capture mechanism. But what I realized, a lot of realtors were buying the book because it teaches you how to sell a house. So then I I curved my marketing to to realtor.
Antonio Cousin:So I sold that book. I have another one, on it's called I'm Out Escaping the Rat Race 1 Income Stream at a Time. And it's basically documenting how I escaped the rat race and how you can do it too. That one's geared to more than 9 to 5 employee that wants to get out and don't know how. But, yeah, sold those books and the conversations since then has just been building, just growing the relationship.
Antonio Cousin:Hopefully, I can get some referrals out of it. If anybody wanna invest down here and vice versa, I can send some referrals. You'll wait. But that's all it's been about, just building those relationships,
Liz Hack:growing. That's what we like to hear. Right? We like to hear people creating relationships and building that community. So it's because it's not just your market, but, that we that you can serve.
Liz Hack:You can serve so many other, people in different markets as well.
Scott Hack:So, Antonio, you mentioned your books. How can people get those books? Where where are they located at?
Antonio Cousin:So I have a course as well, but all of this is gonna be on gotincomestream.com. That's www.gotincomestreams.com.
Scott Hack:And then, how is the best way for someone to connect with you? If they've got specific questions, they wanna have a conversation with you, they wanna send you a referral, to Baton Rouge or to, New Orleans or somewhere in between. How is the best way for someone to connect with you?
Antonio Cousin:So the easiest, I'm heavy on social media, especially Instagram. I I post every single day. Except last year, I I missed 2 days, the whole year. So I went 363 or 365 last year. I was upset too.
Antonio Cousin:It's 2 Sundays I'll never forget. I just forgot to post. But cousin, c o u s I n, sales, s e l l s l a, is my Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok handle. So cousin sales LA, and I'm pretty much on there regularly. I keep my notifications off, but I check it multiple times per day.
Antonio Cousin:If you wanna call me, it's 504-220-7297. That's my cell, direct cell. And if you're interested in investing in Louisiana Southeast the Southeast market specifically, you could just go to antoniocousin.com.
Scott Hack:Alright. That's awesome. Real quick before we jot out, any last words for people that are, you know, they're inspired. They've been listening. They're they they solve the What's
Liz Hack:that first step?
Scott Hack:Yeah. The 5, the 5 things and the 9 ways. So so they're ready to pull the trigger. What what is the what is the last piece of advice you wanna give people?
Antonio Cousin:Take action. Just start. You can course correct along the way, but you have to start.
Scott Hack:It sounds like it sounds like a Nike commercial.
Liz Hack:Just do it. Yeah. Antonio, we've I've got on my bucket list to come down and see a parade there in New Orleans.
Scott Hack:You should. So It's
Antonio Cousin:a great time. Especially the last 2 weeks before Mardi Gras. Yeah. You definitely should.
Liz Hack:It's on the list. I don't think I've told Scott yet, but now he knows. Thanks for being here with us, Antonio. This has been awesome. It's always good to hear from you.
Antonio Cousin:Absolutely. I had a good time. Thank y'all for having me.
Liz Hack:That was Antonio Cousins from Service First Real Estate, from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Announcer:That's a wrap for this episode of the Real Estate Distilled Podcast. Visitrealestatedistilled.com for more tips, and jump into our Facebook group to keep the conversation going. Here's to making every transaction a smooth pour. Cheers.