Dear FutureMoneyTrends.com Member,
I was barely out of high school when I purchased my first rental property at age 18. When I was a teenager, I spent hours a day with a mentor who owned businesses, rental property, and traded on the stock market.
My mentor never told me that I couldn’t do anything; he just told me what I needed to do to get rich. It never once occurred to me that an 18-year-old couldn’t buy a house. I had no credit, no income history, and I barely had a few thousand dollars in the bank. But I did it; I found a way, I kept talking to different mortgage brokers and found a broker who had been in the business for 40 years who helped me find a way.
About a year later, that same broker loaned me my next down payment for my second rental property at age 19. I, of course, paid her back with her commission on the property I bought. Looking back, one of the most valuable lessons I can share is that being unreasonable is a secret to creating wealth. This means NOT accepting conventional wisdom or guided principles that the “retirement cartel” has put out, and never acknowledging limitations told to you by others.
The people who are living their lives with passion are the ones that have let go of all the expectations from others and have chosen to create their own path. The worst model that people have bought into hook, line, and sinker is go to school, work hard, and find a good job.
Education is great, but that’s not necessarily tied to school. You can get a great education at your local bookstore, through apprenticeship, the Internet, or the very act of doing! Do whatever it is that you’re trying to learn.
Working hard: I agree with this, but I think you should work hard doing what you love. This way, it’s not work. I thoroughly enjoy researching and writing; I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I had to wake up and go to work since founding FutureMoneyTrends.com.
Discovering what you want to do in life is the only way that I can see being truly happy. The monotony of clocking in for 9 to 10 hours a day just to get a paycheck is a misallocation of your very finite time while alive.
Yesterday, I spoke to a retired individual who worked for UPS. He almost cried when he told me that he felt like he didn’t even raise his own children. His work hours were 5 to 6 days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day. He’s 74 years old now, and looking back, he told me, “don’t miss out on life; it’s not worth it.” Early on in life, I realized that the only way to live the life I wanted was to become financially independent.
For the first 10 years of my adult life, no matter how much income my wife and I generated, we lived very frugal lives. We focused on asset accumulation, cash flow, and cutting our long-term liabilities. We didn’t accept the 30-year mortgage, financed vehicles, and weekly alcohol adventures with our peers. Instead, we became unreasonable, demanding a lifestyle with our own terms, own guidelines, and own expectations.
We expected to be home together, have zero debt, and be able to travel the world. When it comes to our asset purchases, the biggest boost has come from the dozens of equity captures when we buy.
Realtors, for example, never send us properties that are at or near full price – they know we won’t even respond. However, when they have an emergency deal, like a foreclosure the next day, and we can get the property for 50% off, we are the first people they call because they know if we can capture equity on the buy, I’ll write the check immediately.
Be unreasonable. When you acquire or start a business, buy real estate, or invest in a publicly-traded company, don’t just pay the going rate. Calculate the price you’re willing to pay and then wait – be patient.
In the past 6 months, I’ve gone into great detail in our Cash Flow for Life letter about how I buy rental property with seller financing. I hate conventional mortgages, coming up with 20+ real estate tax bills, explaining my different sources of income, and all the off-book properties I own, and foreign account – I just hate it. So I don’t do it; instead, I have discovered a great way to buy properties that is more free-market. And for the past 5 or 6 years, I’ve never had my credit run, shown a tax return, or had to explain something to an underwriter. Instead, I show proof of funds and negotiate terms, length of mortgage, interest rate, and down payment.
Become an Unreasonable Stock Investor
Buy the hated! In the sectors that are loved, it’s too late; all you can expect is an average return. Right now, I am buying a few resource stocks. They are hated, dirt cheap, and when this sector turns around, I will see 10-20-30 times my investment.
Will I have to wait another year or two? Perhaps. I may even have to hear from critics about how I missed out on some 10% gain while I invested in resource stocks in 2015. But in a few years, the average people will be left with average returns, and the smart money buying resource stocks will have thousand-percent gains across the board.
It takes real courage to be unreasonable, but reflecting on the last 20 years of my life, it’s the one secret I want to share with my members as the source for creating an unusual amount of financial wealth. Don’t accept other people’s reality. Chart your own course.
Best Regards,
Daniel Ameduri
