Financial Independence with Real Estate Classes

Over the years, we’ve created a number of resources, taught several classes and written a number of books on how to achieve financial independence using real estate. The classes, along with descriptions and some back story, are below.

The Financial Independence Quadrilogy

A trilogy is a three-part series. A quadrilogy is a four-part series. For our financial independence classes, I have 4 different classes (so far).

The financial independence quadrilogy consists of:

How to Acquire a Multi-Million Dollar Real Estate Portfolio Starting with Just $3,000
How to Acquire a Multi-Million Dollar Investment Portfolio while Earning Just $5,000 Per Month
An Intro to Financial Independence Retire Early/How to Achieve Financial Independence and Live Your Passion Regardless of Age or Income
How to Achieve Financial Independence and Retire Early Starting with Nothing But Grit and Tenacity

I like to think of them as the $3K, $5K, FILYP and $12 classes. Here’s why.

$3K: How to Acquire a Multi-Million Dollar Real Estate Portfolio Starting with Just $3,000

First a little backstory about the $3K classes. I was preparing to teach a class on how to come up with the down payment for doing the Nomad™ real estate investing strategy. While preparing for that class, I worked out—by hand— the math behind using the tenant-buyer’s option fee as the down payment for your next purchase.

Here’s the image I created from that class.

How to Get Down Payment for Nomad Handout™

I spent a good part of the August 4, 2016 version of How to Get Down Payment for Nomad™ class walking folks through my assumptions for the image above. I even had some math errors in it. But, I was able to explain the math errors away with some small tweaks to the story.

Eventually, though I improved a very early version of the Real Estate Financial Planner™ software (back when it was called the Nomad™ Calculator) to model a full lease-option version of Nomad™. And, that was the origin of the $3K class.

In the $3K class, you start with $3,000 for the down payment for your first property. At the time, we could do nothing down loans and there was a 1% down payment loan program. I used the 1% down payment loan program to purchase the first property then used the still-available 5% down payment loan options for subsequent purchases.

I was not concerned about income requirement limitations… I just told you how much income you’d need to be earning to be able to do the program using a 45% debt-to-income ratio.

The focus was on speed. How fast could you do the model? I suggested you buy one Nomad™ property every year until you saved enough to be able to also buy 20% down payment properties as well.

The risk of the $3K model is a decline in the market which would slow down your tenant-buyers buying your properties and cashing you out. In those cases where your initial tenant-buyer moves out without exercising their option to buy, you may opt to convert the property to a rental instead of a lease-option for the second round until prices have recovered. When prices recover you can choose to continue with lease-options or just keep the property as a straight rental.

The $3K model is still valid and able to be done in today’s real estate market, but it is a very active Nomad™ strategy requiring quite a bit of hustle and work. The majority of that hustle and work is in finding qualified tenant-buyers for your lease-options.

If you’re interested in watching me teach this class over time, check out the various versions here:

Or, purchase the $3K book on Amazon.

$5K: How to Acquire a Multi-Million Dollar Investment Portfolio while Earning Just $5,000 Per Month

In the $3K class, I assumed you started with $3,000 and that you were committed to doing the lease-option model. I then told you how much money you would need to be earning to be able to do the model.

For the $5K class, I changed the starting assumptions. You’re earning $5,000 per month (which I based on the national median income in the US). A couple, each earning the now-current $12 per hour minimum wage in Colorado, would need to work 50 hours per week to make $5,000 per month combined. When I first created the class and wrote the book, I used slightly different math. However, the math I used seemed like a reasonable assumption at the time. Today, with higher minimum wage, it still seems reasonable to me.

I further assumed that you were able to save $160 per month and that you were starting with $5,000 in savings.

For each chapter of the book, I walk you through a variety of different strategies with these same baseline assumptions.

For example, here’s a summary of each chapter:

Renter saves $160 per month but refuses to invest in either stocks or real estate. This is our baseline scenario.
Renter saves $160 per month and invests that in stocks that earn them 8% per year. They do not invest in any real estate. For all the scenarios, I assume that the stock market earns 8% per year.
Homeowner buys a home with 0% down payment and invests their savings in stocks. The only real estate they own is their own home.
Homeowner buys a home with 1% down payment and invests their savings in stocks. Again, no other real estate. What impact does buying with 1% down payment have versus buying with nothing down?

IMPORTANT NOTE: This 1% down loan program no longer exists, but it did at the time I wrote it.

Homeowner buys a home with 0% down payment and invests their savings in stocks until they have enough to buy a single rental property with 20% down payment. How does a single rental property perform when combined with stocks?
Homeowner buys a home with 1% down payment and invests their savings in stocks until they have enough to buy a single rental property with 20% down payment. Does a nothing down loan have a significant difference than using a 1% down payment loan program?
Nomad™ buys a home with 0% down payment then Nomads™ into a 3% down payment property and stops buying real estate. They invest their savings in the stock market. How does a Nomad™ who only buys two properties do?
Nomad™ buys a home with 1% down payment then Nomads™ into a 3% down payment property and invests in stocks. Does 0% versus 1% down payment on the first Nomad™ property make any difference?
Homeowner buys a home with 0% down payment then buys as many 20% down payment rentals as they can save for. Invest in stocks while saving for down payments.
Homeowner buys a home with 1% down payment then buys as many 20% down payment rentals as they can save for. How big of a difference does 0% down payment versus 1% down payment make here?
Full Nomad™ starting with 0% down payment, then two at 3% down payment, then seven at 5% down payment while investing in stocks.
Full Nomad™ starting with 1% down payment, then two at 3% down payment, then seven at 5% down payment while investing in stocks. Does 0% beat out 1% or vice versa?
And finally, full 10 property Nomad™ starting with 1% down payment then 20% down payment rentals.

You’ll notice, we’re not doing stuff with lease-options here at all in $5K book.

We’re being flexible in how long it takes to implement our strategy based on the limitations of earning $5K per month and saving $160 per month. That’s what the $5K classes and book are all about.

If you’re interested in watching me teach this class over time, check out the various versions here:

Or, purchase the $5K book on Amazon.

FILYP: An Intro to Financial Independence Retire Early/How to Achieve Financial Independence and Live Your Passion Regardless of Age or Income

By the time I started working on the next class in the series, things had gotten very personal. My son graduated from college and asked me about how he could achieve financial independence before heading off to his first post-degree job working on his career. I told him what I could over a burger, but there was no way he was going to remember everything. So, I told him I’d write it all down for him in a book. This was the summer of 2018.

In November of 2018, I presented a class called An Intro to Financial Independence Retire Early. It was a rough outline of what I would refine and eventually write about in the book for my son.

That book is unique and special in quite a few ways.

First, I used my son’s exact situation as a starting point for all the modeling. Someone making good money coming right out of college with a desirable degree and having literally no savings at the start. I based the properties off of what I thought the properties were like in his local real estate market. I might add, I really don’t know his market though.

Second, it really didn’t matter what assumptions I used. Because, by this time, I had rewritten the Nomad™ Calculator to the Real Estate Financial Planner™ software that we have today. Plus, I provided everyone with links to copy any Scenario that I used in the book to their own account so they could change any of the assumptions. You earn a different amount, you have money to start, your properties different? That’s fine… just change the assumptions and rerun the Scenario to see how it works out for you.

You can copy any of the scenarios from the How to Achieve Financial Independence and Live Your Passion book.

Unlike the $3K book, I did not focus on lease-options at all in the FILYP book.

Similar to the $5K book, I did cover a variety of Scenarios. However, I included more unusual situations like paying off mortgages early, buying more properties than you needed and selling off some to pay off the others to achieve financial independence and much more.

If you’re interested in watching me teach this class, check it out here:

Or, purchase the FILYP book on Amazon. It is more expensive because it has all color charts.

$12: How to Achieve Financial Independence and Retire Early Starting with Nothing But Grit and Tenacity

Finally, the fourth class in our quadrilogy: $12.

Why $12? Because that’s minimum wage when I taught the class on How to Achieve Financial Independence and Retire Early Starting with Nothing But Grit and Tenacity.

In this class, I try to show you how to achieve financial independence when you’re starting with nothing and earning the minimum you can be paid in our state of Colorado. But, you have grit and you’re willing to be tenacious about your goal of financial independence.

The good news? Since you’re living on minimum wage, the bar to replace your income with real estate investment income is easily within reach.