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

Aziz Shabazz: Chicago Agent Helping Others Achieve Their Dreams

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON:



Aziz has been in the real estate industry for almost 2 decades as a lender, agent, broker, coach and speaker in the Chicago area. He got his start on the lending side helping with a loan on a property that he purchased at the age of 23. His thirst for knowledge has allowed him to help many different people in various areas inside of the real estate space. He owns multiple rental units, leads a 30+ agent real estate team, and also operates a financial consultation business. Aziz shares how his desire to better himself and help others has paid off. From helping new agents get their real estate license to achieve their business goals, to helping people build their personal and business credit to help them get loans and secure properties, Aziz has poured into others so that they can accomplish what they want in life.

 

In this episode hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:

  • How Aziz has build a great business helping people with real estate needs, mortgage needs and credit needs
  • In the Real Estate industry, there is a whole ocean of opportunity
  • Getting into real estate takes a lot of hard work to build momentum
  • New agents coming on a team can experience a lot of value because they can structure their day, walk through appointments or calls and find new clients.
  • There are different kinds of value propositions in every team, you just need to find the right fit for you to get into your real estate career
  • Aziz primarily bring people new into real estate onto his team. This gives them a chance to become entrepreneurs and grow their own business
  • Look for cheap properties that are in good condition. Aziz even found townhouses without associations to grow his real estate investment portfolio
  • Aziz uses financial consultancy to help clients with credit restoration.
  • Building personal credit and business credit are two different things.

 

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro to Aziz's Career
1:47 - How his real estate career started
6:54 - Financial Coaching
10:27 - Aziz as a real estate agent
14:34 - Building a real state team
19:38 - Value proposition in a team
22:31 - Mindset in investment
33:37 - How to find Aziz

 

FOLLOW AZIZ 👇
https://linktr.ee/aziz.shabazz 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Bv..
https://coachaziz.my.canva.site/ 
https://azizshabazz.exprealty.com/ 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aziz-shab..
https://www.facebook.com/BusinessAndR..
https://www.instagram.com/aziz.n.shab...

 

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 

All right, welcome everybody to another episode of The REL Freedom Podcast where we're talking about building time and financial freedom through different opportunities in real estate. And as we've seen from a lot of our past guests, they have a few different irons in the fire different things that they're working on. In the real estate space, we've actually seen a lot of people too, that have done stuff in real estate, which gives them freedom to do things outside of real estate. But here, today's guest we have Aziz Shabazz. And Aziz has done a lot of things inside the real estate, that kind of compound on top of each other. And we'll talk about how he's been able to build momentum with that.

 

Mike Swenson 

So he is a realtor, personal and business financial coach, you are in Chicago area. Been in real estate for almost two decades, you've worked on fix and flips over time, some rentals, townhouses, we'll get into that. And really for you, it's just about helping people finding different ways that you can help people, whether it's getting loans, whether it's helping them with financial literacy, educating them, obviously, the real estate side lending side. So just you're you're a guy that likes to help people. And so we'll get into kind of how all of that works. So welcome to the show, as these we're so happy to have you.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Thank you. Thank you, man. It's a pleasure to be here. You know, I'm really excited about it, man. Thank you for the invite.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah, great. For the folks listening, why don't you just kind of share a little bit about your background? And how you got into the real estate space and where it's gone from there? And then we'll dig in deeper?

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Yeah, absolutely. So I got into real estate probably about 18 years ago, when I bought my first my first property. So I bought my first property when I was 23. And I just got into real estate, because I kind of knew early on that a few things were important that credit was important. And that owning property was important. Right? You know, they always say that wealthiest people tend to be in real estate. Right? So I wanted to get into real estate. Funny story is, and a lot of people don't even know this story is that when I wanted to buy my first property, you know, you always hear this is this will be the biggest investment in your lifetime. Right? So I was like, man, okay, I was a little bit nervous about it, right. So what I did was, I started really going to the library, every study and knowing and I was in a lot of books and use the internet, etc.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

And I started learning about real estate, but I started learning about the loan process as well. And then they used to have gone on probably show my age, they might still have it, but at bus stops, they would have these employment books in these boxes. And I went I was had one of those, I went to the back of the book, and I saw there was a position for a loan officer. And so I said, No experience necessary, etc. So I went on an interview, and I got the job and the lady was like, I can't believe you are not already doing loans. I said, Well, she said how do you know all this stuff, and I said, I just studied on it. So she hired me right away. And then I ended up doing actually my first loan for my property, her name wanted etc. Because I wasn't you know, licensed, I was like more sort of a assistant. And I actually did my first loan for my property. So that's how, you know deep I got into kind of learning about real estate. And then from there, I bought my property. I started with a two unit, bought another two unit a little bit after that.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

And then got anticipate some flip and things of that nature. And you know, and then now we are here where we are today. But the reason why I got into real estate as a realtor is because, you know, people have been telling me because I have been helping people answering questions about real estate because I just became the guy to go to they always say Go get your real estate license. And I said, No, I'm not that type of person. I'm not a people person. I don't want to drive people in my car. It just didn't seem like a good thing for me. And so I put it off for a long time. And then I was at my nine to five job and I had got five promotions for four years and I'm new to business like the back of my hand. You know, I didn't even have to think about it. And so there's like I could take on something else. And I decided that I wanted to sell to them. I properties. I said, Well, I don't want to pay a realtor, maybe I'll just get my license, I'll sell them myself. You know, if I can sell, you know, five homes a year, maybe that's another car, or it's a vacation or something of that nature.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

That was my only intention. And, you know, so I got my real estate license, I passed my exam. First try, you know, I found out that was a major accomplishment later. And then, once I got my real estate license, I ended up closing about 17 deals. My first year, I had sold about five houses before I even saw my own property. So when I did that, I was like, Okay, this is something that I could I could do. And I went on my second year to 22 transactions part time, then I decided to go full time in my second year. And also, because my two years had come, I wouldn't got my management, broker's license, I took the test to get my management broker's license, I started my own office, my top year, when I was primarily focused on sales, I did 11 million in sales value. In Chicago, just the price point that I was in, I was 54 transactions, I wish he was, you know, 54 transactions in California. But you know, that 11 million put me at the top 5% Out of over a million agents across the nation. And then since then, I've, I've moved my business to exp, and I gotta say, that's probably one of the best moves that I've made a real estate.

 

Mike Swenson 

And now you have a team as well. Right? So other agents on your actual team?

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Yes, so I have an organization, you know, at exp, we have the ability to have an organization, so I have agents in my organization, but I also have a small team as well.

 

Mike Swenson 

Okay, so then talk about, and we'll kind of dig into some of these other items later, but talk about kind of the financial coaching that you're doing as well, some of the stuff with with helping people with credit and loans, just so people can get a scope of kind of the full breadth of of what you're doing in the real estate industry space.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I got into the financial consultancy piece, which originally was just credit restoration in the beginning, that's all that I was doing at first. And the reason why I tend to get into things because they like attached to something else, right, like, I got it, I got my real estate license, because I wanted to sell my properties, I don't just kind of like just get into things, right, it just has to make sense and has to flow. So um, I got into credit restoration originally, because a lot of my clients, well, individuals that I will talk to, they will get denied. And it could be due to credit, late payments collections, like repos on their cars and things of that nature. So they needed to clean their credit up to achieve home ownership.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

And I know how important home ownership is, right? Or even being able to buy an investment property because some people say that buying a house, you know, was not an asset, it's a liability, okay, well, even having your credit, right to be able to buy an asset, which may be an investment property or multi unit, you live in one unit and rent the other unit, right. And so I wasn't able to help them, right.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

So I got into credit restoration so that I can help them. But when I got into credit restoration, I started doing that it kind of evolved. And I found ways to be able to add additional services to my business. And then that's when we got into business loans. Right. So helping individuals purchase real estate in their business name, right, but also helping helping businesses just get cash advances or lines of credit or term loans, invoice factory, right. So we were able to get into that space as well, which kind of came from, you know, helping individuals buy real estate under their business name. And then from that, we we added on to business credit. Because most people don't understand building their personal credit and business credit are two different things. And you can have a business credit card or you can have a business loan and still not be building business credit. Right. That's something very important for people to understand. And they just all tied together. Right? And so we've been rockin and rollin in that space and you know, helping as many people as we can.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah, it's it's amazing to hear, just thinking about how one piece led to another and then you wake up and you cover such a wide array of services to be able to help people. And the cool thing is is you understand how these things are tied together and how you can help people and then what that does is that just opens up a lot of doors for you in the future. So you can decide, you know, which which area are you going to drop in and spend your time on it? If not, you can find other people to help you other people to help build those areas of the businesses and grow those areas of the businesses because you understand how all these things are tied together. And so, you know, me being in real estate, I, I know a little bit about the loan process, but not nearly to the extent that you do. And so now, you can really kind of stack stack the deck having all these different areas that you're helping people and so, so that's fantastic.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Yeah, and the primary, when you say, where our problems, primarily spend my time, I'm primarily spending my time as a real estate agent, right? You know, talking with buyers or sellers in helping my team to grow our real estate, because everything kind of like that's the head of the drag, right? Everything flows from that, right, because either individual wants to purchase a home, in your personal name, or in their business name, or they need credit restoration, because they can't purchase, it all kind of flows from that. And then those same individuals that likely want to purchase property, may want to start a business at some point, because we even help them, you know, when it comes to building business credit, we even help them establish their LLC from the very beginning. Right.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

So those same individuals, usually if they don't already have a business, they have ambitions to have a business, and we can help them there, or they want to buy there. They say, Hey, I just bought this property, but I'm going to want to buy another property, maybe in a year, two years. And I say, Well, if you're going to buy that property, why don't you start building business credit, and buy that property in your business name, you know, versus buying it in your personal name and personal social security number by an EIN number? Right? So it's just about doing things systematically in the right way? Of course, yes, we can go to a lender and buy an investment property under our personal name, put 20% down, but wouldn't it be better to bought into your business name, and then you have that liability protection? And then some tax advantages as well?

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Yeah, I love you know, us running an investor focused real estate team, I love helping people see how the real estate purchase can be such a big asset for them. I remember, as we were kind of making a transition from residential into the investor side, we had a gal who was looking to sell her townhouse because she wanted to buy a house. And so the agent that was on my team working with her, he said, Hey, well, have you ever thought about renting it out, and then seeing if you qualify to still go buy another property, and so she had had some discussions. And that's ultimately what she decided to do.

 

Mike Swenson 

And so, you know, as a, as a residential real estate agent, you might think, like, oh, that cost me a sale, because they didn't sell their house. But think about the wealth that she's going to be able to build by owning that she might buy 2356 more properties in the future, because you helped her see the future path. And kind of similarly for you, you're helping people see that investment path, but you're also helping them, get the loan, fix their credit to get the loan, and kind of, you know, put put all those eggs into that basket. So yeah, I see what you're saying about kind of the real estate agent side is the head of the dragon, and everything else kind of flows into that. And through that, absolutely,

 

Aziz Shabazz 

yeah, and we're gonna be adding on, I kind of mentioned this, before we jumped on a call, we're gonna be adding new one, the ability to help those first time homebuyers, with home with home loans as well. So that's another piece that's coming. And it all is these multiple streams of income for individuals that are looking at this call, like from an entrepreneurial side, it's the multiple streams of income, but they all flow into one. It's not like it's taking an immense amount of energy, you know, to add these services to my business or to your business, because it all flows into one. So I have a real estate team, I have a financial coaching team. And, you know, we're going to have a home loan team that we're rolling out right now I have some loan officers that are already in my organization, as well, for for personal home loans as well. Individuals can, you know, contact me as well and if they if they want to add these services to their business,

 

Mike Swenson 

let's talk about building the real estate team a little bit. So you know, you were a solo agent, you had been part time kind of gone into full time. There's a lot of people in that space where they're like, I'm a solo agent right now. I've had some success. I don't really know what the next step is. And I don't really know what I want to do. Some people feel like starting a team just brings in a whole new can of worms. They don't want to deal with it like just being by themselves. Some people like kind of the leverage that a team can provide What was that thought process for you? As you started that process of of starting your team?

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Yes. So, you know what, it's not a cookie cutter thing, right? When because your team actually, I didn't even realize this at first, but your team, you know, can be structured. Any way that you choose to structure your team. And I know a lot of people don't know that. But originally, I got into being a managing broker. Right, I set up I was going to be I mentioned a broker and I would start a team, but I got it to be a managing broker. And then like I said, I moved my business over to exp. But primarily, I'm focusing on building the organization within exp, right? But I do treat it like a team. Okay, so, but when you talk about the team, per se, my my team, right, we branded team, the heavy hitters right team, that I really structured that team for brand new agents that are coming in, that I'm mentoring, and I'm coaching, right? I really structured that for them. Okay, I'm now will it potentially grow? It seems like he might, because I have individuals coming to me like, hey, Aziz, I want to, you know, kind of be a part of the team, I want to see what the team offers, etc.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

But really, I was doing that for brand new agents, because our I was mentoring them. And then it's just easier to keep tabs, transactions, etc. Right. So that's where my team has primarily been focused. But can we expand a team? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, when it comes to growing a team, or building a team is basically, you know, is based around value, you know, what type of value can you offer, to the individuals that's on that team? Can you offer an environment that's conducive to growth? Are you bringing your knowledge, you know, training individuals to get to a point where they need to be that might be a reason why they join a team, are you providing leads for the team, right, so that they don't have to go out there and, you know, fish and hunt so much for themselves? What's the value that you're going to bring to that team, to make them want to, you know, operate with you. And, you know, all of it plays a part, but a lot of it is going to be valued at you bringing in knowledge, you know, to get them to a level where they want to be,

 

Mike Swenson 

I used to always joke about when I first got into real estate, everybody, I would talk to like, oh, I always thought about getting in real estate too. And so I was like, at least you have a common thread and a conversation with pretty much anybody because everybody's thought about getting in real estate at one point in time. But the reality is, it's hard. Like, there's people that come in, they have success, they're able to just do what they're supposed to do, and you just see their career grow. And then there's so many people that struggle because they liked the freedom, they like the unlimited income potential, what they don't realize is that takes really hard work to build that momentum. And so, you know, joining a team right out of the gate, there's a lot of value there. And I love that you touched on value proposition because it's not just about, hey, I joined a team and they're taking half of my commission, or whatever you decide that to be. It's no, there's there's a legitimate learning curve there.

 

Mike Swenson 

And there is a lot of value that new agents coming on a team can experience, how to structure their day, we know what what are the top producers do the knowledge pieces huge, being able to walk through and shadow on appointments or calls to hear how that goes. And to figure out how to spend time lead generating and finding new clients while still processing your existing clients that are under contract and closing like there's a learning curve there. So there's a lot of value to being on a team and for some people to they like the leverage that it provides, you know, I've got an agent on my team that's like, I don't even want to know how the admin side works. I like not not even touching that. And so you can operate in your skill set and in your area of passion as well.

 

Mike Swenson 

If you don't want to do the whole business, you don't want to be the 24/7 realtor, you don't have to be so there's a lot of value that being on a team can provide. And yeah, like you said, it comes down to what is your value proposition. And there's lots of teams out there that have different value propositions and so there's there's no team that's like the other team, everyone kind of has their own flair, their own personality on it, and their own value that they provide, and it's finding that right fit for you and what you're looking to get out of your real estate career.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Yeah, I think one of the major pieces of it too, is the accountability piece, you know, because there's individuals that come into real estate as real estate agents that don't even realize they're truly starting their own business. They are truly entrepreneurs at this point. They feel like they're getting their real estate licensed, they're gonna come in, it's gonna be more so like a job, they know, it's not going to be like a job like a nine to five job, but they I don't think they necessarily expect is going to be full blown entrepreneurship. Right? And because of that, I think it's like, okay, I got my license, I kind of know what to do. But do I actually do it? And how am I using my time, and if you don't have anyone there for those individuals to be to hold them accountable, then they can find ourselves just slipping into not doing any activity.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

And of course, if they're not doing any activity data, they're not getting any results. So that accountability factor, if you join a right team, is going to be major as well, for individuals, because it's definitely not a nine to five job, you know, you have to be if you don't need the accountability is because you are a self starter, you are self motivator, and you're like, hey, I can go get this job done by myself. Right? You have those individuals, but a lot of individuals they need and it's okay, right? It's okay, that they need some guidance, they need a push, and they need some accountability.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah, that is a hard thing. Because as a as a solo agent, you could do anything you want, you know, you could decide I'm going to, you know, today's a cold day outside when we're filming this, I could go watch a movie right now. Or I could go play video games, and nobody's going to tell you no, you can't do that. Because you don't have a boss telling you, you can't do that. And so that's the challenge of holding yourself accountable. You know, I have this office down here, I'm it's out of my house. And yet at the same time, I have this mental piece where it's kind of like I'm clocking in at a certain time every day, and I'm here, you know, I do have the luxury, you know, of going to see my kids if I you know, for lunch or something like that. But at the same time, this, this is still my job. And so even though I don't have anybody telling me what I can and can't do, I have to hold myself accountable to that. So yeah, that the team accountability can be really, really helpful for people getting started to and and even later in life, do the we all we all fall into the traps of not being as accountable as we should.

 

Mike Swenson 

So absolutely, yeah. So real quick, then you had kind of talked about your your investment journey. So I'd love to hear just a little bit more about how that grew for you. And really the mindset behind it. So many people want to invest in real estate, and they they stay on the sidelines, because I'm not ready yet. I don't know the right property, I don't know the perfect thing. And they're just waiting for the perfect thing to come along for them to move forward. So I'd love to kind of hear how you decided to just make that leap and how that that grew for you. And kind of the the benefit that that paid off for for those that haven't yet gotten into the investing side?

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the first decision to get into real estate, the first property that I purchased, that was a no brainer, right? Because I had, you know, the option to continue to pay rent, or I had the option to buy a property. And I didn't really like paying rent. So I was like, You know what, let me buy a two unit property. And I'm gonna live in one unit. And then I'm going to rent the other unit, because I'm trying at that point to cut the cost of living. Right, if I if I can, you know, a penny saved is a penny earned. So I mean, it didn't cover the entire mortgage, you know, from one unit, but I wasn't paying very much out of pocket. After that, you know, the I mean, it covered majority of it.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

So I wasn't coming very much out of pocket just to live. Right. And then the other thing that I did was the one thing that I did do was I found a property that had a good size in height in the basement. Right, because I wanted to turn that into a living space, I'd say at some point, I'll turn this into a living space storage space record, I'll do something with right to maximize that potential. Because I could look at it like, Hey, I could buy an old another property or I could just, you know, fix this area down here in the leveraging. So I did that as well. That was just my first product like that right there. set the tone. That one mood right there, set the tone. Okay. And then I went and then I bought another property and the plan was to do the same thing with the basement, but I never ended up doing that. I end up selling it. But on that journey, I had now become a landlord for several years, right. And I saw what the experience was there as well.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

So then I learned from it and I grew from there. So Okay, next properties that I buy that I buy and hold, I'll do things a little different. I didn't lose any money, right? And then equity went up, and then I sold and so I didn't lose any money. But could I have made better decisions? Yes. But you got to understand. This is me making decisions that I had nobody in real estate around me to tell me what decisions that I should make. I read the books, I read the I watched the videos, YouTube videos, etc, is, but it's nothing like jumping in and doing it yourself. You can, you know, it's great to be not become knowledgeable. But at the end of the day, you're still following somebody else's experience, right? And what they experienced what might be good for them might not necessarily be good for you. But at least you can go into it, making an educated decision. Right?

 

Aziz Shabazz 

So you shouldn't be too far off if you just kind of follow systems and the mentorship and coaching of individuals that have already done it. Right. But a few things that I learned that I didn't like, and I list those off, because I think this would be a great some great information. Well, I'm close to the city of Chicago, right? So city of Chicago, what I learned years ago, are some of the properties in the city of Chicago do not have water meters. So you can buy, you could buy a property there in a bill would just be by monthly or every three months. And it would be a solid deal no matter how much water was running. Right. So that was something that was very important. Because if you get a busted pipe, if you have a tenant that has a running toilet, and they don't tell you because they really care, that could take that home once profit, right right away from you. Right. So that was one thing that I learned. So I started looking at properties that you know, didn't have water meters. Okay. The other thing was, and I learned this after my very first property, I looked at properties that had separate utilities like separate gas meters separate electrical meter, where everything was separated, and then there was a common area, right?

 

Aziz Shabazz 

That way, I wouldn't have to worry about paying a light bill or gas bill or keeping someone's gas on even if they weren't paying a rent because it's the middle of the winter time, etc. That would be solely one. Yeah, right. That saved me a cost as well. And then the last thing that I learned and that's why I'm kind of into I got some townhomes right now that I'm renting, I'm probably going to pick up a single family I like townhomes and single family. And a lot of people say don't get townhomes get multi unit. Well, I like it for the first one that you're in, because you're going to be living it to the next property. I don't know if I necessarily like two and three units, maybe four unit, but definitely five and above. But if you are gonna stay residential, you have to go to the four units, try your best to buy a four unit. That's that would be my best advice versus a two unit. And the reason being is what I saw was that, um, there's a lot of turnover, because typically when someone rents an apartment, unless you're doing long term leases, right, but when they when they rent an apartment is really just a pitstop.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

They're not really planning on staying too long. You know, you might get a good run for some tenants. But the majority of tenants that I experienced in the area that I was renting in, it was a pitstop, right, so there was turnover, or they didn't pay to rent, then you had downtime, and then you lose money. You go through evictions, etc. Right? So, one time and I didn't even I didn't even come to this conclusion on my own. I came to this conclusion just by being around real estate. One time I'm out showing houses single family homes to an investor. Okay, why does this guy years ago, why does this guy want to buy single family homes? So he said, Well, he's just you know, is cheap or something that I can maintain. I just want to try single families. So okay, let's before I do is fine. He didn't even realize what he was doing. What he knew he was what he what he was gonna get. Right. So when I when I started showing these single family homes, they were typically occupy and they were renters in, right. And I will start talking to the individuals that were there. And when I talked to them, I found out that these individuals had been living in these homes for five years, seven years, 10 years, 15 years.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

They took care of all the utilities cut the grass, sometimes they would even do repairs to the place. You know, because they felt like that was their home at that point because it was a house. Didn't really get that with renters. In apartments, right, so I said, Man, so I saw it one time, maybe that's just that one person. Yeah, we'll go to another house I'm talking to. So we're like the course of a couple of weeks and we show houses, he became more No more so than shorter houses for me gathering information. And I started realizing there was a pattern, people want to stay besides. And that's what you want. When you have rentals, you want long term tenants that do their best to maintain the property, because they feel like that is their home, you want to take care of those tenants, you want to be a good landlord, a great landlord to those tenants, because they will likely be there for a long time. And then the other thing that I coupled with that is Section Eight, I do section eight on my properties, allow section eight on my properties, because even when this pandemic hit, and people were not getting landlords were not getting paid section eight landlords were still getting paid. Right?

 

Aziz Shabazz 

So people have a bad stigma around individuals that have section eight. And I've heard like, Oh, they're gonna tell your property. Yep, they're not good tenants. And, well, you got to interview your tenants that are section eight, just like you would anyone else. Don't just take the first person there, Section Eight, because they're, they're coming with the, with the papers, and you say, oh, is going to be like guaranteed money. Well still interview him as if you would interview anyone else. So I've had some pretty good success with my section eight tenants and I take care of my tenants, as well. So I make sure that they're happy. So

 

Mike Swenson 

that's I mean, that's, that's what I love about real estate is there's a whole ocean of opportunity. What some people enjoy doing, others don't. And you know, being on an investor focus team. Yeah, there's some people that are like, Section Eight, I don't really know. And some people are like, I love it. I've had a great experience. Some people, you know, want townhomes, some people say no, some people want single family homes. Some people say no, some people want certain areas or neighborhoods, other people say no. So that's the beauty is everybody has their own goals, what they're trying to accomplish, and how that works and their own preferences. And it's just an ocean of opportunity. And you can carve out your niche, and there's plenty, there's plenty of room for everybody. It's an abundance mentality here.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

And what I want to add is, because I know somebody's gonna be watching this, and they might take my advice and start going out later, they might start researching it. Well, I found townhomes that do not have associations that used to be in associations, but they're not an association, so I don't have to pay monthly or annual dues on it and the taxes are low. Right. So the properties that I buy, I buy cheap properties, right as well, I look for cheap properties that are in good condition. Right? And it's sometimes you got to it's a needle in a haystack. And sometimes you have to be patient with it. Right? But you just have to be prepared, have your credit, right? Have your money, right? So when that time comes, you can strike on the opportunity.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

So the properties give me good returns. And because they give me great returns, I'm able to have a property manager manage the properties so that I'm not hands on because we got a big snowstorm coming in my first two properties, I would have been out shoveling that snow after work, you know, and I worked second shift and I would be out there 12 o'clock at night shoveling snow because I knew I was gonna be too tired in the morning. And then I was gonna have to go back to work and I did get out of it. This six inches of snow. Everybody's talking about it. You got it supposed to be coming. I would have been shoveling both of those properties in the beginning, but you know, you live you learn. And then you earn.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much as always for coming on and sharing your experience and your story. How can folks get a hold of you if they if they want to learn more about what you're doing?

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Yeah, absolutely, really simple. Just go to www.coachaziz.info Z as in Zebra, I Z as in Zebra dot info coach as these dot info. They can find all my links, they can find all my social media ways to contact me follow me on this subscribe on YouTube. And then follow me on all the social media sites as well. Feel free to inbox me.

 

Mike Swenson 

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate you sharing your time and sharing all your expertise with everybody.

 

Aziz Shabazz 

Absolutely. Thank you Mike.

Close

50% Complete

Two Step

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