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The Healthy Wealth Experience - Where Financial Success Meets Personal Wellbeing
Host Chris Hall combines 30+ years in finance with wellness expertise to help entrepreneurs and professionals build wealth without sacrificing their health. From investment strategies to money management, we offer advice to make financial success more sustainable.
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Bigger's not always better. Right? I think when you're young and ambitious, you know, for me, was all about growth. How big could I make it? You know, a lot of people focusing on the top line numbers, how much volume can you do?
Cory Meyer:How many transactions can you do? You know, you really gotta work with your giftings. This
Chris Hall:episode is for entertainment and information only. The opinions expressed are not professional advice and listening does not create a client relationship. Always consult your own qualified professional before making any financial, legal or health decisions. Hello and welcome to the Healthy Wealth Experience. I'm your host, Chris Hall.
Chris Hall:Joining us today is the titan of the North State real estate scene, Corey Meyer. Starting from humble beginnings in 2006, Corey has built one of the top ranked real estate teams in the country, completing over 3,000 career sales and consistently ranking as an elite performer in California. But beyond the numbers and the sold signs, Corey is a firm believer that true wealth is a multidimensional journey involving health, mindset, and community impact. Today, we're picking his brain on where the Reading market is headed in 2026, the national trends every investor needs to watch, and how he balances high level production with a focus on personal well-being. Corey, welcome to the show.
Cory Meyer:Thanks for having me Chris, excited to be Absolutely.
Chris Hall:Yeah, thanks for being here. So first and foremost, tell us a little bit about your background, you know, people kind of want to they know maybe who they know who you are, Some of the some of the guests, know, obviously outside of the Reading market probably don't know who you are. So tell us a little bit about yourself. How'd you get into real estate and you know, where'd you start? Where's your beginnings?
Cory Meyer:Yeah, I started when I was young. I got involved in construction. Watched a guy walking around job sites that we were helping on and my parents knew him well. He was very well off investor. And I started tracking what is he doing?
Cory Meyer:And he was a flipper and he had been flipping since the seventies. I said, well, he doesn't have his bags on every day, you know, his tool bags. And I knew he was doing really well, so it intrigued me. And so when I was really young, I started transitioning from, you know, being in construction, working for my wife's dad, who was a contractor, and my dad, who was a sort of a handyman after his career at IBM, and learning a lot of it and started flipping houses when I was really young. So I was 19 when I picked up my first one and started doing that.
Cory Meyer:The market was very forgiving at the time. That was the early 2000s. Wasn't as disciplined with them as I could have been and everything, but it led me right up to the market crash in 02/1956. And I ended up moving up to Redding, California, where I knew nobody and decided at that time, right when the market crashed to get my real estate license. Right?
Cory Meyer:What what a better time to jump in. So I've been putting it off for years because I really didn't need it when I was flipping some houses and finally completed the whole course and everything and got licensed and just hit the ground running. In 2006, I got licensed. 2010, I got my broker's license and just built my way up from there. Followed others, tracked what they were doing, guys doing high level sales, and just started pushing it and started doing a lot of marketing up in the Reading area and just went full throttle.
Cory Meyer:So that's kind of my background in real estate built some teams own some franchises kind of done it all failed at a lot, won at a lot. And so that takes me to where I am here today with a small real estate team right here in Reading and work in the Shasta County market primarily. We do a little bit outside of the county, used to do a lot more, had some other markets I worked as well, but for now I'm just really focused on sales myself with my small team and trying to do the best job we can for customers.
Chris Hall:Nice. Hey. So where did where were you flipping houses? Where did you where were you at before you came to Reading?
Cory Meyer:I was I started in Reno, believe it or not. I grew up with my stepdad. My my biological father, he started dabbling in big investing and stuff and was doing seminars on it. And I went to one of those seminars with a friend of his who was preaching about investing and real estate and flips and everything like that. So I was living in Santa Cruz, playing college football for the JC at the time and went to that seminar and I actually changed my flight from back home to Reno where I found my first opportunity at a flip because it was 80,000.
Cory Meyer:I grew up in Sonoma Valley. So at the time it was like, even in the early 2000s, I guess that was before the height of the market, but it was still just very expensive. You were spending 500,000 for an out house and I could never get a start there. Found one for $80 in Reno and I just went there and started there. They were really tough to get at the time.
Cory Meyer:So I finished that one and then I made my way back to Sonoma County, some in Sebastopol, and then finally made my way back to Sonoma Valley where I did a couple there. I ended up tearing a few down and rebuilding a few. And then finally that kind of the market again started turning and I ended up in Shasta County. So, and I went full into sales and stepped away. I still do play around with it a bit.
Cory Meyer:I did three last year, but it's not my main focus anymore. Primarily just focused on sales. So that's how I got my start and where I did. I just had to kind of find my way back into a market as we built up the ability to afford a higher price point.
Chris Hall:For those of you listening that don't know what Sonoma County is, it's a county in Northern California that is like the Napa Valley. It's a lot of wine country, so everything there is super expensive and not so much in Reno, although prices obviously going up there as well. Do you feel like flipping houses gave you a really good base for being helpful to your clients as far as like, you know, what makes a good house, what makes a fixer upper, etcetera?
Cory Meyer:Yeah. People comment at all all the time. I mean, even last week, you know, they just they get really into the fact of how how much I know about construction overall. So they love it. And people get taught in sales, don't say negative things, don't call that out or whatever.
Cory Meyer:I kind of call everything out when I walk into a house with a client, I want them to know and they really appreciate it. So it's been really helpful overall and the clients love it just because I know what I'm looking at and I know how that whole house was built.
Chris Hall:I think that people think that because they're nervous, they're going to lose the sale if they're, you know, honest. But, you know, ultimately you're at the end of the day, you're trying to save people money and you're trying to earn them more money. If you can call out a few things that need to be fixed or changed, like, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, you're making them more money. So, but I get it. It's a to me, that would be a lack mindset versus a, like, abundance mindset.
Chris Hall:You know, you're not gonna get every deal, but you're always gonna have your integrity. So I think that's awesome. Good for you.
Cory Meyer:That's what's most important.
Chris Hall:Right. So for like, let's just talk a little bit about real estate in general and then we're gonna talk a little bit about, like, your health and how you've done certain things. You said, at one time you had, you know, big brokerage, a lot of a lot of realtors under you and now you've kinda downsize and stuff like that. For those of you guys who are not local, there was a time when he had partnered with Barbara Cochran, is that am I saying her last name right?
Cory Meyer:Yeah. We got the endorsement there, yes.
Chris Hall:Yeah. So that was kinda fun. She was a big deal on the Shark Tank for a really long time and and I remember seeing those commercials everywhere and stuff. So, and then, so I think, you know, I think a lot of business owners that, you know, the idea is get big, get big, get big and and then you do see this where people achieve those kinds of successes and then you feel like the the next phase of your life is get small, get lean, get mean, and then, you know, because at some point you're really like you're just hiring people to like pay them instead of like, you know, looking at your bottom line. So where was the transition where you kind of went away from the big agency to like a tight group of people that, you know, all know what they're doing?
Cory Meyer:Bigger is not always better. Right? I think when you're young and ambitious, you know, for me, it was all about growth. How big could I make it? You know, a lot of people focusing on the top line numbers.
Cory Meyer:How much volume can you do? How many transactions can you do? You really gotta work with your giftings. I'm really good at sales and navigating transactions and figuring out how to pull deals together. And for me managing, at one point we were right at 40 people.
Cory Meyer:It's just always chaos. I remember young, I'd see guys in their forties and stuff and know they used to have these huge outfits, whether it was an HVAC company or whatever, and they had all the trucks and boy, they're huge. They must be just killing it. And then why'd you end up now? You're a one man crew and stuff and you realize later on, you know, there's a lot you it's a lot more control, a lot more happiness, you know, a lot more, you can net more instead of constantly have that huge outflow of massive overhead.
Cory Meyer:And then people, people are tough to manage, getting people to work all the time, relying on your success on their work ethic or when they feel like working or whatever it looks like. And I especially feel like that's getting more and more challenging this day and age, but being able to control your outcomes based on your own efforts and everything, it's just a lot more enjoyable. And then having great people, being able to take care of people at a higher level on your team instead of being so spread. And that's one of the biggest things that for me has really been exciting. Being able to control my destiny based on my inputs every day.
Cory Meyer:What am I putting in? What's gonna come from those? How can I leverage, obviously support? I have great support crew, great staff, and I have a few great agents, but it's been much more enjoyable to have that smaller crew and be more focused on better, not bigger. That's kind of a theme this year.
Cory Meyer:It's part of a theme, a coaching company I'm involved with, but that's our main focus. How do we serve the client at the highest level? Not the most amount of clients, but really bring great service and expertise to the clients that we are serving. So it's been really good and it had been a relief really for me.
Chris Hall:Yeah, I know. Think that's excellent. One of the things I try to do in my practice, there's a lot of financial advisors who will literally, they'll take anybody with a pulse and they're like trying to build this like, you know, practice, if you will. Really, they're just trying to build a book of business. Think, you know, probably at some point to sell it or whatever.
Chris Hall:But like for me, when I first started with this, I read a really good book. And if you're a real estate agent, if you're a mortgage person, if you're doing any sort of sales at all, financial advisor, it's more geared towards financial advisor, but it's called game of numbers. And one of the things he talks about in that book is building a practice that you want. You know, like building a, building a lifestyle that you want. And, you know, I'd never wanted to be the guy managing 800 clients, you know, constantly taking phone calls, constantly, you know, dealing with, you know, the the disaster du jour, etc.
Chris Hall:So, you know, I've purposely kept, you know, my group as tight as I can as well. So I definitely understand the concept of bigger is not better when it comes to like giving good service, you know, helping people serve. One of the things I thought was really cool. One time I heard like, hey, listen, let's say you have a five star hotel and there's like 220 rooms, right? So you can basically, you know, be five star hotel to 220 families at a time.
Chris Hall:But if all a sudden you're trying to like serve 300 families, well now you've got people sleeping on the hallway, the gym's getting overused, things are breaking, people are sleeping on the loungers next to the pool. I mean, it's no longer a five star hotel. It's it's, know, it's terrible. So just like knowing where your capacity is, I think is really important and knowing what your skill sets are. And again, like you like selling, so it makes sense to put deals together as part of your joy.
Chris Hall:So it makes sense that you started working towards that more. Let's let's talk about real estate in general. So what percentage of people buying houses right now would you say are like new home buyers, existing home buyers trying to level up, existing home buyers trying to level down or like people trying to buy like investment properties? Like how would you break the percentage up right now based on where interest rates are and where the economy is at?
Cory Meyer:Yeah, that's a good question. I'd have to probably make a wild guess at that one, to be honest with you. We deal with such a mix up here. The amount of first time home buyers is not as high as maybe people would think with prices right now and rates and everything. Rates are getting way better.
Cory Meyer:But I would say we deal with probably out of our clients, I would say probably 10% to 15% only are first time home buyers dealing with people that are definitely moving up. Getting people off their 3% rate right now to move where they wanna go is a big deal. We still have frequent people moving up here from the Bay Area or down south or wherever. Reading, our market is still very affordable comparatively speaking. Right?
Cory Meyer:I always say like, we're one of the lower prices on the Western United States now. I mean, you look at everywhere people would go up and move out to. I mean, we're lower cost than Idaho, Montana, and all those areas. So we have, you know, I would say it's fairly even across the board from first time home buyers to move up buyers to people downsizing investors. You know, that's a tougher deal right now.
Cory Meyer:Getting the numbers to crunch and make sense is a tough deal. And so, I don't, I would say it's a pretty even mix if I had to guess. You're causing me to think about it right now. I haven't tracked that exact mix, but I would say it's fairly even. I'll be honest right now.
Cory Meyer:The first time home buyer is definitely a struggle right now. You bring insurance costs into it. It's not cheap right now. Then you add rates, even though they're coming down and then the average sale price of a home right now in Shasta County, which is right around $4.00 8 for the Q4 of last year. So it's a pricey deal.
Cory Meyer:It's you're looking at, you gotta have even with 20% down a couple thousand, 3,000 for the average price home right now with insurance and everything lumped in and property taxes.
Chris Hall:Yeah. I I think right now when you say $4.00 8, I think, man, people out there probably think like you can get a house for $4.00 8 if they're in like the rest of California. Like for other people that are outside of California, they're like they're like, you can buy a house in for $4.00 8 in California. Like, that seems really low. And I think it's, you know, it goes to mention what you said, which is like we are sort of like this far removed market.
Chris Hall:California is really should be like seven states. It's so big. But where we're at, you know, we are probably what definitely, like you said, we're one of the most affordable places in California, but also on the West Coast. So it's funny, like I hear the $4.00 8 and I can just hear people going like, cow, on both sides of the the mark. We used to refer to the people who came up from the Bay Area and Los Angeles area, we'd call them equity refugees.
Chris Hall:So they would sell their house for 1,000,000 point, they'd sell their little condo for 1,200,000.0, come up here, buy a house for $5.60 that was way nicer than anything they had and then they'd have a house for free. And then I always thought the people who kind of left Reading, they didn't typically leave Reading to go down to the Bay Area or go down to LA. They would usually leave to go to Colorado or Montana or something like that. Do you still feel like that's the case now?
Cory Meyer:Yeah, they would. But we're getting people that left the state coming back now. I mean, it's not, when you crunch the numbers and everything, yeah, I mean, depending on what the value is to change your whole life, friends, family, business, you name it. But for me, it doesn't make sense, even though California is really controversial with the people running the state and everything, but we are getting people that are coming back now and all those people that wanted to leave and go to Idaho and everywhere else. I mean, I don't know if you've looked at the prices there now, but places like Boise, I mean, they're another, probably another, I don't know if it's a 100,000 more than Reading now, but they're up there.
Cory Meyer:You go to Bozeman, Montana or areas like that. They call that Boz Angeles now. I mean, the prices are just it blows your mind really. So Reading's really affordable. We still get those people.
Cory Meyer:Selling a little bungalow in Silicon Valley and they're coming up and they buy a, you know, for a million 7 down there and they buy something for a mansion here for a million 2 compared to what they're coming from. That still happens. And that's why my wife and I are here. Think of all my friends growing up in Sonoma Valley, which was what the time we left, it was one of the most expensive places in The United States. And you're talking, you're literally getting a 1920s, 800 square foot bungalow for $700,000 that's full of dry rot.
Cory Meyer:For us, we bought see, our first house here. It was 275,000 for a couple acres and a 2,000 square foot house. It was like just blew our mind. We literally never had been here and we came up that day and bought a house. Wow.
Cory Meyer:And so people still see that. We get a ton of the buyers from the bay and all over that see our land prices and we get inquiries all the time. Then I have to tell them, that's really not a great area. It's way out in the middle of nowhere, but they see 40. And then when you get down to land prices now and the cost of construction, usually it makes much more sense for them to just look at the actual available resale market in residential here and they'll get a much better deal and be way farther ahead.
Cory Meyer:So we get a lot of that stuff, people coming up and looking at the prices, but we are getting people moving back shockingly The
Chris Hall:last I heard is housing prices in our area is about, let's call it about $2.60 a square foot, maybe a little bit higher if you have a pool or a nicer location or something like that, but right around $2.60. Obviously, that goes down a little bit if the price square footage goes up, you know, to like the 3,000 square foot plus. But I would say, like, from what I understand is without even counting land costs, just permits, fees, and cost to build, I'm hearing quotes of now $3.50 to $400 a square foot. And again, not counting land costs. Does that sound about right to you?
Cory Meyer:That's a little steep. I mean, it depends on what you're building. It's usually closer to 300, but it wasn't that long ago when you could still do something at $202.25, probably about I had a builder, I have a client who's a builder and I think probably for a basic house, but subdivision style stucco, probably seven, eight years ago, you'd be under 200. So it has gone up a lot, 50 to 400. I haven't checked the price on a that would be to me be more of a custom builder with some up good upgrades and stuff, but you know, it's not shocking anymore.
Cory Meyer:But I still think you could get, you know, still $2.75. Yeah. And then you got land costs and everything plus, you know, whether you've got to develop a lot utilities and everything. That's kind of what I do when I'm pricing a piece of land is I look at the residential comps in the area and say, what's this thing gonna be worth when they're done, give or take, and then you can back down all the expenses to get there. You'd be, a lot of cases, you need that land for free to not be underwater.
Cory Meyer:So it makes a lot more sense in a lot of cases to find something that's available in the Reading market and look for what you want. And maybe over time, you add some upgrades or tweaks to make it exactly what you want. But usually you're gonna be money ahead by doing that and just not building, but I get it if you want something super custom or if you want something newer. Right? I mean, if you're looking in like the Palisades market where I live, I mean, to find something that you want that's not older and needs a lot of upgrades is a challenge.
Cory Meyer:There's not a lot of new stuff out here and the prices are really high. So but, yeah, there's last quarter, it looks like we averaged right under $2.40 a foot overall for the market, $240 a square foot. So, yeah, that can be tough when you're going to build that $303.50. Some areas of the market are more high 2 seventy's in there and stuff. I mean, you have some stuff that gets over 3 if it's really been updated and it's all to today's styles and stuff like that.
Cory Meyer:But generally speaking, some of the averages in the higher end areas of Shasta County are right around that two eighty mark a foot. So yeah, it does make it tough to build.
Chris Hall:Yeah. You know, when it comes to you know, obviously this is about healthy and it's about wealthy and we're talk about all that today. But let's talk about like building wealth through real estate as well. So I know it's obviously a lot of people out there like they'll go one or they'll go the other. They'll either go stock market all the way, or they'll real estate all the way.
Chris Hall:I kind of find when I do my financial strategies and planning with people, that it's nice to have a mixture of the two, but I'm specifically looking at right now. Like most of the things don't seem to pencil as far as like buying a rental to rent it because of interest rates, because you have to have so much money down on a non owner occupied. Where do you feel like this ADU stuff is starting to kick in? I don't, I haven't seen I feel like ADUs and for you guys don't know what that is. It's accessory dwelling unit.
Chris Hall:Basically, it's like a mother-in-law quarters, if that's what you used to call it. But like that's kind of approved and like ready to go in California. There were some laws passed that even if you're not in a subdivision that allows it, like you can really kind of get away with it with a section. I think call it like section nine or something. But like, still noticed that the costs that are so prohibitive to build a unit to get the rent out of it that you need to build it.
Chris Hall:Are you still seeing that as well? Or is that has that kind of dwindled down? Has the cost? I feel like the cost of building an ADU is like really inefficient. Like it's like that's where you get up to $300 a square foot or more.
Chris Hall:Do you feel like that's the same way or do you feel like there's still some value there or are we are we heading the right direction?
Cory Meyer:Well, it's just back to what we were just talking about with the cost of building. So with the accessory dwelling units, I mean, you can save some money over building a new home, right? Because you can come off of the existing utilities. You know, if your septic sized enough, you could utilize that from my understanding. You can tap into the current water supply, different things like that to save you money.
Cory Meyer:Obviously, you already have the piece of land. The state's really pushing it hard, right? Because we are in such a deficit for housing and affordable housing. So they're trying to really push it. That's why the county and the city have free plans that are already approved.
Cory Meyer:But at the end of the day, if you're still going to be, let's say you're at $250 a square foot And typically from my knowledge, it's 1,200 square foot max or 50% of your main residence. So how much rent are you going to get off that 1,200 square foot unit? Let's say you're at 250,000 to build that ADU. And that would then come down to location and whatnot. Obviously, if you're in a prime location where, like, again, not to bring up Palisadeiro again, but like finding a rental out here is near impossible, especially a small rental or something, but some of the hotter areas in Shasta County.
Cory Meyer:So they go like hotcakes. They're a great thing to have investment wise, but depending again, it comes down to the numbers, what'd you put into it? What's the return and everything like that. Right? So in some cases you might not be that far off again, buying an existing resale rental in Shasta County.
Cory Meyer:That smaller square footage like that in a semi decent location. You might not be too far off. Plus you can go leverage a mortgage. There are some loan products now for ADUs but it's still, I think overall, they're looking at loan to value ratio on your existing residents and everything like that. I don't know too much on the ADU specific loans that are coming available, but if you can go buy something existing, get an investment loan.
Cory Meyer:And like you said, the hard part of getting in there is you typically need 25% down or more. The more you can put down on those, the better rate you're going to see. Your rate's typically about a higher than owner occupied. So yeah, it's a tougher market. I mean, the thing about real estate, I could bring you a $100 and buy a 100,000 in stocks and it'll go up.
Cory Meyer:Can put a $100 on a, you know, dollars 350,000 asset that's going to go up too. So you can leverage the real estate to have a larger asset to reap the benefits of the appreciation on that asset in an appreciating market and use the total value of that asset and put down 20%, 25% or whatever, as opposed to giving you X amount and that's 100% of what's going into the investment. I think, like you say, play both of them.
Chris Hall:No. I so I've been planning now for about ten years and I would tell you that, like, the people who seem to have the most solid plans seem to have both components. You know, obviously, you can, you know, have 22 rentals and you're gonna be fine. You can also have, you know, $1,700,000 in your four zero one k and you're gonna be fine, you know, so but I I would say that even for the people who are kind of like, let's let's call people in their forties and fifties who are getting close to retirement, having a rental, like maybe you could get into it and you know, that rents is going to consist consistently grow, Right. The rents going to be, you know, it's thousand dollars this year, but it's $1,200 three years from now, etcetera.
Chris Hall:Know, so just keeping that in mind that your your your mortgage payment on that's going to be fixed, but your rent's going to go Now hopefully your rents go up enough to cover, you know, things like we talked about like insurance because insurance in California is, you know, probably tripled in the last, you know, ten years. You know, hopefully it won't keep doing that. So you had mentioned, you know, kind of get your your stripes doing flips and stuff like that. I remember that Redding used to be a real big flip market too, and it doesn't seem like it's as much anymore. And you said you do a few.
Chris Hall:How many I mean, like, what's the flip market in Northern California like these days?
Cory Meyer:It's tough. Margins are really tough. I mean, it comes down to the same thing we just talked about with cost of building. You know, in a lot of cases, it's always been cheaper per foot to build than it has been to remodel. So depending on how you're going about it, like when I was young, I mean, would move into these things.
Cory Meyer:I would just live there as I'd work on them every day and I was doing it all. Well, now I don't touch them anymore. Was in everybody and subs for everything. The margins are just tough. That's the biggest thing, finding them with the right margins and you could spend forever.
Cory Meyer:Right? And that's a nice part about throwing money at your side of things over real estate is you just put the money in and Chris makes it go to work. You can put a lot of time, money and effort into developing a real estate portfolio and hope that it really works out for you. But the flip thing is it's not always what people think, right? The margins are very slim nowadays.
Cory Meyer:I don't look for home runs because you could spend forever simpler ones knowing your numbers, but finding things that pencil out is super tough. Yeah. I'm in the industry. Obviously I walk into run into some of these things sometimes, but if you're out there competing with the amount of people and then you got people that are uneducated, they make the wrong moves. They're blowing out pricing on them.
Cory Meyer:They're probably getting hurt on them, but they're all missed opportunities for you. If you're trying to do them, you know, right. And make everything work. So it's a tough deal. You can, you can go after 10 flips and come up with zero.
Cory Meyer:So I don't invest a lot of time in it anymore because it is a real time suck. Can be, and I can focus in on my business and make three sales instead of focusing on one flip and I'll be money ahead in time. So you just gotta know what you're doing. Be real cautious, know how to run the numbers, but it is slim pickings out there. I'll tell you.
Cory Meyer:I mean, the market overall is slim. Right? I mean, there's six seventy five homes for sale in all of Shasta County. A lot of that is maybe not good inventory. Stuff's flying off the market if it's priced.
Cory Meyer:If value and price are in alignment, it's gone like that in all price ranges. The market is definitely, to me, like it's heating up in some aspects if you're priced right. And again, that's in all price ranges. We sold four over a million this month, and that's not normal in any market for Shasta County. So there's a lot of movement right now for the right stuff.
Cory Meyer:There's still multiple offers, but in the flip market, if there's 10 buyers, 20 buyers for everything that's anywhere decent margins just keep eating up so fast. And then the cost of building and the cost of materials, it blows my mind. Just to give listeners an idea, I mean, simple flip that I used to spend $40 on, I might be at 110.
Chris Hall:Wow.
Cory Meyer:Repair costs and material costs. And I'm talking about a twenty year gap here, but that's how crazy it is. I mean, you can go into what's really maybe a heavy cosmetic fixer and you watch that budget fly up so fast. It's really mind blowing nowadays.
Chris Hall:Right. So kind of going into real estate a little So how often do you work with a financial advisor when it comes to like real estate? Have you have you really ever kind of like worked with a financial advisor in those kinds of situations where they were gonna move that money to something that wasn't real estate or or is it mostly people go from real estate to real estate as far as investors go?
Cory Meyer:Well, it depends if you're trying to avoid taxes, right? Right. That's the tough part. There's not a lot of vehicles to be able to defer the taxes other than doing a ten thirty one exchange into your next investment. We were talking when I was in your office, some of the stuff I'm learning about about the DSTs, right?
Chris Hall:Good job.
Cory Meyer:And things like that, which are very interesting vehicles and you, you help clients with that stuff.
Chris Hall:Correct. Correct. Yeah. So what Corey's referring to is so when you do a ten thirty one exchange, you have to designate a property within forty five days. You have to buy that property within ninety days.
Chris Hall:Is that about right? Ninety days or is it one hundred and eighty to buy? But you have to designate identifying
Cory Meyer:forty five and I believe it's yeah. It's ninety years or a hundred and eighty days you gotta close.
Chris Hall:Yeah. But you have to get into a new place pretty quick. And so, especially if you're talking about rentals, you know, you have to go from your rental to another rental and like there's a very short amount of time. So anyways, I think called a DST or a Delaware statutory trust and you can designate that as one of your properties in that forty five days. And so that way it's like a backup, right?
Chris Hall:So if you can't find another property, you don't get stuck with all the capital gains and the repayments. You can move it from the, you can stay in the Delaware statutory trust, or you can move it into what's called an up read. An up read is basically a real estate investment trust that's specifically designed so that you can move your equity into this real estate trust investment trust. And then there that trust is filled with all sorts of rental properties, but probably on a larger scale. Like So big apartment buildings with 120 units or maybe a commercial building that houses all the Walgreens, you know, things like that.
Chris Hall:That's the kind of real estate that you get into then. And then you can start getting dividends and benefits off of those those those trusts the same way you would as rental income. But the difference is, is that you don't have to pay those capital gains. You know, we had talked about it like the example is if you had, you know, someone who had 22 units, but they get to like 60, 65 years old and they're like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be here anymore.
Chris Hall:To get out of those units, you have to, like, sell them. And if you sell them, then you're gonna get absolutely killed with capital gains and and depreciation recapture, etcetera. If you try to sell more than two units in a in a year, man, you're gonna have a ton of money going out. And so a lot of people, they get stuck and so what they do is they just stay in them and they even though they don't wanna run them, they just stay in them and they still fix the toilets and they still repair the roofs and they do all those kinds of things, hoping that what will save them is that they'll die and that their kids will inherit, their beneficiaries will inherit this real estate and then they can sell it with no capital gains because of the new stepped up basis. So if you're like, like I said, my my people that I work with in that situation are typically in their late eighties, early sixties, they're winding down their careers, they've gathered a bunch of real estate and they're like, don't want to do this anymore.
Chris Hall:I want to just go be somewhere on a beach and I don't want to mess with this. So that's where the DST comes into, but which I found kind of fascinating and again, from our conversation, you know, reaffirmed that that it's not really a known fact. It's not really something people do. So I would just tell you right now, there's one quick thing you can take from this thing, if you're going to sell a rental unit and you don't want to get the capital gains back or the recapture on the depreciation, designate in the ten thirty one exchange a DST and then that will give you like a fail safe. So if you don't find another property, then you're you can move it into this DST and not and not and not have to deal with that.
Chris Hall:So, but yeah, I just I mean, I was talking. What's that? Go ahead.
Cory Meyer:Oh, sorry. I was just gonna say you can identify multiple properties, three, right?
Chris Hall:And
Cory Meyer:make one of those the DST. A lot of people just don't know about it. And I think a lot more investors sitting on assets would be if they really knew about this. Cause I think in a lot of cases, not dealing with the roofs, the toilets and everything else, they'll find that these DSTs can bring them actually a bigger return with no management. And then they defer all the taxes.
Cory Meyer:So how do you help people get into those?
Chris Hall:So like I said, the first thing you gotta do is designate the DST as the holder. It's basically a placeholder. And so the Delaware Statutory Trust holds the holds the equity, you know, that you received and the basis and all the things that go with it that you would normally roll into another unit. You're rolling into like a placeholder. And then once you're in the placeholder, you can leave it there.
Chris Hall:You're not going to get anything out of it, but or you can move it from the DST into a specific. So yeah, everybody's heard of a REIT, a real estate investment trust. These are called UPREITs. And I forget exactly what the UP stands for, but it's like universal property or something. I don't remember the exact wording on it, but then they can move into one of those.
Chris Hall:And then one of those will, you know, basically now you're now you're invested in tons of real estate. You're a partner in this group and you know, the dividends are basically the rents and you know, you're going to make money on it. And like you said, you don't have to fix a toilet. You don't have to like, you don't have to manage in any way, shape or form. And the numbers are pretty close to what people get if they truly look at the cost of owning real estate as an investor.
Chris Hall:And so again, I think it's a investing in real estate is a phenomenal way to gain wealth. I think it's a phenomenal way to grow your wealth, especially again, like we live in California, you have a really good appreciation. But with that being said, I think it's really important people need to know that there is a true exit strategy from it that most people don't know exist. And that that is a that is a DST with an upgrade.
Cory Meyer:The hardest thing I find is getting them to understand it or being willing to understand because it's kind of foreign, you know, newer as they change the qualifying assets and stuff with the ten thirty one. But I'll talk to an older gentleman or whatever, and he wants out. He wants out. He's been dealing with rentals for thirty years and he wants out and then you're giving him away, but he doesn't wanna deal with the pay the taxes. Mhmm.
Cory Meyer:And you tell him this and it's it's just so foreign. They don't they don't really even wanna deal with it. So I'm trying to figure out how to figure it out.
Chris Hall:It's, you know, like you've got all these people on Instagram and Facebook talking about things all the time. This is something you do not hear about. I find that most people on Instagram and Facebook that are like influencers in real estate are never telling people to get out of real estate. They're always telling them to get more of it. And so I think that's like, I think it's just a hole in the market right now you're not seeing, but, you know, hopefully shows like this can get people, you know, they can call their advisor and be like, Hey, can I do this?
Chris Hall:So, and again, as an advisor, it's great because, you know, you're, you're going to help them, stay away from all the capital gains and taxes and you're going to have more assets under management. So it's a great tool. Now I will tell you that not every advisor has any idea about this. This is actually pretty advanced stuff. So make sure don't just be like, Hey, do you know that if they don't know what a DST is, then just don't even pursue the conversation because that's that's kinda like a telltale sign that they know what they're doing or they have no idea what they're doing.
Chris Hall:So that's a little tip, pro tip there. So so let's talk about a little bit about your health, right? Like, so you're a busy guy, you know, you're managing a team, you're doing your own sales and stuff like that. But I do know that you spend a significant amount of your time with, like, working out and things like that. Tell us a little bit about, like, how that came about.
Chris Hall:In other words, like, was there a time in your life where you're like, hey, can't do this anymore. I gotta get better at this. Or has it always been that way for you? Or has it always been, Hey, I need to take care of this side?
Cory Meyer:No, no, no. I don't think I walked in a gym from the day I got done with college football to probably 2000, I don't know, somewhere around 2015. I mean, maybe I walked in a few times, but and I've always been overweight and right now I'm stronger than I've ever been. I get to the gym every day, 6AM, fortunately semi have a trainer that the owner of the gym and the main trainer has been my workout partner for like, I don't know, probably getting close five years now. Yeah.
Cory Meyer:I mean, in COVID is when we switched over. So it's super important, keeping my mind right. And I'm not in perfect health. You look at me, you might wonder if I do work out every day, but
Chris Hall:You could see in the traps. You can see it right here.
Cory Meyer:I'm losing weight right now. I'm staying engaged in the meals. My energy level's picking up and it's just so critical for the body. I actually have an autoimmune disease, so rheumatoid arthritis and most people that stops them in their tracks. Can tell you I can go into the gym in pain every day and I walk out feeling 10 times better.
Cory Meyer:So for me, I've got to do it and I enjoy it. A lot of people are like, you know, I'm working out at home or I'm doing it by myself or they're locked in. Don't get me wrong. I get after my workouts, but I also call it my social hour, which can annoy some people, but I'm an outgoing guy. And I like, I know everybody in the gym that's working out around me.
Cory Meyer:So I have fun with it, but you gotta get in there. I used to do it late afternoon, but I'm super focused on work now. So I get in early in the morning. I'm usually there about 05:45 by then. And I'm usually there 05:45 to 07:05 or somewhere in there.
Cory Meyer:And then I get home and just get ready quick. And I'm in the office by about 08:10 every day. So it's just so critical for your mindset, way you feel, the way you look, everything. I've got big goals this year to shave off some more weight under fifteen pounds. It seems like a big goal, but I want to be I actually want to be the same weight I was in in when I was playing college ball.
Cory Meyer:So but it's so critical for the mind that I just played Jay Jayce Junior College. So nothing big.
Chris Hall:So what's what's the JC in Santa Cruz? What's that? Cabrillo. Oh, yeah. That's great.
Cory Meyer:Yep. Yeah. I had an opportunity to move on, but I was playing d line in in college and snapping, but I only had one opportunity, potential opportunity at Oregon State to long snap. And I hated, I'm just not into college. I love learning, I learn every day, but when you tell me what classes to do and what I'm gonna learn for the day, I'm just not into it.
Cory Meyer:And so I chose to not move on because I am actually not that big of a guy. And the smallest long snapper at the time was six'four, I think, two seventy five. And I'm five eleven, two twenty five at the time. I thought, well, I'm about done being forced to go to after practice study hall and go to class every day and all this stuff. So I wanted to get in and just I'm an entrepreneur and get after sales and construction and stuff.
Cory Meyer:So anyhow, yeah, it's, it's not a big deal that I even played. It's just, I want to get back down to that weight for some reason it's stuck in my head. So, but yeah, every day gotta work out. I'm trying to do more and move more, sit too much in the dang office that, that, that can offset your gym time, but I'm super disciplined on the food and everything and nutrition. Not so much on the weekends.
Cory Meyer:But I like to have fun too, but I'm getting more and more disciplined, just feeling out how I feel every day and my mindset and every energy levels. I mean, once you get over 40, it starts to, you gotta stay on top of it. You know, you just, whether it's brain fog or the way you feel or motivation, it all ties into that, that gym time. I certainly need to do more cardio, but I do love my gym time and gotta do it every day.
Chris Hall:I've done so much research in this genre and, you know, I've interviewed a bunch of great people. I've got another interview coming up with a guy who is like, I mean, he's like 60 and he just looks like a Ken doll. I mean, just looks amazing. So I'm looking forward to talking to him. The one thing that I'm adding in for 2026 is I am scheduling time for a walk and that time is exactly after I eat.
Chris Hall:So the one thing that I've done out of all the research and I've actually, I don't have one on the day, but I wear a glucose monitor, continuous glucose monitor. I call it my snitch. So that way, I decide I want to eat something that's not so good for me, like it'll snitch on me by showing my blood sugar go up. Well, blood sugar goes up, your insulin goes up. Well, one of the things that I've noticed through all this trial and error and kind of seeing things like how my body reacts to certain things, everybody's different, right?
Chris Hall:One thing is that I'm doing this that I absolutely positively seen the results is once you eat, just going for a ten minute walk, not even, not a, not a, not like a, like a race walk or anything like that. Just a decently paced walk. You know what I mean? You could still talk to your friends if you're walking with them. There's no at the end of it, just getting out that walk that will lower your blood sugar spike by like, I think the number is like 60%.
Chris Hall:I've seen it, I've seen it go down that much. I mean you can hardly tell because like you know if it's down you know what you what you have to kind of know what it would be otherwise, but I would say at least 40 to 60% reduction. If you were to sell a pill that would do that, the pharmacopharmist would charge you $1,200 a month for it, guaranteed. Like if you could just eat and then take a little shot and that would knock you down like 60%, they would a 100% make $1,200 a month on that. So, so I would say anybody listening, if you're fighting against like, so here's what I say is like, if you can get your blood sugars down right after you eat, then that also lowers your insulin down, which also lowers your insulin resistance, which also makes you more insulin sensitive, which also makes it so that your body doesn't carry as much weight.
Chris Hall:So it's all kind of like this whole cascade of events that happens from just a ten minute walk. So I would definitely recommend to you and anybody listening, like schedule your day so that when you eat, you walk. And if you could just do that one thing for 2026, I think that you'll see 15 pounds come off pretty easy just by doing that. Again, not a doctor, just do a lot of research. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a lawyer, I am a financial advisor, but I'm not necessarily the person listening's financial advisor.
Chris Hall:So I just have to do all my disclaimers. Kind of like kind of going back to, you know, real estate, it's it's a grind. You know what I mean? It's a lot twenty four seven. You're like, you're out and about when people are, you know what I mean?
Chris Hall:You're out and about when people are, you know, wanting to see things. Right? Like, so it's like, you know, showings are at 06:00 on the evening or they're like 10:00 on a Saturday because that's when people aren't working. How do you prioritize the health part of it? How do you make sure that you go to the gym every day?
Cory Meyer:Well, I mean, doing it in the morning, I mean, I made it probably as time flies. It's probably been about seven years it's been a non negotiable with the gym time. Obviously, I battle the food thing like anything, know, always got the one battle, but I just made it a priority. Then this year, I mean, there's really no reason you can't get it out in the morning. So now that it's scheduled in the morning, still used to rarely miss it.
Cory Meyer:But now that I'm focused going so hard on business right now and getting back after sales instead of just managing a big team, just half getting out there with customers and people myself, I had to switch to the mornings. It was just always a non negotiable, but I mean, it's always an excuse, right? You can always book everything in your life around your priorities. You just can't even in real estate. I mean, I've never never missed one of my kids games, never missed their whatever it was a school, Christmas choir or whatever.
Cory Meyer:I don't know. I just never miss any of those. So if you master time blocking and you just actually set the appointments in your calendar and health being one of those, there's no reason you can't do it. So it's really just an excuse. Yes, real estate has some crazy hours.
Cory Meyer:I have to build business when people are at work and then when they're off work, that's when they're gonna wanna be out in the field. I mean, for me, fortunately, I have a great team, you know, and a few agents that can assist me. I make sure I have a life and we always can maintain customer care. But yeah, I mean, it's just all time blocking. It's whether you want to or not, right?
Cory Meyer:You're either gonna prioritize it and you're gonna put in your schedule and that's for anything. I think most people really are challenged with time blocking and time management and staying efficient and staying on target. And I'm not perfect. I mean, I've been doing this you know, now twenty years and I'm probably just getting better than I've ever been. But it's because I want to, you know, get after it so bad.
Cory Meyer:Yeah. Either want it, you don't. If you want it bad enough, then you're gonna prioritize the time and put it in your schedule and you just don't have to miss ever.
Chris Hall:Yeah. So one of the things I wanted to do for the new season of the Healthy Wealth Experience was I like to ask my guests the final question, which is how do you define wealth?
Cory Meyer:It's a good question. It's definitely for me overall, you know, spiritual family, sure financial health, right? Having all those things in alignment, it's very challenging, right? To pull them all together. I feel like I'm always missing in one sector if I'm focused on the other.
Cory Meyer:But for me, yeah, it's really being well balanced and succeeding in all those aspects of life. It's not just money. It's not just your investment account. It's you know, if you're you could have whatever it is, 10,000,000 in the bank and all those other sectors of life could be massive chaos and failures. So for me, it's pulling it all together at every level, family, marriage, health, financial, and then personal, Enjoying life, having your things you actually enjoy in there too.
Cory Meyer:I mean, are all things you gotta balance and figure out how to get in that weekly calendar. And as you know, time starts moving fast. Seems like just mind blowing every week. I'm like, oh, it's Friday again. Seems like a couple hours ago, it was last Friday and trying to pull all those things together and doing it well is true wealth to me.
Chris Hall:Yeah. I love that. It's a great definition. It's a great definition. I feel like mine's extremely similar to that, you know, and I feel like, you know, one of the things that's nice about visiting the idea of what wealth is, is that it gives you a time to reflect and be grateful for how much you have accomplished in that arena.
Chris Hall:And I think that sometimes when we hear about wealth, especially on the internet, it's going to be it's going to be right. And I think that, you know, you get to a certain age and you realize that like it's not about the money. And that's why some people like are multimillionaires and they're just absolutely, you know, they they, you know, they take their own lives or they're just depressed all the time and they're just like, you know, or they do to hard drugs or stuff like that. It's because they they never got a good definition of what wealth is. And so when they achieve financial success, they thought they'd get there and they didn't.
Chris Hall:So no, I really liked that. That's good. I really liked that. So before we go, is there anything else you want to talk about?
Cory Meyer:No, just thanks for having me on here. Absolutely. Really appreciate it. Absolutely.
Chris Hall:What's the best way to get ahold of you?
Cory Meyer:My phone number is (530) 215-4132 or go to coreymeyer.com and get ahold of us through there.
Chris Hall:So, thank you so much for joining me, Corey. I really appreciate you. Thank you to all the listeners who listen to this. We are doing so well right now. The last time I checked, we were at about 700,000 views across all platforms over the sixty days.
Chris Hall:It seems to be growing every month. We seem to be getting more steam, getting more followers. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe, please make comments, whatever you do to subscribe and comment and things like that, share it with your friends. That actually helps the algorithms recognize that this is high quality content that other people might want to hear and they'll show it more and then we'll grow and grow and grow. So if you're listening to this right now and you enjoyed it, please hit a subscribe button or leave a comment.
Chris Hall:Leave a comment about like what we talked about today or some questions you might have for me or Corey and I'll follow-up with Corey for you or you can get a hold of him on his website and ask some questions there. So either ways, once again, thank you all for being here and here's to a wonderful 2026 for everybody. Thank you, Corey. Appreciate you being here.
Cory Meyer:Thanks for having me.