Invest in yourself this year! JOIN OUR COMMUNITY OF REAL ESTATE AGENT INVESTORS!

Tri Vu: IT Guy Turned AirBNB and Turnkey Property Investor in Multiple States

LISTEN TO FULL EPISODE ON:   

 

Hear from Tri Vu as he talks about how he's lept into investing over the past 2 1/2 years while still keeping his day job in IT. After interviewing a bunch of top people in IT, he found out that so many of them had real estate investments on the side, so he and his wife and family dove headfirst into opening 2 Airbnb’s in San Diego in the spring of 2018. Since then it has grown to additional investments in other states such as Arizona, Mississippi, Illinois, and Maryland. It has provided a creative outlet for him and his wife and led him to take risks he never would have taken before so that he can build the future and freedom he wants. 

 

In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:   

  • How his career got started and his background 
  • He has been in IT for 20 yrs 
  • Tri noticed that a lot of IT people had something in common, and that was real estate on the side 
  • Invested in his first Airbnb in March of 2018  
  • He chooses to locate Airbnb's that are near downtown, airport, attractions, beaches, and public transportation 
  • Hires muralists for the walls in the houses to set them apart from others 
  • Loves Airbnb to meet people and share stories 
  • Found turnkey service providers and launched other investment properties in different states 
  • Has 10 properties amongst California, Arizona, Mississippi, Illinois, and Maryland 
  • Tri wanted to take more risks and was worried about not taking enough risks 
  • In the future, he wants to start looking at commercial buildings 
  • It’s ok to fail. Fail. Fail often. Fail fast and move forward 
  • If you put out positive energy, you attract positive people 

 

Timestamps: If You Want To Jump Ahead To Your Favorite Part   

0:00 - Intro and overview on Tri’s career 

4:21 – How he picks his Airbnb locations 

10:44 – Purchasing second Airbnb 

15:15 – How they opened up Airbnb's in other states 

19:42 – How he overcame the risk of not being able to visit his properties 

26:26 – What Tri’s future looks like 

 

Links In This Episode:

https://www.noradarealestate.com/

 

SUBSCRIBE IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO BUILD WEALTH THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY 
✅ http://relfreedom.tv  

GET STARTED INVESTING TODAY AND ACCESS OUR DEAL LIST! 
📈 http://investwithelite.com  

PARTNER WITH US ON BIG DEALS! 
💵 https://eliteadvantagepropertieshq.com  

BUILD YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENT CAREER WORKING WITH INVESTORS 
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 http://eliteadvantageagent.com  

LEARN ABOUT REL FREEDOM & HEAR MORE REAL LIFE STORIES 
🎙️ http://www.relfreedom.com   

FREEBIES: DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE FREEDOM FOUNDATION BLUEPRINT 
💵 https://www.relfreedom.com/blueprint  

LOOKING FOR A REAL ESTATE AGENT ANYWHERE IN THE US? FIND A TOP AGENT IN YOUR COMMUNITY 
🏠 http://www.eliteagentreferral.com  

JOIN OUR FACEBOOK COMMUNITY 
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 https://www.facebook.com/groups/relfreedom  

SUBSCRIBE TO THE REL FREEDOM PODCAST 
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rel-freedom-podcast/id1535281574 
🎧 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDA3NjIyLnJzcw== 
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5nXA5hLHbDzRwxypc2wLur  

LET'S CONNECT 
👉 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mswenson13 
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getrelfreedom/ 
👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@relfreedom 
🏠 Minnesota Real Estate: https://www.eliteadvantageteam.com  

 

Full transcript here:

Mike Swenson 

Hey, Mike Swenson here with REL freedom and we have a very special guest today, actually somebody who isn't in real estate full time, this is not their day job. So we're excited to have tribu on, and Troy's gonna talk to us about investing that he's done on the side. He's had experience with Airbnb. And he also has some rentals that he has in different states across the United States. And like I said, this isn't his day job.

 

Mike Swenson 

So I want to just encourage folks that are that are in real estate full time, hey, if if somebody that's outside of real estate can do it, you can too. And you know, I hope that this story just inspires you to take some take some steps forward, and figure out how do you get started in the investing side? And so for try that was through Airbnb. So welcome, try if you want to just give us a little bit of a background about you and how you kind of get started into the Airbnb world and we'll take it from there.

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, thanks for having me, Mike. So yeah, I've been doing it for roughly 20 years, I'm 40 now. And I started doing real estate investment airbnbs. Three, about three years ago. And it all started basic, because I was doing it. And I was on the individual contributor side. I didn't go into management, and I was something I always wanted to do, but I just never did. I just like the tech stuff. And I was given an opportunity. when times were really rough with the company, a lot of issues. And, and then, you know, went to management, it was a tough transition for me, right? With all the issues and the hours. And after a while. Those long days is added up and we meet my wife, I knew I needed a plan B just in case doesn't work out. And so that was one right? Like I knew I needed a plan B. And then what?

 

Tri Vu 

What started was when November came up in 2017, they had this National Novel Writing Month. And it basically challenged you to write a book and in 30 days, and what I did was a little spin off where I was kind of doing what were you doing, which is interviewing other people get their stories, tools and tactics. And I want to do it for folks. I knew a lot of directors and IP guys and senior positions and VPS. And after talk with them, I there was a common theme. They all had real estate on the side, some guys, I had no idea that I just knew them as you know, working colleagues and some of them had nine. I remember this one guy, he said he had like nine properties and His goal was to keep on buying and whenever he's ready to retire, he just sold off half pays off the other half. And he just kind of stuck with me.

 

Tri Vu 

After that I just he locked in my house. I had a property in California. I pulled out the money. It took some time but while I was waiting on some meetups, and I met some great realtors and other investors. And it just got me hyped up like I was super hyped up I met a new guy would do an Airbnb and I met some of the property managers doing these meetups and they were just super nice folks that were like yeah, I'll show you everything. And we started checking out properties that took about three months and we closed on a property in March and the property manager just helped me with everything set it up my wife helped design it she loves decorating so that was pretty fun for her and we got it up and running a couple weeks and she you know the property manager set up the site and just went from there

 

Mike Swenson 

So for those that don't know you live in the San Diego area and so then your your first property was in San Diego right and so this is when you decided to do an Airbnb so you know less than one a live in San Diego because it's it's a great place to live but be if you're if you're starting over the Airbnb pick a spot where people want to go right. And for them it was it was San Diego. So talk about the strategy of selecting that location like what what was it that helped you decide to jump in with that that specific location? You had a few parameters of kind of what you were looking for, right?

 

Tri Vu 

Oh, yeah, great question. That's a great question. So I live probably about 25 minutes north of downtown and super sub suburbs, right kids right down the street. There's not a big nightlife restaurant, no big schools out here. And the The advice I was I got what it needs to be around downtown by the airport by the park by SeaWorld zoo. All the hotspots 10 minutes for the beaches. 1015 minutes have public trends. mutation caused by. And that was it. And I found something by our local university, San Diego State. It was a it wasn't technically a single family home, but it had a detached garage that someone converted into another two, one. So it's like a duplex. That was unpermitted. So it didn't appraise for duplex because he didn't get a permanent, so I got a little value add off the bat, getting into that.

 

Mike Swenson 

So then you chose to partner with Airbnb on that. So you say your wife, you know, did all the work and fixed it up and added all the nice touches that people like to see on photos. And then essentially, it's it's kind of plug and play right. Like you have a somebody that helps manage the occupancy with that. Once it's up and running your your time is really very small, right?

 

Tri Vu 

Oh, yeah, it was, was fun. It was super fun setting it up finding the mattresses like, I just care about the mattresses, but my wife was like, Alright, we need like, I don't know, 1000s thread sheets, and she was all about the decor. And she loved calligraphy and brush lettering. And to wanted to set it apart from other ones, Mother airbnbs. So she hired muralist, painters to come by from San Diego, and they paint the walls with like something inspirational or some pretty. And so we have like, four or five murals, one of each room, the big room. So it was really super fun for her. And she loved that, that that new gray, white marble look.

 

Tri Vu 

So that that the whole house was painted that color. So we got to do a little bit of touch up painting to set it up. And during one of the meetups, the property manager, say, Hey, hello, I'm over here at the ACA help you out, she opened our conversation. And she jumped in there. And she's been super useful. She was like, yeah, you need a coffeemaker. Yeah, you need the utensils, you need this. And she was just, you know, it was like another wife, she just taught what to do. And I did it. And her My wife has partnered up and made this beautiful place. And, you know, we bought the supplies drop ship that and other than that, like just students supply runs, our property manager sets up, like he said, with the pricing with the occupancy screening the tenants. So there's not much overhead to be honest.

 

Tri Vu 

Other than, you know, the occasional calls being a landlord like, hey, this, this guy didn't check out on time, or, hey, the doors not, you know, working or the laundry machines busted. So you just call the handyman, or usually you use a handyman for everything. We haven't had any major issues so far.

 

Mike Swenson 

Then even to like you said, in terms of setting prices, you know, when San Diego you know, obviously, it's a desirable place when Comic Con comes through. You know, you said Twitter has a convention or other stuff like that, they automatically adjust the price for you. So supply and demand, you can you can net more money and during those peak times. And then also if it's during the lower times the price has changed, right. So there's a software that you've taken advantage of that does that for you. So you don't even have to manually go in and say, you know, hey, Comic Cons coming up, we need to bump up the prices, it just happens automatically, right?

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, there's a bunch of software's out there. So when auto sets the pricing for you and knows about the events in the hotspots and stuff, so yeah, then they all have other plugins do to do the automated check ins for you. So when someone books, it just sends them a little message. Hey, thanks for thanks for being with us. We love to host you know, here's, here's the manual, here's the Wi Fi, here's how you would use your part. So it's been super useful. Yeah, automation software, property managers that do the customer service. It makes things pretty hands off.

 

Mike Swenson 

And because of because you had a desirable location, you had, you know, nice features to it. it pretty quickly took off for you. It's not like there's a there's a long lag time, like you get it up and running. And pretty much it's turnkey, and people are plugging in, and you're able to net money quickly.

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, yeah, people, there's different ways to do things like those, those flippers where they buy like distressed properties, and then they get at a good deal and then they renovate it. And then they have a ton of equity and they can pull it out and we do recycle. I didn't know any of that stuff. Right. I just got I was looking for some turnkey within my HELOC budget and that was it. You know, so I didn't have to do much coming into it. And we did the numbers and I'm sure I could have done better you know, in hindsight, but I loved it you know, we got up and running you know, I got that check box that I have passive money coming in and you know, something my wife, like, aesthetically loved, you know, setting up because she, you know, like, when you're in high school, and elementary, you did all the art stuff, you know, and then when she Get college may not take art classes and you know, your passion kind of dries out because of life and kids work and mortgages.

 

Tri Vu 

And she's always loved art. But you know, 20 years later, we kind of forgot about our passions and hobbies. And this was another way for her to be creative and express yourself. So it was a great opportunity for for both of us for for me to give her that opportunity. Or just to like, take control. I remember she would tell me often to like, try. Thanks for letting me decorate this place because like, what does she want? I was like, I don't Yeah. Okay, go for it. That looks excellent. Go do it. And she had a great time enjoying the process.

 

Mike Swenson 

Okay, so then, so you get that one up and running? And how quickly is it before you start looking at your second place.

 

Tri Vu 

So what I did was with my HELOC, I only use half of it, I got the lowest down payment option, which was like a 15% down arm. And so I had money left. And after a couple months, we literally just dropped off supplies, but we weren't in engagement. We had a property manager doing things like let's do that again. And we found a four bedroom place down the street. And yeah, we set it up. Literally, the next day it was online. Like three, four weeks. Next day online. We had a guest come in. And it was so cool. We met him up it was like this kid coming in town. He didn't have a car. He just wanted to check out the beaches here. So he he airport over here and then Uber to the house. And you know, just stay with us. We didn't know about then expecting they turn off the water heater, they turn it on off. So there was no pilot light lit.

 

Tri Vu 

So there was no hot water. We didn't know that. They know this stuff. So when he stayed here was great review, but he didn't even have hot water. Review without hot water. Yeah, but you know, use opportunity to meet people. So going back like that. When you have tough times you go back to your to try. And remember a couple years back, you know, we would do airbnbs in Europe. And we would meet other folks, right? We all stayed in bed groups so we can meet other guys. Never one time in London. We stayed in the bedroom, like a four or five bedroom house. We didn't we just booked the room.

 

Tri Vu 

But there is a black dude, a white dude and Middle Eastern dude, you know where Asia right? Well, they're in the kitchen just talking about stuff. And I was like I love this experience of Syria or ventures and stories like but I can't travel all the time. I have a nine to five I have kids How can I give back to San Diego share my city with others. And this was a way and then we you know when that guy came first guest there that second house and we had that great conversation with them. It just felt really good. Like you know, this is this is why we're doing that just for the money which is important. You know building the equity and someone else's paying it down but you haven't funny fun along the way just meeting people sharing stories.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah, I really love that where you know, I think obviously people get into Airbnb for the money but but that's cool. That's like a side thing that you necessarily didn't plan for. And yet it was a it was a welcome surprise to your life, gain some more depth as a result of doing that because you mentioned so you know, you might pop by and meet guests. You know, you might you might not but you get a chance to kind of experience their travels and experience their life and visiting San Diego and like you said, share your city with them. That's something that doesn't show up on the balance sheet at all. And yet  it's adding a depth to your life that you didn't have before.

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like the more interesting characters we met like a videographer from LA down here for the weekend doing a shoot a couple musicians, we met a French basketball coach that would help prospects in the area. So he's traveling internationally over here. Just really interesting. We met two army kids that just graduate from the army that we're trying to hustle with their protein muscle fitness business.

 

Mike Swenson 

So you just have great great stories with everybody. Yeah, and you get to provide I mean obviously there's lots of places they can stay in San Diego but cool that you get to provide that opportunity for them to do what they want to do in San Diego as a result of staying in your place

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, I love my city. I love given the reviews like I the food scene here is awesome the parks beaches is awesome like the bf like farmers market a weekend so on Sundays you know we'll randomly text them hey, you know, Hillcrest is today or literally led a farmers market day if you happen to be up you know, you may want to check them out. Or there's a festival today here in there. You know, check this out. And then every Blue Moon which I got some sunsets and we'll text them as well at sunset. Great today. The past few days. You may want to go to the beach at like six or seven or whatever sunset is. So just just share that just makes you feel good. Like you're giving back. So rewarding.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah, yeah. Great. So okay, so you got Airbnb one up, you got Airbnb to up. What was next on your, your line here of investments?

 

Tri Vu 

So after those airbnbs were up, we kept on looking but we kind of ran out of money. You know, our nine to five job we save but we don't save that fast, right, like the equity plays and he lock. And then we found a couple of turnkey service providers in other states. So basically, these are flippers that renovate it, they buy the property, they actually find the tenants for you. And then you you buy the house with a tenant and a property manager if we've got a kind of a similar scenario where you're pretty hands off. And we sit we started doing research in different markets. A light Oklahoma, Texas, Florida. Somebody sparklies we're just still pricey. Like Texas is pricey. Florida is pricey.

 

Tri Vu 

But Mississippi. That was a good little intro like segue into get into this remote real estate investing. And yeah, we picked up a property for 80k like super cheap 80k, the mortgage was like 300 something bucks with a couple overhead reserves, it was like 400 something but the rent was like 800 bucks. So that cool. And then we picked up another one in Chicago did the same thing. It wasn't that much more pretty hands off, we just kind of with the advisor, and they told us all the other stats. And you know, we got the inspection reports. And we talked to the property managers GOT GOT referrals to check them out and kind of vetted out and it was like another good deal and did that as well. So that was last year with those two properties. And then this property this year, we wanted to expense a multi families and we have family in Phoenix.

 

Tri Vu 

So we picked up a duplex first duplex in Phoenix. It's a little bit more work. And then we found a property manager we didn't find we didn't have a turnkey provider. So we found the property manager and we had to hire contractors to help us out and stuff. But the property manager, they're awesome out there, they pretty much help you out with everything. And they had their own contracting services as well. So, you know, just conversations and follow ups just the normal. But yeah, we know that one was up and running a couple months. And then at the equity play so amazing in California, like you were able to heal our house again. And then you start refinancing. Everybody knows like the rates are crazy, crazy low right now. So we started refinancing with the new ILA mind down jumbo loans to the conforming loans, and they give us a better interest rate, better monthly payments. And we also picked up a couple properties.

 

Tri Vu 

We picked up a condo, right by Balboa cash flow is not much but great, great little area. This is where my wife is helping out with the renovations again, but her colors in her are like the bathroom was kind of kind of unique. It had like, what do you call those those mirrors? Or those windows from churches? stained glass? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so it was kind of eclectic. But we got a good deal on that, that the whoever listed it didn't list that it had a balcony view of downtown with, you know, some ocean ocean view, like, this is amazing. At this price. So we got in and we're working on that right now my wife's working with contractors putting her design touches in.

 

Tri Vu 

And then we picked up one more property, we just went into escrow last week for one in Baltimore. So another turnkey service provider. And I'm not too scared, because a lot of these are section eight housing. So you know, the government kind of guarantees these, you know, so all this stuff with COVID hit. I wasn't too worried because I knew the government was backing it up and you know, paying the bulk of the bill. So yeah, that's where I'm at right now.

 

Mike Swenson 

And so then just to clarify, I mean, I'm sure obviously the listeners understand like you never went to go visit any of those other properties. You're really leveraging the relationship of a reputable turnkey company and the reputation of a great property manager right that's you're kind of putting your faith and your eggs in that basket. So talk about kind of that risk like obviously there's the the numbers on paper but when you look at that, you know what, maybe fears or concerns did you have for instance, buying in Mississippi sight unseen.

 

Mike Swenson 

Then how did you kind of decide like, okay, yeah, I checked that box of risk. check that box of risk. Now. I'm ready. To jump in, and I don't know, between you and your right wife, like, who's more risk averse, who's not? But just kind of curious to know how that dynamic work when you pick a site on scene, walk through that process of how you get over, like, yeah, I'm going to make the leap. And we're going to jump in and it's going to work out.

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, yeah. Good question. I am super conservative. I mean, I had kids when I was young. And we were just a 401 k type of investors, right? We just took money in Maximus Form K didn't do anything else and just waited till we're like, 60. That was kind of the game plan. And after just working a lot of hours on that job was like, Okay, I'm gonna make it to 60. And then with these turnkey service provider, they came with a lot of references like, hey, do you want to talk to someone else? Find it? Yeah, sure. Here you go. And then we have good conversations, like they're, they shared all their information, these other measures, like, Yeah, I like them, they move fast. They they kind of move slow, we went through a couple of different markets.

 

Tri Vu 

And I went to escrow a couple of times, but so worked out some, but a couple before that didn't work out. Like I didn't know about, you know, the water heater wasn't, you know, brand new roof was, you know, 12 years old, or whatever it was, and, like, hey, try, you may want to look at this other city has better turnkey providers, that, that you won't have to replace anything in the next two, three years at all. And so that was two things that helped us out right, the reference points of other investors by with them. And then, you know, the advisory consultation from the the turnkey provider really helped out. And then, as far as picking the house, like, I wanted to get my family involved. And I was, you know, they had a bunch of houses. And then the pro forma information, I just told my son just to pick something. He's like, yeah, this looks good. It's too bad. But that's three pi 123 bedroom. It was super fun for him. And they're all 80k.

 

Tri Vu 

So, you know, in Mississippi, so it was, it was kind of fun, let him pick it. But, you know, I could have done more due diligence, checking the stats, specs in the house, but I just really wanted to get moving. I was so conservative my whole life. And you know, having that, I guess you'd call it a midlife crisis. I was like, I need to take more risks. Like I need to be worried about not taking enough risks, which what was that I was thinking, I need to take more action, like I try to be on the sidelines, you know, 20 years worrying about retirement and making it toward retirement, like I got to be more active. So even though you say it's passive, like, on the back end is passive after you get it, but you're super active on the front end, getting it taken action, because not a lot of people, like people talk about it, and they give you advice, but you know, what is their portfolio look like?

 

Tri Vu 

Are they doing anything? And yeah, so yeah, I didn't want to be those guys. Like, you know, those Debbie Downer, like, yeah, you shouldn't do this. Because of that. That's wrong. You know, what about this? What about tenants? What about section eight? Like, you got it, you got homeowners insurance for the section eight, and you got the the property managers that you've rented out and talk to, who had been in business for like, 510 years, 20 years with, like, you know, 200 doors. So you do your checks and balances, and there's a leap of faith, but you mitigate all the risks by you know, doing your due diligence

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah, well, and the reality is, you know, if you take a look at, you know, kind of the, what's the worst case scenario, what's the best case scenario? You know, the worst case scenario is, something doesn't work out, and you can sell it, you know, a lot of times, you know, think about like a stock, like people talk about a stock going down, well, yeah, stock can go down, but it's not going to go to zero, right? You know, you you buy a house, maybe you lost some money on it, but it's never going to go to zero. So if you had to resell it, you'd recoup most of your costs, there might be a short term loss. But you're going to take that lesson and apply it forward, you know, that's just going to be essentially an education expense.

 

Mike Swenson 

Let's say you lost five grand on a property, it's you learn and now you apply that going forward. So the next one, you know, instead of making 20k, you can make 25k, because you're smarter about it. And so I love what you said about just taking action, right? Like you're you're gonna learn as you go, you're gonna get better as you go. And you're going to understand those nuances, you're going to understand the numbers better on your fifth deal or your 10th deal than you do on your first deal. But you can't get to the 10th one until you start. And so now you're you're getting close, you have hit or you're gonna hit the 10 number by the end of the year, right?

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, yeah. Like I was gonna sit tight and just kind of wait for the market to settle down all this, but I kind of went the opposite, right? I only bought two houses first year, two houses last year, and this year, I doubled that and got four houses, and we'll see how it goes. But I think I got to capitalize on opportunities. And, you know, maybe you only have 80% information, or 75%. Well, but maybe that's good enough. Right, like, you know, you, you can't wait to everything's perfect. And that was the thought process, I had gone through it, like if you had any percent positive that this is gonna work out, and you mitigate all the risks that you know of just move forward.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah, and you've been able to diversify your portfolio now a little bit too. So if you know, something happens, you know, in one city, it may affect other cities, as you know, kind of maybe a mass real estate market shift happens. But but there might be different times. So you know, something happens in Mississippi, let's say the market doesn't grow as fast, or let's say it goes down, that's not going to affect your other investments. And so if you put all your eggs in the San Diego basket, and you know, I can't imagine something major happening anytime soon.

 

Mike Swenson 

And yet, if you had all your eggs in one basket, it's different than Now if you've got them spread across. So you've now in pretty short time, have a nice diverse portfolio spread across the United States in a few different buckets. And, you know, the opportunity now is is a lot greater for you. Now, it's it's more money that's getting paid off more quickly, you can take that equity and turn it into additional investments in the future.

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, that's exactly right. I didn't really plan it. I was stumbling forward. But yeah, like I'm doing the equity playing in San Diego, but the other markets, they cashflow a lot better.

 

Mike Swenson 

Great. Okay. So then as you as you think about where you're at today, what is the future look like for you?

 

Tri Vu 

I want to get into commercial, like, shopping strips and offices, industrial places. I think next year, that's probably where I'm going to try to move into

 

Mike Swenson 

And what's your plan? How are you thinking about? Like, obviously, there's a learning curve? So what what do you need to learn? Who do you need to talk to, to kind of check those boxes to where you feel comfortable jumping in on a deal in commercial?

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, good question. So what I've done so far was, I was looking at those two to four units, just because you could get the residential loans on them. But people were saying, why don't you look at something bigger, like this 16 years and 32 units. And I looked at a few deals, and I had to do the legwork and talk to lenders about how the financing works. And it's, it's totally different. They look at cap rates analyze, and I didn't know any of this stuff before, right? And so yeah, I had a ramp up on that. And then the shopping strips, same thing I'm just stumbling for and I go, let me look at this deal. And they're talking about like triple net leases.

 

Tri Vu 

I'm like, no googling away. And I think just reaching out to people, like, they may think you're dumb, but so so who who cares, right? Because you're still learning. It's okay to feel like fail, fail often fail fast and move forward. That's kind of my model. And, and that's the way I'm going to approach it, like, we're gonna do do research, you know, knows, I'm gonna look it up, and then just keep on making connections, like I met you through a friend. And I think you just put your energy out there and try to help others and just have that learning mentality. And things will just happen, right? You just have that positive energy and you attract other positive people. And that's kind of how I'm going to tackle this.

 

Mike Swenson 

If we take a step back, now, when we look, okay, you know, three years ago, you were in this spot, where it's like, What do I do? Where do I go? How do I kind of start to build this additional nest egg, and now you've been able to put some some money in, and now you've got a relatively solid passive income coming in. And so, you know, it helps with the choice in the future, right? Like you, you know, we talked about building wealth to achieve financial freedom, but also time freedom. And so you could decide down the road, you know, I'm going to jump in full time in real estate, you could continue with your current company, you could, you could shift, you know, you could do contract work, whatever.

 

Mike Swenson 

So what it does is it opens up options to where you now have a choice, or you have more choices, of what you can do versus feeling like this is what I have to do. And so, for those people listening that aren't in real estate, you know, if if, if you're working your day job, and you can, you can put this together on nights and weekends. There's certainly, you know, lots of folks that can do what you do. The key is, is jump in Reese or I shouldn't say first research research, you know, be willing to take a risk, but then ultimately, you got to jump into get started. And so what an inspiration for you are to others to be able to do that on the side and continue to grow. And yeah, I'm excited about your future and excited about where this can go for you. In just a short time you've made made such a large headway, which is great.

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, I appreciate it. Those are very kind words. Yeah. And it's okay not to have like, a big plan. Like, you know, I didn't have a plan on owning 10 places. I just had to plan on doing One house one at a time, one step forward, looking for people to lean on, like my realtor and my property manager, and then these advisors with these turnkeys. And then meeting people like you and listen to other podcasts that just inspire me. And yeah, so I'm hoping he'll be happy to give back in any way I can.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah. Anything else that you want to share any other advice that you have any lessons that you've learned here? Any words of wisdom to give people that haven't started yet?

 

Tri Vu 

Yeah, get started. I mean, you, you have so many financing options, right, you could do 5%, down conventional loans in house hack. You could go with the turnkey service providers. So yeah, start going to these meetups and seeing all these podcasts. And just don't stop, you got to move forward.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah. Awesome. Cool. Well, thanks so much for coming on. For those of you that are listening, or watching and you're inspired by by Tri's story, and you want to, you know, maybe get in touch or maybe learn more, feel free to reach out to me and I'd be happy to connect you with him. You know, like you said, you're always looking to network, always willing to grow with people. So if you're in the San Diego area, or you want to learn more about you know, turnkey options, things like that, feel free to reach out to me, and I'd be happy to put you in touch with try and continue the conversation. All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on. We really appreciate your time, and have a great day.

 

Tri Vu 

Awesome. Thanks, guys.

Close

50% Complete

Two Step

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.