226. Money and Investing Myths Busted with Stephanie Walter

Do you want to unlock the secret to financial independence and make smart investment choices? Are you tired of being misled by common money myths that hinder your wealth-building journey? Get ready to gain invaluable knowledge and tools to break free from misconceptions and make informed decisions that pave the way for long-term wealth creation.

Join us on Average Joe Finances as our guest Stephanie Walker, shatters money myths and how to control your financial future, leveraging strategic investments to achieve wealth and debunking the accumulation mindset prevalent among regular individuals.

In this episode:

• Discover retirement planning strategies to secure a comfortable future and live the life you've always dreamed of.
• Uncover the hidden costs of investment fees and learn how to minimize them to maximize your returns.
• Explore the world of real estate syndications and learn how it can help you diversify your investment portfolio and grow your wealth.
• Unlock the benefits of life insurance as a powerful tool for building wealth and protecting your loved ones.
• And so much more!

Key Moments:

00:01:08 - Seeking Financial Independence
00:02:19 - Transition to Real Estate Investing
00:03:40 - Discovering Syndication
00:04:15 - Financial Transformation
00:15:06 - Investing in 401(k)s and Tax-Free Income Strategies
00:17:54 - Investing in Real Estate for Retirement
00:20:13 - True Diversification and Asset Allocation
00:24:16 - Indexed Universal Life Insurance for Wealthy Individuals
00:30:09 - The Importance of Life Insurance
00:30:37 - The Benefits of a Healthy Lifestyle
00:31:20 - Life Insurance and Retirement

Find Stephanie Walter on:

Websites: www.erbewealth.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-walter-057594196/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erbewealth 

Check out Average Joe Finances: https://erbewealth.com/averagejoe/

Average Joe Finances®

All of our social media links and more: https://averagejoefinances.com/links

About Mike: https://mikecavaggioni.com

Show Notes add-on continued here: https://averagejoefinances.com/show-notes/

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See our full episode transcripts here: https://podcast.averagejoefinances.com/episodes

Transcript

Average Joe Finances: 0:01

Hey, welcome back to the Average Joe Finances Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Cavaggioni. And today's guest is Stephanie Walter. Stephanie, I am super excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you for joining me today.

Stephanie Walter: 0:12

Thanks so much for having me.

Average Joe Finances: 0:15

Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I want to kick things off the same way I start every podcast episode. And me and my audience would like to know more about you. So if you could share a little bit about yourself, tell us your story. Who is Stephanie Walter?

Stephanie Walter: 0:29

Oh, gosh. I think I started out like a lot of people out there. I graduated from college and got a regular W-2 job was working there for quite some time, almost eight years, and then sat down with my boss at the time. And they said, you're doing a great job better than, We're happy with you. But we see, that you're going to get a 2 percent raise this year. And I just bought a house. And I just was bummed out by that and went home. Or I just bought a house and my dad happened to be visiting. Who is he's a big mentor in my life and I just said, dad, this is what they told me. I just can't imagine being stuck making this amount of money for the rest of my life. And my dad was like you've got two choices. One, you can stay and you know what you're going to get. There's no surprises here. Second, you can quit and be your own boss and really achieve, What you are ambitious enough to achieve. And so I gave my two weeks notice that the next day and I started an insurance agency. And while I was doing the insurance agency, I invested a lot in single family homes. I didn't have a lot of education with them. But I just bought where I thought there'd be growth in the Denver metro area. And luckily enough for me, that was, pretty close to the time of the crash. I was able to buy, a nice little portfolio of single family homes. And then I was contacted by someone who knew I liked real estate investing to join a bootcamp about syndicating real estate deals. And I jumped on that. That's when I first heard the concept of syndication, which was. Like heaven sent felt that was I was meant to do this. I love the idea of a group of people buying something that no one could do on their own. And so I went full on into that. I still had my business, but I, it took two years to really get a good education to do this. I completed my first syndication in 2018 and by myself, realized I didn't ever want to do one by myself again and met up with my partner. He's someone who loves to find the deals, negotiate the deals and run them, and I like to raise money. So together, we've closed on about 12 deals since 2019. We have over about a 300 million of assets under management. And then I had a I guess an epiphany from working with all of my wealthy investors that I, myself was handling my finances the wrong way. And so by interacting and becoming friends and really learning about my investors, I was able to move my money around. And as such, I was able to sell my agency and essentially retire in 2021. And that's become my passion. I've written a book about money myths that were taught and just, yeah that's how I got here to talk to your audience.

Average Joe Finances: 3:47

Yeah, Stephanie. That's awesome. So got a lot to unpack here, right? So I was taking notes as you were going. It's just a quick recap. So you started off, you went to college, got the W-2 job, the standard American dream, right? Bought the house and they said, Oh, by the way, we're only giving you a 2 percent raise. And you're like, hold on, this doesn't sound right. And then your dad gave you some great advice. Now, when you left and you started your own insurance agency, and then you started investing in single family homes, right? You started buying more out there in the Denver, Colorado area. How did you, this is just a question I have out of curiosity. How did you go and purchase those single family homes when you left your W-2 and started your own business? Cause a lot of times, you have to have that two years of income to show if you're self employed or own a business. So how did you get that to work out? Were you able to get funding for those single family homes?

Stephanie Walter: 4:39

Actually, I guess I probably I streamlined it pretty quickly, but I didn't start my agency in 2005. And then it was a few years before I started purchasing my own, but I did do, I did a strategy similar to the BRRRR method because I was single at the time. And so I just, found a house, that strategy is buying, living there. And then renting it out and then doing this and then just moving every couple of years. And that's what I was doing. So no,

Average Joe Finances: 5:12

you were doing like the live in BRRRR's.

Stephanie Walter: 5:14

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances: 5:15

Nice. Okay. So you would live in them, renovate them, then move and sell them. Or rent them out.

Stephanie Walter: 5:21

Rent them out was my idea. Yeah.

Average Joe Finances: 5:23

And then did you pull the capital back out of them to put into another asset?

Stephanie Walter: 5:27

Yeah, towards the end, yes, yep. I definitely was accessing that equity.

Average Joe Finances: 5:33

Yeah. So if you, so did you start buying real estate in 2005 or was it after the crash when you started buying?

Stephanie Walter: 5:40

I started buying my first property I bought in 05. But then after that, everything else was dur after the crash. Okay. The 2007, 2008, and 2009 were all the times I bought, which were fairly good times to be buying.

Average Joe Finances: 5:56

Yeah.'cause I bought my first property in 2007, and then when the crash happened in 2008 and 2009 it was rough. I was 22 years old and I had this, quarter million dollar house that went from being worth $250,000, actually at one point it was up to $306,000 down to, I sold it for $157,000 when I short sold it. It was awful. So that definitely left a bad taste in my mouth, which is why I was curious, like as to when you started buying, if it was, if you started buying before the crash and then you kept going after the crash, I was going to say hats off to you because man, I don't know if I could do that. Cause I, it was rough for me. It took me years before I recovered and jumped back into real estate again. That's awesome.

Stephanie Walter: 6:35

Yeah. The first one was in 2005 and that one, that area just of Denver didn't really take it. And plus I didn't sell it either. So I didn't take that loss but yeah, the rest of them were during the recession. So that was it.

Average Joe Finances: 6:49

You were still able to rent it out during the crisis, right? So it's still cash flowed.

Stephanie Walter: 6:55

Yeah. That was the beauty of that time. They still needed people, a lot of people needed rentals because they were losing their houses or,

Average Joe Finances: 7:04

The unfortunate thing for me, the area where I was in was not a good area to have a property for rent. It just wasn't a thing. So it was once I lost my tenants that were there, I was done and I had to sell the place. So yeah, it was unfortunate. And even when I had tenants in the place, I was losing $300 to $400 a month. Just against my mortgage alone. So it was rough, but we're going to, we're going to get past all that. So you got into it, right? You started buying these single family homes and then you went to, you said it was like a bootcamp, right? And you learned about syndications and. You said you did your first one on your own. What do you mean by that? So did you bring in, you brought in all the investors and you were like the sole GP on that deal?

Stephanie Walter: 7:46

Yep. Yep. That one was it was a smaller one. Yeah. So there was only, I think four or five investors and I still have the property to this day. But yeah, it was incredibly stressful process to manage all the things you have to manage when purchasing by yourself. So yeah, I quickly decided that was not the route for me.

Average Joe Finances: 8:11

Right on. After that experience, you discovered you, you don't want to do this alone. You want to have partners, which is definitely something I talk about a lot. You definitely don't have to go it alone. You can, it's just going to be more stressful and you're not going to scale as quick as you could if you did it with other people. So you get into real estate syndications, you discovered that. This is where you felt like you belonged. And now you said since 2018 was your first syndication to now you said you've obtained over 300 million in assets under management.

Stephanie Walter: 8:43

Yes.

Average Joe Finances: 8:44

Yeah. That's really impressive. So that's, to start in 2018 to where you're at now that's really impressive. So great job on that. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. And then you wrote a book, right? And in your book you were talking about, some of the myths that we learn about money growing up, right? Whatever that standard American dream is, right? And it's funny that, cause the acronym for that is S. A. D. It makes me sad when I think about it, but when you think about the standard American dream, right? Versus what you learned in this process, what are some of the myths that you felt like you busted in your book?

Stephanie Walter: 9:20

Oh, gosh, a lot of myths, but and for me, a lot of those myths were my own held beliefs too. And actually I was raised by an entrepreneur and I thought, Oh, I'm. I'm doing things differently. I'm I'm better than everyone else, but no the first one I'll hit is the mindset difference. The mindset between a regular person and a wealthy person is that they view I was viewing money in the accumulation. Mindset, which just means most people in this day and age have 401ks. They let them accrue. They have very little idea of what they're invested in, what kind of fees they're paying, what kind of even returns they're getting, but the goal is just keep the money. Don't touch it and wait till they retire. And then they'll have this nest egg. And hopefully that'll be enough to keep. Keep them getting money. For me, I bought a lot of single family homes and I was like, I was leveraging to get, homes and doing it over and over again. I'm getting, maybe $100,$200 out in cash flow. Not great deal of of cash flow. And so the same thing. My idea was hold on to these. For 30 years, who cares what the cash flow is in the meantime. And then when they're all paid off, then you can retire in 30 years. But what the difference is the wealthy person has utilization as their mindset. And that just basically means that they are in, they use their money all the time. Their money is always working for them. I use the analogy of that. Their money is like their employee. That basically, what are you doing for me today? They look at investments in a much different way than then. Anyone else does as far as a 401k and investing, they understand who's running the companies, what their what their goals are, what exit strategies are what cash flow will be gotten and appreciation in the meantime and definitely most importantly, they know what kind of tax ramifications are going to be in and therefore they're preparing for those exits With tax strategies to handle their gains.

Average Joe Finances: 11:43

Yeah, no that's huge because mindset is probably the biggest thing that holds people back. And I like how you describe it. It's the same way that I feel like rich dad, poor dad explained it. When it comes to, employing your dollars, putting them to work and not. Not you working for them, but them working for you. And I think a lot of us get caught up in this, we get these golden handcuffs, right? Especially if you get into a high paying job and you feel like, okay this is where I'm going to be at for the rest of my life because it pays so well, and if I just keep investing, in my 401k, then I can retire at the ripe old age of 65. And then. You look back at that and then you look at the average age of people in America, right? And right now it's, I think what 73 or something like that. So you work up until you're 65 to retire, to give yourself, seven, eight years of enjoyment of your retirement before you're done. And it's what why would you do that to yourself? Work, at this point, you've worked for over 40 years and and you give yourself so little. Time to recover on the back. And that's why I felt it's so important to push to get financial independence as soon as possible. Then do whatever the heck you want, right? Then focus on some other things. But once you can reach that point of financial independence, the world is your oyster. So you can just shuck it. Okay. Now, you had mentioned, a lot of times people put their money into their 401k and they're not even really sure what it's actually going into. So what do you say people should actually be putting that money into instead of a 401k or should they still put into their 401k and figure out where, what stocks it's actually invested in? What are your recommendations on that?

Stephanie Walter: 13:28

Okay. People need to understand the history of the 401k. It just, came to be 30 years ago. Okay. Things were different 30 years ago. Our tax rates were actually, if you can believe it, they were higher than they are right now. They're actually lower right now. So the idea was when you contribute to your 401k, you get to write off Those taxes then waited out for the 30 years and that, and then take the money out at a lower tax rate. Quite certainly from everything that we know about what's going on with our economy is we're in the lowest tax rates we've ever been in since the history of the country. Then on the average from when These taxes were introduced in 1913. The average tax rate was 58.8%. We're around 40 percent right now. We know there's terrible. There's a terrible debt problem and we know in 2025, that sunsets and they're going to come up with new tax rates. The idea of investing in a product that in a lower tax rate environment. And then paying the taxes later is pretty flawed for my perspective. But I understand that people are very attached to their 401ks and they want to. Possibly work and make them better. And there's certainly lots of ways to do that. First of all, you need to take the money and put it into indexed products, index funds, the learn what your fees are. And get those fees as low as possible. In one chapter of my book, I talk about the difference between someone paying 3 percent fees, 2 percent fees and 1 percent fees and what that does over the course of them holding their whole working life and their portfolio. Literally the person that has the 1 percent fees has to work. 10 more years, basically, so it's not insignificant. I just want people to be more engaged with their investments. But secondly, I would say if you're your company's matching, you do the match up to the match. And then there are many other strategies in which you can put the rest of that money. And those are you should be looking for tax free income. So either Roth, if you make too much money for a Roth, you can move into a cash value life insurance policy. Lots of people turn their noses up at that, but it's a very good strategy for growing your money. You grow it in a tax free environment and you take it out tax free. And so in 20 years $50,000 or$100,000 coming to you tax free is you really have to have that strategy. In your portfolio. And then the last thing I'll say is that a lot of people work many jobs over the course of their lives, and they have old forgotten 401ks that they've literally forgotten about. But the financial companies don't forget about them. They get their cut of your money every year. And I would encourage you to take those 401ks, you can roll them into a self directed IRA and truly you are able to direct that money. It's that simple. It's a simple process. You just roll it over, put it with a custodian. They'll probably charge you 175 to set it up. And then literally you can invest that money wherever you want it to be.

Average Joe Finances: 17:02

Yeah. So you're talking about rolling it over into a self directed IRA, right?

Stephanie Walter: 17:07

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances: 17:07

Is that's that's pretty significant because I know a couple of people that have done that. And one of the biggest benefits is, they're now taking that money that they had in the 401k that they rolled over and now they're able to invest it in real estate. And now part of their retirement. Are these real estate syndications that they were able to invest in as an LP and all those returns that they're getting off of that is going right into their retirement account, right? And it's continuing to grow at a significantly higher rate than what it was leaving it in index funds, right? Index funds are great. I'm not going to hate on index funds. I invest in index funds a little bit myself just because I like to have diversification. But there's so much diversification you can actually get just through real estate alone that people don't really realize. And for me, I look at it this way because in real estate, every single market is different. So if you want to diversify in real estate, invest in different markets, right? There's some markets that appreciate way better than others. There's some markets that are much better for cashflow. So if you're looking for, you want to have that higher monthly payment to yourself, Then you're going to want to invest in those cashflow producing markets. If you want to be in an area where it's I want to build my wealth gradually but in a strong manner, you want to invest in those high appreciating areas, right? Where the homes are just skyrocketing in price every. Some areas like, where I live at out here in Hawaii, we appreciate at a rate of, every 10 to 12 years that the home has doubled in price, right? So it's absolutely amazing. So now. If you were to invest out here for cashflow, you ain't going to get it there. It's not happening. You know what people pay for rent would pale in comparison to what your mortgage would be, especially with today's rates. But if you're somebody who's patient and can hold on for about 10, 15, 20, 30 years, right? That one asset is going to make you a ton of money. I think things like that are important for people to think about, right? When it comes to diversification, it doesn't just necessarily mean be in the stock market, be in real estate, be in all these other different assets, have precious metals. That's great. And yes, you should diversify that way, but you can also diversify. In those markets themselves, even in the stock market, you can diversify to what kind of funds you're putting into there's just so many ways to go about doing it. Would you agree with that?

Stephanie Walter: 19:28

Yes. Yep. 100%. I get on the email list of Tiger 21. I encourage everyone else to as well. I get nothing from them, but it's a great resource. It's Tiger 21 is a group that accepts members in there that have$10 Million of net worth or higher. And every year as a part of being a part of this group where they network and talk about their investments, that they will disclose their investments at the quarterly every year. So, they just came out with a report not. I think it was last week and same thing. These are truly diversified people. Hey, they've got probably I think they said it was slightly increasing 30 percent in real estate. They've got a 25 percent in private equities, so so that still is not the stock market. Then they've got about 20 percent in public equities. So those would be stocks and bonds. Then the rest of it's a hodgepodge of different things. But those 3 are very consistent. It's always real estate. It's the big 1 then private equities is usually higher. Then public equities. And yes, that when people tell us to diversify, it doesn't mean to go to your into your 401k and diversify over a million different mutual funds, just absolutely is that it's not true. Diversification is having truly non market related assets.

Average Joe Finances: 20:58

Absolutely. Yeah. So I love that. I just wanted to point that out because I think a lot of people might be listening and they hear the diversification so many times and they're like I'm in so many different stocks or I'm, I'm in this and I'm in that. They're true diversification is like really knowing where your money is for one, right? It's not oh, okay. Yeah. I dabble a little bit here. I dabble a little bit there. No. How much of a percent of your portfolio? Is in each sector, right? I think that's super important. And then figure out where in those sectors you want that. Cash to be. Okay. Now you had also mentioned, somebody having a life insurance policy, right? To be able to get tax free income. And I've, we've talked about that on this podcast a couple times. We've had folks come on and talk about how to get whole life insurance policies and do that Now, what makes you a fan of this method?

Stephanie Walter: 21:48

I am. I'm a fan of life insurance, but I'm a fan of a different type of life insurance. And this is because I work, like I said, I have worked for years with wealthy people and consistently the wealthy people I've met all have this product. And I actually, I saw some survey the other day that said 40 percent of the affluent purchase. This type of product. So it's definitely worth thinking about it's called an indexed universal life policy. Now, the way that I structure it for my people and people that have a high net worth, or they make a fairly good living, you can, and this is an incredible strategy, you can leverage a bank. To pay your life insurance premium. Most people have never heard of this. Don't go to your state farm or farmer's agent and ask them. They will not know it at all. You have to work with someone that is a wealth advisor that is very familiar with this, but essentially. So let's use easy numbers. They insured person qualifies. That's the big part. They need to qualify for the life insurance. They put $200,000 in over the course of five years. The rest of the premium is paid by the insurance company. It's a million dollars that they put into this policy and we structure it so that it's growing up for whatever. Everyone has a different strategy. Most people like this for tax free income because they love the idea of a bank contributing to their that's like having a bank contribute to your pension fund. Who doesn't love this? So the way that it works is all of the interest and payments are taken out. In year 13, so essentially, you don't have to pay the bank anything you're getting alone and there's no paying them or anything like that. But at year 13, we structure it so that they can pull the money out of the policy. The bank can and at that time it's running an overdrive. And so depending on how old the person is, they, they get this at year 20 at year 15 or 20, whatever, whatever their time horizon is, they get tax free income. But the main thing is that it grows within this tax. It grows and gets the ups in the market, but none of the downs. So it's tied in a way to the market, but it never takes. So if there are any losses. They get zero in return. So there's no losses in that. This is another reason the wealthy people love this because they never lose any money in this product. And so then by the time they're ready to start taking the money could be depending on how young they are when they get this set up. It could be 100 grand 150 grand that they're able to take tax free for the rest of their lives. And it's extraordinary. Now, for the people that don't qualify, maybe they don't have the net worth to qualify for something like that. Still, an indexed universal life is an amazing product in the way that it grows. And I want to reverse engineer a little bit. They tell us that we need a million dollars to retire. Okay. Then a few, although that was a few weeks ago, they said, okay, to live on that money for the rest of your life means you take out 2.5%. That means you take out $25,000 for the rest of your life. And yay, good for you. Then the tax man might be who knows that might be taking 40 percent on the low end, maybe taking 50 or 60 percent of it. So now that $25,000 doesn't look so good. No, the you just have to have tax free income. And if you look at how these policies and you structure them with someone who is there to build you a tax free income, these are incredibly great. Resources to use and products. Yeah that, like I said, a traditionally wealthy person uses for sure. And they love it. My real estate people love it because it mimics very much like real estate.

Average Joe Finances: 26:08

Yeah. And then you can also borrow from these policies too, right? If you need to take out a loan to put a down payment on a piece of real estate and things like that.

Stephanie Walter: 26:17

That's why the wealthy people really like them because they're very liquid and the money just sits in there. And the beauty of these policies, the IUL in particular, I'm talking about not whole life is that when you take money out of it, you're charged. 2 percent loan charge because we want the IRS to know this is a loan, but at the same time in this IUL policy, you get a credit of 2%. So you get a 0 percent loan on your money to go out and invest it in something else. So quite extraordinary.

Average Joe Finances: 26:53

I love that. So I actually have an IUL policy myself. So that's why, I was asking about that because, I know that's one of the things I was looking at is how I can actually borrow from it in the future. But then also, I'd like how, around year 15 to year 20, how I could just get this tax free income, which is just absolutely awesome. I do want to supercharge it a little bit. So I am going to start putting a lot more money into it versus just what I have set up now. But I think, If you know how the policy is structured or you had somebody structure it right for you, it can be extremely useful for anybody, whether you want to use it as a real estate, another vehicle to buy more real estate or just another vehicle to get tax free income in the future which I intend to use it for both.

Stephanie Walter: 27:36

Yeah. And it's great. And the beauty is, you're doing it as you look younger than I am. But most people wait and they wait. And I just had a 47 year old, let me see, 48 year old that applied super healthy, looked as healthy as could be to me. And she got declined and, that's a bummer. It's a bummer when you want it and you don't have the health to get it.

Average Joe Finances: 28:00

Yeah, so I got mine a couple years ago. I'm 39 now and when I got it they came out, they did the blood work and everything. And I had, I used to be a smoker, right? But I quit smoking so long ago that they said, it doesn't even count. And. We actually wound up getting like the lowest rate possible super, which was great. And the blood work came back great because we, we actually eat plant based in our house. So blood work was great. Everything else is great. And now fast forward to, I retired from the Navy. I'm having a couple issues now. But that doesn't affect my insurance policy, which is great. So if I was to go get one today, They might decline me but yeah, so it's just, it just depends on do it young, you have the opportunity to do it young. So for my younger listeners, if you're thinking about getting a life insurance policy go do it now while you're young. And if you're not thinking about it, start thinking about it because it is something that's going to protect you and your family. In the future and besides the added protection, you can use it as a income producing vehicle, right? Which is the goal, right? That's what we're all trying to do. Okay. Stephanie this has been absolutely fantastic. I'd like to transition this into something that I call the final round. It's where I'm going to ask you the same four questions. I ask everybody that comes on the show and it gives us a good idea of how you are under a little bit of pressure. So if you're ready to go we'll get that party started.

Stephanie Walter: 29:17

Sure.

Average Joe Finances: 29:18

All right, let's do it. So Stephanie, first question of the final round is what's the biggest mistake you've ever made when it comes to your finances or business life?

Stephanie Walter: 29:31

I think I think when I first took over the agency or when I first started my agency, I made some decisions. I put, I Spent money. I didn't save enough for an upsea moment a tax or something like that, that I wasn't expecting. And I, my dad actually had passed away after he gave me the advice. And so I just had to wing it. For me, it really taught me that you've got to leave a cushion, whether that's in your business or in your personal life, in case something comes up unexpectedly.

Average Joe Finances: 30:12

Yeah. No, that's a great point. And very big, very big thing people need to be thinking about, is where's that cushion that you have in your life. And you get caught without having that cushion. It's going to be bad. So definitely appreciate the transparency there. Okay. Next question, Stephanie, you're going to see that these kind of tie into each other. And that is, what is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first started out?

Stephanie Walter: 30:37

Oh, boy, I've learned so much. I've had so many great mentors. I, gosh I would say that I wish I would have gotten into syndication sooner. But also, the laws were in just changed in 2012 to allow for crowdfunding. But as soon as I could have gotten to that party, I would have wanted to be there. Because it's an extraordinary way to invest syndications. And as you mentioned, there's so many different ways to invest that way and truly diversifies literally you can syndicate anything from a private jet to to multifamily to an office space. Yeah, it's an incredible strategy.

Average Joe Finances: 31:24

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Definitely. Appreciate that. All right, Stephanie. So this next question, again, they tie into each other, but this is going to help some of our listeners. Do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started out today?

Stephanie Walter: 31:41

Oh, boy. Getting started out in real estate, I would say definitely you can contact people like myself. You can contact there's lots of people out there, but I personally have had a lot of experience investing in syndications and actually running them. But I would love to talk to people and have them learn how to do due diligence. I think a lot of people get intimidated and they don't want to participate in these alternate investments, we call them. But these investments are so incredible. And, you just don't be shy about seeking out help and trying to learn about what due diligence is. I personally, I have some of my very wealthiest investors are my good friends, and I still ask them questions about deals. I'm looking to invest in private equity. And, it's a whole different due diligence animal there. And I'm like how should I do this? How would you recommend this? So I say, find a group of people that are all wanting to invest, talk to them. If you find a mentor that can be involved in the group please, please do that, just don't shy away from it.

Average Joe Finances: 32:55

Yeah, no that's huge. I definitely appreciate that answer because networking is something I talk about a lot, and real estate is the game you want to get into, especially real estate syndications and multifamily. You're going to want to surround yourself with people that are actually in that. You don't want to just jump into it by yourself. Feet first, cause you're going to wind up finding out that you're jumping onto a thin pad of ice and you're going to slip and crack your head open. So it's really important that you have those other people that jump with you. So can you break through that layer and get into the water? Sorry. I love analogies all the time, but it's very important that you actually do it with a team and not by yourself, especially when you're taking down such big deals. And then the other piece of that too, the networking piece, like you meet so many amazing people that you can learn from. That's why I love going to real estate conferences. I love going to real estate meetups. That's why I host a meetup out here on Oahu every second Wednesday of the month, and it's just, it's a great group of people that all come together and we talk about what we're working on. We network, we eat pizza and we hang out, and it's just a good time. So yeah, definitely. I love that answer. I feel like anybody that, that wants to get involved or get started out, definitely find a group of people that are like minded, find a mentor, even find a coach. I've paid coaches before too. I think it's saved me money in the long run. So things like that are super important. Okay. Enough of that. It's me asking you questions, not me answering. Okay. Stephanie, final question of the final round. And I'll preface this with, besides your own, do you have a favorite business, investing, or real estate related book or podcast or both?

Stephanie Walter: 34:28

I have I have many mentors that, gosh, I was, I just finished a book last night, but my, I'll go to my usual one, which is killing sacred cows. I think that's a great book. It's written by Garrett Gunderson. He it's very much a philosophy. And mindset book about money. And it makes you really breaks down a lot of what I've said today, which is, the 401k really start questioning that take responsibility for your own money, do all of these things, super, super important. But I've been reading a lot of also books. I think it's called who wants to be a millionaire. It's a real short read for your people that don't want to like. Read a real long. Cause I think Garrett's books like 300 pages. This one I finished in a night it's who wants to be a millionaire. I think that's what's called by Tom Hegna, HEGNA, another mentor of mine. Who just, he really just breaks it down for people in their twenties, thirties, forties, I wish I would have had that book then. And it's super simple read and you'll get a lot out of it.

Average Joe Finances: 35:41

Awesome. Thank you so much for those recommendations. I wrote them down. Killing sacred cows. I think I've heard that recommendation only one other time before, and I'm not even sure it was on my podcast. It might've been on another podcast I was listening to. That might be a first on this one. And then also the other one was who wants to be a millionaire. So yeah, absolutely. And that was also a great TV show. I enjoyed that. Yes. Yes. Okay. No, Stephanie this has been awesome. Thank you so much. I do want to ask you An even more important question. Okay. The final round's over, but I have something that, you know. My audience has been listening to this interview and they're saying, Hey, I really appreciate where Stephanie is coming from her point of view and you know what she's told us about. I also heard mentioned that she wrote a book. So people that are listening right now, I was like, Hey, where can I find more information about Stephanie? So if you could share with us, do you have a website, social media, anything like that? And where can we find your book?

Stephanie Walter: 36:36

Yeah, I, you can go to my website, which is www.erbewealth.com. And on that, the first thing I'm having the book on my website. I haven't put it up on Amazon yet. But I'm offering it for free because I think it's a great resource. And then from there, you can be added to a list of email that I try to provide a lot of education and good information to people that are on my list. And yeah, that, that's probably the best way. And then you could even schedule a call if you want to talk. I love, like I mentioned to help people get in the right head space to know how they can get to the next level.

Average Joe Finances: 37:20

Awesome. Thank you so much for that. And you know what? I want to ask you one more thing to close things out. Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?

Stephanie Walter: 37:30

I think that it's a scary time for a lot of people, if they're listening, to what's going on out there. But I think there are so many different, you really can't get caught up in that space. The real estate market multifamily market is very strong, no matter what they're saying about commercial real estate. It's we're terribly under. Developing housing for people. So that's always going to be a great place to put your money. And in addition, think of the rents ever go down. No, you could actually pull it up on the Internet. It'll show from the 60s to now. That there's never been really a, there's been maybe a little bit of a flattening, maybe a little down, but not anything significant. It's a great way to inflation protect your money. But yeah, just get more involved, more control of your assets is really my message for people. And if you have problems or fears or whatever, just, you can find a mentor or come seek someone like myself out who would be happy to help.

Average Joe Finances: 38:37

Awesome. Thank you, Stephanie, so much. Thank you so much for that. Fantastic. And also I forgot to mention this to the links that you gave us before. I'll make sure that's in the show notes for our listeners to copy and paste or click away. The only thing I ask is that you don't do it if you're driving right now, please, and thank you. Stephanie, again, I want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your day today to have this conversation with me and just put out so much great information, valuable information and golden nuggets for my listeners to take away and do with what they will. So appreciate you very much.

Stephanie Walter: 39:09

Thank you so much for having me. It was great.

Average Joe Finances: 39:12

Absolutely. And Hey, I also want to thank all of my listeners for joining me and our special guest, Stephanie Walter on the average Joe finances podcast, go leave us a five star review and tell us what you liked about today's episode with Stephanie. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your day.