- The story of Omni Casey
- The importance of real estate education
- Passive Income vs Active Income
- Impacting your community
- What is the worst investment mistake people make?
- omnitheinvestorguy.com
- cashflowbreakfastclub.com
- https://www.instagram.com/omnitheinvestorguy
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEYYRdf_ANWpjfN6vF9Dhrg/videos
- Contact Number: 843-619-3005
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/exitstrategiesradioshow/
- FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/exitstrategiessc/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxoSuynJd5c4qQ_eDXLJaZA
- Website: https://www.exitstrategiesradioshow.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmelette/
- Email @: corwyn@corwynmelette.com
Episode 79: How Financial Freedom Impacts your Family and Community with Omni Casey
CORWYN:
Good morning, good morning, and good morning guys. Welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show. Hey, I am your host that is who I am Corwyn J. Melette broker and owner of Exit Realty Lowcountry group. There you go, in beautiful North Charleston, South Carolina. Hey, If this is your first time listening to this show you Sir or Ma’am are in for a treat because our mission is very simple. That is to empower our community through financial literacy and real estate education. So guys, look, we have been leveling up and we are continuing to take steps. And you know, we’ve been talking about it. So if you’ve been listening to us, over the last few weeks, several weeks, you’ve heard all kinds of things. And we’ve been taking you guys to the next level, beyond just buying just the home that you’re going to occupy, but how to invest, how to grow, how people are getting started, what people are doing, and the future of, if you will, of real estate and real estate investing. And today is no different. We are very fortunate to have you with us. Omni the real estate guy, is with us today. I love it. I love it. How are you doing today, Omni?
OMNI:
Corwyn, I am doing great. Thanks for the invite. Super excited to be here.
CORWYN:
So, Omni, you have a remarkable story. You know I was a little bit jealous. So I’m gonna let you tell your listeners, I’ll tell our listeners if you will more about you. But you grew up in Hawaii, correct? Just a teeny bit jealous. So if you don’t mind, if you could just give our listeners a high-level overview of who you are and what you do?
OMNI:
Sure, I appreciate that. Well, South Carolina has a beautiful, beautiful area as well. So you’re sitting pretty over there. So I grew up in Hawaii, but I’m no longer there, I moved to Northern Virginia, to the east coast where my wife’s family’s from probably 12, maybe 13 years ago, my real estate career started in Hawaii 20 years ago, as a real estate investor, I became an agent and broker. For the last 20 years, I’ve been doing that as well. Just passionate about everything that you are doing on your show, I love the education side, I have three kids and my mindset shifted. You know, when I started to have, you know, our grow our family, my oldest is 14 now, my daughter is 10 and my youngest is eight. And you are responsible for these human beings, right? Them growing up, and as a parent, you’re trying to figure out, you know, what can you do to give them an advantage? Or what can you do to set them up correctly, I realized that financial education, the real estate investing, which I was doing, was missing in their life and missing in their education. So I shifted a lot of what I did to education so that I could teach my kids number one, and once I learned how to communicate to my family, kind of radiate it out from there and spread the message within my brokerage, spread the message within my community. And I’ve been blessed to be able to do that from Hawaii to Northern Virginia and a few states in between.
CORWYN:
That is awesome. That’s awesome. So, Omni, you have a resume again, that is extremely, you know, impressive. You have been committed and focused and educating and empowering people. You know, as you said, for 20 years you’ve been doing, you know, doing this, you’ve been investing in such a real estate. You are now an author. And I love the title of your book, which is the Cashflow Breakfast Club. It’s like you eat dollars and cents for breakfast. I love it. So tell our listeners you could a little bit about the book and who was meant to touch– to challenge
OMNI:
Yeah, I appreciate that the Cashflow Breakfast Club has been a combination of a passion of mine and collaboration with my wife to kind of put it out there. So interestingly enough, I probably wrote it maybe three or four years ago and never published it. It was a training manual. That’s really what it started as, it’s a training manual of I reached a level of success that I was excited about, I felt blessed that my family was blessed because of real estate. And as I want to start to train more, and help more people kind of take a similar path, I need to figure out what did I do right. What did I do wrong? Right? I made a lot of mistakes in between. But just document my journey on specific transactions and the lessons that I learned from those transactions. And I started to train my mentees, you know, that wanted to just get into real estate or level up the real estate investing. Never really planned to publish the book, if you will, I’m a very private person. And then, last year, maybe two years ago, some friends that are authors as well just said, you know, you want to make a difference, you want to make an impact, and you already have a book that’s ready to go. So you might as well just, you know, get it out there and publish it. So the problem that I had was, it was my story. It was like it was an autobiography, and I did not want or wasn’t comfortable at that time fully telling my story. So we repackaged 99% of that, still my story, but we put it into a power parable format, a character, not Omni Casey but Dan Carter, who grew up in Hawaii and happened to be a real estate investor and happened to you know, get into the brokerage side and his journey of finding coaches finding mentors, finding a mastermind to be a part of, you know, and they dig into real estate transactions along the way, and there are lessons to be learned along the way. But it’s more of a story and a manual of if someone starting from zero, how do I– how do they, you know, set themselves up for financial freedom, through real estate investing in the most boring, you know, path possible– the simplest path possible, which is, you know, through rental properties, there are so many paths that you can choose from, but I chose rental properties and cash flow as my path it kind of puts it out as a lesson. And now it’s a training manual that we teach from in our in-person education events that we run locally and in a few states as well.
CORWYN:
So, Omni, you say this thing, and when we were talking, if you will backstage before– It’s funny, I mean when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. But I want you to elaborate on it for our listeners, but you say this thing that everybody needs, every person, everyone needs two professions, one for them, and one for their money. So if you could please elaborate on that thought process.
OMNI:
Yeah, that’s a great one. And I don’t know if I probably did not come up with that. I’ve had so many mentors throughout my life. So many books, right that you pull from right? I love the Rich Dad, Poor Dad side, personal mentor, Brandon Turner, previously bigger pockets, he’s written a lot. So there’s a lot of stuff that I pull from that, like speaks to me, right? And so the need for two professions is in the book that I wrote. And it just speaks to so many people who are, you know, active income, and then passive income. And there are two different worlds, right, and understanding the difference between active income and passive income is probably the first Aha! moment for almost anyone. Because most people only really understand active income, I go to work, I trade my time for money. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s only that at some point, you don’t have that– it’s harder to exit, right? Because the moment you stop trading your time for your money, the money stops, what are you going to do at that point, right, and so setting up the passive income, in the real estate space, you still see so many people trying to jump 100% into passive income, you still need active income, or you need something right? You need something to kind of fuel that obsession that you have of stacking up that passive income or buying those rental properties or whatever it may be. So it’s getting good at earning income, whether it’s your business. For me, I was a real estate professional, you know, on the agent brokerage side, I fixed and flipped properties as well. And that’s an active income because the moment you stop doing that there’s no income coming in. And so that was my active income, my profession, and my other profession happened to be passive, right? And so I’m lucky because my financial freedom and my passion are intertwined. Everything is real estate related. Along the way, I found so many people that want the financial freedom of real estate, but they don’t have the passion for real estate. And I’m beating my head against the wall. I’m trying to figure out why. Right? I’m passionate about it. Why aren’t they? The reality is everyone’s wired differently, right? If you’re an accountant somewhere you might love the numbers of it, but you don’t want to be in the business of the real estate. And so really understanding that no matter what you do, you can work, you know, in tech, you can work, you know, as a doctor, as a dentist, you can be good at your active income, as long as you are also setting up your passive income, business strategy, or investment, you know, process there. That second part is always real estate or passive income real estate, the first part can be whatever you want.
CORWYN:
Well, you know, it’s interesting, you should say that, because we see it from various places, as you look at the industry, you see a lot of people that are I mean, you are your broker. So one, congratulations on you, Sir, on being able to, quote-unquote, retire from being a broker. But I know you saw it, I imagine you saw it there because you have so many people that come into the business that, you know, they want to do the business, but they don’t, they have no passion for the business, they only there because they just want to get a paycheck, they think real estate is easy when we know, it is extremely difficult. For you to be successful at it, it’s extremely difficult just in general. So those people oftentimes are the ones who are, kind of in between the people that you know, that you know you can serve, and you could help, you know, you serve people for 20 years. I know you help people establish and grow and create legacies and build wealth because that is what we do in this profession. And we love it because we were passionate about them and passionate about people and about real estate as a whole. So you also talk about like we have this conversation Omni, so you know, for our listeners, you know, we have this conversation about everyone has their own startup, their own place, where they’re going, all that kind of stuff. But you what is like, the worst investment mistake you believe that let’s say someone can make or, or things that you advise people against? Let’s put it that way.
OMNI:
Yeah, that’s a great one. So so it depends on where they are right and being at a different starting point. So if the reason I started so many of my education meetup groups, is that it’s free, we don’t charge anything. It’s a lot of my agents that I was coaching and training that were near and dear to me, and then their clients are near and dear to me, we’re signing up for all these, there are so many programs out there to learn about real estate investing and I’m not trying to bash any program out there, education is worth something, right. But some of these programs are signing up for they’re spending 30, 40, 50, 60 $80,000 to learn about it. And great education, but at the end of it, nothing happens. Like they spent a lot of money, maybe they don’t have any money to invest. And so, One, some people need those programs, and some people need to spend the money for them to do something. But what I saw the majority of people in those programs were not benefiting from it. So I started to train my agents. The agents said, Okay, can we train our friends and family and our clients and we opened it up to the community. And we kind of open to now we have about 100 people that show up every single month and every single one of our locations that are for education. But there’s a missing component of that mastermind, that accountability, right? And so the worst mistake you need can do is figuring out where you’re gonna get your education from, are you the type of person that likes paying for things because it makes you feel good that you paid for something, but you’re not going to do anything with it? And if so, that’s a really easy way to spend 10, 15, 20, $30,000 and not do anything with it. Right? If you’re the type of person who spends money, it forces you to take action and go for it. Absolutely. And I know people like that that will not take that action unless spent money on it. So understanding who you are as a person because of the entryway into education, mentoring, and accountability. There are so many avenues and so many ways you can go from there. And in the book, actual real estate investing, one of the first steps that I talked about is being able to do a house hack, right? So can you get rid of your housing expense, especially if you’re starting from ground zero? Can you get rid of your housing expenses? And if you do that, that snowballs into really the rest of the plan, and the rest of the plan is not you go earn more money, because maybe you’re in a fixed income job. And you can’t scale up by 20, 30, or $40,000 more per year. Maybe you’re making the same amount of money every single time. But if you get rid of your housing expense, let’s just call it $3,000 a month, and now you’re house hacking. So you didn’t have to earn any more money to get that you got $3,000 a month, put it into a bank account, and do nothing but buy a rental property with that. At the end of the year, you get $36,000, and guess what if you do that for two years, you’re buying two different properties at a $36,000 downpayment. Sure they’re small properties, but they start to grow and cashflow you just that that cash will help you build and buy a bigger property and a bigger property is the process of you know, starting from scratch. Now, if you are an entrepreneur, and you own your own business or your real estate agent or whatever it is, sure you have a scalable income, that you can increase with higher motivation, and you can make more money. I will say that the majority of people don’t have, the flexibility to take advantage of that. So I would say, figure out your education, and then get into your house hack or your first, next move to reduce your expenses.
CORWYN:
You know, I’ll share something with you. I’m not. So true story, I had– years, years, years ago, a client, went to some program and bought this whole big expensive, you know, quote-unquote, system if you will. I forgot what they spent. But it was five figures. And the money they spent, they spent all the money, they had no money to invest after that. And when they came back to me, which, you know, didn’t know that’s what they were going to do. They went out and did this– [inaudible] Okay, well, great. We talked about possibly doing that before. Okay, wonderful. What did you do? And they told me I was like, Okay, fine. And they started talking, and we started talking. And I was like, well, oh, I didn’t know you knew that. Well, yeah, I know that. It’s the same stuff that we do all the time. So what are we going to do? And how much money have you got? And they told me and I’m like, Well, wait a minute. So you spent this but you don’t have what you need to get started. So as you said, you know it is handicapped, and in that instance– not everybody. Some people like you said it works the opposite, but you also got to figure out quote-unquote, you know, where you’re going to get in so if you don’t mind, Omni, I’m not just kind of describe, I guess– we interviewed had and we talk about all types of strategies, whether that be you know, we talked about Airbnb, we talked about, multifamily, single units, those kinds of things as far as you know, particular strategies. What’s one of your faves?
OMNI:
Yeah… Real Estate. The more you talk we talk the more you probably like yourself you realize real estate or particularly real estate investing is almost like an addiction to me like I do feel like everything looks so good and having to figure out how to– So I’ve done fix and flip, I’ve done wholesaling, I’ve done single families, I’ve done condos, I’ve done Airbnb, I’ve done midterm and I’ve done everything there is, right? Syndications, in general, the LP, everything, because I love it, it all works compared to other things out there. But over the last few years, one of my favorite strategies that I’ve honed in on and perfected, is still in the cashflow realm, you know, buying multifamily, small multifamily, and buying them from exiting landlords through, you know, what I call a portfolio purchase. So someone that’s been in the business for 10, 20, 30 years, and they just want to like something happened, that their last job, they just want to exit, right? So if someone has 10, 20, or 30 properties, they can’t just exit, right? They can’t just sell them all, it’s very difficult. It takes them a year, two years, or three years to find the right buyer sometimes, or they’re selling them one at a time, which is problematic for multiple reasons. So I try to connect with them, I try to buy their entire portfolio, and let them exit to their next stage in life. And I take over and I figure out what’s the value, add opportunity here, right? Which of these am I keeping, which means am I selling off which of these, you know, am I gonna upgrade and put into my portfolio under this strategy, whether it’s long term, short term, or midterm? So how I rent is less important, although the majority of what I do is long-term. It is the acquisition, that since shifting to that, it allowed my acquisition, I only need, you know, a handful of good portfolios a year to be happy about my year. You know, if I buy two or three portfolios, that’s 20, 30, 40 properties, and that’s really two, three property– transactions because they’re all kind of tied together versus me previously, trying to find one deal at a time one too little time. Now, I will say, every once in a while, we still do buy one-at-a-time properties if it’s you know, in our backyard, or if it’s in one of the core areas that we love, we’ll buy a property but we almost exclusively hold out to find portfolios that we can acquire.
CORWYN:
So that’s interesting that and that’s a very, very, very neat strategy, you know, for our listeners, guys look, don’t let what we’re talking about be overwhelming or daunting because, you know, there is a way to do this to leverage yourself to it. Very, not necessarily, very easily, but easily that you can make these things happen. Is just having the mindset to take this on. So Omni, you practice or you say you participated in transactions extended from Hawaii over to now Virginia. I can imagine that cross-country trek, so to speak, that flight or flights and all that stuff. But what markets do you primarily practice in? Do you primarily practice in the DMV area or other parts of the country? What areas do you like currently?
OMNI:
Yeah, so I’m embarrassed about how many markets I’m still in, and I’m exiting some of my markets. So from Hawaii, right? From Hawaii, everyone, if you grew up on an island, everyone else is just the others, right? So I didn’t know the difference between Virginia and South Carolina in terms of markets, right? I just knew that I was starting in Hawaii, and Hawaii was too expensive for me. After a couple of transactions, I’m like, you can’t cash flow in Hawaii. So you know, almost picking a spot on the map and figuring out where am I gonna go to so, you know, Texas and Georgia. And there are multiple markets in between that I’ve dabbled in, which is a terrible way to be a real estate investor until I found really the right team in a market. And so the markets that I have grown significantly in are directly related to I have a competent team like a rockstar team on the ground there. And he, although I’m licensed, I’ve never my agent, I hire someone that knows that market better than I am, sure I could be a property manager, I’ve tried to, but I’m a terrible property manager. So I need to make sure I have a rockstar property manager, you know, on the ground. And contractors, if you’re doing value add, over the last five years, I’ve shifted heavily into the DMV market, I did almost nothing in this area, although I lived in this area, I had the ability to invest remotely, I just happen to be living in a different location, right. So I was always looking at investing remotely. And it was, once my kids started to become old enough to understand what I was doing. And rather than showing them pictures, and a P&L sheet, which I do, I just knew that they could get more out of hands-on education. And so, me buying properties that we can drive to. They can, you know, go take a look at the renovation, take a look at it before, during, after, you know, put them to work a little bit before the contract to show up so that it grains ingrained in their memory, some of the valuable lessons that they can learn. so heavily in this DMV market over the last five years,
CORWYN:
That is awesome, because, you know, it’s about bringing them up. And teaching them, as you said is difficult, or more challenging. When you’re working in a market, they can’t see the product, they don’t see what it looked like, they don’t see what you did to it, they don’t see what it turned out to be. And in turn, you know, that’s awesome. And your children your family is so lucky to have that because that is you know, definitely something that we strive for to quote-unquote, spread the wealth, to extend the knowledge and the knowledge because our legacy is beyond financial, it is about the education and the opportunities that we leave our children and our family. So, you know, I’m not– What if you had as we kind of get to quote-unquote towards the end of the show, if there was a nugget, you know, this thing that you could drop on our listeners to help them or catapult them, quote-unquote, into investing or further along on their path and their journey? What would that be?
OMNI:
Oh, so I would say, I go back and kind of reflect on my journey, what propelled me right to the various paths that I went on, and why did I shift from this to this and this and this, and there was a common theme in my life, right? I was chasing legacy and I didn’t know it at the time. I don’t know if I even knew this before a few years ago, but chasing legacy, so I got good at earning money. I happen to get into the real estate agent fix and flip space and then one that set my family up. And I’m blessed because of that. And my clients benefit because I would be able to help clients one at a time. And it got to a point where my reach is so small with a handful of clients that I can take on at any given time. And that’s what made me shift into okay, maybe I’m gonna get into this broker coaching side because if I can help 100 agents, and they’re all helping 10, 20 clients now that that’s a bigger impact. That’s a bigger legacy, right? And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 10-11 years or so and loved it. Love my team. And what pushed me to use the word retire. I don’t love that word because I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked. I’m just doing something different. You don’t have that role anymore, that responsibility. And the only reason I gave that up is that I realized I needed to make a bigger impact at some point I start to crave making that bigger impact. And me helping 100 agents was making an impact. But if I can take this Cashflow Breakfast Club Community and turn it into 10,000 people, and help, I want to coach the coaches, I want to mentor the mentors, and kind of keep going up that totem pole to– really comes down to what is the biggest impact that you can make before you leave this earth. And that’s what I think about almost daily. So although someone starting is probably not thinking about impact, you’re looking at the trajectory of your life or your investment cycle. And if you think about what’s first for you, financial freedom is absolutely first, financial freedom, get your financial freedom, set an order, create your passive income, as much as you need, so that you can retire, and then hopefully go do something more impactful, right and shift. So I like to frame financial freedom and legacy in two different strategies, two different, you know, arenas. Focus on your financial freedom, if you are not financially free, meaning you do not have passive income that exceeds your expenses, you’re not financially free yet, go focus on that, once you hit that, pause, celebrate, retire, and then go figure out what are you going to do to go change the world, like what is your next big thing in life, for your family, for your community. And that will always give me more energy because I want to be a real estate investor for the rest of my life. It can be draining. Like I’ve seen so many people, whether you’re a real estate agent, or a real estate investor, start with all the best intentions, and get good at what they’re doing. But at some point, just get burnt out. Because the goal, that end goal of I just want to be a real estate investor. There’s no end to that, and you achieved it. And you’re doing that for 10 years, and you’re thinking, why am I still doing this, and you lose your motivation to continue to do that at a high level so that bigger threat of you’re always chasing impact. You’re always chasing legacy, but only chase, you know, what’s right in front of you, I think will give you unlimited levels of energy, as long as you’re willing to completely continue to reinvent yourself and shift your strategy once that next level is in front of you.
CORWYN:
That is awesome. And I love that man. Because you’re right. I mean as long as you’re trading time for money, you know, you’re on the wrong side of the axes. You know, Rich Dad, Poor Dad talks about the quadrants, you got to get to the other side of the quadrant, another side, quote-unquote, of the axes, you got to get across it. And once you get across it, then the world is completely different. I love what you’re doing, and keep doing it. Omni, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for being on the show with us today. As we wrap up, I just want to extend again, my gratitude for you sharing your knowledge, your wisdom, and most importantly, being accessible to our listeners, if you don’t mind. Before we close out, how can people get in contact with you?
OMNI:
Yeah, well, well, first off, thank you. This is an awesome show. I love what you’re doing, love what you stand for, I love the people that you’re you’re helping as well. I have a couple of websites: omnitheinvestorguy.com, my personal website, my family investment company, and free resources, what I use to analyze deals, and what I use to kind of factor in financial freedom. My most passionate site though, is my is cashflowbreakfastclub.com. And that’s where those you know, if you’re in an area, you want to be a part of an in-person community, we were expanding to 100 markets over the next three years. More importantly, if you’re already an investor and you’re saying I need to make an impact, I need to figure out how to do this. We have a template, we just give this to other investors, and we don’t charge anything. We just give it to other investors to say you go open up your own Cashflow Breakfast Club in your community, we’ll support you so that you have a 100-person Real Estate Investor Education Event and meetup that hopefully you’re making an impact on you know, in your market, wherever it may be. So go ahead and check it out. I’m on social media omnitheinvestorguy in almost all the channels as well.
CORWYN:
Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you again so much. For our listeners, guys. Y’all have heard it here. Y’all got direct knowledge. I mean, you got it dropped right here on your lap, at your feet if you’re standing and in turn. You got to pick it up and you got to do something with it. This is no longer the season for complacency. This is no longer the season for content, it is the season for movement, for growth. I love Omni, that you talk repeatedly today about impact. That was my one word last year. I’m a one-word person my one-word last year was “impact”. Anything I hit, I touched, I had to make an impact in it to move it forward. So I appreciate that so much. Our listeners, guys, thank you all for listening today. Thank you for being a part of Exit Strategies Radio Show family, guys, you know how I feel. And you know what I say, and you’re gonna get it today just like any other day. And that is I love you. I love you. I love you. And we gon’ see you guys out there in those streets.
