The Realistic Path to Wealth: Investing in Real Estate WHILE Working a W2

Dave:
There’s a common narrative in real estate and the broader real estate investing community that you should be trying to quit your job, which don’t get me wrong, it’s a totally legit goal, and I get the sentiment you want to be your own boss or maybe you feel like investing and working full-time is too much. Well, today we’re going to share the other side of this coin. We’re going to discuss how to balance a full-time job while pursuing your real estate investing journey.

Dave:
Hey friends, it’s Dave. Welcome to the show. Today we’re bringing on a very active member of the BiggerPockets community, Lawrence Briggs, to discuss the topic of balancing a W2 while starting to invest in real estate. Everywhere I look, Lawrence is there. He’s such an active and enthusiastic member of community. He’s someone I’ve had the privilege to meet at BiggerPockets conference. I see him on the forums and it made me want to bring him on the show so we could all learn from him because he’s extremely active doing all these different things, building his portfolio, but he also has professional interests outside of real estate. And so Lords and I are going to discuss his path to getting started in real estate investing, why he chose a side hustle that supports his real estate investing journey, how Lawrence saved up enough capital to build a portfolio. And lastly, we’ll talk about some tips and tricks that any investor can follow to also balance a full-time job with real estate investing.

Dave:
Before we bring Lawrence on, I have a massive giveaway to announce to you guys. I think it’s actually the biggest, maybe highest dollar value giveaway we’ve ever done on this podcast. It is for BP Conn. If you haven’t heard of it, BiggerPockets does a conference every year and this year it’s in Cancun, Mexico. And right now we’re going to be giving away a free ticket to the conference. You can win a superior deluxe garden view room. There’s a lot of adjectives, but that’s the name of the room that you could win. It’s for October 6th, seventh, and eighth, 2024. So three nights for up to two adults, and this includes all access to everything. So you get to go to the conference keynotes, the breakout sessions, the events, the parties, the exhibit hall. It’s all inclusive. So you get all of that. All you have to do to apply to win this ticket is to leave a positive review for this show on either Spotify or Apple.

Dave:
Take a quick screenshot of it and send it to the BiggerPockets Instagram account. If you do that, you’ll be entered to win. And of course, if you want to just learn more about the conference in general, visit www.biggerpockets.com/mexico. So if you’re thinking about going, you might as well enter to win. It’s a great way to win a freight ticket. With that said, let’s bring on Lawrence to talk about balancing a W2 with your real estate portfolio. Lawrence, good to see you. Last time I saw you was at BP Con at the gym. Yes. It was good running into you there. What have you been up to Since

Lawrence:
Just managing my rentals and trying to stay afloat while doing it, working a nine to five.

Dave:
So you work nine to five, you are an investor and you’re also like a moderator in the BiggerPockets community as well?

Lawrence:
Yes, and so I’m a huge believer of habit stacking. So because I don’t like cardio, what I’ll do is whenever I’m doing my cardio, I’ll hop on a treadmill and I’ll moderate for BiggerPockets in the forums and on Facebook and stuff.

Dave:
That is very impressive, multitasking. Actually, my wife was just reading Atomic Habits. I’ve never read it, but she was talking about habit stacking as well. Could you just explain that to the audience? So

Lawrence:
Habit stacking is pretty much when you want to accomplish a certain goal, however you feel as though you’re focusing more on the goal instead of the habit. And what you do is you mix it with something that you would normally do. So if I’m going to be scrolling on the internet, why not just get on the treadmill? If you’re going to be watching tv, go to the gym and hop on a bicycle. So it’s just mixing something that you really don’t want to do, but you needed to accomplish a goal with something that you already do.

Dave:
I’m so glad you brought it up because I think it’s going to be very relevant to our conversation today where we’re going to be talking all about how to balance real estate investing with W2 income or full-time. It doesn’t need to be W2, whatever, working a non-real estate investing job. And this is just one great example of things that you can do to make yourself more efficient. But let’s back up for a second, Lawrence. So when you first started investing, well, first, how long ago was that?

Lawrence:
So if you count my primary residence, which I bought in attention of the mindset of investor since 2018, but I purchased two rental properties in 2022, so five to three years. Oh,

Dave:
Awesome. Yeah. And have you had the same full-time job that whole time?

Lawrence:
Yes, yes. So I actually switched industries. My background is in student housing, so I worked overseeing leasing and marketing for two publicly traded student housing companies. And I had the aha moment where the C-suite people would come and visit. And when they did visit, they were like, Hey, Lawrence, you’re doing so well. If you continue to do X, Y, and Z, then those trips that I’m having, I can have more. And the person told me, he said, you’re such a creative person, and if you were to be a real estate investor on your own, you can possibly become a multimillionaire. So that made me switch industries. I moved from Austin, Texas to a much rural affordable market to be able to start investing in real estate. But yes, I’ve had the same job for those last five years, and it was a big change.

Dave:
So you’re still working in student housing though, full-time?

Lawrence:
No, so I actually work for the state for the government. Oh, okay. Yeah, so I switched industries. Yeah, so I completely switched industries because where I wanted to start buying properties, there were no student housing properties. There was nothing for me to be able to do in my particular industry. So it was kind of tough because I had to leave an industry that I did love and enjoy, but you have to do things that you don’t want to do sometimes to get a different result in life.

Dave:
Well, good for you. I mean, obviously not everyone could just change industries. Not everyone could pick up their life and move to a different place. But can you tell me just a little bit about the decision there? Because it sounds like you liked what you were doing well enough, but you moved and found another totally different career. Would you say that you like what you’re doing now?

Lawrence:
I like it. I don’t love it. I am a huge person that’s transparent. But like I said, sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to do to be able to accomplish and move the needle. If I would’ve stayed in Austin, Texas, I would’ve probably had to move 45 minutes to an hour outside of the area anyway to have an affordable purchase price. And so what I was able to do was I moved an hour north of Austin and bought a three bedroom, one bath house, one ninth of an acre. At that time, I bought this for 67,000 and it’s worth 1, 7, 5, and less than five years.

Dave:
Wow. Yeah. So you’re talking a huge difference here because like 67,000, but in Austin at that time, the median home price must’ve been like 400, 500,000, something like that.

Lawrence:
Exactly, exactly. And so you have these submarkets or different pocket markets like Mainor, Texas and different areas. That’s still about an hour to 45 minutes at that time, you may could have found something for maybe 200, 2 25. And so whenever I looked at this market, because it is a, I’m in a niche market, I’m in a military town. I’m near one of the largest military institutions or installations, which is Fort Hood, Fort Cosas. And for some reason, when I came out here, I knew that this market was going to pop what I thought was going to happen in 10 years to 15 years, happened in five years because November of 2018 I bought the property for 67,000. And then in 2022 it desktop appraised at 1 75, and it’s holding its value now. Wow.

Dave:
That’s awesome. Good for you. Do you mind if I ask you, you don’t have to tell me the exact numbers, but I’m curious, when you moved from Austin to this other market, did your salary decrease?

Lawrence:
It did decrease

Dave:
By a lot.

Lawrence:
By a lot.

Dave:
Okay.

Lawrence:
Like 35%.

Dave:
Okay, because I’m just trying to do the math in my head where it’s like you took a 35% cut in your salary, which must’ve been scary. Yes. But at the same time, you got a property that may have been 20% of what it would cost in Austin, like an 80% reduction in what the purchase price is. So when you think about that, and I think this is a really important thing for our audience to remember, if you think about the ratio of what your income is to what the purchase price of a property is in your area, it sounds like you actually made an upgrade because relative to your income, the properties were still cheaper.

Lawrence:
Yes, most definitely. I saw it as an increase because I was not living in a marvelous apartment at all in Austin, Texas. I was living in something that was not desirable, 484 square foot one bedroom. And at that time they said that my rent was going to be like nine 50, and my mortgage for this property was like 5 65.

Dave:
Oh wow. That’s great. Alright, it’s time to take a quick break to hear from our show sponsors, but we’ll be back with more from Lawrence Briggs right after this. Hey, all. Welcome back to my conversation with Lawrence Briggs about how to balance your investing with your full-time job.

Lawrence:
There’s a give and take with everything. With being a real estate investor, I loved Austin. I had to take a pay cut, I had to leave an industry that I loved. However, I think that everything kind of happened for a reason because with that, me taking a pay cut, I had to find a side hustle, and that’s where I started to elevate my real estate investing. So I had to make ends meet. I started delivering food as a food delivery driver. And at that time I didn’t know what habit stacking was. So what I would do was I would go deliver food and in my car I would be listening to BiggerPockets podcasts, mainly the Rookie show because the rookie show had came out in 2020 and I was just loving that show. It had resonated with me the most at that time. Oh, for sure. And so what I’ll do is I’ll get off work, go do my food deliveries Monday through Thursday. On Friday I’ll do about 10 to 12 hours. And then on Saturdays and Sundays I’ll do about 16 hours still. No, I don’t do that. I don’t do that anymore.

Dave:
Okay. Okay.

Lawrence:
Yeah, I did that in 2019 and 2022, but when I did that in 2022, just part-time, I was able to earn $15,000. Wow. Yes. As well as save an additional $8,000 from my regular W2 job. But that was in 2020 and I started looking for deals. And in 2022, it was when opportunity met my preparation because I not only bought one, but I bought two rental properties six months of each other with 15% down all me. I bought one in February of 2022, and then I bought one in July of 2022 off market because I was networking while I was delivering food. I was networking with so many people’s, amazing. I was learning the market. I was like, Hey, do you know who owns this? So yeah, just to say all that. Yes. Back to your information about taking a upgrade in life, sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward.

Dave:
So I want to just take a step back here and just call out two different strategies that Lawrence has used for working W2 and investing at the same time. So one was to move to a market where there is a better relationship between the income you can generate and the price of rental properties, meaning that you can probably buy more properties quickly. And I know that not everyone wants to uproot their lives. There are a lot of different factors in there, but that is a viable option for some people who want to be doing that. I was just talking to Henry Washington about this strategy the other day. The second one is that you brought on, you started doing a side hustle in addition to your W2. And now can you just tell me a little bit about why that was your philosophy? Because I run into a lot of people who say, real estate is my side hustle. Maybe they would go into wholesaling or become an agent. Why did you choose to deliver food to earn more income rather than a real estate specific side hustle?

Lawrence:
Yeah, of course. Well, the very first thing was that I knew I wanted to invest in my market. And so it was an easy way to drive for dollars. Like, oh, if something came up a property, I’m like, oh yeah, that’s definitely a no for me because I’ve delivered there in the morning, afternoon, and night.

Dave:
Wait, so you were driving for dollars listening to the rookie podcast ad earning money at the same time? It’s triple habit stacking. Oh man, that’s awesome.

Lawrence:
My model was pretty much I delivered to doors to own doors. Oh,

Dave:
I love that. That’s so great. Did you trademark that? I

Lawrence:
Should. I need to go trademark that. But yeah, so that was something that I wanted to be able to learn the market. I wanted something that was flexible because when you’re doing that, it’s a 10 99, so you can do it whenever you want to. You can take breaks whenever ever needed. And then also, like I said, I can have it stack. I was able to listen to the podcast and I was able to network with different people in areas because if I delivered to a place, I’ll ask someone, Hey, that house looks kind of vacant. Do you know the owner of, yeah. So yeah, that was why.

Dave:
Oh, that’s brilliant. Honestly, and just for anyone who doesn’t know what driving for dollars means, it’s basically just a way of trying to identify potential properties, off market deals that you might be interested in. And sometimes people drive around and check things off a list and say, go down a block and identify a vacant property or a place that looks like maybe there’s some deferred maintenance on contact the seller. So I was like, Lawrence just took advantage of driving around and trying to identify property. So that’s super cool. Now, Lawrence, I want to sort of set the stage here because I think you’re making some great points about how alternative non-real estate income can really fuel your real estate ambitions. Do you have any ambition to quit and go full-time as a real estate investor?

Lawrence:
No, I don’t

Dave:
Really. Okay. Just like that.

Lawrence:
Yeah, no. Why? Because I have a few dream careers and they don’t involve being a full-time real estate investor. I’m a huge creative person. So some of my dream jobs would be to own a media company, TV shows. Oh, cool. Work for a prop tech and be like a CMO whatsoever. No, and for me, and I always have to make a disclaimer because I have a decade in working for student housing companies, I felt like I was doing real estate full time. So for me, of course, if anyone knows of my journey, my first passion for even investing in real estate is to break generational poverty in my family, to leave something that’s beyond me whenever I am dead, leave a legacy. So that’s one of my main honestly reasons. And then two, to be a face to combat negative connotations about people from poverty or low income and be able to know that someone like myself is very tangible. I’m not a caricature, I’m not a person on tv. I’m a real life human being that’s doing real life things. But no, to answer your question, I would not quit my job to be a full-time real estate investor. What I’m doing now actually is I’m preparing in 2025 to be able to go out and seek my passion job.

Dave:
Oh, that’s so cool. Good for

Lawrence:
You. Thank you. I’ve stabilized my real estate portfolio for my liking. The number of doors for me. I’ve been frugal, and I feel as though upcoming year, if opportunities present themselves to me, then I’ll go after one of those dream careers.

Dave:
Super cool, man.

Lawrence:
Yeah, because real estate is going to pay off 30 years from now. I don’t even live off the cash flow. I have it. I don’t live off it. So it’s just,

Dave:
Yeah. Well, I want to get back to that in just one second. But Lawrence, you do have a really interesting personal story. Can you give us just a quick version of your background and how you grew up?

Lawrence:
Yeah, of course. So I was raised by a single mother. She worked about three jobs. She had up to a 10th grade education, and it was me and my sisters. She worked as a janitor in hospitals and that’s how she supported us. And so being from poverty has a negative connotation. That’s why I was at first cautious about ever telling my story because someone can say, oh, well your mom was lazy or this and that. And I’m like, no. My mom had to do what she could with the level of education that she had, with the level of finances that she had. My mom’s is 70 years old. There was no type of BiggerPockets around when she was knowing anything about financial literacy. And I’m the only one in my family who knows of financial literacy, who understands it. And so my background is kind of my biggest why.

Lawrence:
That’s my driving factor that gets me up because there’s going to be things in real estate investing that’s not beautiful. I am very transparent. There’s ups and downs. Yeah, there’s ups and downs. There is, there’s ups and downs with real estate investing, whether it’s buying a property, whether it’s dealing with tenants. And so I knew that if I wanted to see change in the world, then I could not be a hypocrite and say, okay, well why is there not someone from the projects of New Orleans telling their story as a real estate investor? And it’s like, okay, well Lawrence, it’s you. You need to go and be this voice. And I don’t want to be anyone’s role model because I’m a real model. I’m not perfect. But it was hard while other kids were learning how to stop, drop and roll from a fire, I was learning how to run to a windowless bathroom to dodge gunshots as a kid. So those moments or those reels of my childhood sometimes play in my mind and it gets me up and it say, you know what? Don’t give up, Lawrence. Keep going.

Dave:
Well, you clearly have turned a really challenging situation into something so beneficial for yourself and your family. It’s very admirable and clearly you’ve developed quite a drive from your personal situation. I commend you for it. Thank you. So I want to return to something you mentioned before because I think it’s a narrative that is so ignored in real estate investing, and it’s something I think we share a belief on, which is that real estate investing doesn’t have to be the goal. You don’t have to become a full-time investor. In fact, I think real estate investing can be a way to support other professional interests. For me, I got started and I got started before I had a career I really liked. And then a couple years into my real estate investing journey, I was like, Hey, I want to go back to graduate school and get a degree in data analytics. Weird and that stuff. And I know that’s not what a lot of people would choose, but I did. And real estate investing allowed me to take that risk. Expensive. I took on loans, but because I had that supplementary income, I felt emboldened to make other career decisions. Is that sort of a similar thing that you’re thinking about as you consider a career pivot next year?

Lawrence:
Yes, of course. Yes. Because unfortunately in this economy, there are so many people who are getting laid off, and I remember being laid off before and I owned nothing but my car, which I was thankful for. But even if my job is doing layoffs and I’m like, okay, well if I get laid off, I’ll just move out my current house and turn into a rental. Now I got three rental incomes and I’ll be a nomad because I have options. Right,

Dave:
Exactly. I’ll

Lawrence:
Go move by my mama and rent out my three pair of house because it gives you those options. So yeah, I would not cry like a baby if I got laid off this time the wrong.

Dave:
Well, I’m curious because we’re talking about how to use W2 income to grow your career. When you think about your dream career, are there things about the full-time job that you look for to better support your real estate investing? Or are you just like, I’m going for this purely out of passion? It

Lawrence:
Just depends. Of course, you look at PTO flexibility. My current job at the state, I get so much time off and I’ve utilized holidays to do door dashing when that was my go-to thing to fund real estate. And so I would say one, it will be overall now the passion with the income. And like I said, if be it, sometimes you have to unfortunately take pay cuts or do trade-offs, but this go around, it’s definitely going to be passion. And I’m always a frugal person. I always like to live way below my means.

Dave:
Yeah, seems like you’ve really accomplished that and have been able to create a really good savings rate. Even though you took a pay cut, you’re able to save enough money to keep buying rental properties. But I want to underscore for everyone listening. I think flexibility might be one, I don’t know, maybe not the number one, but one of the top things to look for in a W2 job at BiggerPockets, we have a lot of investors. I don’t work in the office anymore, but when I did, we’d always have people be like, oh, I got to run out and go meet a tenant, or I got to go to, we always had a culture that was very supportive of real estate investing. Obviously you would expect that, but that’s something I think I highly recommend people look for. And then the other thing, I don’t know if you’ve considered this, but something people might not know is that the structure legally of what you do, full-time does matter a bit for real estate investors.

Dave:
If you get a W2 job, why we always say W2 is because that is more lendable banks like W2 jobs because it’s more of a contract, it’s more predictable. And so they are more willing to lend to people who have a W2 job, whereas a 10 99, which is the tax form for contractors, is not as easy. It’s like if you’re a contractor, you might be making just as much money, but banks don’t like that. So it’s something for our audience to consider. If you are working a full-time job, which is most of us, and using that full-time job to fund your real estate, those are two things you may want to look for as you search for your next job or current job, whatever.

Lawrence:
Yes, I would definitely say whatever job I would not do, be a independent contractor, no offense to people who are, but it would definitely be a W2 so I can continue to scale. And I find it funny, I have a friend who was making way more money than me and he had a contract job, but banks love me because I have the W2 and can show that I have a paycheck coming in. Yeah,

Dave:
Absolutely. Yeah. So tell me about your portfolio now. How much time do you spend on your portfolio, let’s say every month,

Lawrence:
15 to 20 hours if that? It’s normally maybe two to three hours a week, but I always tell people you have to prepare yourself because there are different stages in my portfolio where I have to put more time into it. So I always look at being a self-managing landlord. It has three stages. You have the leasing stage, which for me, that stage is the most time consuming because sometimes I have to give up weekends to do tours and screen tenants and applications and respond to prospects. And because I’m in a military town, a good amount of my prospects are out of the country, so I have to do nocturnal type leasing. So sometimes I have to do nocturnal, Hey, if I have to get up at 3:00 AM to talk to somebody that’s deploying from another country to make this lease work, I’m going to do it.

Lawrence:
And it’s great because that’s a competitive advantage because most companies are not going to do that. They’re going to say, Hey, you need to communicate us between nine and five or whatsoever. So the leasing stage, the operational stage, which is what I am in right now, whenever I have tenants and that’s the least time consuming, I use a property manager application on my phone. I have a extremely strong onboarding process, so my tenants are aware of things that they need to do. I follow my policies and procedures to the only time they’re usually seeking out me directly is if it’s an emergency. Other than that, they know how to pay their rent through the portal. They know how to submit maintenance requests. And then the third stage will be the turnover stage, which is when you have a tenant leaving. Only thing that I do is the cleaning. I leave everything up to contractors and I pay them well to prepare properties. And so like I said, right now, whenever I’m in the operational stage of my portfolio, it’s about 15 to 20 hours a month and three to five hours a week if that, and I do it all from my phone. That’s

Dave:
Amazing. Honestly, it almost makes you, if you have another job, it almost makes you, it forces you to get a little bit more efficient. I have this rule for myself, I wrote this in my book, start with strategy about how I set a time limit for myself. I say, Hey, 20 hours a month is my max for how much I’m going to spend on real estate investing. I have a job, I work hard here at BiggerPockets. And so yeah, sometimes it’s more than that. It’s like I’m going to say, oh, I’m not going to do that. But when I select deals, when I think about the composition of my portfolio, I keep that time limit in mind and say to myself, yeah, I could do a flip, but I’m not That’s going to work with 20 hours a month. That’s going to be really time consuming, which is why I focus on investing in small multifamilies and doing syndications and doing private lending, less time consuming. Do you feel like your approach by going with W2 income and continuing to work limits the number of strategies and tactics that you’re able to use as an investor?

Lawrence:
No, I wouldn’t say so because I set realistic goals for myself and I have to understand where I need to put my time. So this year I did not buy any properties. This was more of a year of me optimizing my portfolio, looking for any type of holes in my policies and procedures and onboarding, as well as trying to provide as much value to my tenants and look for possible capital improvements. So I would say no, because you just have to be able to set certain goals and know exactly where that time needs to go.

Dave:
Alright, time for one last quick break, but stay tuned for a deep dish segment, and while we’re away, now would be a great time to go leave that review on Spotify or Apple. Don’t forget to take a screenshot and send it to the BiggerPockets Instagram account so you can be considered for that epic BP con giveaway. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to the show. Let’s dive back into the deep dish. Lawrence, this is more of a philosophical question, but I’m going to ask you why do you think it is that so much of the real estate investing narrative is that you have to quit your job and instead of the other way around, which is what you’re doing, which is sort of building your real estate portfolio and pursuing an ambitious career at the same time?

Lawrence:
I’m going to be completely honest and blunt, and I may not be popular for saying this, but I think it’s a popular thing that draws attention. And you have to make sure that whoever you are seeking advice from that you kind to vet the reason why they’re saying certain things. And are there people who truly want to escape their W2 and become a full-time real estate investor? Absolutely, yes, there are people, but the vast majority of the people who have put that information out, that narrative in the last few years, I feel as though it’s cap, it’s red flags.

Dave:
Yeah, I get it. There definitely are people who want to be moguls, right, who want to be tycoons. I have no knocking against that. I think everyone should pursue what they want to do as passionately and ambitiously as they want to. But I do think it’s really important to try and normalize the idea that most people, I know it doesn’t sound like this on social media or maybe even with other guests on this podcast in the past, but most people work and most people continue to work full-time and use it to support real estate investing in the way that Lawrence has been talking about. And if you want to move up your retirement date, if you want to be a full-time real estate investor, all the power to you, I’ll probably do that at some point in my life as well. But I just think it’s nice to know most people are just working and doing this on the side. That is a very normal and admirable thing to do.

Lawrence:
It shouldn’t be preached as the only option. I feel like in the past on social media, it’s more of like people say, oh, in order to be successful in real estate, you have to go all in and you don’t have to. That should not be the only option. There are people like me and other people who are perfectly fine having a W2 job and scaling their real estate portfolio to their liking.

Dave:
Absolutely. Well, I love your philosophy, your approach, your hustle, Lawrence. It’s incredibly impressive and truly, I really mean it. It’s like this is what is all about your mindset and your approach to real estate investing is amazing. I’m super happy to have had this conversation.

Lawrence:
Thank you so much, Dave.

Dave:
Well, you’re not off the hook yet. We have to do this dish section. We have the deep dish, so I was warming you up before we get to this last, but these are just, if you guys haven’t listened to the deep dish, we talk about a topic in depth today. We obviously talked about W2 and how to balance that with real estate. And just as a recap, some of the things Lawrence and I talked about, were moving somewhere affordable where you’re W2 income goes further towards your portfolio, getting a side hustle like Lawrence did, aligning your job and looking for jobs that work well with real estate investing, like something that’s flexible and is W2 setting time limits and building systems are the last ones where you can really sort of streamline it so that you’re not working all the time. No one wants to get into real estate, so they’re working every hour of every day. You probably might have to work a little bit more upfront, but if you build systems over time, that’s a great way to balance W2. So that’s our deep for the day, but now we have to dish. We want to know more about you, Lawrence, on a personal level. So our first question is, what is the least favorite job you’ve ever had?

Lawrence:
Oh, a dishwasher at a nursing home, because I cut my finger. Oh no. And if anyone knows me, they know that I don’t like the sight of my own blood and I fainted. Oh

Dave:
No. Did you leave that job right after?

Lawrence:
No, not really because I needed the money. I think I left maybe 60 days after that.

Dave:
Okay, alright. Yeah. So you got out of there quick. What is the weirdest interaction you had while door dashing?

Lawrence:
I would probably say maybe the weirdest thing would be people answering the door in their unmentionables.

Dave:
Did that happen regularly?

Lawrence:
Yes.

Dave:
Really? Yes, I guess. All right. I guess I am proud that I go to the door fully clothed most of the time, all the time. I definitely do it all the time.

Lawrence:
Usually like a Sunday morning if people have had, they’ve been out all Saturday night, but hey, sometimes they were a great tip or so.

Dave:
Oh good. Alright then. It’s fine. Lawrence, when someone asks what you do for a living, do you say real estate investor or do you tell them about your full-time profession?

Lawrence:
Well, it just depends on the person who solicits the information. If I’m in a real estate setting, I say that, oh, I used to say I’m a self-managing landlord with a W2 if it’s in a real estate setting. But if somebody just came up to me in the gym and I don’t know that they’re in real estate, I would say, oh yeah, I work for the state doing X, Y, Z. Yeah,

Dave:
It’s so funny. I do the same thing. It depends on the context, right?

Lawrence:
Yeah. It’s curated because I also don’t want to come off as being pompous because sometimes when people think of a certain industry that they’re not in, they may take it as, oh, you’re being arrogant, dude. I could care less if you’re a real estate investor. So yeah, I curate the answer to the setting in the person.

Dave:
Right. Yeah. I always think for someone who’s not initiated, if I say real estate investor, they think I work for BlackRock or some hedge fund when I’m just a normal person who buys a couple of rental properties and has a modest portfolio. All right. Well, that was it, Lawrence. Hopefully those dish questions weren’t too hard. We’ve already got so much about you and your story today. Thank you so much. Oh, I guess my last question for you, it’s not a deep dish question, is you’re going to BEP Con this year, right?

Lawrence:
Yes. I will be at BEP Conn 2024 in Cancun and BiggerPockets. I love y’all because this is my first time going to Mexico, so I’m excited. Yes, I look forward to seeing so many people there. I will have the privilege of doing a guided networking session about BiggerPockets memberships, like how to capitalize networking on the BiggerPockets website. I will also be on stage with the amazing Ashley Care, Tony Robinson. Oh,

Dave:
Cool.

Lawrence:
Yeah, for the real estate rookie panel. And then I’m also going to be on a Landlording panel. So yeah, I’m excited.

Dave:
Awesome. And just to remind people, we are doing a giveaway where you can win a free ticket to BP Conn. You can get a superior deluxe Garden view room for three nights. All you got to do is leave the show a positive view on Spotify or Apple. Take a screenshot of that and send it to the BiggerPockets Instagram account. If you want to learn more before you do that, you can go to biggerpockets.com/mexico. But if you’re interested in attending BP Con, that’s a great way to enter to win a free ticket. It sounds like Lawrence is going to be very busy with a lot of sessions. I’m doing three sessions. I’m doing one on macroeconomics, one on picking a market, and one, I’m excited about it. I’ve never talked about this publicly about how to vet operators as a syndication partner. So we’re going to both be busy, but I hope you all make it to Mexico. It’s going to be a lot of fun to hang out there. Lawrence, thanks so much for joining us today, and thank you all so much for listening. If you want to connect with Lawrence, you can always do that on BiggerPockets, or we’ll put his contact information in the show notes below. Thanks again everyone. For BiggerPockets, I’m Dave Meyer. I’ll see you soon.