Podcast 212. Building a Real Estate Agent Business with Ali Garced

Average Joe Finances:
0:02

Hey, Welcome back to the Average Joe Finances podcast. I'm your host Mike Cavaggioni, and today's guest is the one, the only Ali Garced. So I met Ally at RUB-CON this past year and we kicked it off, like really great. She's a super cool person, super genuine, and she was also my plug for extra drinks with the, with the tickets that, that they offered there. But we're gonna keep that hush. Dustin, if you're listening, I'm sorry. But anyway, Ali, thank you so much for joining me today. Welcome to the show.

Ali Garced:
0:32

Thank you so much for having me, Mike. I really appreciate it. And yeah, Dustin, I don't know what Mike is talking about. These drink tickets wasn't me. It must have been somebody else.

Average Joe Finances:
0:40

It must have been Caitlyn or something. So it was Caitlyn. Alright now that the blame game's out of the way let's let's get this party started. Let's talk about what we came here to talk about. But first, My listeners would like to know who you are, so if you could please tell us a little bit about yourself, share your story. Who is Ali Gared?

Ali Garced:
1:01

Yeah. I am a New York transplant, currently living in Tucson, Arizona. I didn't know you from New I'm also from New York. From New York, Westchester. We spoke about this when we both had a little bit too much to drink.

Average Joe Finances:
1:15

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Long Island okay, cool.

Ali Garced:
1:17

Yeah. Yeah. From White Plains originally.

Average Joe Finances:
1:19

Nice.

Ali Garced:
1:20

I went to college in North Carolina, small private school called Elon University. From there, because it was so expensive, I joined the military. I did ROTC, so I commissioned into the Air Force in 2012, and I served for a decade and I recently separated. Because right now we're recording in June, 2022 I, or 2023. I separated in October of 2022. So it's been about like, what, seven, eight months since I've separated. While I was active duty, I was a special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. And I, I did originally only was gonna do the four years, which was required for paying back my scholarship that I got for Elon University. So then four years turned into 10. And at that point, I was starting to look at the the higher ups, the colonels that I was gonna be replacing Lieutenant Colonels. And I realized that I did not want the life that they were living and, hats off to them for doing 20 plus years sometimes. But that was not the trajectory of my life that I wanted to go in. So I heavily started to think about, what else can I do? What other job can I go to? Or how can I supplement this income that I'm making now? Because as a major in the air force, you're making, or in the service, you're making pretty good money. And I was in Tucson, Arizona and I was like, Hey, yeah, there, there aren't a lot of options that would replace that income dollar for dollar I stumbled across, BiggerPockets Real Estate investing in 2018, and I was already putting 50% of my paycheck into investments, whether it was like T s P index funds or saving up for a property. So use my VA loan twice. My wife and I have a portfolio about seven properties now, eight doors. The. What we do is pretty much just move into another property every year and a half. So we get the, best rates because it's owner occupied loan and slow but steady, and I, the last year that I spent as active duty, I became a realtor and that is where my business took off. That is where I realized, I got to the point where the Air Force was holding me back. I was making less money because I was still active duty. So I separated.

Average Joe Finances:
3:35

Alright, what a story. It's funny because I wound up doing 20 years in the Navy. But I was enlisted first before I commissioned. And one of the things for me was like I felt like I was gonna stay in until they told me to go home. But as I got closer to 20 years I also got my real estate license near the end of my career. About a year and a half before I got out, no, two, two years before I got out and started doing real estate on the side. Mostly doing referrals because I was super busy. I was the exo over on a big staff. So I didn't really have the time to take on clients and, but the referrals, I was like this is some of the easiest money I ever made. This is really cool. I just give a name. If that person buys a property, I get 25% of that commission. That's pretty cool. So that was awesome and I got convinced to get my license and do that by somebody else that I met at a real estate meetup. So that's why I think, different things like conferences and meetups are just so important. You get to treat ideas with people. I would've never done something like that if that wasn't like an idea that somebody pushed to me like I was at that real estate meetup to talk about real estate and to complain about the deal that I just closed in Chesapeake, Virginia and how Covid is ruining everything, right? And, but no here we were and somebody put this bug in my ear and it was probably one of the best things I ever did. So yeah, so I definitely see your point there and you coming up and saying hey, at the 10 year mark, but you're halfway to retirement now at this point. You're looking at, your superior officers and saying, ah, I'm not necessarily sure this is what I wanna keep doing. So I definitely appreciate your point of view there. For me, I was already like, in poker terms, I was already pot committed because I decided like I wanted to get out probably around my 17 or 18 year mark. Like I knew 20 was it for me, right? And at that point, like I wasn't just gonna get out. I was like I'm too close to, to not get that check for the rest of my life. Yeah. Now, if it was the 10 year mark probably would've got out. But no, that, that's fantastic. Now, as you progressed, towards the end of your career in the Air Force, you got your real estate license, what made you feel comfortable enough to actually jump ship and resign as an officer?

Ali Garced:
5:51

This is a great question and it was something that I struggled with a lot, as much or rather as miserable as I personally was in the military. This is not me bashing the military. This is just my own personal experience. My views do not represent the views of the dod. As miserable as I was during that time, I was still, the fear of the unknown of me doing something else was still greater than my known misery of being in, and that is so like backward to me now. Like knowing I would've, I was choosing to stay in knowing I didn't like it versus taking a chance on something else that I might like and it's so crazy.

Average Joe Finances:
6:33

Taking a chance on yourself.

Ali Garced:
6:35

Exactly.

Average Joe Finances:
6:36

Adding on yourself.

Ali Garced:
6:37

Exactly. The reason I became a realtor to begin with is my wife had put that, in the back of my mind for a while. She was like, Hey, why don't you become a realtor? You like talking to people, you like real estate? I'm like, yeah, but I don't like kitchens and I don't like talking about architecture and I don't like the pretty thing. I don't wear heels. I don't dress up. I'm like, that's, I don't, I'm not selling sunset here. That's not me. And, but then I started talking more and more to agents that. And then I realized they were running their own business. It is a whole ass business. There's KPI to track and it's all just like a sales funnel. I was like, whoa, this part I really like. I don't have to wear heels in order to make a commission. It's like this. I just, it's all numbers and I love numbers. So I started it while I was still my, last year of active duty. Because I wanted to give it one full year of me just, full throttle me trying out this real estate agent gig.'cause if I didn't like it, I was just going to, take on the next assignment with the Air Force. And I, so I had two questions that I wanted to answer for myself. One, can I match my income of $107,000 that I was making in the military? And number two, do I like it? Is this something that I actually want to do even if I do match it? Is this something that I wanna do for who knows how many years? And so that was my goal, to make$107,000 at least match it, just match what I'm making in the military. And I matched that in month eight. And I obviously was still a part-time agent. I did 24 transactions my first year. And I'm almost done with my second year. Yeah, I'm almost done with my second year. I have two months left and I've done over 52 transactions and I, it got to the point where, that's where I'm saying like I was so busy and I knew that. While I was active duty and doing pretty much full-time real estate, it was unsustainable, but I wanted to push myself that one year. So I told my wife, I was like, Hey, gimme one year I'm gonna be busy as fuck, but I'm gonna see if this works because otherwise, I'm out. I'm out of the military. Yeah. So it worked. And even seeing it, like even seeing my bank account and knowing, like doing the numbers, tracking everything, at month eight, I saw that I already hit one of those two check marks said, can I match my income? Yes. And number two, like the number two was checked as well, cause I liked it. Even seeing that written down black and white, it was still hard mentally to let go of something. And I'm quoting air quote something secure.'cause even being in the military, that's not a secure job. There are furloughs layoffs like they're you, it's still not secure. But I was like, you know what? I now, this is no longer the unknown and I can say goodbye to being miserable. So I did it. I made the jump, and I am so glad that

Average Joe Finances:
9:24

I did. Yeah, that's awesome. So you gave yourself that last year, and I can understand why in that last year why it was tough to give it up because yeah you matched your income in month eight, but you still had that income, right? So you had that income plus what you were doing as a real estate agent. So you're like, oh man. I can do both and this works. But then realistically, you're like killing yourself that year trying to do both jobs, right? So that can definitely weigh on you so totally understand. Hey, you gotta go. You get, you make your choice and you gotta go. But not only that, when you got out and went full time, you more than doubled what you did your first year, which is insane. So congratulations, Ali.'cause that is fantastic. You're crushing it. I didn't know your story about how many transactions you've done. Like I know that you were kicking ass as a real estate agent when I met you at RUB-CON, but I didn't know you were kicking that much ass. So that is really super cool now. Besides being a real estate agent, you were also investing in real estate, right? You said you have seven properties and that's eight doors Now, is this something that you started doing? You said around 2018 is when you started.

Ali Garced:
10:36

I purchased my first property in 2016. So I used the VA loan, then it was a condo in Colorado Springs when I was stationed there at Peterson. And I rented it out pretty immediately 'cause I got short notice deployment orders. So I, then I went to Kandahar, Afghanistan, I rented it out and that's when I was like, Hey, this is nice, put that on the back burner because I was busy with work stuff and it resurfaced two years later, 2018, when I got more of the investing bug.

Average Joe Finances:
11:05

Yeah. So that bug bit you in 2018 getting on BiggerPockets and listening to the podcast and checking out the forms. I did the same thing in 2019, so a little bit after you. But the fact that you'd already had a taste of that in 2016 you know it, it's already given you kinda okay, it's like positive reinforcement. So when that bug bit, it probably bits you a little bit harder. Then it bit me because my first experience as an accidental landlord was very painful. Because I bought that property in 2007 and we all know what happened the next year. Yeah, that was the pain. Very painful. But anyway. Okay, so now you had that place in Colorado Springs and then in 2018 is that when you wound up in Tucson?

Ali Garced:
11:47

Yeah, so I moved to Tucson after a couple of assignments in between there. And the assignment that I was in, I was working counterintelligence in South America and Central America, so I was TDY. Over 180 days outta the year. So I didn't even have time to find a residence. It, I was living outta my car, living out of Airbnbs and no, that does not save you money. Everyone's oh, hey at least you're saving BAH no, Airbnbs are so expensive. I'd rather have mortgage, like I'm losing money by living outta my car. So I had to actually like, call it quits for a while. I was like, Hey, please stop sending me on TDY, I need a place to live. It's been a year and change So at that point I purchased, like in 2019, I purchased my second property using the VA loan again. And that, and then I still had some, leftover that was a single family put my stuff in there. At least I had, at least my stuff had a place to live while I was like, gallivanting around south and Central America. And then I rented that out while I was gone. Like Airbnb, that, that was my foot into short-term and midterm rentals. Since then I've transitioned that one and transitioning a lot of our, majority of our short-terms into midterms and the midterms into long-term. the numbers just aren't working out at least in Tucson for these properties. So that was it. Then I met my wife and I gave her the investing bug, and now we're both on board to just move every year and a half to a new property.

Average Joe Finances:
13:09

That's awesome. So your focus now is long-term rentals?

Ali Garced:
13:15

We're transitioning back to that, yeah. Okay. And I'm glad that, like we, when we purchased, we made sure that the numbers would work with a long-term and by, by our definition of work, that it would at least break even, because my very first property in Colorado Springs, that cash flowed $89 a month. That is like nothing to, nothing to party over. And every two years there's there's always a huge snowstorm there that would always blow out the window. So I'd have to replace the windows. And windows are very expensive, so it would wipe out that cashflow of $89 a month. But fast forward to three, four years later, when I was looking at purchasing another property, I realized how much appreciation I gained during that time. And at that point, knowing that I still had my secure quote W two job. I transitioned my thinking to being more of an appreciation like investor. And of course appreciation should always only be icing on the cake. But there are some areas that, are going to fucking appreciate.

Average Joe Finances:
14:53

Yeah, no,, that's true.

Ali Garced:
14:55

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
14:56

That's true. But cash flow is king and appreciation is queen. But I really appreciate, 'cause if you think about the game of chess, What's the most powerful piece? The queen.

Ali Garced:
15:06

The queen baby.

Average Joe Finances:
15:07

So that's that hidden gem that you're not expecting but expecting. But there are areas obviously, like you said, that, that won't appreciate as well as other areas. The fact that you're mindful of that when you make your purchase is important. And it sounds like when you ran your numbers as well for all those properties in Tucson, That you made sure that if this was a long-term rental, that it's gonna cashflow, like it's gonna check all the boxes that I need to be comfortable to purchase this property.

Ali Garced:
15:36

Exactly. Yeah. And I just ran the numbers again one more time. The amount of appreciation that I got in three years was $150,000. In order for me to have matched that with cashflow, I would've had to cashflow every single month, $4,000. There was no way I was gonna find a property that cash flowed $4,000, using my VA loan. So I'm like, Hey, appreciation is nice. That's, that is what was able. Or that's what catapulted my net worth, and that's how I was able to separate from the Air Force as a millionaire.

Average Joe Finances:
16:11

That's all. That's fantastic. Congratulations. Thank you. I'll tell you something that might make you vomit a little bit because my property out here in Hawaii over a four year period appreciated about a hundred thousand dollars a year. Which was disgusting. Now it's stayed steady where it's at right now. So now my, I'm in my fifth year of owning it, but it's appreciated over $400,000 from when I initially purchased it, which is awesome.

Ali Garced:
16:38

Wow.

Average Joe Finances:
16:38

So between that and the pay down I took a HELOC out on it to use some of that appreciation to buy more real estate. And I was able to turn my primary residence, which most people call a liability into a cash flowing asset because I was able to buy more cash flowing assets. With the equity that I had in the home. So I think that's super cool. So appreciate, I think, no matter what, if you get into real estate investing, you'll learn to appreciate appreciation. Right?

Ali Garced:
17:04

Yeah,

Average Joe Finances:
17:05

Absolutely. Okay, so now you, you've, you got outta the Air Force. You became a full-time real estate agent. You also were buying properties and you're still doing that, right? And I know you said slow and steady, right as you're doing this, like every year and a half getting into a new property, but you're 100% doing it like in one of the safest and best ways that you can. Because you're getting the lower interest rate by being a owner occupied versus buying separate investment properties, and now it's all stuff that's in your backyard, so you're there, right? If anything goes wrong or you need anything boom, you're there. Now, besides the real estate piece, as an investor, you started building up your. Business as a real estate agent. But now I also wanna ask you about, besides being a real estate agent, I know that you started building an actual realtor business, right? So can you talk about that a little bit and tell me what that is?

Ali Garced:
18:01

Yeah the first year that I was an agent, while I was still active duty, I was overwhelmed with the clients in all the best ways, right? I'm like, wow, I have a lot of business. There was so much business to be had. It got to the point where I knew my limit, and my limit was having five closings in one week and I was like, I cannot do more than this. I will go crazy. And so I needed to. Grow my crew. Like I needed somebody to be able, reliable, that would follow, like the checklist that I already started as to how to help an investor, a buyer, a seller, which by the way, I don't really work with investors. The numbers don't work here in two Tucson anymore. So my meat and potatoes is VA buyers and just military sellers. So I started growing the group. I'm like, Hey, I have leads. I cannot work all of these leads, and it'll just be like a normal referral if you grow, if you partner with us. So now I have partnered with over 30 agents and not just in Tucson, Arizona. We're all over the country. Like we're in Pensacola, Florida, we're in like Rhode Island, we're in Omaha. We're all over. And the biggest, the biggest reason we were able to grow to over 30 in two years is because we don't do any sort of team splits, right? Like we give you all of the checklists everything about mindset, everything about how to create an LC in whatever state, everything that you need, like scripts, the calculators, the canned emails, taking buyers and sellers throughout the process. So in that way, It buys you more time because you don't have to be bogged down by the same exact questions that will happen every time. Get in front of them, answer those questions before they even know to ask those questions. So we give all of, everything like that for free by partnering with us. And it's just like the EXP 80 20 split. So with that, I was able to grow the crew here in Tucson specifically be able to pass off some leads so that way I can have a little bit more of my sanity back. And and at that point I became a referral only agent. This second year in the business I have only done two transactions where I am actually helping the sellers. And the rest have just been referral. And that's where I think I'm gonna end up transitioning to completely being that my wife is gonna be. Either medically retiring or separating here in the next six months. So we're not gonna be in Tucson forever. This is I needed to make that transition at some point. So why not start now and now I can, continue referring clients to good agents that have good checklists that will answer all the questions and, client care is there. Anywhere in the world, but especially anywhere in the us

Average Joe Finances:
20:41

Yeah. And that also by, by providing them everything you you give them all the resources they need and now you know that they're gonna be a good agent because they have everything that they need. To take care of clients the same way that you would take care of them personally. Because, your reputation's a huge thing, right? You, if you start referring people to agents, that, that kind of, that suck. Okay, let's be real here. You, if you refer people to agents that suck, they're gonna be like, eh, Ellie, look, when we go to sell, I'm not sure we want to use your person anymore, and I'm not sure we want to use anyone else that you'll recommend. So that's important, right? To make sure that you're, you build a good team. And reputation's huge. And your brand, right?'cause that's another big thing too. Your brand is Ali. The agent I think is awesome. Like I see it in the background there. And on every social media post that you put, I absolutely love that because it's, every time you mention yourself, you're like, Hey, it's Ali, the agent. I love that because you focus on your brand and you stick to that. Now I also like the fact that here you are now. Only in your second year into the, to doing this full time. Now you're like, Hey, I'm at a pretty good point where I can just do referrals only and I'm gonna keep buying real estate, keep doing my thing. But now I wanna ask you something because I know you mentioned this on social media. I, but you haven't mentioned it anywhere else. I'm not sure if I had hit record yet when you, when we were talking about this, but what happened this past month that was pretty significant for you?

Ali Garced:
22:12

Yeah, so very exciting news. I hit a milestone where this month, June, 2023 was the first month that my efforts have paid off in the sense that my passive and residual income was higher than my living expenses. So technically I did not have to work this month if I didn't want to, and that's crazy. And I'm projecting the same thing for next month. So now it's just a matter of how long can I keep this going? Which is, I've been working like my ass off for five years and it's paying off.

Average Joe Finances:
22:42

Yeah. If you hustle and you work hard, you can see that behind me. Work hard. Yes. And down here it says, good things come to those that hustle. Here you are, live in that, right? You're getting to experience the fruits of your labor, right? And it's no small feat like you really did bust your ass to get here to where you're at today. But I want to ask you too, Ali what is the difference between passive. Residual income. Because you had mentioned that both of those have helped you pay all of your expenses this month.

Ali Garced:
23:11

Yeah. The, and thank you for asking this question.'cause I do wanna make it very clear that with exp the way that exp model works if anyone like is ever able to like, drop their ego and give it like an open, mind and have a conversation about it, is. It doesn't, EXP does not pay, w two employees to recruit. Unlike a lot of other brokerages like Keller Williams, like a lot of other brokerages, they have full-time people that are only there to recruit. That's it.

Average Joe Finances:
23:41

I got a phone call from one of them today actually, while we're talking about it. Like literally about an hour and a half ago I got a phone call from Kelly Williams.

Ali Garced:
23:49

Yeah. Yeah. Coldwell keeps hitting me up too. I'm like, I'm not switching. So instead what EXP does is at, without the agent paying anything more outta their pockets, just the 80 20 split. Everyone joins solo where we don't even have a formal team. So I don't like using the word team. The 80 20 split outta that 20% that would otherwise go to in another brokerage, straight to the broker or the team lead. Instead it goes to those that have sponsored you in, those that are giving you value, or at least they should be giving you value. Therefore they are those that whatever team you join, they are literally financially incentivized to make your business run. And that's why like I present all the checklists, all the canned emails, buyer, your buy your emails, one through six seller, their emails one through six. Same thing for investors. Everything is there. You just have to plug and play. Now with that said, this model does not work for everyone. It does not work for those that need significant handholding or anything like that. It need It's for those that are, that want to hustle and understand that being in sales, you have to hustle. That the residual income, I cannot call passive income and because it's not passive. And I actually believe that there is no such thing as passive income because everything requires some work even throughout, there's a lot of upfront work, but then even throughout, there's work. But with the difference with the residual income is that it's not guaranteed. I cannot, nobody can promise any sort of amount of money to other agents if you join our group, but because it's all up to them, so therefore, They're trying to avoid them saying, oh I thought that I could make, $10,000 a month just like Ali do, using this. It's up to every person, so we can't call it passive. But that has been the biggest, the residual income from EXP is the biggest portion of my passive slash residual income.

Average Joe Finances:
25:37

Nice. And then the other piece of that obviously is your actual real estate rentals that you own as an investor. Yeah. Fantastic. What a story ally, because you wound up leaving the military, what, two years ago now? Oh no. Not even two years ago. Months ago. You said this past October, right ago. I got out in December. Yeah. So like a little bit after you. Yeah. But. What you've done in such a short period of time, like not even a year now. Now mind you, you busted your ass your last year in the Air Force to get to where you're at today. But then looking at from when you separated in October to today in June, 2023, what you're doing absolutely amazing. So from October to June, With June being your first month of, making enough passive and residual income to cover your expenses. That's what October, November, December, January, February, March, April, may, June, eight months. I probably should just did that in my head, but I counted it out eight months to get to the point where you're essentially financially independent, right? Absolutely amazing. So I just wanna go ahead and give you a round of applause there. For those that are listening, Clap for Ali'cause she's absolutely crushing it now. Okay. So when it comes to your actual realtor business I know you said, you provide all the agents that you bring on board, all their checklists, everything that they need to succeed. Now what about when it comes to leads? How do you find leads that you pass off to the people that you onboard?

Ali Garced:
27:03

And this is a really great clarifying question as well. Because I do not bring on any agents with now with the statement of I have leads to give. At the time I was inundated, I had leads to give and no one.

Average Joe Finances:
27:17

And that was locally in Tucson.

Ali Garced:
27:20

That was local.

Average Joe Finances:
27:20

Yeah.

Ali Garced:
27:21

Yeah. So what we plus the mentality of the person, that the agent that we want to join our group is not one that wants to be fed. It's one that wants to know, learn how to go out and. Kill. So that's the type of person for hunt their own food, looking for, hunt their own food man. So you're an entrepreneur, like if you're gonna be leaving a W-2 to become a real estate agent, you should not then still be in the mentality of what can you do? For me? It's no what resources can I use that you have that I can then take on and do for myself? I just went on a rant there and I forgot your original question.

Average Joe Finances:
27:56

No that, that's fine. It was about how how you built your original realtor business and like what you were doing for leads, like how did you get leads to other people, but now, yes. So the clarification's great. So that was mostly for local when you were inundated overworked. You didn't have enough time to take care of all that. Five transactions in one week would probably make me vomit. So yeah, that's, I definitely understand that. Now, when it comes to the different things that you do for yourself personally, as both, as a real estate agent, as a real estate investor, just as an entrepreneur in general are there any specific like CRM systems that you use or anything that you've found helpful in this journey?

Ali Garced:
28:37

Absolutely. Two that I name, right? You know what? Three EXP has KB core, A CRM is a CRM. If you'll, if you like Excel Google, Excel, a Word doc. If you consistently use it, that's fine too. It took me a while to, 'cause it took me a while to get the hang of KB Core because it's so complex and. But now I'm starting to get more of the hang of it. So before I got the hang of KB Core I was using Trello. And Trello is not as automated.

Average Joe Finances:
29:07

Oh. I used to love Trello boards.

Ali Garced:
29:09

Yeah. Yeah. So I have a couple of Trello boards. One is just the referrals that I'm giving out to everyone. Across the country. So and I have different columns of is this an internal exp referral? Is this external to some to another brokerage? Has the paperwork been signed yet? Or rather have I sent that to my TC to send out to sign? Has it been signed? Has the conversation been the, have I started the conversation yet connecting all four parties? Are they under contract? Have they closed and then have a closed column. And I do the same thing for like my own buyers and sellers and agent attraction too. Those that have reached out to me saying, Hey, I want to get my license, or I'm looking to switch brokerages.'cause I feel my growth is stunted. And I want the resources. So I have those three boards and that is what helped me. And I just sucked to that, it's almost I haven't fully made the transition over to KB Corp. But then I pair both of those up with this sounds so lame, but with my Google calendar. Oh my gosh, okay. I never used a calendar when I was in the military. There wasn't a need to, there were like a couple of meetings here and there, but I. The sense of time blocking and making sure that like you have time to lead, generate to work on the business. That's not a thing in the military. So I had to learn how to use a calendar and without my calendar, I would be lost.

Average Joe Finances:
30:26

No, absolutely. If I showed you what my Google Calendar looks like, you'd be like, oh my God. Actually I think I showed you at RUB-CON, like I use my Google calendar for everything. Like anytime somebody schedules something with me, boom, it automatically goes there. I use Asana right now as one of the CRM systems. But one of the things too that I think is one of the most powerful CRM systems for people to use is this device right here. Actually, I'll give you an example. I'm gonna pull you up real quick. Search Ali. Okay. I'm not gonna show your phone number on the screen, but.

Ali Garced:
31:00

That's fine. If you do,

Average Joe Finances:
31:01

I'm Wear your shirt with it. So it's got like your email, all that. I don't know if you could really see it. No, probably not. But anyway, it's got your email, your website, YouTube link, everything right? And then it's got notes that I put in here on you, right? So it says Met RUB-CON. Bringing in as a guest for the podcast. She's an all around badass. That's what it says right here. So I love that. But this right here is so I know that you were somebody that I wanted to bring on the podcast, right? And we talked about it at RUB-CON. I put that in my notes and stuff like that. People don't realize like how powerful the, this little device that fits in our pockets, the little notes feature in the contacts is amazing because you can just put whatever you need to put to remind you about something. If you had a conversation with somebody and you wanna remember like a deal that you were talking about, you could put it in the notes and then you'd be like, Hey, I remember I was talking. To this person about this one thing. What was it? And then go up here, look at the notes and say, oh, that's right. We were talking about this multifamily deal, in Tucson, right? Yeah. And let me call 'em up about that. But that's one of the, that's one of the beautiful things about that. Now, obviously, you can also schedule things onto your calendar that way too. Hey, remind me to call so-and-so and then connect the contact to it, which is great. Yeah. But yeah, so I, I love that. I love Calendly. I usually, if anybody's gonna make a call to me or something, I usually send to my Calendly link and just say, Hey, book a call with me. Same way that we scheduled this podcast, right? So you got my pal Calendly link. We scheduled the podcast based on the availability that I had, and it's great because it's okay, you can work around based on your availability, so we can work things out that way. So it's a lot better than saying, Hey, you got 15 minutes to chat about A, B, C, or D. I can call you right now. It's oh, now's not a good time. Oh, when will be a good time? Oh, let me go check. A lot of times that could be a waste of time. Hey, lemme just send you my Calendly link. Pick a time and we'll chat. So that's great. Yeah. Now, sometimes it gets abused, especially on LinkedIn. I get pitched every day from someone new saying, Hey, you got 15 minutes. Talk about abcd. Here's my Calendly link. I'm like, dude, Stop. Yeah. Yeah. That's one thing I, it gets a little, it gets a little rough, but I think CRM systems are huge no matter what you do as an entrepreneur. So I appreciate you sharing that with me, especially Trello boards. Man. I use Trello boards for my podcast for the longest time until I switched over to Asana. And then in Asana I have it set up like Trello boards because you can set up boards like that. So it's basically the same thing. I was like, why did I even switch? Because you can connect your Google calendar, you can connect your Google Drive. So I would link everything there. So like my VA knows like to go in here and they can open up the link and they can mark when it's done. It's awesome. It's awesome.

Ali Garced:
33:33

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I'm definitely on the Calendly train for sure. For $159 a year. It is so worth it. And for those that I really feel like for those that might not respect your time in the beginning, When you send them a Calendly link, they're like, oh wait, this person like actually has a calendar. It changes their mindset about you and like forces them to put some respect on your name.

Average Joe Finances:
33:56

Oh this person sounds like the real deal now. But hey, anybody can get a Calendly account, so just because you got one from this dude named Mike Cavaggioni doesn't mean he's shit. Anyway okay. Ali this has been absolutely awesome. I wanna. Ask you some questions now and transition this into something that I call the final round. It's where I'm gonna ask you the same four questions I ask everybody that comes on the show, and it gives us an idea of how Ali is under a little bit of pressure. So if you're ready to go, we'll get that party started.

Ali Garced:
34:25

I'm ready.

Average Joe Finances:
34:26

Okay. Don't start sweating on me or anything, but. All right, ally, so the, I'm good. The first question is, what's the biggest mistake you've ever made in your finances? Investing real estate or business? You could pick one or pick all. This is so good.

Ali Garced:
34:44

This is so good. The biggest mistake I made in my real estate investing, this is the first one that pops to mind, is not purchasing a multifamily first. Instead I bought a little condo and I feel like it was such a a lost opportunity there where great, while I was in Afghanistan renting it out, I was able to pretty much break even. But had that been a multifamily, I wouldn't have relied on just one income. It could have been two, it could have been four. So if I were to have one redo related to investing it would be that.

Average Joe Finances:
35:19

Okay. I appreciate that. Alright, so the next question, you're gonna see that these all kind of tie into each other. What is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first got started?

Ali Garced:
35:34

This is a tricky question because I, my mentality now is that if I don't have to learn a new skillset or just learn something new, I try to avoid it. And what I mean by that is I would just rather hire it out, for example, now I am, I'm struggling with with revamping my website. I don't know anything about Wix. I don't know anything about domains. I purchased, a couple of domains. Sad to say that somebody purchased a, just a couple of months ago, Ali, the agent.com Oh, no. Yeah, just a couple of months ago, I'm like, man, that makes me sad. Who was it?

Average Joe Finances:
36:11

So probably someone that follows you on social media and said, oh, I'm gonna get this and see if I could charge her a lot of money if she wants it.

Ali Garced:
36:17

Yeah. Eh, you can have it. And the significance actually with Ali, the agent, is that I was a federal agent in the military I was a special agent, but also a real estate agent, just in case the military gave me any shit about it, about me being a realtor. But yeah, I, what, I don't know. I always just, everything, every new task that I have now in my business, I'm like, who else can I pay to do this?'cause I don't wanna do it. Yeah, that doesn't answer your question, does it?

Average Joe Finances:
36:44

No. It, it does. So you've learned to, that you need to outsource, right? Because Yes. Your time is precious. Time is a commodity that we don't get back. Yeah. It's not something that you could say, oh, you know what? I can, if I just, push off something I'll just, I'll create a little more time for it later. No, you can't do that. You can't create time. Once you commit to something, that time is gone. So outsourcing is huge. I outsource all the time, so I definitely appreciate that. Like right now you're talking about outsourcing somebody to fix up your website and things like that. That's huge. I do the same that my podcast gets outsourced to a team that will take this footage of us talking and they're gonna work on it, edit it, and make me. When I say and and all that other stuff, because I say it all too often, so I'm a big pauser and they'll clean it up. So I actually sound like I'm a little bit intelligent, right? So my, my team is awesome. So they take care of that. And it's one of the things that I found out that I needed to outsource because when I first started this podcast, I was getting completely burnt out. About six months into it I was like, I think I'm gonna walk. And then I found, that, hey let me try outsourcing this to an editing team. And when I did that, it was like, I was in Aladdin and it was a whole new world. So definitely great place to be. Okay. So we're gonna move on to the next question, Ali, and that is, do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started out today? Whether they're starting out as a real estate agent or is a real estate investor shadow?

Ali Garced:
38:11

That's my biggest thing is. Shadow. So I guess first real estate agent, if you know of any real estate agents, reach out to them and be like, Hey, can I shadow you? And the shadowing doesn't have to be in person either, especially if you have a full-time job. But you can be with people's permission. You can be BCC'd on emails or you can just see what their calendar looks like. That would be like a huge, in as far as seeing a good realtor, doing their thing. What's, what does their calendar look like? Can I see what you're doing day to day? And if you see the calendar, you can have, a conversation about that. Hey, what does this mean? What are you doing? And, or is there, is it true that you barely eat lunch? Like that's. I feel like those agents that have reached out to me saying, Hey can I shadow you? And exactly that. Can I see what your calendar looks like? What the day-to-day looks like? That's a really good decision. I. Maker, because if people realize, Hey, that's not the calendar that I wanna have. Perfect. Yeah. At least you didn't get licensed, you didn't waste your time choosing a brokerage, all of that. So whatever you want to do, find someone that's already doing it and not too far ahead either. Not someone that's like way too displaced from where you're going to be. Like starting out. Someone that like knows what you will actually be doing day to day. I feel like that's, as a newer agent, that's the biggest thing.

Average Joe Finances:
39:29

Yeah, that's huge because, I talk about this like when you go to real estate meetups and things like that, like if you are going to connect with somebody, it's great if you connect to the person that's been doing this for 20 years and whatever, that's awesome. Cool, good for you. But asking them for, for help or advice Hey, do you think that I should do A, B, C, or D, is you're gonna get a lot different answer than the person that's maybe one or two years ahead of you because they're, When this person started 20 years ago, it was a whole different game. When they first started out. So I think that's huge. Like even as a real estate agent too. Like you can go talk to that senior agent that's been doing this for 20 plus years, or you can talk to the agent that's on the grind right now, building their clientele list, building, whatever website or different resources they're gonna use as their lead magnet. And you get to see what kind of. Effort that they had to put into it versus the person that's been doing it for 20 years. Oh yeah, back then we just did, everything was handwritten and we did classified ads. And you'd be like, oh, okay, hang on a second. This, maybe the samet for me. So yeah, getting, shadowing the right person is also super important, so I definitely appreciate that. Okay. Ali, I have one more question for you for the final round. It's different than the other questions'cause it's an opinion based question, but do you have a favorite business? And actually I'm gonna preface this with. Besides your own, I you have your own podcast. Do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast, or both?

Ali Garced:
40:55

Easy. The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris that hit me at just the right time. It hit me pre covid, but in, in case you haven't read that, it's about working from home and how to work obviously in shorter time. Because work expands the time allotted. So you know, especially being in the government and like working for the government. Working seven 30 to four 30 or seven 30 to whatever time. One project can take multiple days, let alone if you're, instead as we're going more toward a task oriented, gig economy where you're being paid for each task versus per hour, it changes your way of thinking and it makes you realize that time is more valuable. So if you can do stuff you know, at home faster, Therefore, hopefully your boss can let you, can give you more time to work from home. And so as we shifted to Covid, I was actually the com, the interim commander for OSI at this time, I was like, Hey, if we're gonna be working from home, work the hardest you've ever worked because this is our chance to then positively get reinforcement. Where if they see that our productivity has increased and we're working from home, What is that gonna tell leadership? Like it's only gonna be a benefit for them. And I really found that those that didn't like working from home were just the chatty Cathys. They're like, oh, you missed the office. I'm like, yeah, because he was talking, not doing work.

Average Joe Finances:
42:21

It's like in the movie office space oh, someone has a case of the Mondays. Have you ever seen that movie or am I talking like something crazy to you? I haven't seen it, but I'll put it on my list. You need to go watch that movie. Now you have a movie recommendation. So you gave a great book recommendation, so I appreciate that. But now you have a good movie recommendation to go watch Office Space. You could probably, and you'll probably be able to relate to a lot of stuff in that movie. Anyway now that's it for the final round, but I have another question I want to ask you. And so Ali, this conversation's been awesome. I know that my audience is getting a lot of value out of this, especially someone that may be thinking of going to be a real estate agent or looking to get started in real estate investing by itself. And they're like, I wanna know more about Ali and I know that she's, she's paying somebody right now to fix her website. Which is fine, but where can people find you? Like where is that website where people can find you? And what about your social media profiles? Can you share all of that with us?

Ali Garced:
43:19

Yeah, for social media, I am.

Average Joe Finances:
43:21

And your podcast as well.

Ali Garced:
43:23

Oh, cool. Yeah. Social media. I am Ali, the agent on all social media. And that's Ali, spelled ALI and with some underscores. So ali_the_agent and my website, the one that is up right now. And it. It will continue being up is my last name, which is complicated. Garced that's G A R C E D realty.com, garcedrealty.com. And I am a host of two podcasts. So one is Focus on Real Estate Agents. Like where we interview agents and just what are the tricks and, tips that you have that are, that's making you so successful. That's called, we're actually rebranding, so I'm sure by the time this comes out it's gonna be the agent goldmine and the other one is real estate investing, that I am the co-host with Craig Curelop called Invest2FI.

Average Joe Finances:
44:16

Awesome Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I'll make sure I have all those links in the show notes to make it easy for our listeners to just click and follow or copy and paste away. The only thing I ask is that my listeners, if you're driving right now, please don't do it while you're driving. Okay. Wait till you get to wherever you need to go. And, disclaimer here, I don't want nobody to get into a car accident. Okay. That is pretty much it, Ali. Like we're all done. However, I wanna ask you one more thing. Do you have any. Final thoughts for our listeners?

Ali Garced:
44:45

Yeah, so I, first, I respond to all messages on Instagram, so if you're gonna be if you want like a quicker response, the quickest way is through Instagram. And I'm happy to walk you through anything that I spoke about. I really love that I have transitioned into more of a helping agent. Like agents build their businesses and not just new agents. People that are like team leaders now, or like owners of small brokerages can leverage off, the liability. They don't have to pay for liability anymore. EXP will pay for it. The agents will be paying for it. So happy to have any of those conversations. Just reach out. I respond to all messages as long as you're not a bot and as long as you're not trying to sell me. You don't want anything, I'm here for it.

Average Joe Finances:
45:26

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta put that clarification in there.'cause you never, you'll get all those folks from LinkedIn coming over to Instagram just to start scheduling calls with you about why you need to go through sales program.

Ali Garced:
45:36

Yeah, LinkedIn is like the VRBO of, I don't know. Both of them are just so spammy.

Average Joe Finances:
45:42

I used to love LinkedIn, man, but ugh, sometimes it's just been rough lately. But anyway, enough of all that. Yeah. Ally, I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today and share what you've done on this amazing adventure since transitioning outta the military to where you're at today. Meeting you in Phoenix at RUB-CON was a treat for me. And I hope to see you next year at the next RUB-CON. From what I understand, you're gonna be a speaker there next year, which is awesome. Congratulations on that.

Ali Garced:
46:11

Thank you.

Average Joe Finances:
46:11

And yeah, this has been fantastic. Thank you again so much for joining me.

Ali Garced:
46:15

Thank you so much, Mike. It's been a pleasure.

Average Joe Finances:
46:18

Absolutely. And hey, to my listeners, I also wanna thank all of you so very much for joining me and our special guest, Ali Gared, on the average Joe Finances Podcast. Go leave us a five star review and tell us what you liked about today's episode with Ali. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your day.