Q&A: Putting $1.6M of "Dead Equity" to Work, Selling Single Stocks, and VYM

Primary Topic

This episode delves into strategies for optimizing personal finances, focusing on investment diversification and handling personal equity.

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Rich Habits podcast, hosts Austin Hankwitz and Robert Croak tackle listener queries about financial decisions and investment strategies. Topics range from the effectiveness of high-yield savings accounts to the complexities of managing "dead equity" in real estate. The hosts provide detailed advice on investment diversification, emphasizing the importance of ETFs, especially for dividend growth investing. The discussion also explores practical financial maneuvers like transferring investments from single stocks to index funds to mitigate risk and enhance portfolio performance.

Main Takeaways

  1. High-yield savings accounts serve well for emergency funds but are not investment vehicles.
  2. Diversification through ETFs is crucial for reducing risk and improving portfolio returns.
  3. Transitioning from single stocks to index funds can help streamline and stabilize investment portfolios.
  4. Real estate equity can be optimized through various strategies, including HELOCs or 1031 exchanges, depending on market conditions.
  5. The importance of financial literacy in personal relationships, especially concerning major life decisions like marriage and handling debt.

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

Overview of the podcast's theme focused on financial queries from the audience. Austin Hankwitz: "Welcome back to the Rich Habits podcast, a top ten business podcast on Spotify."

2: Managing Savings and Investments

Discussion on whether to keep money in high-yield savings or move to T-bills and ETFs. Robert Croak: "High yield savings accounts are not investments, they are insurance against poor financial decisions."

3: Portfolio Diversification

Advice on managing a diverse investment portfolio with ETFs and index funds. Austin Hankwitz: "I'm a dividend growth investor because it reflects how solid the underlying business is."

4: Real Estate Equity

Strategies for managing substantial equity in real estate, including selling or reinvesting. Robert Croak: "If you're in a good market for capital appreciation, consider keeping the investment."

Actionable Advice

  1. Evaluate Your Savings Options: Compare the yields of different savings or money market accounts to optimize your emergency funds.
  2. Diversify with ETFs: Invest in a mix of ETFs to balance the portfolio between growth and stability.
  3. Streamline Stock Investments: Consider consolidating single stock investments into broader index funds for better risk management.
  4. Understand Real Estate Investments: If owning significant real estate equity, assess whether to reinvest or liquidate based on current market conditions.
  5. Financial Communication in Relationships: Openly discuss and plan financial strategies with partners, especially when planning a future together.

About This Episode

In this episode of the Rich Habits Podcast, Robert Croak and Austin Hankwitz answer your questions!

Should I keep my $18K in a HYSA or choose T-Bills?
What about SCHD and VYM?
I'm having trouble selling my single stock investments, what should I keep and what should I sell?
Should I take my new pay increase and use that to max out my employer-sponsored retirement accounts?
How do I approach talking about money with my girlfriend, and soon to be fiance?
I have $1.65M in 'dead equity,' what should I do?

People

Austin Hankwitz, Robert Croak

Companies

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Books

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Guest Name(s):

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Content Warnings:

None

Transcript

Austin Hankwitz
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Rich Habits podcast, a top ten business podcast on Spotify. My name is Austin Hankowitz. I'm joined by my co host, Robert Croke. And you're tuning in to our question and answer edition, which means we take your questions from Instagram or email, richhabitspodcastmail.com, and we shoot you straight. We let you know what we're thinking, our perspectives, and what we would do if we were in your shoes.

But before we jump into the episode, I need my options traders to listen up for a second because I want to tell you a little bit about public.com dot. But first, have you ever actually thought about all the fees you're paying to trade options? Aside from regulatory fees, there are commissions, and most platforms charge a per contract fee as well. That's what makes today's sponsor, Public.com, so interesting. Public doesn't charge commissions or per contract fees.

Robert Croak
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Austin Hankwitz
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Options are not suitable for all investors and care significant risk. There's a full disclosure in the podcast description. Be sure to check that out. And of course, this is for us members only. Let's jump into our first question.

Robert, this one's coming from JT. Jay says, I've been listening to the rich Habits podcast for four months now, and I've actually gone back to relisten to every single episode. My wife and I have $18,000 in our high yield savings account and it pays 5.15% annually. Is this a good rate? I know T bills are paying a little bit higher.

Should I keep my money where it is? Move it to T bills? Should I think about ETF's? What do I do here, guys? Robert, this is a great question because I think we should actually take a moment to remind people why high yield savings accounts are so important.

The reason why you wanna have a emergency fund, right? A high yield savings account. A fully funded emergency fund here is so you don't have to make a mistake with your money, given emotion or day to day turbulence or unexpected events. What I'm talking about is, for example, let's say you had a death in the family and you had to come up with 510 $15,000 to help cover funeral costs. If you didn't have an emergency fund, you might be tempted to take out a 401K loan, go into high interest credit card debt, maybe some sort of predatory heloc on your house.

Right? But by having an emergency fund in place of three to six months of household expenses, you have that cushion between you and everyday life. So, to answer the question, Robert, I want to get your perspective here, but I mean, 5%, dude, you're doing great. I wouldn't. I mean, sure, if you want to try and optimize a little bit there with half a percent that you might be able to get with t bills, be my guest.

But 5.15 and 5.5 isn't going to be a big deal, especially with only $18,000. I mean, we're talking about, what, $60 a year here in extra, you know, interest you can earn. So that's not the goal of these high yield savings accounts in these emergency funds. Right. They are not investments.

They are insurance against terrible financial decisions you might make in the future if you didn't have the fund. Yeah, I think you crushed the answer. And, Jay, great question. To me, the way to look at it is, yes, we talk about treasury bills all of the time, and many times it's because so many people let their money just sit in checking and regular savings accounts. You're already in a very good high yield savings account, so you're crushing it from that perspective.

Robert Croak
And I love Austin pointing out the emergency fund status. The only thing to look at that's a little bit different, because you don't necessarily need to trade from the high yield savings to the treasury bill just to gain that little small percentage of gain, because you have to look at it that you're already doing well with the 5.1%. What I would look at is treasury bills do have some advantages. They are liquid through public.com dot. You do pay no taxes on your gains, both state and local.

So there are some advantages. So just keep that in mind. But in this instance, if you really felt like you should transfer some money, I would maybe keep ten in the high yield savings and put eight in the treasury bills. But otherwise, I think you're fine sitting put you're doing great with that emergency fund, and just always remember that we want you to optimize your money and never let it sit. So just think about and figure out your monthly bills and how much you should have in an emergency fund, and then everything.

On top of that, I would get optimized in your Roth IRA, in the treasury bills, or in other more higher gain paying investment strategies. You know, Robert, this is why I love the podcast so much, because you just mentioned something I totally forgot about, which is t bills are tax exempt from both the local and state levels, which means, you know, if you're paying, let's call it 510, maybe 15%, depending on what state you live in and your local sort of jurisdictions there, you could be saving upwards to $100 a year year on this 900 in interest. You'll be earning on the high yield savings. You know, we're hearing all these talks of economic downturn and possibility of, you know, issues in the stock market because of inflation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There's always a lot of skies falling people.

And treasury bills are a great tool, as is high yield savings. And the nice thing is, as you grow and grow and grow, treasury bills can be a great place to have your money just chugging away, making that five, five and a half percent. So it's up to you. I think it's a great question. You're in a really good spot with the high yield savings, but both are great options.

Austin Hankwitz
Our next question comes from Robert H. Robert says, I recently heard you all talk about Neos ETF's spyi and QQQI on the podcast, and I'm trying to weigh the benefits of investing into these funds opposed to just your simple dividend paying ETF's like SCHD and VYm. What should I do? Should I even do both? Robert, good question.

So, from my perspective, I would consider doing both. I'm a dividend growth investor. I love owning dividend growth stocks, which are defined as companies who are growing their revenue, their profits, but more importantly, the dividends they pay to their investors every single year. Lowe's and Home Depot and Costco are great examples of that. Right?

Costco just increased their dividend by like 14% year over year. So I'm a dividend growth investor because I think it reflects, you know, just how awesome the underlying business is if you're able to pay cash dividends to your shareholders. Now, to answer your question, Robert, Spyi and QqqI, or some of these other dividend focused ETF's again, I own both. I have Spyi, I have qqqi, I have SchD, and I have Vym. So I have all four of the ETF's that you mentioned in this question.

And if you want to sort of diversify your portfolio, not to just aim to track the underlying indices of the S and P in the Nasdaq, but also have some dividend growth stocks in there as well, SCHD is a great way to do that, and so is Vym. Robert, do you have any perspective on this question? No, not really. I think you can have both as well. We love Spyi and Qqqi from Neos.

Robert Croak
They're just great, great products. And, you know, we're big believers in the Nasdaq and the S and P 500. So for us, I think you could have all four of those and really have a balanced portfolio as far as your portion going towards dividend investing. So I think it's great. Robert and Austin, I think it's a good breakdown.

You guys all know that we love the NEO's funds, and these are two really good ones. Good question, Robert. Our next question comes from Scott. Scott says, I'm 26 and I make 90,000 per year. I've been able to invest like crazy over the last several years, and my brokerage account balance has now exceeded $85,000.

Austin Hankwitz
However, a lot of this is invested across dozens of single stocks. Some have dramatically outperformed, while others have dramatically underperformed. I want to clean up my portfolio, but every time I look up the stock, I want to sell's price target. According to Wall street, it's supposed to outperform the S and P 500 over the next twelve months, but weirdly, it never does. Should I sell these single stocks that are underperforming and move the money into index funds?

Like you all say, I'm just experiencing some major analysis paralysis. Robert, I feel like this question's right up your alley. Yeah, Scott, it's a great question. And to comfort you as much as I can, I think everyone goes through this. I look at portfolios every single day and I see some people that have 35 stocks, 18 index funds, et cetera, et cetera.

Robert Croak
You know how this goes. And for me, I think you're on the right track. I think you should rebalance it. If you have to take some hits, it's not going to matter because you're going to be able to use those losses against your gains. So don't worry about that.

And you really just want to focus your portfolio. I've been talking about something lately that I think is really important for people, especially in the earlier stages, is I think I could outperform most portfolios with five index funds, five stocks and five cryptos because so many people get stretched thin because they have far too many stocks, far too many index funds, and it's just not necessary. So in your case, calm down. A lot of people go through this, figure it out, see how the numbers work, and just really condense it down so you can understand it and look to lean on those index funds that we talk about, because so many economists, so many brokers and so many fake gurus are always going to tell you that they're going to outperform the S P 500. Guess what?

It doesn't work. You know, Warren Buffett had a famous bet where he outperformed all these hedge funds just by betting on Voo and the S and P 500. So I think just narrow the focus and really lean into some of these QQQ VOO funds that we talk about and you'll be in great shape and you'll outperform the benchmark by a mile. Especially your age, Scott. I mean, you're 26 years old, dude.

Austin Hankwitz
You know, I would also think about just copying what Robert just said. Get yourself five ETF's, right, five index funds and get yourself five different stocks. And if you dabble in crypto, maybe get, you know, up to five there. I only hold three. Robert holds 300.

That's the fun thing about crypto. But I think that's a great way to start, right? Let's call it voo, qqq, vgt, VTI and moat. Those are the five index funds. They're all going to outperform and, you know, diversify your portfolio in a great way, especially at your age.

Five stocks, I mean, I'm not going to tell you what single stocks to get. I personally would make sure Amazon's a part of that list. I'd make sure that Nvidia perhaps is a part of that list. Right. Maybe even Salesforce, Salesforce can be in that list.

Apple can be in that list. Palo Alto networks, anything. Absolutely. Find yourself, let's call it five to seven single stocks that you, one really, really understand the business. It's not one of these crazy companies that your friend on discord told you to buy and it's trading at.

He told you it's going to go to $3, right? Not like that, which might be some of the red you're cleaning up out of your portfolio, Scott. But that's what I do that's how I'd approach it. Right. Get yourself five index funds.

Get yourself five to seven single stocks that you really understand, even the magnificent seven. If you want to just go after those and then dabble in some bitcoin Ethereum chain link, maybe there's a couple others that you really like. And that's what I would do. That's what I would start. And, you know, the ones that aren't there.

That's cool. Take the tax write off, like Robert said, you know, write it off against your gains that you will, I'm sure, also experience. Or write it off your taxes. I think you can do that up to $3,000 a year and you'll be fine. But, dude, you're 26 years old.

What should be the foundation of your portfolio at your age are these ETF's and index funds, and only until you've got, I'm talking half a million in these index funds. Then you should be really starting to think, like, wait a second, do I go into some of the single stocks? Like, let me do a little bit more research. But, yeah, at your age and at your portfolio size, I mean, I really think that, let's call it 60,000, 70,000 of this 85 should be invested into these index funds and ETF's. I love it.

Robert Croak
That's a great breakdown. Our next question comes from Aaron H. Aaron says, I'm about to receive a $39,000 bump in my salaried compensation at my job, but I'm not yet maxing out my employer sponsored retirement accounts, and this extra income would give me the optionality to do so. So here's my question. Should I max out my employer sponsored retirement accounts, or should I take the extra money and invest it into taxable brokerage accounts?

Austin Hankwitz
Robert, what do you think? You know me. I look at these 401 ks and 403 B's and all of these accounts as you want to go up to the match. Anything else? On top of that, I would look at getting into that taxable brokerage account, get it moving so you have the autonomy to be able to do what you want with it.

Robert Croak
Just like in the last question, you want to have as much control over your money as possible so you can do what you want with it, rather than what the company says to do with it. So that's my opinion. I would get it into a basket of these index funds we talk about, have some good diversity, and be able to control your destiny without having 10, 20, 30 years go by and you had no autonomy with your money. You know what we say, Aaron? Match beats Roth beats taxable.

Austin Hankwitz
So to Robert's point, invest up to the match, everything above the match. I want you to obviously prioritize the Roth IRA. I didn't see that mentioned here, but I'm sure you're doing it. You're a smart guy. And then beyond the Roth IRa, 7000 a year, we're talking about $39,000 here, right?

Should go to a taxable brokerage account. You should put that money into the index funds we talk about. We want people to have autonomy over their investments because, like, what Robert was alluding to here, you want to only go up to the match because let's say that you invested all, you know, let's call it tens of thousands, you maxed out this employer sponsored, you know, 403 B or 401K that you're alluding to participating in here. If you don't have autonomy over that, and they've got you parked in some terrible funds that have underperformed and, you know, emerging markets or target date, fund this, or bonds and cash that, right? That's not what you want to be in.

And, you know, let's call it, you're in your mid forties, maybe even early fifties. You still have 10, 20, 25 years still to invest toward your retirement. And that is not going to be doing well into these, call it smaller, underperforming funds. Right? You want to be able to have that money in your control to invest into the funds we talk about.

Doesn't matter if it's in a taxable account. Paying taxes, Robert, I think this is really important. Paying taxes is okay, knowing that the profits you made to pay those taxes were profits you weren't going to get to begin with if you had parked the money somewhere else. And another thing everyone needs to be paying attention to is we talk about optimizing your money all the time, and we talk about broker fees and expense ratios and all this stuff is to realize this. Even if you optimize your portfolios, like Austin was discussing, some of these lower performing funds, target day funds or money markets or whatever, they might be mutual funds, even if you optimize for the better two, three, 4% a year over ten or 20 years, you're talking about 2030, 40% more of returns on your money because of the compounding effect over time.

Robert Croak
And it's so important to understand that, because a lot of times we may be talking, you go, oh, what's the difference in one or 2%? But over time, it's massive, and everyone needs to understand that math because it's so important and could mean the difference between 100, 200, 500, even a million dollars in your pocket versus not in your pocket. By optimizing and making sure you have the best performing funds you can have in your portfolio. Right there with you, Robert. So earlier in the show, you heard us talk about the investing platform public.com dot.

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Austin Hankwitz
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You may be making a lot more money, or rather, saving a lot more money money using their platform. Now, our next question comes from Robert A. Robert says, I'm 23 years old and I live in an apartment with my girlfriend. We split all of our costs, and I live well below my means. I'm able to personally save anywhere between $2000 to $2,500 per month to invest.

Now, at the moment, I've got $70,000 in a Roth IRA that's invested across VOO, VGT, and Berkshire Hathaway. I also have another $30,000 in index funds you guys always talk about. With that being said, how do I approach talking about money with my girlfriend and soon to be fiance? We're generally on the same page about money, but I want to help her pay down her student loans and begin investing toward her retirement. Robert, you are a 23 year old with $100,000 invested.

Like, that's, that's what I got from this question. Man, you should just be taking laps, patting yourself on the back like, oh my gosh, man, I wish I was in your shoes when I was 23 years old. That is just unbelievable, dude. So, okay, let's talk about how to approach this conversation. You guys said you're, you know, soon to be fiance, and that's really cool.

Propose, get married, do all the fun stuff. That's awesome. You did say, too, that you guys are generally on the same page about money. Yeah, I read further in your email. You guys budget together, track your spending, all that fun stuff, which is really healthy.

I love that as well, because as we think about getting married, what I think a lot of people make the mistake of is they say, oh, the husband does all the money, or, oh, my wife pays all the bills, or she know, they. They're the one that does the money, not me. They just tell me what to spend. I don't. I just do what they say.

That's not real healthy, right? That's not the kind of relationships. At least that's not the kind of relationship I want to be in when I'm married. And I'm sure Robert A. Here doesn't want that type of relationship either.

I think the simplest path to wealth for married couples is a path where both people are on the same page. Both people understand how much is coming in to the bank account, know how much is going out of the bank account, where it's going. You guys have similar goals. I mean, we made a whole episode about this, Robert, talking about how to have a good, healthy marriage with your money. So, Robert, here's my answer if I were you.

One, it seems like things are already going well, but a couple things I'd add here. Show her your brokerage account and your Roth Ira, and show her how you contribute what you're invested into. So it can, one, inspire her and to help her understand just how easy it is to, over a long period of time, make money investing in the stock market. And then two, as it relates to student loans, you didn't mention your student loan situation. I'm assuming you don't have any, especially with this much money, but with her student loans, right.

I think the only thing you can do there, until you guys are married is help her budget, make sure that she understands, sort what that payoff period looks like, how to pay extra on her loans, maybe help her understand the differences between high interest rates and lower interest rates with those loans. But, I mean, you guys are on the right track here. I mean, all you have to do here is just continue talking about and being transparent with your money, especially if you plan to get married, right? If you guys are inching toward marriage, that is something you guys should definitely be talking about. Now, I'm not saying combined accounts.

I'm not saying you go off and pay off our student loans. That's not what I'm saying. You guys are not married. That is not something you should do until you get married or even consider doing until you're married. But it's good to have these conversations because, you know, if she's got maybe that savings muscle that you can help her sort of flex over the next 612, 18 months, because you guys are talking through this stuff, I think that's just healthy.

So that's what I would do. I would just approach it one day at a time, be very transparent, authentic, and forgiving. I mean, oh, my gosh, everyone has their own story, their own perspective, their own experiences with money. And maybe your experience with money has been really positive, Robert. Right.

Robert A. You're talking about how you've got 100,000 by a 23. That's unbelievable, dude. Maybe her experience is a little bit more negative, right? Maybe her family was a little bit more paycheck to paycheck growing up.

Or maybe, you know, she obviously had to have student loans for a reason. So be forgiving, be empathetic, but also do what you can to put yourself in her shoes. And you guys just work together. All right, I'm going to go opposite side of the fence here. Robert A.

Robert Croak
Austin, you crushed that. But here's my thought, and you touched on it a little bit. You're not married yet. I'm going to tell everyone a little story here today. A very dear friend of mine fell in love, had a fiance, put her through nursing school, bought her a nice used BMW.

He did the whole thing. Five years she lived with him. He put her through school, the BMW, the whole thing. Within a month after graduating and getting her job, she left. He paid over $100,000 in student loan debt, all of these things.

So keep in mind, until you're married, her debt is her debt, and your wins are your wins. Could you consider guiding her, like Austin said? Absolutely. You love her, you should guide her. But should you sign on the dotted line and take on that debt now?

Absolutely not. Because you don't know what could happen in the next year, two years, during the process of getting engaged and moving further along in the relationship. So please, for everyone listening, no matter where you're at in your relationship stage, understand that because it's very important, because you never know when things are going to change or go bad or whatever, and you just have to be careful. And you've done such a great job. Robert A.

And I don't want to see you get sidetracked taking on someone else's debt until you sign the dotted line. Very important for everyone you know. Robert A. I love that you want to help her and you should help her. But to Robert C's point here, don't do anything that is, you know, going to set you up for failure in the future.

Austin Hankwitz
It just, you know, you don't combine these things until you are married. 100%, full stop. Our next question comes from Jennifer K. Jennifer says, I want to ask your opinion on a rental property, single family residence that I've owned for over 20 years in California. The value of the property is $2 million, and our equity is 1.65 million.

Our mortgage interest rate is 3.1%. It's about $3,500 a month when you include taxes, insurance, and expenses. And we have a long term tenant who pays us $4,800 a month. So I'm wondering whether this rental is a wise investment or not. For example, I could take out the equity and purchase another rental or an Airbnb, or even invest it into ETF's.

I could also sell the property, do a 1031 exchange into a larger asset, such as a multifamily or even a small apartment building. Or I could just sell it all in general and take the money and do whatever else with. What are your insights? I don't know what to do. I feel stuck.

Robert, this is right up your alley. Let's hear what you have to say. Jennifer, very well crafted question. I love this. It's amazing that you understand the complexities and the options.

Robert Croak
So let's do some simple math. The HELOC love the idea. Normally, because you have so much equity tied up that you can't do anything with and you can't grow it. But the problem is the math doesn't math. Right now, with helocs in California, you're going to be seven, eight, 9% on that HELOC.

Austin Hankwitz
And. And as we always say, you can't out invest high interest debt. And once you start getting up to that seven, eight, 9%, we consider that high interest. So that's a tricky one. The 1031 exchange could work if you did the exchange into a larger, more expensive property.

Robert Croak
But the other problem there is is that you also have to look that interest rates on that commercial loan are going to be, again, that six or 7%. So again, it's right on the fence. So, in my opinion, in this breakdown, you are kind of hand tied because of the state of the market and the time of selling. This one thing that would help you consider what is the right move is to go out and do the research. Really simple for you to figure out what is the average capitalization rate, where that property is located, do some comps and figure that out because you have to look that if, let's say across the country, it's three and a half percent.

If the average capitalization rate there is five, six, 7%, then that gives you some ammunition to understand the best strategy here because you are kind of stuck in a really difficult spot. You could take a million dollars out in equity through a HELOC, pay the 8% and maybe hit a home run and have a 1214 18% return on the new property. But if you don't, then you're going backwards because you're not going to be able to cover the HELOC in the cash flow that you have from the property. So that money is going to have to come from somewhere else. And you just have to make sure that the positive arbitrage of your money makes sense in your favor in this equation.

So, very difficult situation. You're in a great spot because you have all this equity now. You just have to figure out the timing and the right strategy to put that equity to work. Oh, what a tough question, Robert. You know, Jennifer, another thing you could do, and it really just is your preference, right.

Austin Hankwitz
Do you want to have a rental property? If the answer is yes, keep it and do what Robert said. Right. Figure out a way to get some of the equity out. Maybe that's something you do this year, next year, I don't know.

Right. But, like, what you're doing right now, you're cash flowing about $12,000 a year, which is a terrible yield on 1.65 million tied up slash invested into something. Right. It is not very good. If it were me, Jennifer and I didn't want to have rental properties.

Right. This is assuming you did not want to have the rental and you wanted the money. I would sell it. I would pay my, you know, long term capital gains on that one, six, five or whatever the profits is there. I don't know what you paid for.

Whatever. Let's call you a million dollars right after taxes and profits, all that fun stuff. I would take that million and I could back to the question before, you know, if that is an Spyi, a QqQI, perhaps to Robert's point, you could get a couple of different Airbnbs. And if you really enjoyed sort of this rental experience, you could absolutely deploy that million toward a couple other, you know, places around the area for you. You know, we even had a question a couple episodes ago about a woman wanting to build an additional dwelling unit in her backyard.

Maybe you could do something like that, right? It really depends on what you want to do and what you want to take control of. If you want it to be completely hands off and you just want a passive income, Spyi and QqQi will do that for you. And you could make between 120 to 150,000 a year in cash flow from that million dollars, which is much better than 12,000 that it is right now. If you wanted to own real estate, then you can take that million and you could roll it into maybe a multifamily.

You could roll it into maybe a couple Airbnb bees. Like, whatever you want to do with it, right? But that's obviously a much more active income. You have to actually take care of those things and run it like a business. So wherever you are in that spectrum, just kind of have that conversation with yourself.

What is passion for me is real estate passion, and if it is, then you have a lot of options here. If real estate is not passion and this, you know, 20 year single family rental, maybe you inherited it from your great grandmother and she gave it to you and you never sold it, which was smart. And now you're like, man, I never really or signed up to be a, you know, a landlord, but now I feel like I have to be one. Like, maybe not, right? Maybe it's not your passion, and you can take that money and do something else with it.

But that's the conversation I'd have with myself is like, what do I like to spend my time doing? Do I like to be a landlord and do I love real estate? Great. You've got a lot of options here. If I don't want to be a landlord and I don't like real estate, you have other options, too, to, you know, sell it and do other things with the money.

Robert Croak
I love it. That's a great other side of the fence approach. The bottom line is this is really what illustrates why most people, this is a great situation you're in, but why most people shouldn't have their first property be a primary home that they live in. Because you can build all of that equity, but it's dead money doing nothing for you until you sell it. And you're in a situation where you have incredible equity and it's really underperforming by a mile of what it would do if you just took that money and simply put it into a few of these funds.

We talk about, and then you have no hassles as a landlord. You don't have to think about anything else. But that's where the key component is that capital appreciation. If you're in a market where maybe the capital appreciation is six 8% a year, then it's a little bit of a different story because you're building more and more wealth and equity for down the road and you're still getting that $15,000 in cash flow a year. So great question.

Love the complexities of this little bit difficult, but I hope this gives you some insight of some of your options. So we just did some quick math, and if you look at your area of California, the capital appreciation is in that six or 7%, which really bodes well to your favor of having that guaranteed growth. And so keep that in mind. This may be something you considered and didn't mention in the question, but it is that kind of third leg of the stool of how this plays out from a mathematical perspective. What a great situation to be in.

Austin Hankwitz
Robert, those golden handcuffs if I've ever heard of them. Everyone, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Rich Habits podcast question and answer edition. As a quick reminder, we're hosting another webinar. April 24 at 04:00 p.m. Eastern time, we're going to be hosting a webinar all about direct indexing.

Direct indexing? Yeah, that's the thing you've probably never heard of, but we're talking about it because it's so important from a tax loss harvesting perspective. What the heck does that mean, Austin? It means if you're able to do this correctly, you will be able to save so much money on your taxes paid on the profits you've made in your portfolio. So tune into the webinar in.

We're going to break everything down. Very simply. We got a presentation for you guys, a lot of Q and A. Going to have some experts to come join us as well. It's going to be a really great webinar and presentation to learn about direct indexing and how important it can be for your own portfolio and optimizing your wealth building journey going forward as it relates to taxes.

Robert Croak
And you guys can all see how Austin's voice gets a little higher and a little faster because it gets excited when he knows he gets the nerd out on some of these things that we break down for all of you. Because our goal here is to break everything down, all the scary stuff in investing, and make it easy for everyone to digest and implement into their portfolios. And one more thing after the webinar is we do have some tickets left. We'd love to see you in person for the money Mindset Wealth Building summit April 26 and 27th in Florida, South Florida in St. Petersburg.

Austin will be there, I'll be there. A bunch of other great speakers. But if you can't make it, it, make sure you check out the link in the show notes below. There is a virtual component as well, so you can watch it from wherever you want and whenever you want because it will be recorded. We'd love to have you, but please check that out.

The money Mindset wealth building summit. And as always, thank you all for joining us, keeping us at the top of the charts, following along every single week on this journey with us and the rich habits community. And we're so excited to have you and share it with a friend. We love those five star reviews. It helps us in the algorithms and just really helps us stay at that top to provide you guys such great information each and every week.

Austin Hankwitz
You know what, Robert? We've got, I think, now 60 or 70,000 weekly listeners and 4000 reviews on the podcast now, albeit they're all five star reviews, but only 4000. So what about the other 65,000 people there that haven't left a review yet? I need you all to speak up and let the algorithms know that you like the podcast. It's really simple.

Just go in on Spotify, you click click review or rate the show, and you just click five stars. There's no comments. There's not just click five stars. That's all it takes. It's so simple.

So if you're not yet done that, do us a favor and click the five star button. And with that being said, everyone, thanks so much for tuning into this episode, and we hope you have a great rest of your week.