0-75 Units In One Year With Sam Kwak

Episode 535: 0-75 Units In One Year With Sam Kwak

 

Many people dream of migrating to a different country where they believe success is. That is exactly why Sam Kwak’s family decided on applying for a US visa even though they were already denied eleven times and finally got it on the 12th try. They had to rely on their skills to make a living. Sam eventually learned about entrepreneurship through a book and was motivated to learn more about real estate. He and his brother were able to connect with other people in the real estate space to learn it through shadowing. He was able to build his portfolio little by little from zero to 75 units in one year!

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Watch the episode here

 

I’m here with Sam Kwak. He and his brother came to this country not even knowing the language or the culture at all, as you can imagine coming as an immigrant. We’re going to learn about his story and amazing transformation because we’re also going to show you that he and his brother went from 0 units to 75 units in one year. We’re going to get to all this information. We have a great giveaway for you and also a challenge that you can participate in. Sam, how are you doing?

It’s good to be back on your show. The last we were here was before the pandemic.

The best place to start is your and Daniel’s story. I’ve always wondered. One of the books that changed my life is Self-Made in America. John McCormack, who wrote Self-Made in America, posed the question, “Why is it that immigrants can come into this country, not even know the language and be financially independent within a reasonable length of time? They’re financially independent in 5 to 10 years when Americans born here on the corner of opportunity and success can’t figure out how to get financially free for an entire lifetime. They have all the advantages.”

You can tell me if I’m wrong. This will be interesting for me. What I got from that book was that I was not sacrificing nearly enough. I look at what those immigrants did in that book and how they sacrificed, slept on the floor, and hid in the donut shop until they bought it. They would fake going home, come back, eat the leftover donuts, drink the leftover coffee, and sleep on the floor until they owned the shop and saved up enough money to buy it. I thought, “I’m not even coming close to that kind of sacrifice.”

There was example after example. I even started to pretend I was an immigrant. I was here with no one and knew nothing. I was starting completely from zero. How am I going to make a microsystem that can survive right by myself? I didn’t know the language of business. I knew the English language, but I didn’t know the language of how to speak entrepreneurially, the language of success and a lot of languages. I didn’t know how it worked out there. Tell me. How did it work for you and your brother?

There are millions of thoughts that are going through my head in terms of what is the indicator for success for so many. It’s not just that one story. I know somebody who came from Japan, had no English at all and ended up buying hundreds of units years after, studying real estate with a Japanese-English dictionary on one hand and DVDs and courses on the other hand and learning as much as possible. I’ll share my story and maybe you can pick something out here.

For a lot of immigrants, the choice to even come here is a massive commitment. It’s hard to even get on a boat back in the day, but now a plane, show up and not know anybody and the language. My brother and I back in 1999 immigrated here. I remember this day. It’s all vivid. December 8th, 1999, is when we set foot in the United States. Part of the reason we came here is that my family and my parents wanted to start a church for Korean-American immigrants.

They felt like they had a calling to be here and decided to come here. When we first made that decision, like everyone else, we had to go get documented and apply for the visa. What that meant for us was back in Korea, where I’m originally from, we would have to go to the US Embassy and apply for a visa to be here. They make sure to background check you and you’re not trying to come into the country with a bomb or anything. They want to make sure you’re legit. We go through that process.

The particular visa we were getting is a clergy visa, which typically lasts about five years. I don’t know if they have changed any of the rules or not. We apply once and get denied. There’s a certain quota on how many visas they’re allowed to give out per year. On the 2nd and 3rd time we apply, we get denied again. At this point, most people are like, “Screw it. I gave my three tries. I’m done.” My parents were relentless. In the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th try, they’re denied.

Each time, we get a letter in the mail saying we’re not in. Interestingly, biblically speaking, on that twelfth attempt, the United States government approved our visa and we finally made it. That happened to be around December as well. There’s something out of that as well. Even our journey of coming here, setting foot in the United States and applying for the visa takes massive commitment and tenacity to even go that far. I was six years old at the time. I’m fully aware of what’s happening.

I learned from my parents that if you are that committed to doing something, going somewhere or achieving your vision or dream, you got to keep going, pumping that gas and making sure you put enough reps to achieve your goals. We make it here. We’re living in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. It’s 800 square feet for a family of four. We made the dining room an extra bedroom. That’s what we were doing. My dad is a church pastor and my mom taught piano in Korea.

That was the only skill she had coming here. I remember 2 or 3 months later, she found her first student. A couple of weeks later, she gets a referral and finds another student. A year or two later, she has twenty students paying her money to teach piano. That was how we lived. That was our income for the first 2 to 3 years. The beauty is if you have skills and something to offer to society and if you can create value, money comes. That’s the beautiful thing about America.

Did your mom speak English?

Barely. A disadvantage that she had was she only worked with Korean kids.

It’s a very limited market. She was pretty important to the ones that needed her.

The Korean population here in Chicago is less than 200,000. It’s probably close to 80,000 or 100,000. You imagine. The market is limited, yet she still built a pretty powerful business. Our family was taken care of. That gave us enough time for my dad to get the church going. The beautiful thing is you come here with skill and you don’t even have to know the language and yet, you can make a name for yourself. It’s that easy. Part of why people struggle with becoming an entrepreneur or finding success is one of those things. You’ve probably heard the same.

When something is so easy, it’s easy to forget or not start. It’s weird because I look at my peers born here and grew up here who have ancestors or grandparents here for a while. I’m like, “You have so much advantage over immigrants. You know the language. You didn’t have to live in a one-bedroom apartment as I did. You have so much of a head start. Do something with it. You got so much resource.” I’ve come to find out that many people tell me, “The American dream is dead.” It’s not. The American hustle is dead.

From that book, what I gathered was it was all in reach for me, but I wasn’t sacrificing enough. Number two, I was taking this country for granted. Some of the people in the book Self-Made in America by John McCormack came from places of genocide. They slept on dirt floors. They didn’t have running water and all this stuff. They also remind us of the United States’ sales propaganda machine, “You need a boat, motorcycle, camper and vacation and you need it now.”

It’s that cost barrage of, “Get it now and pay for it later,” which was indenturing yourself to servitude, debt, credit cards or whatever it was, “You need a house and you need it now.” After reading that book, I decided that I was going to re-up my commitment and sacrifice so high to earn what I wanted. I was going to sacrifice so much that a lot of people weren’t going to understand me or agree. It was true. People were like, “What are you doing?”

I’m doing what I need to do to get where I need to go. I can’t afford all this stuff and I’m not going to do all these things because I don’t make that much money to do it. I was also going to not take this country for granted and say, “The American dream is alive for me. I’ve seen it through those other people in that book. It’s just, “I’m so close to it. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”

I’m not saying that you came from that environment, but a lot of the immigrants were coming from infrastructures where there was no way to get ahead at all. Even if you did, someone would come to take it all from you. I had to realize that that’s not where I was. I was the luckiest guy in the world. I was born right here. It had its disadvantage because I was born right here and I was taking it for granted.

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You get so comfortable that you don’t want to leave it. People are either moving away from pain or moving towards pleasure. It’s weird because most people are in the dead smack middle. They don’t have enough pain to move them and enough pleasure to push them towards that. A lot of people are just drifting. I’ve been able to connect with a guy named Russell Brunson. His big thing is, “People are either drifting or advancing. They’re driven by faith and they’re constantly moving forward to something.”

In a lot of the countries, especially the poor Asian countries, whether it’s India or the Philippines, a lot of the social construct there is designed so that the rich always stay rich and then the poor always stay poor. In trying to climb, you’re met with a lot of resistance. You have to invest so much in education. There’s a lot to be able to get to that level. Here in the United States, you see stories like Mark Zuckerberg, who started Facebook in his dorm room and now he’s a billionaire. You got Jeff Bezos, who writes the business plan for Amazon, sells books and then ultimately becomes a mega eCommerce empire.

Nowhere in the world can you ever achieve and even advance that close. It’s insane to me that people tell me, “People are getting repressed or oppressed here. I can’t get ahead.” Look around you and the immigrants. That’s my story. There’s so much more. There are stories of us sleeping in a van because we can’t pay for the heating bill. There are stories where we’re going out and picking dandelion leaves because we don’t have food. There’s a lot. I’m sure a lot more people have struggled more than I have.

I want to hear more of that. You’re picking dandelion leaves because you don’t have anything to eat. Apparently, you can eat dandelion leaves.

It’s very nutritious. It’s good for you. If you want to get on some diet and it’s free, pick some dandelion leaves, put some ranch on it, and ready to go. You got to make use of nature. That’s the mentality of a lot of these people from poor countries where you don’t have anything to eat.

I’m bringing up an interesting point because after reading that book and a couple of other books, talking to some people and having a few other revelations, I decided to take having a job off the table. I have no real hardship, so I have to create my hardship to find out what my body and mind are going to do about it. I take having a job off the table like, “I cannot have a job.” I backed myself into that corner. The weakest link was that it would have been easy to say, “I’m taking a job,” but if I say yes and take a job, I’ll never find out what I’m made of.

I never said yes to the job. I almost forced myself to go eat dandelion leaves, except I didn’t know that I could eat them or else I would have eaten them. A guy said to me one time. He was a POW for two years in Castro’s prison over in Cuba. He got captured as a freedom fighter in the Bay of Pigs. He was held as a traitor to his country, where they didn’t do very nice things to him every day. I asked him, “How do you survive that?” You don’t know how many days it’s going to be. If you knew it was only two years, you could mark off the days and make it, but you don’t know how long it’s going to be.

He said, “The human body is the most adaptable thing in the world. If you give it enough water and protein, the body will figure everything out if you can keep your wits about you and keep your mind from going insane and breaking.” I believed him. I was scared to go on my own. I thought, “What are the chances I’m not going to get enough water in San Antonio, Texas? There’s a 0% chance that I’m going to not get enough. What’s the change? I’m not going to get enough protein? There’s a 0% chance.” All I got to do was keep my mind from taking a job. That’s what I did. I did whatever I had to do, slept on the floor, and ate rice and beans.

If you think about it, immigrants are almost forced to start a business because where are they going to get a job? If they submit a resume, they don’t have any education, language and cultural fit. Instinctively, the only thing we can do is to start a business and go take customers.

That’s the saving grace. I didn’t go to college. The reason I decided not to get a job is no one wanted to pay me what I was worth because I didn’t have a freaking piece of paper. That’s when I decided I had a glass ceiling. Maybe not having college was my greatest accomplishment because if I had college, I might have gotten the $150,000 a year job and never got out of it.

I know guys that have come from Mexico. They cannot read or write, but they are very successful people. Think about that. You don’t know how to read or write or you don’t know the language. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend all the time learning the language or how to read or write. Maybe you just learn how to function around that problem by having someone that does know how to read or write. It could be that simple.

 

We do that for five years. We have progressed. My parents’ income is increasing, and we can move into a bigger apartment. Things are better until late 2007. We knew our visa was going to expire. We got prepared for it and hired an attorney to represent us to extend that visa or apply for a permanent residency. I don’t even remember the name of the attorney. That attorney screwed up and our visa lapsed. In 2007, we got a notice saying that we were due for deportation. There was a huge push back in 2006 or 2007 to deport all illegals and stuff.

We were on the list. Here we thought, “Our attorney is going to take care of it. Don’t worry. The attorney is going to make this right.” Nothing happens. We ended up showing up to court and had to hire another attorney. It’s not a simple thing where we just show up to court and there’s a decision. You need to go back. There’s a new court date. It’s a process that got dragged along for almost a year. It’s not until late 2008 that we finally get to the judge. The judge realizes there have been filings, some errors made by the attorney and different things. We pretty much got grandfathered. The judge granted us a pathway to citizenship because he saw the lawyer screwed up and we did the right thing.

It doesn’t seem like he screwed up. It seems like he screwed you like a lot of those attorneys.

A lot of attorneys do screw you, so be careful. Make sure you get the right attorney. I was very grateful that I got to stay because I would not have a welcome back to Korea. Thank God that I did. Part of this was I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. At the same time, something in my blood wanted me to do this. I ended up joining the United States military in 2010. That’s smack in the middle of my high school years. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so the military was a great option for me.

The military taught me a whole lot of discipline and work. On top of the immigration work ethic that I had, I had a military work ethic. I was supercharged. Coming back from the military as a Reserve, I switched to the Army Reserve. It was in the middle of college that I decided to start a business because I didn’t realize that you can start a business until I got to college. I’m like, “I want to start a business.” It wasn’t until 2014 that I discovered this whole idea of real estate investing.

I read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Kiyosaki. I was blown away. I’m like, “I didn’t even realize that this world existed.” I didn’t even know the word entrepreneurship existed until I was nineteen years old. Way to go, public education. What a joke. Throughout my public education in elementary school, junior high, and high school, I never heard that word before. No one told me that word existed. Here I am. I just discovered that word at the age of nineteen. I was blown away. This was an option and no one told me that it was.

The only option I had was to go to the military, get a trade, or get a corporate job. That was the only thing. Until the fourth option was presented to me, this was it. I was looking at this and even telling my brother, “We can start a business.” In 2014, we found out about this whole real estate investing thing. It was the vision of this city on a hill. Being 21 and my brother was 19 or 20 at the time, we didn’t have any money. We were flat broke with no credit. Our last names were not Trump and Rockefeller.

We had zero money. They were like, “What do you kids know getting into real estate? A lot of people were laughing at us and pretty much criticized our credibility. Yet, I was still determined. I was like, “I know what I’ve been through. I’ve seen what’s possible. We are going to make this happen, somehow and someway. It’s going to be just a matter of time. We’re going to put enough pressure and energy into this that we’re going to break through.”

At that point, my brother and I were so obsessed. We’re reading books about real estate and watching YouTube videos about real estate. We started buying courses with money we didn’t have. We were swiping credit cards and getting courses, coaching and mentoring. We were going to local events and seminars. It was just eat, sleep, real estate and repeat for three years. I remember also skipping school sometimes or classes in college because I wanted to go to the next seminar. That was more important to me than going to school.

My GPA completely tanked in my senior year because I was not focused on schoolwork. Another irony to that is I took a course called Entrepreneurship in my senior year. I got a D. Here’s how I deserve that D. We were expected to write a 30-page report and I didn’t want to because it was too much time. I hired someone from the Philippines to write that paper for me so that I could focus on my real estate business. I was delegating and building teams. That’s how I got a D in Entrepreneurship.

You got a D delegating and doing everything an entrepreneur should do. You’re probably way ahead of your classmates. They’re out there writing every word themselves and you’re being an entrepreneur that figured out how to sub out the report.

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I paid a Filipino. It’s crazy. This Filipino first got an MBA. I was paying that person $5 an hour to write me a paper on a business report. I ended up paying maybe $20 to $25 because it doesn’t take that long for that person to write, I’m sure. I turned it in. Clearly, it’s not my report because my professors have seen my reports before. It’s a completely different person. I got a D on that. I was more focused on my real business and starting a business instead of pretend businesses.

I graduated from college in 2016. In 2017, we had a massive breakout year. Courses, books and videos helped a lot. That’s a great way to get started to be aware of what you know and don’t know. It wasn’t until we connected with people in our area that’s pretty much like you, Mitch. They were killing it and doing hundreds of units each year. They got syndication funds going. They’re fixing and flipping twenty houses at a time.

There are crazy people out there and we’re connecting with them. We learned, shadowed and traded skills. At one point, I was working for an individual for free to shadow, learn, sit in his office, listen to the phone calls and connect all the dots. In 2017, we ended up partnering with one of the individuals that we were working for free and getting mentored essentially. There was one particular deal that completely changed my mindset. All it takes is just one deal to completely change everything.

That deal was we found a portfolio of four single-family houses and negotiated for owner financing at 10% down. The 10% down ended up being $15,000. We didn’t have any money. We ended up gaining that $15,000. We raised that money from a family friend that ended up being a partner with us. That person is still a partner of ours. That’s how we got in. We created cashflow and got a piece of that deal. That changed the trajectory and it increased my confidence.

You did a deal with none of your money. You didn’t have any money and now you’re not worth zero anymore. You have some assets now. You did it all with no money. That’s a revolutionary breakthrough for anybody. I remember my first one. I accidentally bought a house on a credit card because, in ’96, houses were worth $8,000, $10,000 and $12,000 in the lesser parts of town. You go on your way home happy with the deal you made and then think, “I did that with no money. If I can do it one time with no money, I can do it 1,000 times with no money.”

That’s what I realized. That was a huge groundbreaking moment. From there, we bought a 4-unit and a 3-unit in the same way. We raised money for it, negotiated for owner financing and then went a little bit bigger. We did a couple of flips along the way with other people’s money as well. I thought it was fun flipping homes and seeing that come alive. We went from that to buying an 8-unit, 36-unit and 24-unit. It kept coming. It’s the same cycle over and over.

Once you do that one deal and use other people’s money and it goes well, it becomes so much easier to raise money because now that person is referring you to people, “You should go talk to my Uncle Joe or my coworker who’s got $500,000 sitting and doing nothing.” That’s how we got that one year from January 1st, 2017, with zero units and properties. At the end of 2017, we had more than 75 rental units from that. We stayed disciplined and focused. We didn’t do anything else. We didn’t party, take the money and run. We stayed very vigilant and focused.

You had 75 units because you have a book that you’re giving away. It’s called 0 To 75 Units In 1 Year. If you are interested in reading this book about how they did it, go ahead and go to 1000Houses.com/units. Don’t forget. He did a little over 70 houses, but he also did some flips. The 75 units weren’t the whole year. There were things in between. This is what I want to applaud you for catching on so early. Your focus was on the cashflow, not the cash. Many people get addicted to the big check. I don’t give a damn about money in the bank.

What I want to know is how much is coming in on the 1st. The bigger that number gets, the more I can spend. Whether I spend 25% of it, 50% of it or all of it, it’s all getting replaced on the 1st. It’s replenishing on the 1st and on and on. My banks have always said to me, “When are you going to leave some money in the bank?” I’m saying to them, “How much do you want me to have?” They say, “$500,000.” I say, “I’m 5 to 6 years into my career. You want me to leave $500,000 sit making less than 1%.” It didn’t make any sense to me.

That’s where the banks win because they can take that deposit and make more money from the sales. That’s the journey. If we can do it, anyone can. This is the biggest thing I drill even to my students and some of my people. There’s nothing that’s stopping you. There’s no law or regulation that tells you, “You can only have ten units a year. You can’t raise money.” It’s a free enterprise. Most of it comes down to personal beliefs. People don’t believe that it’s possible to go from zero to whatever. More people can do better than us, but it’s possible.

It’s an impressive story. That’s what I always try to tell people too. I bought a house every 4 to 5 days for decades. Somewhere down the street, someone has bought 10,000 houses a minute. It’s not about that. There are a ton of people out there that would like to be able to accomplish what you accomplished in one year. It’s a little deceiving because you had a lot of groundwork in before that year started.

 

There’s a lot of work and learning. We started in 2014. It was three years of constantly watering my tree. The tree is a metaphor for my knowledge and business. Interestingly, you hit a threshold where it clicks and it’s a waterfall of never-ending success. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. This is how a bamboo tree grows. If you take a bamboo tree, plant it and water it for the first three years, it doesn’t grow. It’s barely little. You can’t even see it. Most people would say, “My bamboo tree is broken.”

It’s growing a root system under the surface.

In the fourth year, it shoots twenty feet. It’s crazy how it works. The reason why I grow a bamboo tree is to remind me every time I walk into the office, “Patience. Put in your work and grind. When you zoom out, you can see the product or the twenty-foot shoot that you have.” Most people don’t give enough attention, time, energy and the amount of grind that they have to do. For some people, it’s hard to have that confidence or see the momentum. It’s usually on that 3rd or 4th year that something happens. It’s like a dam that breaks. It’s that magic number. I hear that all the time. The third year for most people is when they break and completely dominate.

You lost a lot of people where you said it took about three years to get ready and then in that fourth year, you went from zero to whatever. That doesn’t mean that it has to take them three years. You came from the biggest deficit in the world. You didn’t know the language, culture and laws. You didn’t have a network and know anybody from anybody. If it took you three years, some people could in a year, a year and a half or six months maybe.

If people want a shortcut, looking back, I can tell you what the shortcut is. Find someone good at what you want to do and pay them to teach you whatever they have to teach you to be successful. In 2021, I spent close to six figures on accessing networks, learning, coaching and mentoring. I paid five figures to get into a mastermind so that I could meet and learn from the people there. The people in this mastermind are doing 8 figures to 9 figures. They’re killing it.

I want to know their secrets, what they’re doing and what made them successful so that I could take that principle, learn and do it myself. That’s the fastest way to grow, in my experience. If you’re stuck and you feel like you’re not getting anywhere or you’re in a rut, the fastest way is to find someone who is more successful or killing it at what you want to do. Find them and follow them around like a shadow. That’s the fastest way to learn.

If you want to get the free book 0 To 75 Units In 1 Year, go to 1000Houses.com/units. Also, we’re going to be talking about a challenge that you’re presenting. Tell us about this challenge.

My brother and I are getting ready to launch a challenge. It’s a five-day challenge designed to help you and teach you to find deals. That’s the biggest thing I hear from a lot of real estate investors getting started or maybe they have been in the game for a while. They keep telling me, “I can’t find deals. I don’t know where to find deals.” We have created a five-day challenge where in five days, we’re going to show you how to find deals step-by-step. It’s baby steps. It’s the KISS method or Keep It Simple, Stupid. We’re going to show you how to find as many deals as possible in those five days.

There has never been more competition out there. It has never been harder to find deals. With that being said, in 2022, we kicked off January with 25 acquisitions and in February, another 15. We’re used to buying about 100 houses a year every year for decades. Those are about 2,500 houses in my career and my hometown. For some reason, I can tell you what it is. In one of the toughest environments out there, we’re probably going to have a record-breaking year. It has everything to do with what you were talking about.

Our three acquisition guys have been around for years. They have built networks and relationships. They have learned what works and what doesn’t work. They have grown into their skin how to negotiate. Everyone has to negotiate differently how they feel. You have to make the negotiation yours and how you do it and figure out how that works. We all have a little bit more money in our pockets than we started, so budgets can be a little bit bigger. There are a lot of different reasons why.

Someone asked me, “How come you’re going to have a record year in one of the toughest years for everybody?” I had to think about it for a minute, but that’s why.

We have laid years’ worth of groundwork with the people in the system. The youngest guy is four years at it in 2022 and he made the most in 2021. The other two take on some other tasks for us and are a little more focused on cashflow. Sometimes you take a cut in pay when you’re trying to rack up cashflow. You have to understand that.

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If you’re going to go for income that comes in whether you get out of bed or not, it might be a little slower than flipping something for cash. You might have to take a little back step to the big check every now and then or for a little while if you want to truly get free. With the flipping, rehabbing, wholesaling, unless you learn how to systematize it and get above it, then it’s just a glorified job where you are 100% recipient of what goes right, which are often 100% recipient of what goes wrong.

There’s usually not enough time to have a life because the more volume you do, the less time you will have to live and enjoy it. There has got to be this mix. People say wholesaling is a job. It is, but there are people out there that can teach you how to wholesale from a cruise ship. It’s going to take about a year to get that set up, probably. When I tried to get out of my business, it took fifteen months for me to back myself all the way out the front door, out into the street, in my truck and down the road. I’m buying houses now. What are we doing, Sam? We’re talking. Do I look like I’m buying houses? I am.

You have a system. That’s the key.

I want you to get ahold of this book. It’s a free book. Listen to a man who went from 0 to 75 houses in less than a year. He came to this country and didn’t know the language. Maybe you ought to go through this book. It only takes 1 or 2 sentences sometimes from somebody in a book to alter your path or change the way you think. We call it the nugget. I read a book. I’m looking for a nugget. You don’t have to ask when the nugget happens. The nugget will tell you it happened. You will slap your forehead and go, “That changes everything. I never thought of it like that or I finally understand. I get it now.”

It’s because someone said it in some words that were in an order that you could grasp and that touched you or reached you through all your bullshit, limiting beliefs, and everything that you have. Something got through. I love your story. I feel kin, but in no way do I have your hardship. Honest to God, I got down and started to imagine myself as an immigrant. Nobody owes me shit. I don’t know anything and have anything. I got to bring something up out of the ground and thin air. I got to make it happen.

There’s no one to turn to. I cut everybody else off. I had to go forge it myself. I did try to view myself as an immigrant. In my opinion, the immigrant that I was trying to emulate was the one that came not feeling like anything was owed to them but came for the chance to live a dream if they would put out and give up enough and persevere long enough. I made up my mind one day that I would. It’s significantly different than yours. You had nothing to go before, and I had all this shit. I had the car and the house. I had to go throw it all away to start over.

There’s a good saying in the Bible, “Those who want to gain their life will lose it. Those who want to lose their life will gain it.”

I do notice this about you too. You’re Christian-based. It’s the greatest self-help book ever written. Every self-help book that has ever been written is copied out of the Bible 1,000%. Here’s the good news. The good Lord wants you to copy it. You could even take credit for it if you want. It was said 2,000 years ago. It was all done. If you want to know what your problem is or how to fix your problem, it has always been there.

You can read it in a different book if you want to with a different cover and author, but it all came from the same place. It’s the universal truth. Tell us about the challenge. You got the challenge.

We’re going to have a segment there on how you can sign up for this challenge. Tell me. Is there a cost? Is it free? What can people expect?

By the time it’s out to you, it will be a paid challenge. Here’s the thing. It’s more of a commitment. What that means is that you get in. What we don’t want to happen is we don’t want you to start Day 1 and when Day 2 rolls around, nothing happens. You put it on a shelf and it’s gone. It’s in the void or eternal abyss. That’s what we want to avoid.

We want you to have a financial commitment because we know that way that you’re going to start and finish. The guarantee we make is that if you don’t find a single lead from that challenge, we will give you all your money back. That’s it.

How much is it?

 

We’re going to launch at $37, but we may increase it to $47. You may want to get started as soon as possible.

It’s a crazy stupid low fee. It’s like, “If you don’t want to pay $37 to learn how to get some leads, we will assume you’re not getting involved.” To put it harshly, you can’t say it because you’re selling it, but I’ll say it for you, “If you don’t want to pay $37 to learn how to get some leads with a guarantee that if you don’t get at least one lead, you get your money back, then we would rather have you wait until you’re a little more ready to get into the business.”

Some of you spent more on your dinner date last time. You paid $37 for wine.

I have a book called My Life & 1,000 Houses: The Art of Owner Financing, where I go and describe in detail what I’m paying for my houses, how I’m seller financing to my buyers and how I’m making money seller financing my buyers. I’m creating a cashflow without having to be a landlord and having any liabilities to speak of. That book is $50. I’ve had people get mad at me, “Why are you charging so much for this book?” I get calm. The madder they are, the calmer I get.

I say, “Set the book down on the table. Take your hand off of it. Back up. You’re not ready for this book. You don’t understand. There’s $1 million in that book and you’re bitching about $50.” What’s in that book can make you $10,000, easy. The reason why I set my price at $50 for that book is that book can be used to hurt a lot of people if you’re not a fair guy. If you’re not committed to the business, you can even inadvertently mess people up. I figured if you’re not serious enough to pay $50 for the book, I don’t think you’re serious enough about that one strategy. Maybe you should stay out of it.

You’ve got to commit to learning how to do these things right because when you don’t do things right, you could hurt yourself, but you could hurt people. If you did something wrong, you deserve to get a slap or have a little thing go wrong. You’re hurting people that didn’t know any better and that you’ve brought in. I don’t like that. That’s why these laws and regulations get passed and stuff, because people don’t study enough before they start some of this stuff.

We’re on that subject. I’m going to plug Texas100.org. If you’re a real estate investor and you’re making money in this industry, please support Texas100.org. We have the lobbyists that are going to Washington to find out the laws they’re proposing. It has been a lot about Dodd-Frank and seller financing. Don’t wait until they start coming out for rent controls or something to try to get onboard. We got to get way ahead of these things. Texas100.org is looking for 100 real estate investors to pay $1,000 a year, so we have $100,000 so we can hire lobbyists to watch all the rules and regs that they’re trying to pass and everything they try to do when it comes to real estate investing.

Do you have to be a Texan for that?

You don’t. You could model after us and start Oklahoma100.org. There are some people talking about how Georgia wants to do it. Normally, what happens is one state falls and then the next state starts to fall. They start using the same language.

It starts with California and then goes to New York.

New York started rent controls. Watch it start working its way down. That’s Texas100.org. Go there. If you can’t pay $1,000, pay whatever you can. We’re looking for 100 Texas investors for $1,000 a year. If you’re successful in this business, it’s nothing to be appraised of the whispers of what they’re talking about legislating. We will get in that early. The saying is, “If you are not at the table, you are on the table,” which is to say, “If you’re not in the negotiations of how this law is going to be written, then you’re going to be written out of existence.” Be careful.

It was basically, just eat, sleep, real estate and repeat. Share on X

Get the book 0 To 75 Units In 1 Year at 1000Houses.com/units. Also, take the challenge of how to generate leads. If you don’t get at least one lead, they will refund your money. It’s $37. They reserve the right to change their price anytime they want maybe to $47 or $4,700. It’s a measly $37. Why don’t you go over there and sign up for it? If you do not get on lead from this five-day experience, then they will gladly refund your money.

• 1000Houses.com/challenge  TAKE THE CHALLENGE

I don’t know how you lose on this. If you don’t convert the lead, you can’t blame that on them. Instead, you get a viable lead after that. I suppose if you get one viable lead from it, you can use the same tactics to get many more leads and go way beyond the five days. They’re trying to get you fired up here. You focus for five days, they show you what can happen, and then it’s up to you. Is there anything you want to tell the audience before we wrap it up here?

That’s about it. The big thing I want everyone to walk away with is that there is no disadvantage that is present in this country. There’s zero. It’s a lie and an excuse for people to sit around, do nothing and be comfortable. Don’t buy into it. I’ve realized that the goal in life is not to be comfortable. It’s a fallacy you fall into. The goal of life is to give, contribute and grow. That is uncomfortable to give, contribute and grow as a person.

I would like to point out that those are moving forward steps or scenarios to me. Those three words have a forward motion to them. You’re moving forward. In my humble opinion, there is no neutral. You’re either moving forward or backward. You think you’re neutral when you’re sleeping. You’re not. You’re burning energy. If you don’t get up at some point, you will starve to death. Even in your deepest sleep, you’re progressing backward. Certainly, there is no neutral in your finances.

You’re either making more or losing. There is no, “I broke even.” Maybe for a split second, you’re even, but then the needle teeters one way or the other because it never stays right there. It can’t stay right there because everything is always deteriorating from your body and the last meal that you had. If we’re going to get into discomfort, let’s get in one moving forward. Let’s be comfortable moving forward and not backward. I love you, Sam. You’re a great guy. I can’t wait to see you and your brother again. Are you in Chicago?

Yeah. Here’s a little interesting fact. I plan to move down to Texas. We’re looking at the Dallas-Fort Worth area to be able to uproot.

Bring your guns. We’re going to need them.

I got a few. I got a couple of thousands of rounds, some rations, emergency food and all kinds of stuff.

If or when you ever make it to San Antonio, please look me up personally and come visit me. That link is 1000Houses.com/units. Make sure you get your free book and take advantage of the five-day challenge of getting leads at

1000Houses.com/challenge  TAKE THE CHALLENGE

I would like to thank LiveComm.com. It’s all about capturing your prospects’ incoming calls’ cell phone numbers, using that, and using that to generate leads. I generate a ton of leads because when I put out signs, prerecording, ads or whatever I put out, I use a smart phone number.

When someone calls my smart phone number from a cell phone, it captures their cell phone number. They are now a prospect of mine. Technically, they are my customers. They have called me. I didn’t call them. I’m not cold calling or cold texting. They contacted first. I can show you all kinds of ways to do that.

LiveComm.com  and the smart phone number system have transformed my house sales into four days on the market. I don’t use one sign, not even a sign in the front yard. I sell my house in four days. All that has to do with smart phone numbers and the LiveComm system. Check it out. We’re out of here, boys and girls. I’ll see you, Sam.

 

Important Links

• 1000Houses.com/units   Get the book 0 To 75 Units In 1 Year

• 1000Houses.com/challenge  TAKE THE CHALLENGE
• LiveComm.com
• TAX FREE FUTURE Consult 1000Houses.com/TFF
• 1000Houses.com/aof  FREE TRAINING

 

About Sam Kwak

Coming to the country as an illegal immigrant, Sam Kwak had a financially disadvantaged upbringing. As an adult, Sam found himself driving Uber, until he found real estate. Today, Sam is a serial entrepreneur, real estate investor, and a certified credit counselor who helps people make or save money in the real estate space.

Sam and his brother Daniel started their real estate business back in 2015 and quickly acquired over 75 rental units in just 1 year. In his real estate journey, he discovered a secret strategy that helps homeowners pay off their mortgages in as early as 5-7 years – saving up to 70% on mortgage interest. He now helps people pay off their mortgages and acquire rental properties as an investment vehicle.

Sam and his brother currently run an online financial education company, along with a YouTube channel (The Kwak Brothers) that currently has around 200k subscribers.

 

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